Steve, Good question.
My opinion is that not all theists are irrational, though most probably are, going on the evidence. But taking a postulate as fundamental is a big no-no in metaphysical speculation. You ask how we can tell the difference between the rational theist and the non-rational and I'd say the difference is right at the point of being willing to be objective about one's beliefs. John the anti-postulator On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 9:13 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi all, > > Can an MOQer make the claim that theists are irrational? > > Jeffrey Stout from "Rorty on Religion and Politics: > "Because Rorty and I have both been persuaded by our pragmatist > forebears to treat rationality as a more permissive and > context-sensitive notion than Victorian critics of religious > superstition took it to be, we are inclined to agree with William > James that some theists might well be rationally entitled to their > religious commitments. Thus we are not disposed to join Sam Harris and > Peter Singer in impugning the rationality of theists en masse. Like > Harris and Singer, we would like to say that what worries us about > militant Islamic theocracy, the new religious right, and church > opposition to same-sex marriage, but we prefer to do so without using > the concept of rationality as a club." > > Why does pragmatism lead Stout and Rorty to want to drop rationality > as a way of distinguishing believers from nonbelievers? > > If "some theists [and presumably then not others] might well be > rationally entitled to their religious commitments," how do we tell > which ones are rationally entitled and which ones are not? > > Best, > 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/ > 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/
