This is a good link to Hegel, scroll down to part 3:
http://www.nyptkd.com/cgi-bin/cgiproxy/nph-proxy.pl/000001A/http/etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv2-46

The ideas that are expounded are not so much philosophical or scientific propositional ideals, but experienced notions.

“Argument from authority”: You are entitled to object to examples of this argument, but where I believe it to be appropriate I will use it. In cases of propositional arguments it is a valid appeal, in logical arguments it is an invalid appeal (the reverse of ad hominem). I would hope you limit your objections to when I misuse the argument.

“Citations”: I wasn’t suggesting that scientific research involves no appeals to authority, but thankyou for clarifying my simplistic description. What I do think occurs is that scientific argument relies less upon it, particularly where the ‘evidence’ is ‘evidential’ (tautological as it may sound). Philosophy on the contrary can often go into overkill on this. I have certain texts (not my own) where the footnotes, appendices, and references exceed in word numbers the actual paper itself!

“Myths”: I agree with you that we should be wary from jumping from “seeds of truth” to “truth” claims when looking at myths. Any study or use of myths should involve an intense contextual scrutiny of the literature. (Like I said maybe something for us to discuss in the future).

“Focus on what RD is saying rather than what he is not”:
If he was making a logical argument I would agree with you, focus solely on the content. But he is engaging in propositional argument and it is a fair critique (in my methodology, hence our problems) that when doing so one must include what is not being said. If as part of my argument pertains he is not presenting a fair or accurate picture I must at least propose why.

“At the risk of saying “you too”": Touche! On the presentational evidence of it, I do not seem to provide the same balance. However in my defence, I do not claim that there is no evil in religious people, or performed in the name of religions. I do propose that we must scrutinise everything deeply, so for example suicide bombers should be analysed in the context of pan-arab nationalism. The Inquisition (something again perhaps we should write about, you will be suprised at my candid approach) should also bear in mind the legalese that they spoke. For example, a pope when asked if the Inquisition could torture suspects answered that no cleric (as members of the Inquisition were) could shed blood. This allowed at least 2 possibilities, (1) a method of torture that did not involve shedding blood (too many to list), and (2) the employment of secular troops to do the dirty work.

The examples (sometimes misrepresentative of me, and sometimes accurately quoted where I should have considered the wording better).

Suicide Bombings: occur in order to cause maximum damage to others. This is a strategic imperative. I do not deny a religious motivation, but would ordinarily discuss this element as an unhealthy by-product and often as a minimal one. I (and others hold this view) you disagree with it, what more can be said.

The Pope: I should have clarified my statement, thankyou for bringing this one back up. If the pope speaks as an individual (as was the Judgement in Humanae Vitae) then the criticism should be of the individual (too conservative, too traditional etc.) A criticism of such a statement then should be a criticism of religion in context. However, if the pope speaks “ex cathedra” i.e. infallibly declares his statement as a universal truth, then he speaks as the institution, and criticism thereof is relevent beyond the individual and encompasses the whole (i.e. the declaration barring women priests).

Shambo: I didnt argue about it from a religious perspective as I did not consider the original argument, (or at least my position) to have a necessary religious element to it. Correct though others did and my arguments did not deal with them as maybe it should.

“Parent want God to save girl”: I thought I had clarified this one in an ok fashion. The parents expressed an opinion that they based on their religious beliefs. That is a religious element to the argument. However (unless they are Jehovahs Witnesses) there is no mainstream Christian ethical tradition that prohibits such surgery, in fact they compel the patient to undergo lifesaving treatment. Therefore they the parents had no authority to refer to, other than their own interpretation. In other words their opinion was misguided, or they were not sufficiently informed of what the religious view was on this matter. The case was primarily about consent, and as the Judge declared in his ruling the whole territory concerning ‘miracles’ was outside of his jurisdiction.
We must talk more on this matter as I think you misunderstood me. P.S. The involvement of ‘God’ in the matter was rather overstated by the press (thats what I meant by it not being strictly a religious matter). There have been similar cases where the protagonists have been non-religious.

“Silver Ring Thing”: I did not make myself clear enough. It was a religious argument, the argument that was being made was that this was a ‘right’ (which I disagreed with) being infringed. Also it was argued that this was setting a secular precedent to restrict public expressions of religious belief (another argument I disagreed with). It had the appearance of propaganda because the person who took this to court has as her parents the UK co-ordinators of the Silver Ring Thing. In other words I thought that her parents (and by extension the organisation they represent) were arguing vicariously through their daughter. In fact I was arguing that the religious element to this was suspicious and misguided.

“compulisvly deny any negative connotations of religion”: If true, unintentional, as I do not hold that opinion. A religion is man-made the object of that religion might not be. Institutions are made by people and people do all sorts of strange things. There are bad religious people, who are either a priori bad people, or who religion has ‘turned’ bad, although the latter I would argue is a case of a pathological extreme and says more about the psychological wellbeing of the individual than anything else.

Bias and blog-abandoning: It was not a personal attack, I respect your bias. I could come up with a variety of positive examples of religion, what then would be your approach.
a) its all bad so there must be something I can find,
b) individually it is a bad example,
c) the example stands, can I find something wrong with it.

Obviously methods ‘a’ and ‘b’ are not good methods. Method ‘c’ is, and I am sure that is the approach you would take. But would you be willing to present your methodology, and how can I overcome the suspicion on the basis of your original hypotheses that you would not unconsciously be lapsing into methods ‘a’ or ‘b’?

As for the problem with that task, as you said you would have recourse perhaps to seek criticism for a religious idea through RD or Nietzsche. I’m not expecting a positive hearing from them then.

I would be tempted to offer you some examples of positive religious ideas, but there are 2 further problems.
(i) you havent clarified your methods or terminology (a problem we common have in our interdiscerplinary discussions). I could present idea ‘a’ as a religious idea but you could reject it out of hand (without criticising the idea) as being a manifest of an evolutionary principle, or as being a psychological urge.
(ii) it would by its nature be confrontational, and I thought thats what we were trying to avoid.

I don’t think we need abandon the blog because we are both biased and unable to accomodate certain of each others methods. I think sometimes we need to sit back and not comment on a post, or perhaps flag up a post of our own and say ‘comment on this if you wish’ but this is being posted as part of a doctrinal framework rather than as a dialogue open to compromise.

The difference is not very great. The principle difference is the type of hypothesis and evidence that is admissible for consideration (which you do mention). The rules for the argument itself are much the same.

I will still object if you present an argument from authority, not because it is necessarily wrong, but because it makes the blog unreadable. On the use of authority in science, journal papers always have citations at the end, so there is building on the past ideas that is similar to the humanities. If we agree on a particular authority, then I agree it can allow us to fast forward the basics but it’s more of a personal style to argue from first principles. (“First principles, Clarice: simplicity!”)

But I do admit there are somewhat different methods because of our backgrounds.

“But we must not disregard myth as simply falsehood or misguided explanation.”

I agree we should examine myths to understand ourselves and the past. I am wary of jumping from “they contain a germ of truth” to “they can be used as truth”.

“Especially if the criticism includes (for example) the seeming inability for RD to consider that religion has positive connotations for people, either individually or collectively.”

Again, that is irrelevant to the correctness of RD’s argument – which is what we should be discussing. I view your argument is: RD says “X because of Y” but he does not consider Z. You have to show “X because of Y” is invalid rather than keep pointing to Z.

At the risk of saying “you too!”, you seen to have the inability that religion as any negative connation. (I admit this is a side issue and not really what we are debating, hence avoiding accusations of irrelevance.) To briefly recap your views (pardon any gross straw men!):

Suicide bombers – extremists, they have no religious motivation at all. “Every single act of a suicide bombing is a political and military act nothing more nothing less.”
The Pope – only a single individual and does not represent religion or the papacy, also not all Catholics follow his views. Any of his views are not applicable to criticizing religion.
The Shambo case: a veterinary issue, not a religious issue “I had argued for saving the life of Shambo the Bull on two specific grounds.” Note that you did not mention religious grounds. i.e. not a religious issue.
“Parents who want God to save girl”: “this isn’t really about religion vs science” I.e. not religious in nature.
“Silver Ring Thing” – “It seemed like a propaganda case” i.e. not religious
Tamil Tigers (which I called pseudo religious) – definitely not religious

Ironically the only thing you (jokingly) accused of begin religious is atheism! “Well hey why not lets call atheism a faith then[?]”

My concern, which I don’t think you directly addressed, is you seem to compulsively deny any negative connotations of religion. You many now accuse me of the tu quoque fallacy.

“it would be impossible for me to take such a challenge seriously when in your challenge you immediately declare that you can find a criticism of it. In other words how do I know that if I presented religious idea ‘a’ you would analyse it from a neutral and fair perspective and not start from the premise that idea ‘a’ is false, dangerous, inherently bad?”

If that were true, we may as well abandon this blog!

I did say I could find an argument, not that I necessarily was sure of the argument or held that view. There are many things I “provisionally” accept and some points of view I can argue without necessarily holding them myself. Finding an argument against religion is easy, if I cannot think of one – I just read Nietzsche, Dawkins, etc…

Anyway, I admit I am biased! As far as I know, that is necessary for being human. I know you are biased, I imagine you cannot avoid that admission, and I present my arguments in any case. Although in the last week I have found we have moved to a more confrontational style which I hope will not continue very long.

AC1

Ok now to your post.

Methodology and recourse to outside authorities:
I think (but correct me if I’m wrong) this is a methodological difference between our disciplines. In humanities it is traditional to use outside arguments to support, demonstrate, lend ‘weight’ to, or oppose the position that you are arguing for (or against). In many cases (say English Literature) where the topic may be extremely subjective recourse to external authorities is academically demanded. In philosophy/theology it generally depends upon which type you belong to, but the argument is supported because of an external framework, or in spite of it. It may be an attempt to synthesize many different views into one, or simply to be coloured by the external reference. An example of the latter, a theologian would have a hard time discussing atheism without having recourse to what it is atheists are saying.
Now the opposite of my practise, the type I think you follow, the scientific method does not seek a necessary recourse to other authorities. You present a hypothesis, you explain your methodology, conduct the experiments, record the results and provide an analysis of the results. From there your hypotheses is either demonstrated or not. The only recourse you necessarily have to an external authority is to present your findings in such a way that your scientific contemporaries can theoretically or practically verify or deny your hypotheses.

Neither is right, or a better way of researching, unless I were to attempt to engage in scientific discourse in an unscientific manner, or alternatively write a philosophical discourse that was just effectively a subjective description of my views.

This problem is unresolvable between us, I will write as a philosopher, you as a scientist. All we can do is analyse each others writings to make sure that we have not erred by applying psuedo-science or philosophical opinion stated as fact.

My defence of religion:
I’m sorry that it was so stressful. Where a generalisation is made that appears unsatisfactory without further exploration then I ‘ought’ to highlight this. Similarly if (either of us) dealt with something in detail but ignored its context I ‘ought’ (or rather we ought) to highlight this.

My opinion is that in our discourse we ought to avoid the headline statements that may appear to sensationalise things. Sometimes I feel that RD and by extension you in his defence amplify the negatives and negate the positives.
You and RD do have scope to critique religion, and it is essential you do so, debate is healthy. But don’t be suprised if you present a hypotheses such as “religion is bad it should be abolished” and you recieve lengthy criticism for it. Especially if the criticism includes (for example) the seeming inability for RD to consider that religion has positive connotations for people, either individually or collectively.
You stated “Pick any religious idea, I can probably find criticism for it.”
I shan’t do this (for now anyway) as you may or may not regret it. But also (and importantly) despite our being good friends it would be impossible for me to take such a challenge seriously when in your challenge you immediately declare that you can find a criticism of it. In other words how do I know that if I presented religious idea ‘a’ you would analyse it from a neutral and fair perspective and not start from the premise that idea ‘a’ is false, dangerous, inherently bad?
It would seem (even though I would normally hold your method in good faith) that you have either (i) answered your own question in the asking, or (ii) set your parameters of investigation in such a way that your aim is to criticise the idea in any way possible.

As a counterpoint to that suspicion of mine you frequently and absolutetely correctly post opposing ‘views’ to mine, when you suspect that my comments owe more to propaganda than to reasoned argument. It is only fair that outside readers of our posts have access to a balanced reportage.

Myths:
We need a better discussion on this. I do not advocate that myths provide a satisfactory falsehood to fill the gaps in scientific knowledge. As though there is an evil conspiracy of myth makers at work attempting to prevent scientists from their work. Where a myth is false, or has been superceded by a more satsifactory scientific explanation then it is ‘our’ duty to point that out. But we must not disregard myth as simply falsehood or misguided explanation. It is (whether it has your approval or not) a human trait, and as such it is worth exploring myths and their functions.
As one example, a myth may relate a historical event, and over time as the myth gains power within the community it is being told that myth may become imbued with non-factual symbols.
Any such discussion, which I hope we may have sometime in the future, will probably involve a close look at the psychological uses of myths.
A myth is not a scientific theory which when disproved is discarded, or gradually faded out over time. A myth is a functional method of relating events (historical or not) and incorporating culture specific symbols, motifs, archetypes, consolations, explanations, moral maxims, political ideals. Its value remains in the unconscious mind long after the ‘truth’ of the myth has been disproved or forgotten.

The future:
I don’t think there is a ‘problem’ with the discourse we undertake, other than the distress it may occur to cause (often unintentionally). We are both on certain questions deeply entrenched in our respective methodologies, to such an extent that it may seem impossible to compromise those methods. We are both on certain questions just like the blind men of cathay.

Smoking Man: “Men can never be free, because they’re weak, corrupt, worthless and restless. The people believe in authority. They’ve grown tired of waiting for miracle and mystery. Science is their religion. No greater explanation exists for them. They must never believe any differently if the project is to go forward.”
Jeremiah Smith: “At what cost to them?”
Smoking Man: “The question is irrelevant, and the outcome inevitable.”

Take that for what you will!

AC1