[lbo-talk] Education and Secularization

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sat Jun 18 08:12:30 PDT 2005



>[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance
>Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
>Fri Jun 17 09:58:37 PDT 2005
<snip>
>second, the only reason i can think of that yoshie allows herself to
>slide over into talking about "religion" instead of just specific
>beliefs (which is what the survey actually asks) is that she wants
>to defend the stronger claim (real scientists won't be "religious",
>"in reality" even if it's "logically possible") rather than the
>weaker ("scientists don't believe in 'God' -- and here this
>explicitly means a theistic god -- or immortality). if she wanted to
>defuse this at the get-go, all she had to do was say that she was
>only claiming most scientists don't subscribe to belief in a
>theistic god. she didn't do that. why not?

The questions asked in the survey of US scientists concern God and immortality. The tenets of actually-existing religions that claim the largest numbers of adherents (among which is the religion that claims a largest proportion -- 76.5% -- of all adherents to religions in the United States, according to "The American Religious Identification Survey 2001" at <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>) include both; and many others include both or either. Only a very few systems of belief that make a claim to being religion and have adherents in the United States -- such as Unitarianism -- do not demand belief in God and/or immortality. That being the case, which is more likely: that most scientists are irreligious or that most scientists believe in religions that do not include beliefs in God or immortality? I'd say that the former is far more likely, though if anyone presents a credible survey that shows that scientists who reject God or immortality adhere to other religions that do not demand belief in either, I'd change my view.

Not just pursuit of science at the highest level but also graduate education in any discipline is likely to diminish adherence to religions. While the Right exaggerates the extent of liberal and secular views held by college professors and graduate students, it is true that college professors (especially those who teach at research institutions) and graduate students are far more liberal and secular than Americans in general. Just as the habit of seeking scientific explanations for natural phenomena tends to secularize, so does putting texts, objects, and rituals that are regarded as sacred by the religious on the same footing as other texts, objects, and rituals and analyzing them from a point of view that investigates their social, historical, literary, and other meanings and functions. -- 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/>



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