It may be that the roots of contemporary religious extremism within Western democratic civilization lie in an initial mistake made by legal theorists when determining the proper scope for protecting human rights.

What I mean is that we, in the democratic West, should prioritize and promote not the protection of the “right to freedom of religion,” but rather the protection of the “right to freedom of worldview.” At the very least because the concept of religion is narrower than that of worldview, and constitutes only one component of a person’s broader worldview.

From this it follows that any defense of the right to freedom of religion for some—although it equally protects the rights of others to the same freedom of belief—by definition restricts the worldview freedom of those who practice no religion at all or who hold original, individual conceptions of the world, that is, personal belief systems.

Thus, if a creative individual adheres to no official religion (is not affiliated with any religious organization, does not participate in ritual practice, and does not follow established customs, rites, or codes of conduct - which they may view as a form of violence against the fluid nature of human existence), then how can such a person protect their rights?

The question becomes even more urgent as religious individuals increasingly insist on conditions necessary for their own religious freedom, namely, that the surrounding environment conform to the requirements of their faith.

And it is precisely here that religious expansion and religious extremism emerge.