Hi On Fri, 2 Mar 2001, David Gent wrote: > this list of great, though rather remote, interest to me. One point of > interest to me is the similarity in the strength of feeling engendered > on both sides of the debate and sometimes an apparent inability to > respond to an argument that starts with different underlying > assumptions. I have sometimes characterised this as fundementalist > thinking, on both sides of the debate. Fundementalist may have > different implications in Britain but I see and hear quite a lot of > fundementalist darwinism and humanism dressed as scientific orthodoxy > from time to time. Similarity of conviction is one criterion, but not sufficient to equate the two sides as fundamentalist (unless one wishes to diminish the impact of the scientific perspective). I am quite definite that the earth rotates around the sun, that biological characteristics (many with psychological implications) are transmitted by genes from one generation to the next, that e=mc^2, that people who are similar to one another are more likely to become friends, and so on almost endlessly. Some fundamentalists on the religion side are equally certain that the world was created in 7 days (although there is some waffling on the length of a day), that the son of god died on the cross and was resurrected, and so on almost endlessly. It is a mistake to conclude that these two represent similarly "fundamentalist" views because the justifications for the beliefs are so radically different. Similarly, uninformed black and white thinking that Perry observed in entering university students overlaps very little, other than in conviction, with people at a more mature intellectual level who have passed beyond the intermediate state of relativism to reasoned commitment. > others. I don't know if I've explained that very well - I suppose the > key is that people of faith appreciate faith in others even when they > don't agree and don't appreciate having their strongly felt believes > devalued in an attempt to make mutually exclusive values fit each other. I think this is an overly simple characterization. Yes, educated believers, especially believers in certain moderate faiths, do tend to be tolerant of other believers. That does not surprise me, as they are more similar to one another along a dimension that is important to them (i.e., religiousness, spirituality) than they are to non-believers. But I wonder how true that is of religious people around the world. As I write this, I understand that the Taliban government in Afghanistan is about to demolish all idols that violate their faith (e.g., a 53 metre high Buddha that was carved into a mountain side many centuries ago). And aren't many of the conflicts and much of the brutality going on around the world based at least in part on religious intolerance? It would be interesting to know (if it could be determined) whether religious or secular nations tend to be more tolerant of diversity. My guess would be the secular nations, such as those most of us live in. The issue of therapy and values is another interesting question, and again very complex. I'm not a clinician, but have read pretty widely in that literature. I suspect that it is impossible to avoid transmitting values in therapy (e.g., being self-aware, taking control of one's life, submitting to one's family, or whatever direction one chooses in therapy is going to involve transmission of values). The question is whether these values should be based on scientific or other (e.g., religious, cultural [which overlaps with religious]) criteria. And the scientific criteria I have in mind are deeper than simply "what works," the naive view of science that seems to characterize much of the clinical literature on this topic. Just because people kept on medication have higher self-esteem, cry less, or whatever would not, in my opinion, come even close to answering the question of whether it would be a desirable practice to put drugs into the water for all of us (I hope no drug company picks up on this idea!). Same for any proposal (didn't someone refer to religion as the "opiate of the masses"?). Best wishes Jim ============================================================================ James M. Clark (204) 786-9757 Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax University of Winnipeg 4L05D Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark ============================================================================
