But disrespect for what? Presumably, you don't mean disrespect for penis-enhancing herbal remedies and those who make claims about them and those who fall for them. So, it must refer to either disrespect for Jim's argument for agnosticism or statements such as "God exists" and "gods exist" or both. Then, I'd ask: why put an argument for agnosticism and statements such as "God exists" and "gods exist" above a statement that "I have a herbal remedy that makes your penis three inches longer and thicker"? Mind you, they are not the same kinds of statement, but it doesn't seem to me that one kind of statement (a statement that fuses metaphysical [e.g., "God," "gods," "the Holy Spirit," "Satan," "angels," etc.) and empirical [exists] or a simply (!) metaphysical statement if you can conceive of a non-empirical sense of the verb "exist" that is not nonsensical) is inherently worthier and entitled to more respect than the other kind [a statement on an object about which an empirical test is possible if not worth your money).
As for condescension, a highest form of it is to pretend to respect what one doesn't respect (though I do believe that it is justifiable to pretend to believe what one doesn't believe if it is necessary to do so in order to save one's life or others' lives).
I respect good works done by the religious, just as I respect good works done by the irreligious, but that is not to say that I respect _any_ belief held by either sort for no reason (and if I said such a thing, I wouldn't be honest).
>[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance
>Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
>Thu Jun 16 18:29:03 PDT 2005
<snip>
>On Thu, 16 Jun 2005, Chris Doss wrote:
>>FWIW, I think Wittgenstein's arguments in Uber Sicherkeit and
>>elsewhere were intended to protect religion from rationalism, not
>>vice versa. Wittgenstein was an intensely religious person (OK, I
>>don't know how to define "religious" here, but, damn, who would
>>ever argue that W was an atheist or rationalist?) He believed that
>>"God" was ineffable, but supremely important, a la Meister Eckhardt
>>and Martin Heidegger.
>
>I concur with this reading of W. We should shut up about this
>metaphysical stuff because it's too important to blather about, not
>(as the logical positivists misconstrued) because it's frivolous.
Well, it is certainly true that Wittgenstein left logical positivism behind, and one can make a case that Wittgenstein held a religious belief, especially based on the later Wittgenstein's own statements about religion as a language game. The early Wittgenstein's statement that '[w]hat we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence" (_Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_) is perhaps sensible advice even if it ends up making religion and philosophy impractical. That doesn't mean, though, that what we cannot speak about and must pass over in silence is necessarily important, much less more important than what we can speak about (or "too important to blather about"), notwithstanding Wittgenstein's (as well as many other modernist and post-modernist artists' and philosophers') attraction to the ineffable. Why put the unspeakable on the pedestal before which the speakable is to prostrate, especially considering that one has no way of knowing the unspeakable in question is good or evil or beyond both or whatever (surely "[w]hat we cannot speak about" and "must pass over in silence" applies as well to "Satan" as to "God"). The later Wittgenstein, thinking of religion as a language game, said: "It strikes me that a religious belief could only be something like a passionate commitment to a system of reference" (_Culture and Value_). Surely, a religious belief often assumes such a form, but should "a passionate commitment to a system of reference" command reverential silence merely by virtue of the fact that it is what it is? Anti-semitism, fascism, nationalism, racism, sexism, etc. may all be thought of as "a passionate commitment to a system of reference" involving "metaphysical stuff," but that doesn't make any of them beyond criticism, much less inherently deserving reverence. -- Yoshie
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