Exemplifying a study-of-religion based analysis of semantics of core freedom-of-religion-or- belief texts in human rights conventions and declarations, the lecture shows how the study of religion may be used to discuss how human rights notions of religion are aligned with dominant Western-European, in particular Christian-Protestant and liberalist, rather than with academic-scientific notions of religion.

The lecture, thus, also serves to exemplify how the scientific study of religion can help provide the pluralist, secular and democratic state and society with a third order approach to religion, familiarizing as well as de-familiarizing students with dominant and familiar notions of religion, and familiarizing them with study-of-religion approaches, – approaches that ought be valuable to a democratic, open-ended society not infrequently referencing Enlightenment values, including the value of scientifically grounded knowledge, also of religion.