RIGHT TO BELIEVE ANYTHING DOES NOT ABSOLVE YOU FROM RESPONSIBILITY

Believing is just seeing that something is probably true. It means accusing anything that contradicts it of being false.

There is no such thing as a right to believe what you want. Rights don't apply. It is like saying you have the right to smell bacon. You just smell it and rights don't come into it. You just have permission to believe what you want. And the reason is that censoring beliefs and making thought crimes destroy any chance of learning and learning is about figuring out the truth or what is probably the truth.

With or without a right to believe anything at all, we would remain responsible for the harm and inconvenience our belief inflicts upon others. Your beliefs always potentially say something about how you relate to others. If you put what you want to think before what another person knows a person should think that is just arrogance. That is one example.

If you claim the right to believe what you want you imply that wanting to believe it is paramount. That makes it about you and gives another reason for being responsible for the harm this does.

It is only within the realm of religion where it is considered offensive to investigate an idea, no matter how improbable, for its credibility, let alone to determine culpability for damages arising from a belief. Our judiciary is the only mechanism we have available to impose limits on the scope and extent of religious dogma and to hold those who cause harm accountable for their actions.

Sadly that is the theory but extremely difficult to put into action.

We are told that Criminal Law is for protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. If it only were that simple.

The Criminal Law can't punish every wrong. It should restrict itself to social wrongs such as stealing or rape and so on. Religion should only be taken up by Criminal Law if it sends people out to murder or rape or steal. In practice this would mean suing the religion in the form of the prophets or leaders who command these things. Otherwise religion should be let alone. Criminal Law seeks a verdict of guilty or not guilty and the verdict must be established beyond all reasonable doubt. Only the state can take a criminal law case against a person or persons.

Civil Law is not for punishing the guilty in the real moral sense but you are called guilty as in legal fiction when you break the law. When a rapist is punished he is not punished for hurting another person but for offending the law. He is guilty morally but it is only looked at from the legal perspective.

In Civil Law the innocent is only a person who by legal fiction is declared innocent but who morally speaking not be innocent at all.

That aside, Civil Law deals with private disputes - disputes between persons. It results in compensation or damages being awarded. Any wrong can be grounds for a Civil Law case. Religion should be taken up under Civil Law when it does wrong - when the action is wrong not illegal. Civil law seeks a verdict of liable or not liable and has a lesser standard than beyond all reasonable doubt. Slander is not a crime but if religion slanders atheists, atheists have a right to seek compensation from religion.

A man who sleeps with a girl who is only a few months underage will be a criminal and go to jail. A man who sleeps with a girl who is two years underage will get the same fate. Is this fair? It is possible for a child to be more damaged by a religious upbringing than by being sexually molested. One is a crime and the other is not. It is possible that if religion declines enough in the future, the Law will start making actions such as religious indoctrination of children illegal or criminal and punish religion for taking money off people who are only paying because they don't realise they are being lied to by the religion. The point is that Criminal Law has the right and freedom to do that if it so chooses regardless of the opposition. Even if it doesn't have the moral right it has the legal right to do it. The Law has the right to make immoral Laws up to a point for it is decided by fallible people and we live in an imperfect world. The Law is based on the idea that regulating society comes first and it must do that as it sees fit and it must be respected even if it is wrong and it states too that there will be casualties no matter what kind of laws are made. Nothing is perfect.

Religion pays lip service to the Law. It is lip-service for it believes the Law has no right to start censoring religion or preventing it from engaging in manipulative activities such as indoctrinating children or threatening them that they will be sent to Hell forever if they don't believe in God. Religion is intrinsically treasonous. On that basis, it could get into big trouble with Criminal Law. Its treasonous nature certainly warrants that it be looked upon by disfavour in the Civil Courts.

It is possible to imagine a state where stealing is made a matter for the civil courts and a private dispute. The division between crimes and matters for the civil court is more or less arbitrary. You are a criminal if you are caught stealing a toothbrush but you are not a criminal if you shamelessly trick a senile parent to bequeath all their property to you. Religion has poor loyalty to the Law when it would refuse to approve if the Law forbade Hell to be mentioned to little children as the Law threatens to pursue it through the criminal courts.

Religion makes misrepresentations. A misrepresentation is something that is said to persuade a person to make a contract which they wouldn't do if they were told the truth - it is making a person mistakenly believe they should ratify the contract. Even if the victim accepts the contract, the victim is not bound by the contract if misrepresentations were made. Religion makes misrepresentations to persuade people to go to it for baptism. Baptism contracts the recipient to God, or more accurately the religion for people only worship what others say God is like. The contract is made for the baby by godparents at baptism and adults make their own contract. Misrepresentations are a legal matter. And especially considering that baptism seeks to make the baby a member of the baptising Church in the eyes of the law. The failure of the Church to provide any evidence that baptism does any supernatural good shows that baptism is a very manipulative and cheating contract.

Religion despite having no qualifications in Counselling, Psychiatry and Psychology always presents itself as emotional and psychological therapy. It takes money for fraudulent magical therapy. It wastes people's time. It dashes their hopes. This is not malpractice - it is quackery. It should not be legally tolerated.

The doctrine of strict liability is now built into the law. It means you can be liable for some damage THOUGH YOU WERE NOT NEGLIGENT. This being so, how much more should clergy and religion teachers be sued for damaging and misleading people?

Promote the secularisation of society. That way the more people become non-religious the better. That way there will be less legal trouble as a result of religion. When religion becomes a minor thing in society, it will be easier to sue it to kingdom come. To sue every religionist who is guilty of preaching nonsense and lies as fact, would leave the legal system unable to deal with anything else. It would be overwhelmed. And the reason is that there is too much religion.