http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/8tkhw10.txt

Ch. 1 .. William Lloyd Garrison took part in a discussion on the means of
suppressing war in the Society for the Establishment of Peace
among Men, which existed in 1838 in America. .. Garrison
thereupon composed and laid before the society a declaration,
which was signed at the time—in 1838—by many members.
“Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, and we cannot hold any
office which imposes on its incumbent the obligation to compel
men to do right on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore
voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and
judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly
honors, and stations of authority. .. We shall submit to every
ordinance and every requirement of government, except such as
are contrary to the commands of the Gospel, and in no case
resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to the
penalty of disobedience.

[I, Ozzie Maland, take it from the above that the senior Garrison agreed with Christ about rendering taxes to Caesar.]

Adin Ballou, who had taken part in the labors of Garrison the father,
and had devoted fifty years of his life to advocating, both orally
and in print, the doctrine of nonresistance.. I [Tolstoy writes] wrote to
Ballou, and he answered me and sent me his works. Here is the
summary of some extracts from them: .. And here is a version of Ballou’s catechism composed for his flock:

CATECHISM OF NON-RESISTANCE.
..
Q. Can he voluntarily give money to aid a government resting on
military force, capital punishment, and violence in general?

A. No, unless the money is destined for some special object,
right in itself, and good both in aim and means.

Q. Can he pay taxes to such a government?

A. No; he ought not voluntarily to pay taxes, but he ought not
to resist the collecting of taxes. A tax is levied by the
government, and is exacted independently of the will of the
subject. It is impossible to resist it without having recourse
to violence of some kind. Since the Christian cannot employ
violence, he is obliged to offer his property at once to the
loss by violence inflicted on it by the authorities.

Ballou is obviously torn apart by the question, and my imputing an anti-tax-paying position to him is somewhat unfair. Am I too unfair? But assume for the moment that there are two positions, one being anti-tax-paying. Hasn’t there been a consensual validation of society’s collecting taxes even from those having a contrary religious belief? From there, arguably, we can also support society’s restraints on polygamy and other deviations from norm that are so subversive of values shared by virtually everyone as to validate restrictions. (Is circularity in such matters avoidable?)—Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego

According to a landmark study, as many as 600,000 Hispanics in this country leave the Catholic Church every year in favor of Protestant evangelical churches.

Notice as well that the majority of US Catholics ignore one or more prohibitions on birth control or abortion or pre-marital sex or on other fundamental precepts of the church. Studies have shown that people justify their selective adherence to dogma by a variety of means and ignore the cogitative dissonance involved.

Daniel Dennett has discussed this partial adherence as meaning that people have a “belief in belief”, but don’t really believe too much themselves. Sometimes they are fairly explicit about it: “I’m sending my child for religious training because it is good for them, (even though I’m not a real believer myself).”

Atheists sometime make the reverse argument (also a form of elitism), “the unwashed masses need religion since they aren’t bright/educated/self-reliant enough to stand the truth.”

Codeine is not the only opiate at the drug store, neither is it the most thrilling.

Couldn’t that be a sign that a person does in fact have some sort of deeper conviction? Remaining with the same denomination you were raised doesn’t signify depth of belief (though it could signify a laziness in weighing and examining the faith you were raised in—obviously, not always). Changing to a different denomination (instead of just a different church), usually signifies a disagreement over doctrine, which (if you bother to change denominations) is not an insignificant disagreement (at least in the believer’s mind). To come to that point, you’d have to have cared enough to examine and consider the doctrine you were raised to believe, and at some point realize that you can’t accept some specific belief to be right. Granted that’s not always the reason, but for some (or possibly many), it is.

Have you never experienced a change in a fundamental belief? You believe X, but then, over time, you begin to doubt X, suspecting that there are reasons to believe Y, or just find yourself drawn to believing Y (which implies not-X), and eventually, you abandon belief in X. It doesn’t seem so odd to me, or anything like shopping. Are you saying that you don’t understand anyone who ever changes a fundamental and important belief in adulthood?

I’ve never understood how one can be completely in sync with the idea that one’s religions is the only “true” one and then go shopping for one more to one’s liking. The figures in the US for how many people change denominations are amazing, I think it is about 40%.

Such contradictory behavior is one of the signs that I take to mean that religious belief is much more casual than polls indicate. If you go to church once a year are you religious or just showing up for family, tradition or cultural reasons?

In depth studies of actual religious attitudes would be useful. I know they are tried all the time, but they suffer from various methodological failings the most important being “social desirability” bias. People won’t admit to thoughts or actions which are generally frowned upon.

The noise from the religious right may be the death rattle of a dying movement, unfortunately it still has many adherents in congress and the courts, or at least those who are intimidated by the movement.

It would have been very helpful to know precisely how we should respond to those who do not accept that all forms of religious belief and worship should be treated equally, especially where these beliefs deny the separation of state and religion regarding this challenge.

Yes, it certainly would, especially in the American context, where Nussbaum appears to be acting primarily as an apologist for the Christian Dominionists who are currently taking over the state apparatus.

I understand that you guys over in the UK have your panties in a twist over the largely theoretical problem of Sharia law, but in the US (which is Nussbaum’s actual subject), the problem is far from theoretical. I don’t think you’d have this much patience for her equivocations if your PM and his cabinet were all Islamic fundamentalists, whereas that’s exactly the situation the US has been in for the last 8 years.

And if we could have THAT, the “Religious Right” would have more than they have ever asked for.

geo: http://www.georgescialabba.net/mtgs/1999/10/cultivating-humanity-a-classic.html

I don’t think she does, because her entire argument is on the basis that religious ideas are more important than other sorts of ideas (and she is arguing for religious freedom, not any more general sort of freedom of ideas and behaviour). Religious forms of ideas are given protection non-religious ideas aren’t. This puts us in a situation where, for example, religiously inspired vegetarianism is treated differently to vegetarianism for other reasons. And if you say you want Saturday off work because it’s your religion, then you’re on far stronger ground than if you just intend to use it to personally look for meaning.

Now why is this the case, if she doesn’t think there’s something special about religion? I think she can only think religion deserves protection because it has some truth value, that she can’t think of a good way to articulate. She doesn’t think any specific doctrine is ‘true’, but she thinks religion is ‘true’ is some vague sense. But that’s wrong, and that’s why the US tradition and the Free Exercise Clause are absolutely poisonous.

I am an unbeliever myself, of course, and have spent the last 30 years talking to unbelievers about how they structure their lives and reading about the diverse ways in which they… well, one natural way of putting what reflective and emotionally integrated people do is “search for meaning”. The idea that only the religious do this is something I thought only religious entrepreneurs of the worst sort put about.

You can’t have one without the other.

In addition I’ve read many other things she has written that have appeared in the opinion magazines. If you think she is talking about the “personal search for meaning” then you haven’t been paying attention to her personal religious conversion history. In fact “personal search for meaning” seems only to be of concern to those who subscribe to various supernatural beliefs.

I suggest you try reading some of the ways unbelievers structure their lives without “meaning”. Many deny that even asking “what is the meaning of life” is a useful question. They focus instead on what they can do with their lives, since it’s the only chance they will have.

The religious assume that they were put on earth for a purpose and that discovering this purpose will reveal the “meaning of life”, but if evolution is just a series of random events then so is your existence. Random events don’t have a purpose. Getting people to realize that they have implicit assumptions from which they deduce conclusions is always the hardest task.

You may think my take on her views is “eccentric”, but I claim she is (once again) promoting belief over non-belief and this has been one of her tasks for a long time. I think everyone else is missing the point. I guess it all depends on what you take as your personal axioms.