dmb said to DM: The "secular ban on religious thinking" exists primarily in the paranoid minds of fundamentalists. As far as law and history go, there is no ban. There is "a wall of separation" between church and state, which is designed to insure religious freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of association and a number of other moral principles...
DM replied: So what would your peace terms be? Anyway, the law is one thing, but what is the attitude to religious values in US universities,are they really up for discussion, don't people chicken out from discussing them critically? dmb says: I suppose somebody somewhere at some time has chickened out but I've never seen such a thing. I just finished a course in the philosophy of religion where critical discussion is pretty much all we did. I could tell by the sighs and groans that a substantial number of students were christians and the professor was extremely kind to them. He waited until the last class to mention his own atheism and he was so good at being neutral that I really wasn't sure until then. In the USA, the controversy over religion in education is pretty much limited to fundamentalists trying to put religion in the science classrooms of public schools, which are mandatory and funded by tax payers. A critical discussion is the last thing they want. In effect, they're fighting to preach religion to a captive audience and what's worse is they tend to attack science at the same time. In this context, then, the religious folks are the aggressive ones. DM said: I have no time for faith myself, I do want to allow it for others though, and hope that would be a better place to negotiate from. dmb says: Does faith take time? And who says faith is not allowed? In what sense is it disallowed? Again, the separation of church and state is about religious freedom. The complaints you here from people with secular values are about religious people trying to cram creationism down the throats of children, trying to enshrine their religion in law, trying to turn the USA into a christian nation and other moves that would violate the principle of religious freedom. The guy who coined the phrase "the wall of separation" called this violation of the freedom of conscience a "soule rape" and yet he was a very devout man. Anyway, I think the idea that anyone is disallowed to believe is pure fiction. The faithful feel the pressure of science and history but blame it on the devil or gay people or some cosmic conspiracy. But the truth is, a person can believe any damn fool thing and do just fine in this country. The Mormons and the Scientologists are laughed at by most people but they are also very rich and powerful organizations with lots of legal protection. And those have got to be two of the stupidest religions ever invented. They should merge and build a big temple in Roswell. DM said: ...I have a question, why are some of the religious so mad and angry and have we mishandled them? And how do we make friends with the less mad and angry? That's my angle. dmb says: Seems like it always comes down to the feelings of faithful, as if they are somehow more important than anybody else's feelings, beliefs and values. But I think that's the kind of thing that gives sophistry a bad name. It shifts the grounds of the debate from historical transformations of culture to what is and is not polite. I think Pirsig's diagnosis of the 20th century's battle between social and intellectual values is perfectly delicious. It describes this conflict in particular and the "culture wars" in general. In those terms, the anger of the religious is the anger of anti-intellectualism. It is a defense of traditional, social level values. We see this concretely in the rejection of Darwinism in favor of "intelligent design" or creationism. The family-values, anti-gay rhetoric makes sense in those terms too. The attack on secular values is an attack on intellectual values. Freedom of religion is construed as oppressive by traditionalists. The Pope recently complained about the "tyranny of relativism" or some such phrase, and our brilliant President echoed the sentiment the next day. (When the Pope visited the USA a month or two ago.) That is more or less how you originally construed it. What was the phrase? The "secular ban on religious thinking"? Like I keep pointing out, this ban is imaginary. The doctrine of religious freedom is already enshrined in our highest law and has been since the beginning. Oddly, the faithful feel oppressed by this freedom because it prevents them from being oppressive. And this attitude can be found in the Supreme Court too. Antonin Scalia, for example, thinks its okay for the Federal government to acknowledge the divine creator and that this would not be a violation of the highest law. I mean, this attack on intellectual values doesn't just come from preachers or the cranks on Fox. See, phrasing things the way you did puts you on their side. This is especially odd for a Pirsig fan. This attitude has been a feature of your posts too often and for too long. I mean, its kinda hard to believe you're just trying to make friends. Your persistent interest in theological types like Caputo also makes it hard to believe. Sorry, DM, but I think you're not quite forthcoming on this topic. There's a personal concern at work here that's not yet been put on the table. That's just a hunch, of course. _________________________________________________________________ Instantly invite friends from Facebook and other social networks to join you on Windows Live™ Messenger. https://www.invite2messenger.net/im/?source=TXT_EML_WLH_InviteFriends 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/
