a church is not a person, it cannot believe in anything. how does a church pray? how does it make a confession?

do not antropomorphize companies, it does not compute at all.

I agree that the church itself doesn't have freedom of religion. But for the members of the church to have freedom of religion they need to be able to exercise their freedom as an organized group. The end result is the same: the government is limited in what restrictions it can place on the group, because to restrict the group is to restrict the members.

I don't understand your argument. The church members individually have the right to practice their religion however they want so long as it doesn't impinge on others' rights or laws. The group aspect really doesn't come into play at all. In the same way, those same individuals can contribute as individuals to whatever cause they choose. The problem is when resources get pooled and an organization rather than its individuals decides where to allocate those resources politically. That's where the parent comment thinks the line should be drawn.

Very few religious people would consider allowing the practice of religion “without the group aspect” to be “freedom of religion.” That freedom, especially in the United States, necessarily encompasses groups of religious people pooling resources to build houses of worship, educate their children, participate in the community, and advocate for causes.

None of that actually requires specific religious protection. Protection of the freedom of religion is necessary when the beliefs of religious groups clash with the values of the community at large - for instance, Christian Scientists do not vaccinate as they avoid modern medicine in general. This is a carve-out to mandatory vaccination programs, in favor of religious freedom.

The group version of this right would be the Church of Christ, Scientist not needing to provide healthcare to its workers (not all of whom may be Christian Scientists themselves), in order to protect their deeply-held beliefs.

> None of that actually requires specific religious protection.

It requires specific religious protection if you're afraid of countries that persecute specific religions and want to take every measure to avoid becoming one. The Pilgrims came to America because of religious persecution. England still has a state church to this day.

I guess what I'm saying sort of agrees with you, but that I'm seeing how "clash with the values of the community at large" could refer to "have any religion except the official one" or even "have a religion". There's a possibility that the community at large could become hostile to many or even all religions in the future.

> The problem is when resources get pooled and an organization rather than its individuals decides where to allocate those resources politically.

Like unions?

Yeah, I wasn't talking about money or political activism, but about freedom of religion.

> But for the members of the church to have freedom of religion they need to be able to exercise their freedom as an organized group.

There is no logic in this sentence. An organised group as an entity doesn't need to be treated the same as a citizen for the freedoms of the members of the group to be respected, I don't understand where is the leap between: rights of a citizen should be extended as rights of a virtual entity that groups citizens. Why?

The sentence is logical, you’re just incorrectly assuming it’s a simple syllogism. The OP isn’t saying that churches need to be treated substitutably with members of the church. But it’s apparent that churches as entities need to be protected in order to protect individual religious freedom. If the government banned mosques (as legal entities) from constructing buildings and holding gatherings, that wouldn’t ban Islam, but it would obviously be an impingement on the religious freedom of Muslims.