tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson) (09/10/85)
> From: jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR) > Message-ID: <1063@ihlpg.UUCP> >> 1) Religion is partly idiocy. > Assertion. I can read that two ways: simply assertion (an assertion, although it may be more than that) or merely assertion (an assertion and nothing more than an assertion). The first would be childish. The second ignores the further justification given in point 2. But supposing that the comment had been correctly placed, applied to point 2, it might have been saying either in the timeless sense or in the timely sense that point 2 was merely an assertion. The first would have been pointless, as it did not include any reasoning. The second amounts to a request for further justification. But "Why?" would have been simpler and less vague. And in any case, it would be absurd to expect an argument from atoms to astronomy in a posting. What is being directly and by implication called an assertion helps provide the context for the rest of the argument. Further support (No room here.) would elucidate the effects of the use of faulty epistemological methods on intelligence. >> 2) Faith (an idiotic part) is the essence of >> religion. (Faith is the practice of claiming >> truth without evidence. I am not concerned >> with other meanings of the word, like "trust".) > By your definition, then, Christianity is not a religion. > (I'm using Christianity for the sake of sticking to what I know.) Evidence > for my assertion internal to the system: in I Corinthians, Paul talks about > the resurrection of Jesus, because some people were going into the church > and claiming that there was no resurrection of the dead, and not even Jesus > rose from the dead. > Paul didn't say, believe because I said so. He didn't say, > it's written on the sky, and if you can't read it, it's because you don't > have enough of this mythical 'faith'. He gave what, in your definition, is > a completely NON-religious answer: "There are nearly 500 living witnesses > to the public death and equally public post-resurrection appearances of > Jesus; go and ask *them* what *they* saw!" Hail El Cid, S.O.G. (son of a god), resurrected from the dead, who now sits on a god's right thumb! If religions did not allow philosophical arguments, even when abused, in support of their tenets, they would quickly be laughed out of town. Here is the question: What makes a religion a religion and not simply a school of philosophy? >> 5) Arguments not from faith are not religious. > Invalid, for reasons given above. That depends on how you are classifying the arguments. I would have classified the argument you related above as either religious, if the evidence was, foolishly, presumed to rest on faith (an idea not fully developed at Paul's time, although there is a hint in Aristotle's Metaphysics that the Pre-Socratics anticipated Kant's crap), or as philosophical but demagogic, if not. >> 6) Therefore there is no religious interest in >> net.philosophy (although some religious people >> might have an interest). > Here I disagree, with yet another reason. I see philosophy > and religion as having much the same goals--explanations of the "big > questions" of life--why are we here? who are we? what is the meaning of > all this? I see their effects as being similar as well--they develop in the > person who holds them, a particular worldview, the philosophic base that > they filter their perceptions through. So why do we have a difference at > all? I dunno. net.philosophy has pretensions of intellectuality? :-) Either you ruthlessly adhere to reality and life or you do not. That is the difference. Are you pretending to think? >> 8) Religion used to dominate philosophy. That >> domination was disastrous. > Also assertion. (Or do I mean opinion?) Look at the murder of Socrates (and many others). Look at the forced retirement of Aristotle. Look at the persecution of Galileo. That was what happened to those who deviated from empowered religion. Look at those who chose not to deviate too openly. What could have been the consequences of their conformity? As for the adjective "disastrous", it is true that it is, in one sense, an opinion and not a fact. But there is a factual, objective basis for universal ethics, that does not conflict with the inherently subjective nature of evaluation: Only certain kinds of creatures are capable of ethical thought, in need of it, and actually do it. To those creatures, philosophy is, rationally, important because of its connection with other values. That which, ceteris paribus, prevents its full discovery, is a disvalue. A significant disvalue could, honestly and rationally, but never forgetting its individualistic basis, be called "disastrous". David Hudson