--- On Thu, 11/20/08, Philp Pilkington <pilkingtonphil at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> People often confuse religion with fanaticism and absolute
> conviction. For
> example I don't reckon that Marx was in any way
> religious. If you read his
> writings they're all over the place and often
> self-contradictory, they seem
> to suffer (?) from a perpetual lack of conviction. I think
> that's probably
> why he never wrote the "bible" of dialectical
> materialism... that would have
> to wait for some pious disciple like Althusser. Certainly
> though Marx's
> writings incorporated many religious elements (which is
> fairly
> inevitable...) and these were quickly picked up on by many.
>
> Unfortunately, people can just as easily start worshipping
> logic and
> supposed rationality - to the point that it becomes highly
> irrational, to
> the point that it becomes a sort of
> "rationalisation", in the psychological
> sense of the term, for peoples actions (just look at the
> "Objectivists"). I
> think its less the belief system one adheres to and more
> the manner in which
> one adheres to it.
>
> Johann Georg Hamann, the anti-Kantian par excellence, once
> said: "I look
> upon logical proofs as a well-bred girl looks upon a love
> letter". Of course
> he was saying this from the standpoint of Christianity, but
> I always like to
> think that it was less in the name of religion that he said
> this and more in
> the name of countering dogmatism...
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