"If I meet a senator who, for example, votes against legislation concerning global warming because, in his/her opinion the Earth is no more than 6000 years old, where does the critique of practice end and the critique of scripture begin? " ... "Yet, if the bible made no mention of the age of the Earth, OR if the religious were not indoctrinated to consider it a source of factual evidence when making decisions (and largely unaware of their own arbitrary Rorschach behavior), this would not be an issue. "
This seems a bit of an odd example to have chosen as the bible does not state the age of the Earth and trying to infer the age of the Earth from the scripture relies on some pretty dodgy assumptions and reasoning.
I appreciate that there is a particularly ill-educated breed of Christianity in American society and that this breed of Christian may often make factual claims that would have been recognised as nonsense by even Medieval theologians, but doesn't that rather illustrate the diversity involved in the interpretation of scripture?
St Aquinas recognised that Genesis must be understood as allegorical (because the alternative reading resulted in bizarre nonsense) and he lived 800 years ago. Both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church recognise that Genesis must be understood as allegorical too.
If you want to make a point about the effect of scripture on religious belief and practice, it's surely best to choose an example where a rational and informed reading of scripture does lead to an erroneous belief or vile practice (of which legitimate examples can be found).
" Training to suspend rational analysis of a work of fiction, and/or claim it is divinely inspired, is a problem, in itself: It is training to resist rationality in religious practice. "
If you want to argue that a poor grasp of reason is a moral or political failing, then you might be leaning towards a relevant point here... but I don't think those are useful to mix together here.
If you want to advocate that greater command of reason should be taught from a young age, then I'm with you. If you want to speculate that this would cause a decline in religious faith then I'm less sure. If you want me to condemn irrationality as immoral, even when it's not linked to immoral deeds, then I just can't agree. There are plenty enough negative and insulting words that can be used to describe people with poor grasp of reason and I don't see the need to borrow any from those used in moral judgement. [I personally prefer to avoid overly hostile attitudes to the ill-educated, irrational or stupid because I don't think it's remotely helpful, but if you want to 'sucker punch' someone over such things then you can do so without conflating your criticisms with moral judgement]
no subject
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"Yet, if the bible made no mention of the age of the Earth, OR if the religious were not indoctrinated to consider it a source of factual evidence when making decisions (and largely unaware of their own arbitrary Rorschach behavior), this would not be an issue. "
This seems a bit of an odd example to have chosen as the bible does not state the age of the Earth and trying to infer the age of the Earth from the scripture relies on some pretty dodgy assumptions and reasoning.
I appreciate that there is a particularly ill-educated breed of Christianity in American society and that this breed of Christian may often make factual claims that would have been recognised as nonsense by even Medieval theologians, but doesn't that rather illustrate the diversity involved in the interpretation of scripture?
St Aquinas recognised that Genesis must be understood as allegorical (because the alternative reading resulted in bizarre nonsense) and he lived 800 years ago. Both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church recognise that Genesis must be understood as allegorical too.
If you want to make a point about the effect of scripture on religious belief and practice, it's surely best to choose an example where a rational and informed reading of scripture does lead to an erroneous belief or vile practice (of which legitimate examples can be found).
" Training to suspend rational analysis of a work of fiction, and/or claim it is divinely inspired, is a problem, in itself: It is training to resist rationality in religious practice. "
If you want to argue that a poor grasp of reason is a moral or political failing, then you might be leaning towards a relevant point here... but I don't think those are useful to mix together here.
If you want to advocate that greater command of reason should be taught from a young age, then I'm with you. If you want to speculate that this would cause a decline in religious faith then I'm less sure. If you want me to condemn irrationality as immoral, even when it's not linked to immoral deeds, then I just can't agree. There are plenty enough negative and insulting words that can be used to describe people with poor grasp of reason and I don't see the need to borrow any from those used in moral judgement. [I personally prefer to avoid overly hostile attitudes to the ill-educated, irrational or stupid because I don't think it's remotely helpful, but if you want to 'sucker punch' someone over such things then you can do so without conflating your criticisms with moral judgement]