From: Richard Ridge (richard_ridge@tao-group.com)
Date: Thu Feb 28 2002 - 04:21:24 MST
> Deists exist today.
How very nice for them. Do they take that to be a fact or is it an article
of faith?
> Why does god need a "use" to exist?
I doubt if a god would need a use to exist, but a god that does not make any
material difference to our existence is not one that there is any point
worshipping. Most religions (and certainly christianity) are founded on the
principle of quid pro quo - the origin of prayer is not disinterested
altruism. If god does not trouble himself in our affairs (though the god of
the bible most certainly does) then there is really no need for us to
trouble ourselves with him. Unless, of course, we simply have a preconceived
need to retain god on any basis.
> I do not see the "dangerous" aspect of the above.
The danger Johnson was referring to was simply that when social constraint
ceases to mandate organised religion, it dries up and withers. A danger from
his point of view of course, progress and freedom from mine. However, it
does seem to me that, oppressive and archaic as it is, the Catholic Church
has some advantages over other christian variants - if only because its
insistence on defining doctrine places it in a position to moderate the
views of believers (and admittedly to exacerbate them). By contrast,
individuals of faith are free to invent god in their own image and to seek
transcendental justification for their poisonous views - and hence
evangelical sects that are far more militant that any mainstream church. One
of the great problems with moribund faith without doctrine is that it rarely
stays that way, and an even more extremist form of doctrine often ends up
being reasserted.
> Religion is a coping strategy - most people need something like it -
> some do not.
I would contend that emotional dependency of that kind cannot possibly be
considered healthy.
> I have yet to see well-reasoned, consistent, well-supported secular
> ethics. They all wind up appealing to something unprovable.
Not so long ago you were citing Godel's theorem as grounds for asserting
that faith is a required component in areas where rationality does not reach
(Which sounds like having found a flaw in your calculations, you invent an
unprovable quantity (god) to fill the hole. Which must make for a somewhat
unstable edifice - and certainly makes for hypocrisy on your part) . On that
occasion you appeared to be rather more enamoured of uncertainty :-)
On the whole, I am far from persuaded that a consistent set of ethics
grounded in transcendental sanction is a good thing. Such certainty is
precisely what accounts for the manifest evils of religion. I would suggest
that a great many of our ethical notions today have much more to do with JS
Mill than the Bible (which can only be good - were it otherwise we would
still be incarcerating homosexuals or stoning adulterers), namely that
individuals should have the liberty to behave as they wish as long as that
behaviour does not adversely impact on others. What was particularly
noteworthy about Mill was that he did not consider a lack of consistency of
application a problem - it is far more sensible to judge each case on its
individual merits than shoehorning them into a set of moral absolutes.
> Aristotle and various others in the religious and philosophical arenas
I hardly think the Nicomachean ethics is something we would wish to rely
on - the idea of a unity of virtues is not one of Aristotle's happier
conceits. Aside from anything else, the Aristotelian list of virtues is far
from being identical to a christian list and does not count 'faith' in that
particular calendar.
> I've give the sources he mentions above. Feel free to discredit or
> follow up on them as you see fit.
Discrediting it is not difficult. If a search for faith were universal,
Europe would not be becoming increasingly atheistic, while most Europeans
now appear to be happily devoid of any faith (contradicting your assertion
that most people do need faith).
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