This is an interesting show where Andrew Sullivan argues strongly that the left should attack Sarah Palin but then he turns on Bill Maher when he (Maher) criticizes silly religious superstition (guardian angels). It's a good insight into the thinking of people like Sullivan. It's exactly what's wrong with our society— religion has special privileges that protect it from the kind of critical thinking that we apply everywhere else and otherwise intelligent people like Sullivan don't see the inconsistency.
[Hat Tip: Friendly Atheist]
Being comfortable and accepting of contradictions and inconsistencies--where parsing the "rational side" and the "religious side of life is OK--
ReplyDelete...is just what it means to be religious.
Sullivan is part of the problem; and his thinking manifests this idea that living in contradictions and inconstistencies (the hallmarks of irrationality) are OK.
Stephen Gould, Ken Miller, Robert Pennock, Judge Jones, and other purveyors of the "argumentum ad temperantiam" fallacy (aka the "Golden Mean Fallacy" or "Middle Ground Fallacy"--Google it) show clearly, for instance, that when a contradiction between evolution and religion arises, it is always the latter that is subsumed or absorbed into one's religious beliefs, rather than the other way around.
Facts don't change; religions can, and must in order to accommodate them.
Sullivan is exactly what Sam Harris is talking about when he criticizes "religious moderates." It is the same population of people who are easily swayed by the "teach the controversy" argument. and other false appeals to "democratic" or "equitable ideals" and sympathies of "fairness."
/rant
1) I think there were too many people in that discussion. I don't like when people talk over each other, and the pushiest person gets the most voice time.
ReplyDelete2) In some areas of politics, there may legitimate differing positions, because political positions incorporate values as well as facts. However, this is not to say that all political positions are compatible with known reality. Positions which do not are abhorent for much the same reasons as religious superstitions.
3) Bill Maher has his own weaknesses as far as critical thinking goes.