The relationship between liberalism and religion has always been strange. How can people of different religious beliefs coexist peacefully?

1. I believe that the most important principles are the principle of freedom and the principle of equality.

Now is an era of pluralism. The principle of freedom means that the country must allow every citizen to freely choose his or her own beliefs. The principle of equality means that the country must ensure that every citizen has the same right to freedom of choice. The two principles taken together mean that the country's primary responsibility is to respect and defend the people's equal right to freedom of belief, rather than to promote or suppress any religion.

The relationship between liberalism and religion is a major event in the modern world. We can even say that how to enable people of different religious beliefs to coexist peacefully has been the biggest challenge faced by liberalism in the past few hundred years. During this process, liberalism gradually developed a rather unique political system to deal with religious pluralism and achieved considerable success. Below I will first outline the basic ideas of liberalism and then respond to some challenges.

2. On religious issues, the core concept of liberalism is that every citizen equally enjoys the right to freedom of belief guaranteed by the constitution.

This right often means the following institutional arrangements. First, on the premise of respecting the same rights of others, citizens are free to choose their own beliefs and religious groups to which they belong. At the same time, they have the right to give up their original beliefs and leave their original groups. Second, freedom of belief has priority, and the government and churches must not sacrifice citizens’ freedoms and rights in the name of collective interests, national security, or God’s will. Third, the legitimacy of government power comes from regular democratic elections, not from any religion. The laws and policies enacted by the government must treat all religions equally and should not favor any sect, and should not appeal to specific religious beliefs to justify these policies. Fourth, in order to ensure the principle of equal opportunity, whether it is the government or private enterprises, the religious beliefs of applicants should not be taken into consideration when recruiting jobs (unless the job is directly related to faith, such as clergy).

3. From a liberal point of view, the basis of the principle of freedom and equality should not be based on any religion.

The reason is simple, if it does this, it will not be fair to other religions. For example, if the state accepts that all people are equal because we are all children created by the Christian God, then this argument will not be persuasive to non-Christians, and it will be difficult to gain their reflective approval. Therefore, in order to justify its basic principles, liberalism must provide moral reasons that are independent of different religions and can in principle be shared by different sects.

It should be noted here that what I emphasize here is "from a liberal point of view" rather than from a specific religious point of view. Followers of different religions can certainly understand and accept liberalism based on their own teachings. In other words, in a free society, there can be reasons of different natures to support the institutional practice of liberalism, but not all reasons are suitable as the most common reasons in a pluralistic society and can satisfy the needs of fairness and justice. Finding and justifying these reasons is not necessarily the responsibility of a certain religion, but it must be the responsibility of liberalism, because liberalism is committed to giving equal respect to free citizens in the state.

Last and most important, liberalism firmly believes that people, as independent individuals, have free will and the ability to rationally reflect. Therefore, when it comes to religious issues related to one’s life and settlement, the state must respect each individual’s rights. choose. This is the most basic value insistence of liberalism. This insistence may cause some religions to lose the power to dominate other people's beliefs, or it may cause some sects to decline because they do not receive enough support. However, this is not because liberalism intentionally targets a certain religion, but because it must Freedom and equality are placed at the highest level. On this point, liberalism cannot compromise.