On Dec 3, 2007, at 6:51 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: > And by the way, I left you an opening with the hospital metaphor, > but you > didn't grab it. There are iatrogenic illnesses, those that are > caused by > the healer. I have no doubt that there are parallels in religion, > but just > as we don't shut down hospitals because, for example, people pick up > infections there, it is not a compelling argument for shutting down > churches. Nobody is arguing that zero harm is done by religion.
To me, there's a difference between hospitals and churches, though; hospitals are places where the rules and results of science-based research are applied. By and large it seems to me that churches aren't of that nature. So looking at this from the perspective of symptomology, is it worthwhile to consider the possibility that religion itself isn't particularly responsible for either the good or harm its practitioners do, but that it's merely an available thing to point to as justification for any particular deed? Put another way, might it follow that any religion can be used to justify both good and evil actions, and therefore the presence (or lack) of religion is not actually relevant? That doesn't quite ring true to me -- possibly religion can act as a catalyst toward good or evil deeds, something that motivates further along a given path of behavior; but it doesn't make rational sense (to me) to claim religion is itself intrinsically evil when it has, in fact, been a tool for good as well over the millennia. There's something else at work here, it seems. William mentioned the demi-religious nature of some ideologies, even those officially atheist. This suggests both the will to religion and the will to using an institution to justify any particular action (good or evil) goes deeper than the existence of those institutions. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
