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

>
> In the mean time Pandasthumb has an interesting posting on "The larger
> issue of bad religion" which may be of interest to avid asa readers.
> http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/07/the_larger_issu.html

This essay is a rather typical example of liberal hypocritical attacks on
conservative-associated views. Given the problem of politizing, I should
immediately point out that not all liberals make such attacks nor are either
side of the immediate issue inherently associated with liberal or
conservative views.

The relevance for science-theology issues is that the widespread presence of
stuff like this mixed in with calls for good science greatly facilitates the
efforts of antievolutionists to label evolution, etc. as part of a liberal
political agenda.

There are two critical problems with this essay on "bad religion." First,
it is an effort to impose the views of the author while condeming others for
trying to impose their views. (Similar to this is, e.g., claiming that
requiring the teaching of antievolutionism is a violation of free speech for
those who don't want to teach it, while asserting that all ought to teach
evolution.) Antievolutionism typically dismisses evolution as a religious
view, so the author's support for teaching evolution would definitely be
seen as trying to impose his religious view by most antievolutionists.
Evolution ought to be defined as a scientific theory, without specific
religious or philosophical baggage [not that science operates in a
philosophical vacuum but that specific laws, data, etc. have little
metaphysical relevance], so this particular objection may be invalid.
However, the author makes numerous claims about what one ought to do, based
on some sort of metaphysical position which he thinks everyone ought to
take.

Secondly, his definition of religion being "imposed" is extremely broad and
flexible. Again, anything they do is imposition, anything I do is the way
things ought to be.

There's always the problem of deciding when one person's freedoms are
imposing on another's. This problem is never solved when one or both sides
fail to acknowledge that this is occuring.

Certainly there are forms of imposing religion that are wrong, e.g.
present-day governmental and/or mob violence against would-be converts in
Islamic or Hindu settings or the historical harassment of Jews in Christian
areas. People need to be free to decide for themselves, because ultimately
individual commitment rather than being part of a group is what counts.
However, making an informed decision requires that someone tell them the
information. How this plays out in societal moral issues is more
problematic. From a religious perspective, disregarding moral directives
has negative consequences. To what extent do we need to stop people from
doing something versus allowing them to experience the consequences and
recognize that way that it was not a good idea? It will certainly vary a
good deal with the situation, e.g. most of the directives aimed at a toddler
have a direct connection to his safety and/or that of others or other
things, so intervention is generally the way to go. More generally, some
things have more subtle or long-term effects and require at least plenty of
warning, whereas other things have more obvious yet not irreprable
consequences and are more likely to provide a lesson in time to prevent
repetition.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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