In the debate which currently rages around the law on secularism, opponents are constantly promoting the freedom of religion and conscience of individuals, as if a society was only an arithmetic sum of people without other collective links.In their defense of religious beliefs, these criticisms also seem to consider that "sincere beliefs" can have no harmful effect on life in society.Such an opinion seems curious, because how can we believe that attachment to religious convictions cannot have social effects?
That religious beliefs can put societies in danger, this has recently been recalled by the New York City decision to impose compulsory vaccination as a result of the eruption of a measles epidemic in certain districts.He appears, according to the journal Science (April 19, 2019, p.216) that the 329 infected people were almost all unvaccinated Orthodox Jews in the Brooklyn Williamsburg district.Considering as sacred any individual choice, some families immediately pursued the health commissioner of the city of New York in order to have the obligation of vaccination cancel by invoking, among other arguments, the right to the free exercise of their religion!This is a patent case of conflict between the security of a community and the religious beliefs of individuals.Is it enough to believe "sincerely" that Jesus, Jehovah or any other God is the best of doctors and that prayers can prevent the circulation of diseases, so that this justifies to endanger a whole community, and especiallySenior children, more likely to carry the consequences of a measles epidemic?
This dramatic episode makes it possible to recall that the promoters of the right to the free practice of religions cannot be satisfied with statements of general and generous principle, but must take into account the social consequences of these beliefs.
Laïcité - without adjective as the French president recently recalled, Emmanuel Macron, in his great debate with intellectuals - is the best guarantor of life in society, and religious beliefs must remain in the private field and give way when thecollective life is at stake.The tolerance of the diversity of beliefs should not lead to accept, even to encourage, behaviors that contribute to balkanizing society by creating religious ghettos in which, as the case of New York shows, alternative social standardsin place.And even less to tolerate the spread of epidemics caused by ignorance or superstition.
Admittedly, there are no "vaccines" against religions, but religious beliefs cannot, in the contemporary world, justify protecting individuals from vaccines.
