> Hi Platt,
>>>>>> Steve: >>>>>> But Harris would agree that Communism and National Socialism are >>>>>> evil. > >>>> Platt: >>>>> Yes, but the major ax he grinds is the suffering caused by >>>>> believers in >>>>> God, not atheists. That's my problem with his view. > >>>> Steve: >>>> He is looking at suffering that is a direct result of dogmatic >>>> beliefs. I >>>> can't understand why you would oppose such a critique. > >> Platt: >>> I don't. What I crticize is his emphasis on dogmatic religious >>> belief >>> while ignoring dogmatic belief of atheists. > >> Steve: >> There are countless other things that he doesn't talk about. It >> seems a >> strange way to criticize someone's writings. Is it not legitimate >> just to >> write a book critical of religious faith without pointing out >> every other >> bad intellectual pattern? > > Platt: > I think that depends on the magnitude of the what is left out. If the > results of religious belief are bad historically, they pale in > comparison > to the bad results of atheist belief. Steve: What are the bad results of not believing in God? >> Platt: >>> As I read this I can't help but note that you have faith in >>> intellectual >>> quality (reason) even though reason cannot show by reason that it is >>> reasonable. What am I missing? > >> Steve: >> I think what it may be is that I keep trying to explain that the >> faith that >> is problematic is not trust or fidelity or other uses of the term >> faith but >> simply faith as it is applied to belief. >> >> Believing something that isn't proven beyond all doubt is not what >> I'm >> talking about. I'm talking about the so-called virtue of believing >> things >> when all you have are doubts. > > Platt: > I don't quite follow. How can someone believe what she doubts? > Those who > believe in God don't have doubts, do they? Steve: It sounds absurd to me too, but religious people will often tell you that faith requires doubt. If you didn't have doubt, no faith would be needed, so doubt is viewed as a gift from God. It's an opportunity to have faith. This is why I interpreted this sort of faith as claiming that it is a virtue to believe that which is bad to believe. This "faith requires doubt" idea is just dishonest. > Platt: > > Personally I like Pirsig's solution as to what to believe -- choose > what > for you has value like paintings in a gallery and leave the rest. Steve: Faith in the paintings analogy is to claim that it is a virtue to say you like the religious paintings even if you don't like them. >>>> Steve: >>>> I agree, I just don't think we have to take the "endowed by their >>>> Creator" >>>> part in the way that religious folks take to mean the Christian >>>> God. This >>>> is not teh Creator that the Deist Founding Fathers were talking >>>> about. >>>> >>>> I also think we can agree that it is important to set limits on >>>> government's >>>> ability to smother man's intellectual freedom without appealing to >>>> any gods. > >> Platt: >>> "We can agree" presupposes that rights can be taken away by a >>> majority of >>> "we who agree." That's a real and present danger. Rights "endowed >>> by their >>> Creator" is a firewall (to use a popular current word) against >>> loss of >>> individual (intellectual) rights in the name of fairness, >>> equality or >>> other emotional appeal by politicians to a Utopian dream. > >> Steve: >> I don't see how this gets us out of the "we can agree" problem. Don't >> we still have to agree on what rights are "endowed by their Creator"? >> It's not like God is going to step in a settle it for us. Not even >> religious people believe that. > > Platt: > Good point. But if we don't agree what rights are "endowed by their > Creator," then it's a free-for-all where anything goes depending on > the > biggest mob or the group with the most potent weapons. Steve: I guess that's the situation we are in until God tells us what our rights are. Regards, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
