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: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 05:30:02 GMT

rlc1028@zeus.tamu.edu writes:

>In article <C0B5vL.14I@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes...
>|howard@netcom.com (Howard Berkey) writes:
>| 
>|>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.

>	Okay, secular is what is not religious.  Now, define "religious".
>I have already done so in a previous post today, and I know that your
>definition will simply disagree with mine.  Then you can go from there.

I'd say religiously based reasoning is reasoning which is posited upon
a belief in a Supreme Being and which assumes the existence of Platonic
moral principles (i.e. moral principles which are absolute and independent
of reference).  The simple violation of those principles is enough for
an action to be wrong - independent of the amount of putative good or
non-harm they appear to cause.

>|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.

>	Society may not have differentiated.  I now, however, recognise
>that any reasoning that does not require religious reasoning to accompany 
>it is secular.

Alright.  Just remember that anachronism in an historical debate can
do fatal things to discussions.

>|>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 :)

>	But he was correct in his assertion about God.

Don't know about that.  Haven't talked with the Big Guy about it.

>|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.

>	But one might also argue that the religious "many" define the 
>"Church" just as much as the potentates that run the institution.

I will agree that it don't all run one way.  The extent to which it was
two-way before the 20th century is open to very big question marks.
I simply don't know, and I doubt that anyone does.

>	How does ont convert from a genetic inferiority?  It depends
>on whether the inferiority is a judgement based on aesthetics or more
>on a performance which is more difficult to deny.

Indeed.  But our society's favorite whipping boy chose to make that
judgement based on "even a drop" of Jewish blood.  Stalin, of course,
made one a kulak, and kulak's (rich peasants) couldn't simply repent
their riches - they were hunted down and killed no matter where they
went or what they gave away.  Pol Pot showed similar attitudes towards
the educated.  Secular killing tends to be done with a blade whose
keenness does not dull.

>Gadson

Steve Kellmeyer
-- 

Steve Kellmeyer 
kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu
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