Atheist believe that religions are harmful to society. But we promote the idea of religious freedom for two reasons.
- For human rights purposes
- To advance secularism
Human Rights
It is unreasonable to punish people for things that are beyond there control. People are born into their religion and don’t have a choice about believing or not believing. It is inconsistent with human rights to punish someone for their inherited beliefs even though they are wrong.
As long as their beliefs don’t harm others then they are within their rights to hold them. But if they interfere with an other’s rights then they must be curtailed in the name of the others religious freedom. One person’s religious freedom ends where the others religious freedom begins.
To Advance Secularism
Religious freedom is a purely secular concept. The major religions do not believe in the freedom to believe anything. They only advance the idea of religious freedom so they can freely practice their religion. Religious freedom is a secular principle they must accept with in order to survive in modern open societies.
“The equal toleration of all religions… is the same as atheism.
Pope Leo XIII, “Imortale Dei”
But by living side by side with other religions their beliefs are gradually weakened by the exposure to competing ideas. If everybody gets to see other ideas and believe what they want, they will naturally gravity away from any particular religion and to the more liberal ideas offered by secularism.
In the recent Christian past and currently in Muslim dominated countries blasphemy laws prevent this competition of ideas by incarcerating, torturing, and killing the sources of the competing ideas. All religions know the dangers of and have prohibitions against competing ideas. Especially secularism. The Catholic Church has named atheism as their single biggest threat.
But here in the west secularism has finally gained the a firm footing and is encouraging the competition of ideas. Promoting religious freedom works in favor of secularism and against religions.