[MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt,

You've mentioned Stanley Fish before so I thought you'd be interested
in this article of his on secularism.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/are-there-secular-reasons/

I think he is conceiving of secularism as something like logic which
can't function without premises to start with rather than secularism
as limiting our justifications for laws to concerns that are secular,
i.e. of this world. We shouldn't consider the various  other-wordly
visions. If you can't make a case for a law without needing us to
suppose that some supernatural power wants us to act in certain ways
or he will get mad, then you don't get to make that law.

Best,
Steve

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 7:04 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> Stout's what I would call a "heavy"; definitely a thinker to take
> seriously.  He reads some of the biggest intellectuals surrounding
> religion and political philosophy in the last 50 years very, very closely
> and takes discussion and explication of the them very seriously.  I've
> always profited from reading him.  When you see someone like Rorty
> and Stout tangle, though, it makes you wonder whether you're
> missing something if you disagree with the outcome of the
> entanglement.
>
> It was a good discussion.  It forced me to think through some of
> these issues a lot more, and particularly about just what is being
> said.  I'm not sure I've identified precisely enough yet what "public
> political discourse" means, and I think a lot of Stout's complaints
> about Rorty revolve around not having specified and distinguished
> enough of the different layers of discourse that happens between
> different communities in our culture, from one-on-one between
> friends, or around the watercooler, to at a church Sunday School
> Class or in a University seminar, or on TV between pundits or
> between Congresspersons on the Floor taped on C-SPAN.  It's a
> tangled web that I think requires more nuanced unweaving (more
> nuanced than Rorty ever gave it in writing).
>
> Matt
>
>> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:56:00 -0400
>> From: peterson.steve at gmail.com
>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>> Subject: Re: [MD] Theocracy, Secularism, and Democracy
>>
>> Hi Matt,
>>
>> I've defended Stout as well as I can, but I find your arguments pretty
>> convincing. I also reread Religion as a Conversation Stopper and have
>> a hard time finding much wrong with his arguments. I'll work on
>> rethinking the issue and get back to you.
>>
>> Best,
>> Steve
>
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