Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

[Nick Arnett]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 4:07 PM, Charlie Bell <charlie at culturelist.org>
wrote:

>
> On 23/04/2008, at 1:38 AM, Nick Arnett wrote:
> >
> > Otherwise, they would have to account for religious that
> > successfully teach
> > and encourage humility, grace, forgiveness, critical thinking and so
> > forth...
>
> Who are, on the whole, in the minority. Your experience of the
> religious in your liberal Lutheran church is somewhat different to
> that of mine when I lived in the Middle East or when I grew up in the
> UK... Religion in most places is treated with an authority that far
> exceeds its actual contribution to modern society.


I guess I won't just say, "Cite, please..."  But can you back this up at
all?  It is my impression that the nature of the majority is obscured by the
noise of the self-righteous True Believers.

>
> It seems to me you're missing the point, which is that all number of
> damaging behaviour is excused in the name of religion when it is
> otherwise not tolerated. Of *course* these things aren't exclusive to
> religion (as you rightly point out, politics is damaging too), but
> religion provides a shield.


Excused by whom?   I think there's a straw man there.  Nobody "excuses" the
Taliban for what it does.  Nobody "excuses" the hatred of Phelps and his
crew.  Even with all the religious freedom in the U.S., there are almost no
significant exemptions to criminal law in the name of religion.  I believe
that some American Indians are permitted to use peyote, but that's not even
clearly U.S. jurisdiction.   Is anybody "excusing" radical Islam because it
claims some sort of divine inspiration?

Sure, there are people who ask us to excuse terrible behavior under the
claim that it is divinely inspired.  Who goes along with such nonsense?
 Blind appeal to authority is propaganda, at best, even if it happens in
church.

Nick


-- 
Nick Arnett
narnett at mccmedia.com
Messages: 408-904-7198