From: kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l)
Subject: Re: Lifestyle Choices and Secular Reasoning 
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 02:35:30 GMT

howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey) writes:

>In article <C0Ax5F.9K6@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:
>>howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey) writes:
>>
>>>In article <C07oBz.F74@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:
>>>>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
>>>>
>>>>>In article <1992Dec30.162502.6756@asl.dl.nec.com> dillhoff@aslws01.asl.dl.nec.com (Doug Dillhoff) writes:
>>>>>> In article <1992Dec29.233922.2539@netcom.com> harp@netcom.com (Gregory O. Harp) writes:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>All people are asking is that unless you can come up with some
>>>>>*secular* reason for why their lifestyle choice is bad, you grant
>>>>>them the same rights they are willing to grant you: the right to
>>>>>live their life without persecution.
>>>>
>>>>Why is *secular* reasoning superior to religious reasoning? 
>>>>
>>
>>>Because not everyone gives a damn about religion.  The majority of the
>>>world population isn't Christian.  (Although Catholicism is the
>>>largest single religion).  Besides, 'religious reasoning' sounds like
>>>an oxymoron.  
>>
>>Not everyone gives a damn about secularism either, but it appears to

>Define secularism.  If you mean Secular Humanism, I'd agree.  If you
>mean 'all secular activities' as it appears, I'd like to see someone
>take a fourth derivative or find the roots of equations by religious
>means. 

Point taken.  Secular reasoning, in the context I discuss it, refers
to reasoning which is about social issues and which specifically ignores
any religious references.

>>be forced on the great majority of the population whether they will it
>>or no.  Furthermore, anyone who has spent any amount of time studying
>>the history of science would find your last statement to be absolutely
>>absurd.  The entire concept of a university was founded around advancing
>>theological study.  Indeed, the term "professor" began as a reference to
>>one who was a "professor of the faith" and who studied it regularly.
>>

>It was a bad quip, but not absurd.  Maybe I should've said 'modern
>religious reasoning', for as you point out, a lot of learning was
>preserved under the auspices of the church.

>>Historians agree that western science was defined and structured by
>>Christian concepts, beliefs, and attitudes.  

>Actually, the foundation of modern mathematics came from the Greeks
>and the Arabs.  

True.  The Arabs preserved nearly everything we know about Greek
learning in the somewhat mis-named "Dark Ages". 

>>						Without Christianity, western
>>science, as such, would simply not exist.  

>A lot would have been lost during the Dark Ages, I agree.  However,
>almost all modern advances have been due to secular thought.  By
>modern I mean after 1650 or so, after the reformation.  That basically
>was the start of the decline of the church's influence.

Ummmm, yes and no.  Certainly the church's influence declined after the
Reformation, but even as late as the mid-1800's, a natural philosopher
was seen as doing "hands-on" theological work, i.e. he was discovering 
the nature of God's universe.  Darwin very nearly became a preacher - he
went on the Beagle voyage with the intent of joining the seminary on
his return.  Gregor Mendel was a Benedictine monk, and the monastery 
where he worked was *the* center of scientific study in Central Europe.

It was only after the publication of Darwin's work, combined with Marx's
"Das Kapital" that society began differentiating scientific knowledge
from religious knowledge.  Before the 1850, there was arguably no 
difference between the two in terms of cultural perceptions.

>>						It is only in the last
>>100 years that science has developed this peculiar aversion to
>religion.

>Bzzt.  Go to a library and look up the 'Age of Reason'.  Hint: 16th
>and 17th century.  Well before 1776.

Again, the rise of the 'Age of Reason' was and wasn't effective in 
differentiating scientific knowledge from religious knowledge.  
Certainly some individuals made this distinction (e.g. Voltaire, Rousseau)
but it also was certainly not a distinction that was necessarily 
general.  It was arguably only after the French revolution, and the 
destruction of the French Roman Catholic church which that revolution
attempted, that secularism as such could be said to exist.  Even then,
this "secularism" was at least Deist in nature.  The creation of true
atheism is a *very* late construct.

>>Certainly, one can point to instances in which religious authority 
>>fought certain concepts and ideas that later turned out to be correct.
>>However, they performed no better or worse than did (or does) the established
>>scientific community today in terms of accepting radically new, correct,
>>ideas.  

>Galileo would have loved to hear that.
>The scientific community has embraced more change in the last
>300 years (since it became largely secularized) than in the previous
>1700.  Please justify your comment.

Depends on how you define change.  Thomas Kuhn would argue that
while we have seen a great many more discoveries made in the last 100
years than in the previous 2000, these discoveries were only "puzzle-piece
fitting" i.e. there was no massive shift in the grand conception of 
how the universe works.  Kuhn and others  would argue that there have
been only two major perceptual shifts in the physical sciences:
the transition from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican view of the solar system
and the transition from Newtonian to quantum dynamics physics.

Considering the persecutions scientists have visited upon one another
(e.g. Newton against damn near anyone he disagreed with) and the 
number of times scientists' biographies end with "he died penniless
and in disrepute among his peers" (Cantor, I believe, committed suicide
due to the pressures of his peers' ridicule and Lister died in a
 poorhouse) you can hardly assert that the Church was unusual in its
treatment of those with dissonent views of the universe's structure.

