[MD] Forget about Empiricism, no thanks.

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi David M.

On 22 Oct. you  wrote:
(Re. if SOM is one of intellect's helpers or intellect itself)
 
> DM: My point, is that a full undertstanding has to consider all the
> chickens and eggs involved and that causality flows up and down the
> levels. A man can redirect water to the dam or if he gets his actions
> wrong, fall in and drown.

I didn't get your point (see below) 

> DM: Religion is made up of many, often conflicting, aims, seeing
> one as the most significant is a simplification.

Yes, things are complicated but history has told us that 
complexity is the lack of the right explanation. Ref. the 
Ptolemaian cosmology's baffling complexity and Copernicus who 
made it wonderful simple. The Ptolemaians scholars loved to 
point to the complexity as proof of how great God was to have 
created such an intriguing system. SOM creates a similar mess, 
but instead of embracing MOQ's solution you want to keep the 
"many conflicting aims..."      

Bo:
> > You can hope for "much change in the Islamic world" but it will
> > never come about. A democratic, secular, muslim country is an
> > oxymoron.
 
> DM: I propose Turkey as a clear example.

In the intellect-steeped Europe a strong military influence is 
considered a threat to democracy, but when one crosses the 
Bosporus things turn upside down, the Military are the bulwark 
against islam's notorious anti-democratic tendency. I am deeply 
impressed by Kemal Ataturk's effort to modernize Turkey, but 
one sees Islam's notorious pressure back to a religion-run 
society.   

Christendom was just like that in its "semitic" period when kings 
and Emperors of Europe had to have the Pope's blessing, but 
after the Renaissance its true "Jesuitic" content came to the fore: 
His rebellion (that the Mosaic Law was to serve the humans, not 
humans serving the law, or how it sounds in English) is an about 
turn. Think of it. The Law - be it Jewish Tora or Muslim Koran - is 
supposed to be God's written order. If one claims that this is "for 
humans to decide" it undermines the old social order (of humans' 
only purpose is to serve God) and Jesus did just that. He had 
picked up the intellectual signals from Greece - by way of the 
Romans. 

Another watershed is Jesus' words about "giving unto Cesar ..etc" 
this allowed the secular/religion split, a Christian could be a good 
civil citizen while keeping his faith. The lack of this split is the 
very thing that haunts the Muslim world, they can't be secular 
citizens, to be so is to the be an infidel. Compare with the 
Orthodox Jews who hate the secular state Israel just as much as 
the Palestinians, go to conferences in Iran(!!) to reject the 
Holocaust and try to raise as much hell for Israel as possible.              

Bo