So, I have begun again with On Liberty, continuing where I left off so many weeks ago. Since then I’ve been through other books that I thought required a second pass, not the least of which was Freakonomics, which I listened to again because my wife and I disagreed on a minor point from the book. It turned out she was correct, but we both agreed correlations can seem compellingly positive, but rarely proven.

Anyway, the passage from On Liberty is kinda long, but after reading it a few times it piqued my interest. In chapter two, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, he states that in his time things weren’t as in previous times, that people weren’t being burned at the stake for basically being politically incorrect. He points out some difficulties nonetheless by saying this:

This refusal of redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person can be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does not profess belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions, be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who does not believe in a future state;

Then he makes a very important testament of the dangers of such a doctrine, if followed to their logical conclusion:

The assumption on which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who does not believe in a future state;

This is true, and he goes on to describe how it would be dangerous by saying,

The rule, besides, is suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood.

In other words, any laws as such would be foolish, because only testimony of those professing a faith is deemed worthy of a hearing, while an atheist would have no credibility. Such reasoning doesn’t take into account the possibility that those professing a faith are the dishonest, such attestations being for the sole purpose of gaining the necessary credibility, and the only truly honest, and therefore relevant, testimony being that of the atheist willing to deny a faith in spite of the knowledge that it would alienate them. This is a perfect argument for the inclusion of the statement in article VI of the constitution that prohibits religious tests for office. Recent history shows that although it was written into the constitution, it has had little effect. For whatever reason politicians seem to believe they must profess their faith loud and clear to be considered a worthy candidate. Anyone that believes this to be a good test, regardless of what was written in the constitution, is fooling themselves that they are capable of distinguishing between one that professes faith as an honest conviction, and one that does so simply from fear of voter retaliation.

Of course, Mill says it better than I ever could:

For if he who does not believe in a future state necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the injury of supposing, that the conception which they have formed of Christian virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.

The passage in its entirety is below. It is difficult to read straight through and understand, at least it was for me.....

It will be said, that we do not now put to death the introducers of new opinions: we are not like our fathers who slew the prophets, we even build sepulchres to them. It is true we no longer put heretics to death; and the amount of penal infliction which modern feeling would probably tolerate, even against the most obnoxious opinions, is not sufficient to extirpate them. But let us not flatter ourselves that we are yet free from the stain even of legal persecution. Penalties for opinion, or at least for its expression, still exist by law; and their enforcement is not, even in these times, so unexampled as to make it at all incredible that they may some day be revived in full force. In the year 1857, at the summer assizes of the county of Cornwall, an unfortunate man, said to be of unexceptionable conduct in all relations of life, was sentenced to twenty-one months imprisonment, for uttering, and writing on a gate, some offensive words concerning Christianity. Within a month of the same time, at the Old Bailey, two persons, on two separate occasions, were rejected as jurymen, and one of them grossly insulted by the judge and one of the counsel, because they honestly declared that they had no theological belief; and a third, a foreigner, for the same reason, was denied justice against a thief. This refusal of redress took place in virtue of the legal doctrine, that no person can be allowed to give evidence in a court of justice, who does not profess belief in a God (any god is sufficient) and in a future state; which is equivalent to declaring such persons to be outlaws, excluded from the protection of the tribunals; who may not only be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if no one but themselves, or persons of similar opinions, be present, but any one else may be robbed or assaulted with impunity, if the proof of the fact depends on their evidence. The assumption on which this is grounded, is that the oath is worthless, of a person who does not believe in a future state; a proposition which betokens much ignorance of history in those who assent to it (since it is historically true that a large proportion of infidels in all ages have been persons of distinguished integrity and honor); and would be maintained by no one who had the smallest conception how many of the persons in greatest repute with the world, both for virtues and for attainments, are well known, at least to their intimates, to be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is suicidal, and cuts away its own foundation. Under pretence that atheists must be liars, it admits the testimony of all atheists who are willing to lie, and rejects only those who brave the obloquy of publicly confessing a detested creed rather than affirm a falsehood. A rule thus self-convicted of absurdity so far as regards its professed purpose, can be kept in force only as a badge of hatred, a relic of persecution; a persecution, too, having the peculiarity that the qualification for undergoing it is the being clearly proved not to deserve it. The rule, and the theory it implies, are hardly less insulting to believers than to infidels. For if he who does not believe in a future state necessarily lies, it follows that they who do believe are only prevented from lying, if prevented they are, by the fear of hell. We will not do the authors and abettors of the rule the injury of supposing, that the conception which they have formed of Christian virtue is drawn from their own consciousness.