Re: [asa] Coulter, and science -- and guessing motives.

Could you provide us with where Mark makes such a claim?

He defines bad religion since good religion is a much more difficult claim.

<quote>What is “bad religion”? Everyone has different ideas about what
is good in a religion, so it might seem that defining bad religion would
be impossibly contentious. But there is one simple criterion which gets
to the heart of most religion-related problems and which must be
embraced by anyone who accepts the Golden Rule: A person is practicing
bad religion if he or she, uninvited, attempts to impose any of their
religious beliefs on another. A bad religion is any religion which
condones such behavior. Other bad practices and beliefs can appear in
religion, but by sticking to that one criterion, we can keep this simple
and hopefully less controversial.</quote>

I am not sure if your claims do justice to Mark's arguments although I
agree that they can be taken to their extremes. Bad and good religion
are relative measures, and attempts to impose the religious views on
abortion on another uninvitedly makes certainly for bad religion.
Catholic hospitals have all the right to restrict their use of abortion,
and I do not believe that this is what Mark Isaak has in mind, after all
no attempts are made to impose religious beliefs on another here. What
may qualify is the attempts by churches to restrict abortion rights to
others merely because of the claim that it goes against their religious
faith.

I also do not think that Mark believes that only bad religion imposes
moral standards, which seems to confusion religious beliefs with morality.

<quote>Bad religion has also claimed, falsely, the moral high ground. We
need to take that away from them. We need to ask why churches today
should act as though the Taliban is a role model. Most people believe
that there is an intrinsic link between religion and morality, and that
belief is going to be hard to dispel. But it hardly matters, because
what bad religion pushes is more religiosity than religion. People can
tell the difference between doing what is right and pretending to be
right.</quote>

I found much in Mark's posting with which I can agree, and I believe it
is helpful to start understanding what makes religion a bad religion
from a non-religious perspective.

D. F. Siemens, Jr. wrote:

>Mark Isaac writes many things which are true, but his description of
>"good religion" is out of the extreme liberal camp, for he implies that
>only "bad religion" imposes moral standards. I don't think he wants those
>who practice polygamy and child marriage to find justification, but such
>practices can be justified by pushing his approach. I conclude that, on
>his view, Catholic hospitals represent "bad religion" because they do not
>perform abortions on demand and their church seeks to prevent abortion.
>The situation is much more complex than his argument allows.
>Dave
>
>

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Received on Mon Jul 10 00:23:28 2006