[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB:

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 2:29 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> dmb says:
>
> See, I think think if you cut things along social vs intellectual lines, then you don't have to condemn religion as such. Instead you can frame it instead as a matter of traditional social values and their relation to intellectual truths. Even better, you can frame religion as a matter of direct experience and the concepts that refer to that immediacy. That is to say, even though religion is primarily and originally social, it is not confined to that level any more than language or political authority is confined to that level. That way you don't construe the debate in terms of religious reason-giving versus literary reason-giving but rather the over all level and quality of reason-giving. Then categories like "religious" or "literary" or "historical" are just matters of style and perspective and they become irrelevant to the question of whether or not the reason-giving is reasonable and good or not....

Steve:
I think you've given a very good MOQ analysis of the situation in this
last post. A distinction between intellectual and social values can be
used to make the case we both want to make. The problem is that it has
the same problem that the religious have in trying to make a political
case in religious terms. Just as most Americans aren't native speakers
of [insert any particular specific brand of religion you want], most
of us don't speak MOQese. We can't assume such premises in an argument
and hope to convince and more than the religious can assume their
premises anymore in an ever more religiously pluralistic society. We
would have to convert everyone to Pirsigism before making such an
argument, so I'd like to find another way of stating the problem.
Perhaps theocracy isn't the right term around which to build a
coalition between liberal believers and atheists, but I'll give it
some more thought.

Best,
Steve