The First Amendment covers many different subjects like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Protests, but the only subject that confuses me a little is Freedom of Religion. Why do people still look down on certain religions if people are legally allowed to believe in what they want to believe? Why doesn't the government ban certain religions if they could be potentially harmful, sort of like the way they were in the Commonwealth vs. Twitchell court case? And one last question that I've had since we have started talking about Freedom of Religion, are people allowed to make their own religion if thousands (or many other people) begin to follow that specific religion? Well, I guess I'm gonna find out sooner or later.
Creating your religion always confused me, whether you could make your own religion or not was kind of fuzzy, bit that has been cleared up. Apparently, you can believe whatever you want to believe as long as its legal and doesn't involve sacrifice or death or anything out of the ordinary. To be completely honest, I find this to be a good thing because if people weren't allowed to believe in what they want to believe in, then our Freedom of Religion section of the First Amendment is pretty much worthless. now we move onto religious discrimination.I don't really think there is a solid answer for this question, but more of the persons views both religiously and in general. If people find the certain religion to be either out of the ordinary (to them of course) then they will discriminate against that religion. And my final question of this topic, can the government ban a religion if it is harmful. Apparently, they can ban a religion even if it isn't harmful, or at least they are trying to ban them. I found an article that the NYC gov't is trying to ban religious meetings in churches and in schools across New York. I really don't know if they will ban these meetings or not, but in my honest opinion, I think that they don't have the right to ban such a thing across such a wide range of area in the first place.
The First Ammendment covers many different subjects in a simple 45 word sentence. As it is very important to our freedom as a whole, it is also very confusing on its limits and boundaries. Though, all of my questions were answered, it still seems a little bit confusing to me. Maybe in the future I will understand all of the First Ammendments secrets and tiny loopholes, but for now, I'll never know.
Sources:
http://www.nycreligion.info/?p=2478
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/15/make-your-own-religion_n_964570.html
