It seems to me there is no reason why Jeff's demand for a "satisfactory definition" doesn't apply to lacking any interest in religion. By his logic, how can anyone know whether or not he is interested in religion as long as he lacks a "satisfactory definition" of it? Also, how can anyone claim to be religious who lacks a "satisfactory definition" of it, since a system of belief that he believes to be religion may not fit the "satisfactory definition"?
>[lbo-talk] let's talk about logic (was yoshie's Appeal to Ignorance)
>Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
>Thu Jun 16 10:39:21 PDT 2005
<snip>
>i'm getting really tired of your condescension.
You've said something similar several times, but I don't believe I have said anything that belittles your intelligence though you have mine.
>which is that the scientists in question are rejecting fairly
>specific religious conceptions (whichever conception it happens to
>be), but calling it "religion" that they are rejecting.
The questions asked in the survey of US scientists concern God and immortality, and tenets of actually-existing religions that claim the largest numbers of adherents include both and many others include both or either. To be sure, the survey doesn't ask exhaustive questions concerning all actually-existing religions, so if you were to say, "Well, scientists may not believe in God or immortality, but a large number of them may very well be Buddhists, Unitarians, etc., rather than irreligious," I'd agree with you that it is a good hypothesis, and a testable one, too. But you go further than that and say that we can't reject anything unless we have a "satisfactory definition" of it. But what's a "satisfactory definition" of a "satisfactory definition"? Can you do better than Wittgenstein's family resemblance?
>i say, see, communism is bankrupt. and you say, well, ok, soviet
>communism was bankrupt, but that wasn't *really* communism (or,
>which is functionally to say the same thing, that wasn't the only
>possible form of communism)
I'd regard such an argument in the same way I regard a libertarian claim that actually-existing capitalism isn't really capitalism, which is to say, I don't find it compelling. I'm sure it is tempting for anyone to attribute all or most evils of a system (be it capitalism or communism or religion) to its essence if she disapproves of it while dismissing all or most evils of a system (be it capitalism or communism or religion) as just accidents if she approves of it. That's an understandable response (perhaps even an inescapable one psychologically unless one consciously struggles against it), but it doesn't help us to analyze the system in question or reckon with its history. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>