[ExI] Tolerance

[JOSHUA JOB]

> Hitchens sets out to condemn religion and religiosity with an a  
> posteriori approach - i.e. "look at what religion has done, and  
> judge them based on that." Very analytical. Dawkins is the  
> quintessential spin doctor, outlining arguments that are at times  
> specious and are certainly a priori as to why religion is bad, then  
> using emotional rhetoric to distract the mind.....

> Brent Neal, Ph.D.
What is wrong with an a priori argument? If you take an essential,  
basic, necessary feature of something and show that it must logically  
lead to terrible (or at least bad) consequences, how is that not  
valid? I mean, historical arguments can be used to back it up. But  
honestly an argument that shows how bad religion is, based on  
historical consequences alone, implicitly admits that it might not be  
bad or might even be good if only the did it differently! It's the  
same argument that socialists and communists use to distance  
themselves from the USSR, China, and N. Korea. "It's good, we promise,  
they just didn't do it right/were evil people/weren't smart  
enough/........."

The point, in my view, of an argument against religion (or socialism  
for that matter) is not to show that it has been bad in the past, but  
to show that it cannot, by its nature, be good. That it must,  
necessarily, lead to consequences that are worse than atheism (in the  
case of religion), ceteris paribus. This seems the much stronger  
argument. It also explains the passion of Dawkins as well-- he has  
come to the conclusion that faith is by its nature bad. This makes for  
a more passionate condemnation than a mere analysis of the historical  
consequences can create.

I haven't read anything from Hitchens, or Misters Ingersoll or Shermer  
(beyond the occasional piece in Scientific American), so I do not have  
a basis for comparison for their strategies. I'm simply judging from  
the characterizations of what I've read on the list.


Joshua Job
nanite1018 at gmail.com