Comments on: Faith

By: Homer Paxton

Homer Paxton — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 03:02:59 +0000

these ‘fundamentalists’ usually study their books with rare studiousness and determination.
The men that were involved in 11/9 for example were highly learned in terms of the Koran and Hadiths and thus convinced their act was a holy one leading to Paradise.

Thanks Imam Fyodor

By: morganzola

morganzola — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 22:50:08 +0000

Homer: “A problem these days is to accuse religious types of fundamentalism is that these very people actually understand their religion better than the accusers”

That’s a bit like saying that fish understand the structure and function of water better than scientists.

By: Fyodor

Fyodor — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 04:10:01 +0000

Otlichno, DD. Sovyershenno otlichno.

“I don’t see anything particularly religious about fundamentalism, Fyodor. It seems to be a nasty mix of rigid dogma and social control. ”

You’re too funny, Mark. One of these days your sarcasm’s going to get you in trouble with Crusader Lads.

Homerkles, you’re getting closer: “wahhabist” is better. Now learn “salafi”.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 03:35:06 +0000

That’s just playing games with the meaning of words, as in ‘the USSR is the only true democracy’.

Conversely, dd, that implies that democracy is a concept susceptible of definition and a category whose membership one could circumscribe.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 02:32:48 +0000

Yeah, and I’m on a mission from Bog.

Mark, I think it would come as a surprise to the mullahs, holy rollers and Vatican bureaucrats to be told they were not religious. And don’t tell me that’s not “true” religion. That’s just playing games with the meaning of words, as in ‘the USSR is the only true democracy’.

By: Homer Paxton

Homer Paxton — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 02:26:45 +0000

It depends on what you mean by fundamentalism as Bill Clinton would say.

If Fyodor means fundamentalism in its original meaning then there is nothing wrong with the term as after all it is only referring to the fundamentals of the bible.

A problem these days is to accuse religious types of fundamentalism is that these very people actually understand their religion better than the accusers. A good example is wahabbists.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:46:49 +0000

Fyodor,

I warn you, Mark and I have God on our side.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 01:29:16 +0000

I don’t see anything particularly religious about fundamentalism, Fyodor. It seems to be a nasty mix of rigid dogma and social control.

By: Fyodor

Fyodor — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:24:06 +0000

That’s funny, Mark. I always thought it was religious beliefs that lead to fundamentalism and to insanity like ID. Happy to be proved wrong if you have the empirical evidence. Just satirisin’…

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 12:45:08 +0000

I disagree, dd. The point I’m trying to make is that claiming religious beliefs are verifiable propositions devalues them religiously, as well as sets up absurd debates about how you would verify a statement such as “God created the Universe”. It’s what leads to fundamentalism and to insanity like ID.

Anyway, the point isn’t original to me. I think Wittgenstein probably put it better!

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 11:12:51 +0000

Well then DD, what do you think Lowes Dickinson was talking about when he tried to sketch out that space between what he called faith and simply believing what you want to believe?

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 10:47:01 +0000

Oh, and Mark, to say “religious truth is certainly different from empirical knowledge” is the oldest dodge in the book from people wo don’t want this “truth” critically examined. It’s of a piece with “true liberty is following the church’s (or the mullah’s, or the guru’s) teaching” or “fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom” – all excuses for copping out of the hard questions, and all put forward by authority figures who have a vested interest in scaring or subduing you.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 10:40:37 +0000

Jeez, Gruen, don’t go all god-bothering on us now. Faith is indeed the substance of things hoped for – but an honest person tries to shape their hopes to their understanding, not their understanding to their hopes.

By: Shaun Cronin

Shaun Cronin — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 05:35:27 +0000

I’ve speculated that some the hard core manifestation of atheism ala Dawkins is a response to the extremes of religious fundamentalism. I’m a mild atheist so to speak. But that comes from my ideal that religious belief (or lack thereof) is a personal matter.

PZ Myers has a strong but well argued piece on atheism, science and Dawkins that is worth reading as well as the discussion
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/in_praise_of_godless_science/

But I am still sympathetic to Gould’s concept of NOMA. I don’t think it is a broken as critics say it is. What I find amusing is that NOMA was criticised by both the religious and irreligious.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

By: Homer Paxton

Homer Paxton — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 01:49:16 +0000

Can’t speak for any other but religious truth and empirical knowledge are two different things in Christianity.

It is faith that is all important. Given that no-one has and will come back from the dead to testify about either Heaven or Hell!

mind you both Jesus and some apostles brought people back from the dead yet people were not impressed.

no time for a theology lesson but those two sentences are not contradictory.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 01:15:36 +0000

Interesting. I certainly agree that religious truth is not the same thing as empirical knowledge. The equation of the two is peculiar to the West, and limited in time to the post Reformation period – where it became important to assert that religious dogma could be contained in propositional statements. However, as a lot of interesting stuff in the philosophy of religion demonstrates, this is a dead end insofar as such statements do not have the same sort of reference point as empirical statements about the world, and I’d argue, also give you an overly rationalistic and thus deracinated religion.

Thanks, Nicholas.

By: Mark Bahnisch

Mark Bahnisch — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 13:45:28 +0000

Thanks, Nicholas, and nice post. I’ll have a read of the pdf and respond soon! (When I will have achieved my aim of sleeping through the horrendous 24+ minimum Brisbane summer nights for the first time in four days or so by religiously downing a good South Australian sauvignon blanc!)…