Myrlene Severe was arrested recently for importing a severed human head into the United States. She claimed the head was part of her religion (voodoo). Meanwhile, exactly no people have ever been arrested for importing Catholic hosts or wine even though Catholics believe that these are in a literal sense the flesh and blood of their messiah, which they intend to eat.
There are two ways to interpret this apparent discrepancy in the law. One way is to say that the United States is a Christian nation. This means that eating human flesh is okay as long as it is done in the name of Jesus, but the heathen religions are to be put down. This interpretation is consistent with the Bible, which says we should sacrifice humans, eat human flesh and kill people of other religions.
The other way to interpret this discrepancy is to say that United States law has a legal presumption of atheism; that what people believe (host = flesh) and what is true (human head = human head) are not necessarily the same thing, and that religious belief is insufficient in itself to make an untrue thing true. In this interpretation, the United States doesn't care if people believe things that are untrue because it is not the role of government to determine what is true; that is the role of individuals using science, ethics, philosophy and the like. It is (possibly) the role of government to keep hazardous substances and possible murderers out of the country, which would mean saying no-no to importing severed human heads. So if people want to make believe that their host is flesh and then eat it, that's fine - but if people want to dismember each other it should be illegal whether or not it is a religious dismembering.
Which interpretation do you prefer?
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