Why is freedom of religion a human right isn’t it a choice?How can something without any practical application protected?
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The right of freedom of religion is what gives you that choice. In western democracies at least you can choose whichever religion you like. You can choose to have no religion if that is what you want.
It definitely does have a practical application, as it is supposed to stop your government from arresting or killing you because you don’t follow the religion dictated by the state. It was formed to hopefully stop pogroms, sectarian violence and a repeat of the Holocaust.
Freedom of religion is freedom to choose. To not be forced to worship religion z and instead be able to pick from a-z, or none at all. And it’s largely only relevant in the relationship of the state and you, as all or almost all freedoms are.
In addition to the other answers, I think it’s not right to say religion is a “choice”. It’s not like choosing a product to buy; people don’t generally choose a religion because they think it suits them best. Religion (or lack of religion) is generally a *belief*. It’s something people think is true, based on evidence, experience, feeling. A Christian can’t just choose to start believing in Hinduism any more than I can choose to start believing in gods, or to start believing in a steady state universe rather than a big bang.
It’s also worth nothing that protections for religion extend to *behaviours*. It’s not just going “you can’t be arrested for believing in the Jewish God” it’s “you have a right to set up a synagogue, to print copies of the talmud, to take the sabbath off work, to not eat pork, etc.” (Of course, these rights are balanced against other rights, which can get complicated.)
I think it might be for separation of church and state. You also can’t discriminate against someone’s religious views/practices in the work place or other such situations.
in many countries historically people would be rounded up and murdered for practicing the wrong religion. One of America’s designs is to be able to practice the religion of your choice without being persecuted or murdered for it. it’s about being free to live your life the way you want (as long as it doesn’t impact other’s people ability to live theirs).
Whether it’s a choice or not is irrelevant; rights are just common agreements of protection. Anything which your group of people wishes to afford you is a right.
Freedom of Religion is the state agreeing that you shouldn’t face legal or social issues because of your choices around religion. This could mean things like making it illegal to fire you for your religious beliefs (or lack of), ensuring that state-offered services are atheist, etc.
Look at the history of Europe. There were long, drawn-out, destructive wars over religion. Religious minorities like Cathars and Jews were massacred over and over again. Protestant and Catholic princes and kings used religion to rile up their people to war. At some points, “toleration” was considered a *sin*: refusing to persecute, torture, or kill your neighbor for their weird beliefs was taken as meaning that you couldn’t possibly be honest about your own.
This was, in short, really bad.
Religious freedom means that nobody gets killed for their weird beliefs. It also means that if one of their weird beliefs is “kill the unbeliever” and they actually try to act on that, we treat that as *ordinary crime* … and not a reason to murder them and all their relatives, even their children, the way the Catholics did to the Cathars.
In effect, religious freedom is *a peace treaty among religions:* “We’re all allowed to have our own weird beliefs and none of us is allowed to murder the others for them.”
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