Virginia Declaration of Rights

The Virginia Declaration of Rights has an interesting statement about religious freedom which I comment on at Economics & Liberty. Here is the passage from that declaration of rights:

That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.

Here is the punchline to my comments posted there:

I don't think that in a free system of political economy one need be terribly concerned about whether a person's views on government and policy are motivated by religious belief or belief in mother nature or belief in Newtonian physics or belief in quantum physics. In a system of government founded on liberty the key issue is really what we think is and is not a legitimate use of force and violence in our daily lives. As George Mason wrote in the Virginia Declaration of Rights it is not legitimate to use force and violence in the service of religious belief. Nor, does it seem to me legitimate to use force and violence in the service of belief in science, or belief in an environmental ethic, or belief in a witch's brew. But, in our system of political economy, there is seldom any real threat that force and violence will be used by government for any such personal beliefs. We each have our personal beliefs and motives for supporting this policy or that policy, and in the end the policy that is chosen is seldom, if ever, the policy that is supported by merely one type of belief. Liberty requires that government leave us free to believe what we will, and this principle even applies to the reasons we have for supporting our personal views of good and bad public policy.

Do you agree or disagree?