The Influence Of John Locke On Religious Freedom

Pope Benedict XVI, one of the most respected people of all time said, "A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion, but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society." Pope Benedict suggests that a political society should allow religious freedom and by doing so give them space to grow so that their religion can contribute to the society and help strengthen them as a whole. To create a civil society, John Locke mentioned in the Second treatise on Civil Government, Chapter VII, people must give up certain rights in the government so that they can contribute to the society and strengthen it by creating laws

Some individuals within Salem did not fall into these guidelines when they decided to take actions against one another for perceived wrongs and decided to take each other to court based on spectral evidence. In fact, Locke confidently states that people must give up their right to punish others when individuals are living under no authorized control in order to join a society that establishes a unified group of individuals that are organized under one authorized higher power. Locke states that people must “quit [their] executive power” but furthermore states that they must also “resign it to the public” in order to form a civil society. In other words, Locke denotes that having a society where people must quit their rights to punish others so that it would benefit the well being of the public suggests that people will live in a chaotic state where individuals will punish others for human mistakes making the civil society cease to exist. Many characters throughout The Crucible have often shown many intolerable acts such as threatening others for perceived wrongs. Abigail clearly demonstrates the true meaning of taking actions into her own hands when she threatens the girls to kill them rather than resolving the problem with a better solution. In a threatening conversation between all the girls involved in the issue, Abigail blackmails the girls saying that if anyone were to “breath a word” (Miller p.20) she would “bring a pointy reckoning” (Miller p.20) to silence everyone. Miller insists that Abigail was furious that the information about her being affiliated with witchcraft had spread loose and that she had to cover up the whole mess, with this she can easily target people whom she strongly dislikes such as Elizabeth Proctor, and stay innocent throughout the trials to bring good word to their family name. Locke would