John Locke on Religions

[Sitaram]

John Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

Book IV - Chapter XV

Of Probability


http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/publicATIONS/Projects/digitexts/locke/understanding/chapter0415.html

(excerpt)

Probable arguments capable of great variety. Upon these grounds depends the probability of any proposition: and as the conformity of our knowledge, as the certainty of observations, as the frequency and constancy of experience and the number and credibility of testimonies do more or less agree or disagree with it, so is any proposition in itself more or less probable. There is another, I confess, which, though by itself it be no true ground of probability, yet is often made use of for one, by which men most commonly regulate their assent, and upon which they pin their faith more than anything else, and that is, the opinion of others; though there cannot be a more dangerous thing to rely on, nor more likely to mislead one; since there is much more falsehood and error among men than truth and knowledge. And if the opinions and persuasions of others, whom we know and think well of, be a ground of assent, men have reason to be Heathens in Japan, Mahometans in Turkey, Papists in Spain, Protestants in England, and Lutherans in Sweden. But of this wrong ground of assent I shall have occasion to speak more at large in another place.

 

[Sitaram]

from Locke's Letter On Religious Tolerance

Here is the passage I was searching for:

(excerpt)

That Church can have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those who enter into it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the protection and service of another prince. For by this means the magistrate would give way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in his own country and suffer his own people to be listed, as it were, for soldiers against his own Government. Nor does the frivolous and fallacious distinction between the Court and the Church afford any remedy to this inconvenience; especially when both the one and the other are equally subject to the absolute authority of the same person, who has not only power to persuade the members of his Church to whatsoever he lists, either as purely religious, or in order thereunto, but can also enjoin it them on pain of eternal fire. It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his religion, but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian magistrate, whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople, who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure. But this Mahometan living amongst Christians would yet more apparently renounce their government if he acknowledged the same person to be head of his Church who is the supreme magistrate in the state.

 

[SFG75]

Along a somewhat different line of thought, many in America seemingly believe that our form of government just dropped down from the sky. It was built on enlightenment notions of separation of church and state and was forged on the experiences of people such as Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, as well as unwelcome groups such as Catholics, Jews, Anabaptists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Deists. The latter two are what most "religous" founding fathers were. This is all the more amusing as some in our nation like Pat Robertson think the founders were fundamentalists just like them-Jefferson would've been horrified by the likes of Robertson and other literalists. I wonder if Robertson and his ilk have ever read the "Jefferson Bible" that has the stories of Jesus minus the more *miraculous* aspects. Some like Tom Paine were fiery atheists. Others infrequent church attendees who thought it was good for the morality of the people(i.e.-Washington) We do have a "cultural war" of sorts going on, and it makes me cringe as a history graduate to see people so ignorant of it.

I was really strucke by Locke's observation that:

Nor does the frivolous and fallacious distinction between the Court and the Church afford any remedy to this inconvenience;

He of course, couldn't see the effects of a modern Turkey, which possesses the poison of fundamentalist Islam, but somehow, is able to keep itself somewhat more secular, and thus, more prosperous than other nations like it in that region.