JEELEN, as I've said before, I simply cannot understand you half the time. You often seem to ignore the point I'm trying to make and instead either criticise my way of trying to make it, or pick up on some minor side issue. If, for example, you really can't see the points I was trying to make with the flying or gang-rape illustrations, then I don't see what else I can say to make them. And if you really can't see those points, then I can't see any other way to defend the use of such analogies. Even I can't muster the bloodymindedness to carry on arguing about all of these points when we're clearly never going to understand each other. So I'll just reply to a couple of them.
You seem to have a very limited idea of what law is. That is scary to me coming from a theologian - even Judaic law is quite clear on moral issues.
I don't know what you mean by "even" Judaic law, as if Judaic law were
less concerned about morality than other legal systems! At any rate, my objection to what you said was not based upon a belief that law has nothing to do with morality. It was based upon a belief that morality is not restricted to the law. What you said suggested that the notion of "morality" has no meaning or application beyond the morality of the group, implying that it is meaningless at an individual level. That seems to me to be nonsense - I'd say that morality has no meaning at the social level if it has none at the individual level. Arguing the toss about the nature of law is neither here nor there to that point.
I suggest reading some more (perhaps more than once) before posting a reply. It is my understanding such a procedure is not uncommon for theologians or philosophers. Otherwise, I must refer to what I replied above and below.
Then point me to where you explained why an agnostic attitude towards theism should make one less able to talk about morality. Perhaps I missed it.
The things you mention are expressions of religion. (Morality and social structure in particular aren't religious at all unless made that way by believers.)
So
you say. I say that's an arbitrary distinction. Why should
belief be considered "real" religion, and things such as liturgy, a priestly structure, a moral system, scriptures, mystical experiences, and prayer be considered only "expressions" of religion? You might just as well say that liturgy is "real" religion, and belief is just a sort of internal expression of liturgy. To single out any of these elements as the "real" religion, and marginalise the others as mere "expressions", is just to show bias.
This is, incidentally, not to say that any of these elements are
inherently religious. They all can and do feature in non-religious contexts. A
religion is what happens when you get several of these elements coming as a package. But it is impossible to define "religion" any more clearly than that; in particular, there are cases where you get several of these elements together but we would still not normally call it a "religion". Some political movements might be good examples.
I'm sorry, but I do not consider philosopical evidence scientific fact. I'm funny that way: please, show me one scientific fact that serves as the basis for any religion. I really would like to see that.
Well, make your mind up. First you said that religion is about faith rather than
evidence. Now it seems that you're asking for
scientific fact. Which is it? They're not the same thing, you know.
All I said is that some people have believed that religious faith is exactly the same thing as normal reasoning. And others have believed that religious faith is opposed to normal reasoning. And others have held that it is somewhere in the middle. And others have held that it's on a completely different spectrum, as it were. That's enough to dispose of these dogmatic remarks about the relation between faith and evidence. I don't need to give an example of religious belief that's based upon scientific fact for that! At most, I need only give an example of religious belief that's based upon what its adherents
think is scientific fact. But examples of that are all around us. Start with the
Summa contra gentiles and go on from there.
BasketCase said:
If a religion is inherently evil (as despotic scum such as Hitler claimed), then there's a reason why.
The whole point about the Nazis' attitude to the Jews is that they didn't regard Jewishness as religion at all, but as a race. A Jew who converted to another religion or who was descended from such converts was still a Jew in their eyes, because they considered Jewishness to be a biological category. They were obviously wrong about that but unfortunately it is still a prevalent belief even today.
That was unexpected.
