That is, vs. the establishment of religion (the adoption of laws that require practices only beneficial if you believe in a given religion, or e.g. financial support to specifically religious activities), or very narrow principles, explicitly stated, that call out where religious practice is permitted.
We should recall that coarsely, religions consist of/call for:
- Personal belief, usually about some supernatural phenomena
- Personal acts for propitiation or personal holiness maintenance, such as prayer and rituals
- Rules of behavior such as proper ways of raising children, prohibited or enjoined practices, diet, etc.
In the wartime setting, government must draft soldiers, and in the process of providing for these soldiers, the scarcity of resources dictates disregarding religious considerations. If you get a pork ration, you’re going to eat it despite it being religiously unclean; otherwise you won’t survive.
In the peacetime setting, the government has to protect citizens from each other. Religious beliefs that call for the slaughter of the idolaters, obviously cannot be honored in conjunction with a requirement for providing individuals’ personal protection. Moreover, various religions call for genital mutilation, whereas government is considered to protect children against abuse by their parents. That is to say, under the set of protective principles assigned to government e.g. police, for implementation, the religious principles sometimes conflict.
In the workplace, the businesses require the means to protect their workers, or else they must enjoy some level of liability protection in case of accidents. Certain garments people wear, swords, facial hair, all of these things can retain germs/obstruct occupational movements/compromise protection from personal protective equipment. Government has to make a call on what is permitted in order to facilitate the conduct of business.
Moreover, in the matter of workplace association and free commerce, the scarcity of resources (that is, I can’t go tell the Jews to take a hike, because due to the scarcity of good land and enforcement of property rights, there is nowhere to hike) means the government has to compel the traffic of services and goods with the unbelievers.