Allen Roy wrote:
> From: Marcio Pie <pie@bu.edu>
> > There's a review of "Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics"
> > (edited by Robert Pennock) in the latest issue of Science:
> >
> > http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/295/5564/2373
> >
> > Here are two interesting quotes:
> >
> > "Johnson continues to conflate these two forms of naturalism even after
> > being called on the issue many times, but he has no choice. If he gives up
> > the conflation, he has lost, because he cannot call naturalism a
> > state-supported, established religion unless it explicitly denies the
> > existence of God."
>
> I don't think that Johnson needs for "naturalism" to explicity deny God in
> order to be an established religion. As I understand it, Atheism explicitly
> denys the existance of God (as contrasted with the agnostic who claims to
> not be able to know if God exists or not) and I don't think anyone would
> consider Atheism an established religion. On the other hand there are well
> established religions which do not have a supernatural God or gods, i.e.
> Buddhism and Shintoism. Thus an established religion does not need to have
> a supernatural God to be considered a religion. Naturalism or even
> Methodological Naturalism can be considered religions in the general sense
> so long as their adherants persue and believe the principles with zeal or
> conscientious devotion.
No. Something can legitimately be called a religion if it is what that
person places his or her ultimate trust in. Cf. Luther, "A god is that to which
we look for all good and in whom we find refuge in every time of need. To have
a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart."
A person can be "zealous" or "conscientiously devoted" to many things
without them being his or her final confidence and trust. Christians are
certainly supposed to be zealous & conscientiously devoted to our spouses but
that doesn't mean we're to worship them. The fact that I'm zealous or
conscientiously devoted to stamp collecting or the Cleveland Browns doesn't mean
they're my religion.
& the very fact that "methodological naturalism" is qualified means that
it can hardly be "ultimate".
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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