Shun me if you will. but I want to understand this, and it seems all to confusing to even begin to define....?

Religious Conduct May be Restricted:





"In Reynolds v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Utah law outlawing polygamy. The court rules that the First Amendment allows some regulation of religious practices, such as polygamy. In making this ruling, the court distinguishes between religious belief, which cannot be restricted, and religious conduct, which can be."





-http://www.justicelearning.org/justice_t...











Then how do we have freedom of religion?


-Define


Freedom: the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint (dictionary.com)


Freedom: exemption from political restraint, or autocratic control; independence (the new international Websters student dictionary, international encyclopedic edition, trident press international (c)1999)





Then how do we have freedom of religion?


or is it that this- the notion of "freedom" is more of a goal than a practical and attainable reality?

Shun me if you will. but I want to understand this, and it seems all to confusing to even begin to define....?
Thier is no such paradigm as "freedom" governing our laws, absolute freedom in its definition would be the absence of law and therefore would me the absence of government. However, we use the term "freedom" in a realative sence, the government isn't restricting what gods you worship and how you worship them when it doesn't impact social contract. You can still marry them in the church, and live with them but the goverment won't let you claim six exemptions for them or file for six marriage certificates.





Think of the religion of Thuggee, i believe it is a branch of hinduism. In this religion, the participants kill other people to worship their God. Would you respect a persons right to kill you to worship thier god? of course not





EDIT: IT would take me way to long to try and explain the relationship between the EGO-Self actualization-religious duty- and group dynamics, so i will just say how many jewish goats where scapegoated in the old testament?





EDIT: It may be against your sence of morality but not against Thuggee, The jewish goat reference is that they destroyed another living thing to atone for there sins as part of thier religious practice and it didn't matter that the goat didn't "share thier faith" which you said would go against the killing of anouther person as a religious practice
Reply:We do have freedom of religion but states also have the right to regulate marriage laws. This is an example of regulating Marriage laws. You can still practice Mormonism and not be a poligamist.
Reply:since you are so big on primary sources (and that is to be commended):





The first amendment doesn't mention "freedom" at all. It says (in relevant part):





"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"





If you want to know the Court's reasoning on the matter you mentioned, then I bet a few minutes spent with google will provide you the actual text of their opinions.





Perhaps you should just read what they actually said and if you disagree, you can work to find a new test case to get to the court for possible updating of the doctrine.