mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (08/14/85)
>> 1) Religion is partly idiocy. >> 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".) >> 3) Arguments from faith are destructive of >> net.philosophy . >> 4) Therefore it is important to exclude religious >> arguments from net.philosophy . >> 5) Arguments not from faith are not religious. >> 6) Therefore there is no religious interest in >> net.philosophy (although some religious people >> might have an interest). >> 7) Therefore there is no excuse for cross-posting >> between net.philosophy and net.religion . >> 8) Religion used to dominate philosophy. That >> domination was disastrous. >> 9) Religion stopped dominating philosophy centuries >> ago. >> 10) It is still possible for philosophy to be >> crushed by the religious boot, if people don't >> take preventive care. [Warning: bare-knuckles argument ahead] The author of the above would appear to lack a great deal of intellectual maturity. For instance, we have point 2 above. One of the things that most people understand about philosophy (often without teaching) is that any method you use to acquire knowledge either involves faith (as defined above) or does not produce Truth. Science, for instance, entirely concerns itself with modelling approximate truth. We tend pretend that this is Truth because, for most of the things people care to investigate scientifically, we can't tell the difference. WHen a difference asserts itself, we simply change the model. So this is rather a red herring, especially in light of point 3. The author incorrectly jumps from "religion involves faith" to "all discussions of religion are based on faith." Now, I will be among the first to argue that we should not argue whether various points of faith are correct or not in this group. But it simply isn't true to say that all discussions of religion are arguments about whether faith is correct. Take the current morality discussion, which has rather firmly attached itself to the question of what constitutes morality, and what forms make sense. This is clearly a philosophical issue, and one can clearly talk about the form of christian morality without worrying over whether or not one believes in it. Not content with the fallacy of point 4, however, we have point 5, leading up to point 6. Virtually all discussions of philosophy impact upon religion. Any discussion of science, cosmology, free will, morality, or a host of other topics has implications for religion. There is therefore plenty of religious interest in net.philosophy. Then we have points 8 and 9. Until the church fathers attempted to absorb the entirety of Aristotle into theology, there was a long history of philosophy without what the author appears to consider religion. The shotgun marriage only lasted a few hundred years, when scholars all over Europe realized it wasn't going to work. Since then there has been continued dialogue between the two fields. The ideas of Kierkegaard and Buber have found their way into philosophy proper, while those of avowed non- christians such as Neitzche, Camus, and Heidegger have illuminated christian theology. Many ideas inimicable to religion have been rejected by philosophers with no particular concern for religion; an important example is the demise of logical positivism. The most disturbing point, however, is number 10. Here the author tosses away any pretense to rational argument. This is a cry to a Holy War. We have killed God, and we damn well better make sure he stays dead. We will not allow the sacrilege of religion to touch our sacred philosophy. Any stink of the supernatural must be ruthlessly stamped out. Is this not the cant of the religious fanatic? Is this the voice of calm reason? It should be clear that it is not. The author has decided, and no argument is needed. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe "There's that word again."