Hi All, I'd like us to try to explore the political implications of Pirsig's anti-theism. Philosopher of religion and pragmatist Jeffrey Stout (Yes, Bo. I've been reading again.) agrees with Sam Harris that theocracy is a threat to democracy, but he sees secularism, the notion that religion needs to be stamped out and has no place in political discourse, as equally anti-democratic as are any imposed limits on the sorts of justifications that are permissable in politics.
Since theocrats believe that God's representatives on earth ought to rule everyone else, theocracy is a threat to democracy which holds that political power ought to be shared equally among all citizens and not denied based on religious affilitiation or the lack of religious affiliation. Secularism takes religion itself rather than some particular way of being religious as the problem, but not all religions are theocratic and in fact the religious are very often committed to democracy. But there has certainly been an upsurge in the sentiment( or at least public awareness of the sentiment) that Christians ought to dominate non-Christians. There seems to be a positive feedback loop at work in modern politics. Such theocrats motivate more secularism which feeds theocratic impulses and so on. Stout notes that the position of the secularists who think that democracy will not be safe until religious people give up their delusions is mirrored by that of the theocrats who will also not be satisfied until everyone agrees with their position. But democracy is the way we are trying to work out for people with different beliefs to coexist peacefully where all people are respected and all views are taken into account. It seems to me then that the way to attack theocracy is by promoting liberal democracy rather than secularism. We Pirsigian anti-theists have to be wary of the appearance that we represent a threat to religious ways of life in general and seek to impose a secular worldview on all. Since we are anti-essentialists we don't think that religion is _essentially_ anything. It isn't essentially good or bad any more than technology is. Both can certainly be used for evil as well as for good. When religious traditionalist complain that they are being handicapped by the demand that they restructure their political arguments in secular terms before they can be aired in the public square, they blame secularism while it is in fact religious liberty that requires this restructuring. Secularization happened because the various religions can't agree on religious premises, so such premises cannot be presupposed in political arguments. Atheists have never had such political power and numbers to be able to enforce a moratorium of religious language in political arguments. It is not because an external imposition by secularists that religious traditionalists must do such restructuring of their arguments. It is because religious traditionalists hope to be convincing to those who don't share their premises and not just to those who already agree with their narrow interpretation of what fidelity to God means. Even among Christians there is much disagreement about the authority and interpretation of the Bible. It is that fact in addition to the fact that there are more and more members of non-Christian religions that religious traditionalists can no longer rely on the authority of Bible quotes or the Church to argue for their political positions. Nothing prevents them from doing so other than the rhetorical disadvantages of pursuing such a strategy of presuming the agreement on premises upon which there is such a diversity of opinion. Secularist atheists wrongly take credit for the secularization of political discourse and reinforce the idea that atheism is something for believers to fear. I have become convinced by Stout that atheists and Pirsigian anti-theists should not identify as secularists, since imposing any limits on what sorts of arguments can made in the public sphere is as anti-democratic as the theocratic vision that secularists seek to oppose. While we should see the process of secularization as a positive consequence of religious liberty toward a more inclusive society, we should not justify the bigotry we experience by posing as though we are somehow responsible for the secularization of political discourse. Also, by lumping all religion as a theocratic threat to democracy we lose the allies we need among the American religious people who are committed to democratic ideals and identify more with the democratic reform of Martin Luther King than with the theocratic vision of Pat Robertson. What do you think? Do you see a theocratic movement gaining momentum in the US? How is it manifested? How can it best be opposed? Hasn't anyone noticed that while the politics of difference, identity, recognition of the disenfranchised has dominated public debates in recent decades the plutocrats have seized the opportunity to consolidate even more wealth and power? Don't the friends of democracy whether religious or secular need to enlist one another's help to confront the plutocrats? If so, an agenda of secularism is not at all what is needed in the US. 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/md/archives.html
