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From: bjanz@watarts.UUCP (Bruce Janz)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: a cross-posting request
Message-ID: <8523@watarts.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Aug-85 22:11:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: watarts.8523
Posted: Sun Aug 11 22:11:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 06:24:22 EDT
References: <258@frog.UUCP>
Reply-To: bjanz@watarts.UUCP (Bruce Janz)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 94

In article <258@frog.UUCP> frog!tdh writes:

>My argument, put to cruder form, and with parenthetical
>explanation, said:
>
>        1)  Religion is partly idiocy.
>        2)  Faith (an idiotic part) is the essence of
>            religion.  (Faith is the practice of claiming
>            truth without evidence.  I am not concerned
>            with other meanings of the word, like "trust".)

         I would be interested in knowing just what counts as evidence.
If you mean empirical evidence, then perhaps you're right (I won't even
attempt to discuss miracles -- that, apparently, belongs in net.religion).
However, I'm afraid that philosophy cannot claim empirical evidence as a
basis, either. In fact, much of the time philosophy is trying to define
just what counts as evidence for other fields (including religion).
         If the evidence that you require is a priori (as it seems it must
be), then it is a little premature to dismiss religion without considering
the evidence it claims as a basis for truth. No, this is not a disguised
attempt at evangelism -- you can believe what you want about anything you
want. It just seems to be somewhat severe to dismiss some of the great
past and present philosophers just because they may have had, in the backs
of their minds, the purpose of advancing religion.  Most of the philosophers
of today are nothing more than a reaction to or an furthering of these
religious people.

>        3)  Arguments from faith are destructive of
>            net.philosophy .

         If this can be interpreted to say that arguments without evidence
of any sort are not good arguments, then I can agree. To say that they are
destructive is severe -- even bad arguments have the use of being something
to react to. However, this presupposes that all arguments from faith are
bad ones. Again, the question of the nature of evidence is relevent. By
your restriction, much of existentialist philosophy would have no place
in this group, for it is only verifiable on a personal level. Yet, I 
would hardly think that we would want to dismiss it as not being good
philosophy. It is just a different way of doing philosophy.

>        4)  Therefore it is important to exclude religious
>            arguments from net.philosophy .
>        5)  Arguments not from faith are not religious.
>        6)  Therefore there is no religious interest in
>            net.philosophy (although some religious people
>            might have an interest).
>        7)  Therefore there is no excuse for cross-posting
>            between net.philosophy and net.religion .
>        8)  Religion used to dominate philosophy.  That
>            domination was disastrous.
>        9)  Religion stopped dominating philosophy centuries
>            ago.

         Could you tell me at what point this domination stopped?
Was it with Hume? But Kant still thought that he was giving a rational
basis for religion. The nineteenth century has German idealists who
thought they were contributing to religion. The existentialist camp
(whatever that is) has people like Nietschze and Sartre, true, but
it also has Kierkegaard, Marcel and Buber. Maybe this is only influence,
instead of domination. Is influence from religious people pursuing 
religious goals inadmissable as well? It seems a bit presumptuous to
say that religion has never had a positive effect on philosophy, or
that people pursuing religious goals have never made any contributions
to philosophy worth remembering.

>        10) It is still possible for philosophy to be
>            crushed by the religious boot, if people don't
>            take preventive care.

>Rosen raises an interesting point:  Should philosophy be
>used to evangelize (sorry!) the religious?  Good luck.

         So, I see you've met the Objectivists, too. :-)

>"Philosophy of religion" is not an oxymoron.  It does not
>meet the ancient criterion of smartness.

         I'm not sure what you mean by the "ancient criterion of smartness"
Please enlighten. . . I'm glad you don't dismiss phil. of religion along
with religious philosophy. That would really be distressing.

>
>				David Hudson

                                b.janz


-- 

Reality is for those who have no imagination. . .

                                  b janz

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