Hi DMB,
Steve said to dmb: > > ... I understand completely that religious conflict around the world and > conservative fundamentalism in the US is the greatest threat to human > well-being at this point in history. That's a given, right? > > > dmb says: > Again, you're just making stuff up. Nobody said theism was humanity's > greatest threat. 18 million people die every year due to poverty and its > consequences, there are still thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons, > we're running out of oil and there's that whole global warming thing too. > I'm not even sure if fundamentalism would make the top ten list. I'm just > saying it's a serious problem. > Steve: Really? I guess it is you who is soft on religious extremism then. I see no more significant threat to civilization itself. If someone blows up the world in the next hundred years, it will be because that person thinks it is God's will. > > Steve continued: > ...I've talked about that a lot, and I admire Sam Harris as much as you do. > Our only disagreement as far as I can tell consists in your insistence that > all theism is evil in response to my assertion that all theism is not > necessarily evil. Such a difference can't explain your continuing "sky is > falling" ranting against my view, and I can't tell what else we disagree > about here, so I'm pretty confused right now. Are you keeping up with your > meds? > > dmb says: > There you go again. Nobody said, let alone insisted, that all theism is > evil or that it's necessarily evil. You made that up. > I ran out of meds years ago, by the way. > Steve: That is a shame about the meds. If you are willing to allow that all theism may not be bad, then we have no disagreement. I just wonder then what all the ranting was about. > DMB: > What I'm disagreeing with is the neo-pragmatic assumptions that lead you to > assert that one can believe whatever they like just because there is no such > thing as an essence or a single exclusive, objective Truth. Steve: I didn't say that people can believe whatever they like, I just said that the demand for evidence for beliefs only needs to arise when the belief in question is a habit of action that frustrates the needs of others. When it does, such as when a believer makes a scientific or historical claim or demands that other's are obliged to conform to his moral standards, that believer has a duty to provide evidence on demand. DMB: > That's what pragmatism is all about, the consequences. The hypothetical > theist who keeps his views held privately represent just such a fake > problem. Steve: Well here is a backslide. Now you seem unwilling to allow that a theist may have no beliefs that run athwart other's pursuit of happiness. DMB: > If that belief is never acted upon then there will be no practical > consequence and so his position is practically meaningless. In that case, > his beliefs will never have the chance to fail or succeed in the course of > experience and so asking about the truth or falsity of such a belief, for a > pragmatist, is also quite meaningless. Steve: I never said that such beliefs that we need not be concerned about are ones that are never acted upon. It is just that we need not be concerned with another's belief that, say, their spouse is the perfect person for them and demand evidence of that claim. Likewise, perhaps we need also not be concerned with someone's belief that God is love. Neither seems to me he sort of assertion that needs to submit to demands for evidence. DMB: > It is so very inconsequential that one would be hard press to cite a single > example of such a believer. If he keeps it private, how would we even know > he holds that belief? Steve: You are taking "private" to be like a secret or something. I only mean by it that one can have a belief that only translates into habits of action that are personal concerns rather than participating in public projects like history, science, and norms for the behavior of others. DMB: > As far as my own position with respect to religion and spirituality goes, > as you probably already know, I think the theists and atheists both have it > wrong. > Steve: Right. Campbell's assertion that the issue that unites and divides the two is reading myths as history rather than as metaphor. But can't an atheist read myth as metaphor and still be an atheist? In fact, isn't that exactly what Campbell was like? And can't a theist read the scripture of his own tradition as metaphor and deny all attempts by others to turn his religious symbols into bad science and bad history? I agree with Campbell that this is frequently the case, but must it always be the case? Best, Leela 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/
