Weird statement for the day:

Of your first point, however, ___, the same cannot be said of the secularists. They were all on the side of the outrages committed in the French Revolution, in Stalin’s Soviet, and Mao’s China. They were all pushing the secular vision of progress.

‘The’ secularists – that’s an odd usage right there. As if secularism were a team, or a movement, or a club, or a party, or a faction. As if it were safe to assume that secularists act as a body. But the next sentence really takes the biscuit. Excuse me? All of ‘them’? They were all on the side of the outrages committed in Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China? Dang, that’s … Read the rest

We were talking (somewhere) about the Left Behind series, and the Rapture, and that nice Tim LaHaye fella. And then coincidentally I was browsing around, tidying up attics and things (figuratively speaking), and found an old Comment on the subject. Very old. So old that I’m just giving you the whole month instead of the Permalink – because the whole month is only four brief items. Isn’t that sweet? That was when B&W was brand spanking new, fresh out of the bandbox. I wasn’t as talkative then, either because I was too busy hammering joists and looking for the blueprints, or because we were still deciding on format, content, timing, etc. I don’t remember.

Anyway. I found him and what … Read the rest

Another argument we get a lot of is the ‘You’re defining religion too narrowly’ one. The ‘Religion is anything and everything that’s not science, not numerical, not proven’ one. Err – that covers a lot of territory! To put it mildly. Let’s see – I like Austen better than Trollope, and I also think Austen is a better writer than Trollope; I think I can offer evidence for the reasonableness of that view, but I certainly can’t prove it, or establish it beyond a reasonable doubt – because it’s not the kind of thing one can prove or establish beyond a reasonable doubt. Just as I can’t prove that I like someone, or that someone is my friend, or that … Read the rest

Yes but why bother? goes one argument we get a lot of. What’s the point? You’re never going to convince anyone. Religion is never going to go away. So why all this disagreement? Anthony Flew calls this the ‘But-those-people-will-never-agree Diversion.’ (How to Think Straight p. 61)

If one is trying to thrash out some generally acceptable working compromise on how things are to be run, then one must consider the various sticking points of all concerned. But if instead you are inquiring into what is in fact the case and why, then that someone refuses to accept that this or that is true is neither here nor there.

Just so. And that is the question we’re looking at: the … Read the rest

And some more serendipitous reading that makes the same point I’ve been making. I happened to pick up a collection of essays by Richard Rorty and found ‘Religion as Conversation-stopper.’ Just so – my point exactly. And Rorty takes issue with Stephen Carter’s The Culture of Disbelief.

The main reason religion needs to be privatized is that, in political discussion with those outside the relevant religious community, it is a conversation-stopper. Carter is right when he says: ‘One good way to end a conversation – or start an argument – is to tell a group of well-educated professionals that you hold a political position (preferably a controversial one, such as being against abortion or pornography) because it is required