We have the right to believe. Freedom of belief or religion is enshrined in most laws and the practice of religion an important part of life in spite of the changes brought about by the modern world. The dawn of the modern age began with the spread of secularization. This allowed for the clear separation of church and state and a distinction between the temporal and the spiritual. Inevitably, this brought up the influx of different cultures and faith systems we see today. More prominent signs of cultural pluralism are seen in countries like Asia, where the blend of tradition and modernity flow seamlessly. The quaint image of a literal market of ideas could fill one with joy, as though every person can walk in harmony. The fundamental right to belief, however, is not as safe as it appears. While governments have created measures to ensure that every person's human rights are secured, freedom of belief included, in some cases compromises are made. The call for the defense of the freedom of belief is more pressing than ever, especially now with the rise of extremism on the horizon. Modernity gave rise to the influx of cultures we see today. Today, it is not strange to see a person of mixed race walking in the streets or to encounter a Muslim in a Christian majority area. Religion and culture bring our modern world some fresh perspective of what life was like before. Our beliefs have shaped our worldviews long before we had the screens to view the world and all of its wonders. To understand how it has happened, a good understanding of the history of religious movement worldwide has to be established. Religious pluralism had already existed since the time of the Persian Empire. This was much clearer in the Roman Empire, where Jews, Christians and polytheists of non-Roman religions co-existed, albeit with some tension. In spite of persecutions against Christianity, Rome eventually endorsed Christianity as the state religion. This would also enforce the dogma of the Catholic Church upon Europe for a millennia. In the East, tolerance was more prevalent. Islamic states held great respect for Jews and Christians as “people of the book” (referring to the shared ancestry through Abraham) and even people of other faiths were spared from persecution. Even the fusion of different religious beliefs and ideas came to being in places like India during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great, who encouraged religious discourses between different faiths. Yet it was the Protestant Reformation that brought about the most change. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, he did more than defy the power of the Catholic Church but brought about a new way of viewing religion and the individual's place in society and the world. The individual's agency was given more importance, for his faith and not sacraments would dictate his ultimate fate. This was not the first instance of Christianity changing its paradigms, as humanism had taken root earlier to challenge conventional thinking through a revival of ancient wisdom from the Greeks. The desired outcome for humanists in the Renaissance was for the spread of knowledge. Just as important for them was the need for a conviction rooted in Scripture to defeat ignorance and superstition that prevailed among the common folk and to allow them to think for themselves, to choose their own faith. The trend of humanism opened up something in the Reformation and other movements that was not seen before and it was the importance of the individual's freedom to choose what they believed in. Rather than rely on dogma or institutions, individuals were made to see the bigger picture for themselves and their place in the world, as opposed to what the scholars of the day considered blind faith. Humanism also paved the way for secularization to take place. This firmly separated religion from state power and thus privatizing religion. The separation of church and state was an important move that helped religious institutions like the church detach from temporal power in order to focus on the spirituality it held strongly to. Ultimately, what helped pave the way for the modern world's acceptance of secularization, which removed the primacy of religion in the public sphere, was the privatization and individualization of faith. This meant that secularization gave people more freedom, more room to think deeply about their faith than when powerful institutions held greater control over their beliefs. The removal of institutional power over individual choice was a key step in shaping the world we have today. Democracies were formed by this fundamental freedom of choice. Of all the rights enshrined in the constitutions of the world, the cornerstone for a number of them would be the freedom of conscience.