Dear Reader,
It seems to me that it is a self evident fact that good government works for the good of all. Bad government tries to help one faction, segment, ethnicity, or any other why in which you want to group people. The goal of right government is to promote the good of all.
Another self evident fact is that “good” is subjective not objective. The individual only knows the state of his or her heart. This knowledge is foreign to the other. To have some other impose a “good” upon an individual against his or her will is applying an extrinsic good where an intrinsic “good” is the correct object. This would be the antithesis of good. Good is subjective not objective.
There are three parts to the human being. Physical, the body and the physiological possesses that keep us alive. Mental, the conscious and unconscious minds. Working together to order our lives. And the spiritual, the inner longing we have for God, or some higher calling. As we all know, if an attribute is not used, it atrophies. When we live a sedentary life without exercising we grow fat and weak. When we live as mind numbed robots, never using our minds, we become mind numbed robots. When we don’t exercise our spiritual side with prayer and meditation we become corrupt and fall prey to all sorts of myths and superstitions.
Religious good is subjective also in that it is within the individual to find his or her own way to God or their higher existence. Each person’s path is unique to him or herself. This makes it Right Government’s goal to work for the freedom of the individual to choose his or her personal path. To try to channel the people’s religiosity to some perceived social “good” is to deny the very premise on which right government is founded on. Government must promote the good of all, since good is subjective, the religion must be chosen subjectively. Government tampering with religion is objectively imposing a subjective good.
Government has three options in dealing with the question of religion. It can, promote religion, be ambivalent to religion, or suppress religion. Since we have determined the role of right government we have only to apply our new rectification of terms to the question. To promote, would be to try to channel religion… not good. To suppress would be to try to channel religion… Also not good. Ocham’s Razor tells us that once all other option’s are removed, whatever is left no matter how absurd, is correct. In this case we have the middle option, that government must be ambivalent to religion. Religion must be allowed in the public square. Religious schools must have equal access to the public funding of education arbitrated by the marketplace, and government must not establish religion or irreligion. Government must be ambivalent to religion. That, A Priory, is the role of Right Government in religion.