>>	To say that religous reasoning is an oxymoron, or that secular
>>reasoning is somehow superior, is to profess an ignorance so profound that
>>it boggles the mind.
>>

>I disagree about modern religious reasoning.  See my above comment.

I don't know which religions you are talking about.  In terms of the
Roman Catholic church, I think you'll find them remarkably accomodating
to both the spirit and the facts of scientific study.  They simply 
believe that both the inquiry and the facts derived should be understood
within the context of a God-centered universe.  According to the alleged
spirit of scientific inquiry, no scientist should have any quarrel with
such contextualizations, since scientists are ostensibly only concerned
with the mining the facts from the storehouse of the universe, and are
unconcerned with wider implications.

>>>Andrew Jackson had a lot to say about avoiding religious arguments
>>>pertaining to legislation.
>>
>>What makes Andy an authority?
>>

>Jeez, I know you guys don't like democrats, but I would think that the
>President whose motto was 'Less Govt. is Good Govt.' or something
>similar should at least be credible to you. :-)

I've always been a little equivocal on Andy.  I still haven't decided
if I like his presidency or not.

>>>> [loads of opinionated attacks on secular reasoning deleted]
>>
>>>Look, whatever your opinion of secular reasoning, religiously
>>>justified 'reasoning' has a pretty poor history as well.  The Catholic
>>>church is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths alone.  Look
>>>at Hezbollah for a good example of religious 'reasoning'.
>>
>>>-Howard
>>
>>
>>Certainly, many deaths have been done in the name of religion.  I will 
>>merely point out that more people have died in "secular" wars than in
>>any combination of religious wars you care to name.  

>Thanks for conceding my point.  I wasn't trying to start a death toll
>contest;  I was pointing out that religions didn't have that clean of
>a slate either.  Not by a long shot.  And alost all wars in modern
>history have had religious justifications on both sides. Like Napoleon
>said, 'God is always on the side with the biggest guns'.

Napolean was hardly a churchman :)  I tend to think that people will kill
each other no matter what, and they'll use whatever is the most 
convenient acceptable cultural reason to do so.  In an age in which
atheism was literally unthinkable, all action was justified through
religion.  Now that atheism is thinkable, action tends to be justified
via economics, or biology or some other damn fool thing.  Whatever the
genocidal maniac thinks will sell to the masses.

>>I would furthermore argue that this violence is much harder to justify
>>and continue using Christianity as the foundation than it is using
>>secular reasoning.  

>Really?  Define Secular Reasoning.  If you mean "all non-religious
>philosophy", then you are totally wrong.  Read Peter Singer or other
>modern utilitarian philosophers if you don't believe me.

>Note that they don't exclude religion, but rather provide an ethical
>framework where a religious crutch isn't necessary.  

I'm not a huge fan of utilitarianism.  Seems like another crutch to me.

>>			Genocide is much simpler to reason away to your 
>>fellow man than it is to the unwinking eye of God, as Hitler, Stalin,
>>Hussein, and Pol Pot have already shown.

>Actually, Hussein is alive and well.  Probably happy as a pig in shit.
>It's only those he religiously duped into following him who have
>suffered.  He is far from a Secular leader in any sense of the word.

That's very definitional. Certainly he paints himself as a follower of
Mohammed - hard to get troops in that part of the world otherwise - but
does he honest-to-Allah believe?  I would bet no money on that.
From the people's point of view, he may not be secular - from his.... 
that's another story.

>Hitler convinced millions that they were the chosen master race, a
>very similar idea can be found in many religions. (The "Saved", etc.)

Or Darwin.  The very idea of a biologically superior race is purely 
secular.  One of the problems with secularism is that it damns so 
thoroughly.  One can convert and become saved, but how does one dispose
of a genetic inferiority?  You might argue that the savages Columbus
found were thought to be inferior by many.  I would point out that the
Church did not agree.  Furthermore, the argument was whether they were
animals or men whereas Hitler et.al. admitted the humanity, but claimed
it was inferior.

>What were you trying to say in that sentence?  Some how God chose to
>Smite those leaders down?  How come He missed Hussein, then?

Not at all.  I was pointing out that genocidal maniacs today don't 
justify their slaughters to themselves by arguing that they are doing
God's work.  I seriously doubt that Hussein believes he is doing 
Allah's work by wiping out the Kurds or invading Kuwait.  Certainly
Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot, and our Chinese friends don't (didn't) 
justify their actions that way.  IN these terms, secularism has provided
not only the ideology (utilitarianism and self-interest) but the
techniques (de-contextualized scientific mass-slaughter methods) 
which permit the horrors we see today.

>-Howard

>-- 
>::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>Howard Berkey                       			   howard@netcom.com
>Did you hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper?
>He sold his soul to Santa.				-Herb Caen
>... .. ...   ... .. ...   ... .. ...    ... .. ...   ... .. ...   ... .. ...

Steve Kellmeyer
-- 

Steve Kellmeyer 
kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu