Why should we speak of it in religious terms? Why not in ethical terms? — Banno

I vaguely feel like that was the question I was trying to pose in my OP, but with a little less normative flair. I was trying to explore if there was something valuable in doing so rather than dictating how other people should use language.

Regardless, I will offer up a few reasons. The first - it is historically consistent. Until fairly recently, religion as the locus of issues of ultimate concern in the Western tradition is pretty unobjectionable. Where we came from, why we are here, what we should do, where we are going, etc. All of those areas relate to the human condition and people have a desire to answer them even without god. So when it is time for people to get together and make sense of them, calling the occasion religious is an authentic use of language.

The second - using a symbol invokes all other contexts in which the symbol was used. So there is a certain richness (and extended dimensions) to religious conversations that are not found in ethical conversations. Being able to make easy reference to a long tradition of thought allows an efficiency and facility of language that is not otherwise available.

The third - commitment. Ethical conversations strike as intellectual - ideas to be bandied about without asserting that something is actually good (cf axiology). For better or worse, religion is known for its commitment to an idea as a lived motivating principal for conduct and life. Here in the US, it is of such significance that it even gets special legal protection (however watered down such protections have become). By invoking religion, people understand that what is said is important.

The fourth - intergenerational conversation. By engaging in meaning making as a communal project, the current participants in the conversation join in with those that came before and those that will come after. It isn’t just about what you as an individual think in private judgment of everyone else, but rather a joint effort of disparate people.


There are more (and they will likely increasingly tend towards a particular religious perspective), but let’s see if any of those strike as a reason that works for you.

Again, my point was not so much to say why I think we should, but to suggest that within the context of philosophical language, it may be the best fit.

DO you think we would be able to get out of this mess without science? One can't jump of the rollercoaster after it starts. — Banno

Had it not been for science (industrial revolution) we wouldn't have been in this mess. True!

Had it not been for science (climatology/ecology) we wouldn't have found out we're in a mess. True!

Had it not been for science (green technology) we wouldn't have gotten out of this mess. True/false, only time will tell.

It looks like science is both the disease and the cure, thr former confirmed but the latter pending results.

Religion changes what is going on to match what is said. The world is made to fit the theology. — Banno

If you're using religion to understand how the physical world works, sure, that's a bad move.

Religion brings about the Taliban. — Banno

And science the hydrogen bomb, and governments oppression, and charities manipulation, and ice cream sellers pedophilia, and pet sellers pet abusers, and on and on.

Some people suck. Some find their way back through religion. Some maybe find their way back through observing a well laid science experiment. Could be. Doubtful, but maybe.

Do you distinguish the Lutherans from the Taliban? What about the Mormons, the Catholics, or the Jews? Is your position that religion begets evil in all its forms, thus justifying your generalized attack on it, or do you just wish to remind us that the Taliban is a bad group of guys?

And yet when we try to talk of religion we hear how science gives us keyboards and religion gives us the Taliban. Being aware that everything has its good and bad doesn’t mean that otherwise intelligent people won’t dramaticize in order to make it clear that they don’t like something. — Ennui Elucidator

Good point. There are people who are oblivious to the downsides of science or, for various reasons, ignore them. They're like little children in a toy store, completely mesmerized by the shiny, colorful and brand new playthings, unaware that all that comes at a cost, a cost that their generation will have to bear in many unpleasant ways.

I am not quite so dismissive. Banno, for instance, knows what rhetorical devices are and he isn’t naively employing them. And the bashing of religion to the glory of science isn’t confined to one generation or another, but dignified restraint is certainly on the wane.

Until fairly recently, religion as the locus of issues of ultimate concern in the Western tradition is pretty unobjectionable. — Ennui Elucidator

An interesting point that I think is misleading. In the late Roman period the educated elite espoused philosophical positions in addition to, and in place of, religiosity. that was destroyed along with most of classical culture during the period of the rise of Christianity.

So that we traditionally treat these issues as religious is arguably the result of the cultural vandalism of Christianity - it obligated folk to adopt that posture.

It looks like science is both the disease and the cure, thr former confirmed but the latter pending. — TheMadFool

And in the mean time we have vaccination, air conditioning, interweb stuff, pain relief, surgery, vehicles. And fewer intestinal parasites.

I don't mind a bit of science.

Is your position that religion begets evil in all its forms, — Hanover

Pretty much. It has few redeeming qualities.

It looks like science is both the disease and the cure, thr former confirmed but the latter pending.
— TheMadFool
And in the mean time we have vaccination, air conditioning, interweb stuff, pain relief, surgery, vehicles. And fewer intestinal parasites.

I don't mind a bit of science. — Banno

I didn't imply science didn't have benefits but it comes at a cost, something we should've realized a long time ago given that we all seem quite familiar with the fact that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

It doesn't help that the cost I referred to above are in forms so subtle and yet so profound that we fail to make the connection between science and them. Having to breathe toxic air for driving a car is not something a normal person would count as part of a car's price. This is where our economic theories fail - they're too shallow, too limited, too simplistic for the way nature works.

So you are saying that I’m being misleading by using the English word “religion” in a way that would do injustice to a culture that died 1,000 years prior to the modern English language which has been around now for about 500 years?

I am not quite so dismissive. Banno, for instance, knows what rhetorical devices are and he isn’t naively employing them. And the bashing of religion to the glory of science isn’t confined to one generation or another, but dignified restraint is certainly on the wane. — Ennui Elucidator

To be philosophical about it, bashing is precisely what's in order, it's the essence of philosophy. The truth is impossible to establish, might as well devote our efforts in discovering whether a claim/system of beliefs is false. Falsifiability.

No, that's not what was said. The argument is that if "religion as the locus of issues of ultimate concern in the Western tradition is pretty unobjectionable", that might be because Christianity destroyed the alternative. That is, religion tries to form all talk of such things to in its own terms.

SO I will object.

I'd consider it a curtesy if, when you mention me, you use the "@" function.

the bashing of religion to the glory of science — Ennui Elucidator

Meh. I'm not bashing religion to the glory of science. I'm just bashing religion.

Pretty much. It has few redeeming qualities. — Banno

Pretty much like...

...a language community is a group of people that uses symbols in a way supportive of their cooperative/coordinated behavior. [...] It is more about the general use of symbols in a way that tends towards the groups continued use of those symbols. — Ennui Elucidator

This is not too "mushy". In fact, I find it quite coherent.

In part, the reason I am interested in religion is in response to the notion of alienation and the continued isolation of the individual. It is as if we had to go through things like existentialism where we rejected dictated meaning to find the freedom to give meaning to that which was previously imposed. Man is a social beast, after all, and so it may have been a fool’s errand to expect man to define himself against the world rather than to carve himself out from within it. — Ennui Elucidator

I must admit that I had not considered that, even though I have personally bemoaned the paradoxical isolation seemingly inherent in modern life, the feeling of being "lonely in the crowd", but it is quite true. I myself have attributed this isolation to a combination of (a) the individual security which pervades modern western culture eliminating the need that we once had for one another, and (b) the psychological effects of product marketing, which seem to have increased self-absorbtion exponentially.

My intent was not to offer a pragmatic limit to religious language but to suggest that that the secular protection of the personal protects the expression of the religious in a way that protecting it as a matter of polity does not.

...using a symbol invokes all other contexts in which the symbol was used. — Ennui Elucidator

Here's a symbol for you to consider:

Aphrodite, disfigured and baptised during the period of the Christian destruction of classical culture.

there is a certain richness (and extended dimensions) to religious conversations that are not found in ethical conversations — Ennui Elucidator

And an ethical dimension that is ignored as religions mythologise themselves.

And an ethical dimension that is ignored as religions mythologise themselves. — Banno

After which ethics class did the sculptor make a statue of the goddess Aphrodite? Perhaps you can sing a nice hymn exalting act utilitarianism?

After which ethics class did the sculptor make a statue of the goddess Aphrodite? — Ennui Elucidator

It was a discussion of Epicureanism. That was one of the ethical paths all but wiped out by those who disfigured the statue.

Religion distorts ethics.

Woe. Shall we lament the end of the culture of the conquerors, murderers, slavers, and rapists too soon eradicated by the followers of Paul? Perhaps a touch of stoicism is in order. But yes, I can see how the depravity of man is a feature of religion and not something else.