Recently, substacker Bentham’s Bulldog published a post entitled ‘Why I am not a Christian’, in which he explains his reasons for skepticism about Christianity despite being a theist who is sympathetic towards it.
Enjoyed this. Broadly agree. My view is that some religions do better in terms of truth than others, but that theists should be salvific pluralists. Seems unlikely that God cares *that much* about your metaphysical beliefs or makes important goods conditional on them, given the points you raise.
"Do better in terms of truth" -- one must be deep in the weeds of PhilRel to believe that religion is about constructing pseudoscientific explanations!
Don't think; Look! Become a scientist. View religion as an anthropologist and sociologist -- you will not find (much) overlap with Scientific enterprise.
Well, not all religion is non-cognitive, and many outright beliefs that religious believers adopts are metaphysical: belief that the universe was created ex nihilo by a being with a mind is a metaphysical belief. This doesn’t imply that religious believers are using the tools of analytic metaphysics, entertaining metaphysical arguments, any more than English teachers who believe in evolution are constructing scientific explanations, using the tools of modern science, weighing scientific evidence, etc. Having a metaphysical belief ≠ doing metaphysics! Belief in fate, karma, free will, God, the soul, reincarnation, etc. are metaphysical beliefs, even though people who have them don’t have well-demarcated metaphysical distinctions in mind, aren’t think about philosophy, aren’t doing IBE, yada yada
Not a "non-cognitivist" view -- I reject your binary!
What you're saying here only works if you don't "Become a scientist. View religion as an anthropologist and sociologist -- you will not find (much) overlap with Scientific enterprise."
I believe the analyses you're giving to motivate the PhilRel concern are based on a mistaken view of language and religious claims (which is NOT "non-cognitivism").
I don’t understand what you’re saying now — this reads like a Kabir poem. What are you disagreeing with exactly? (I should say: I wasn’t attributing a non-cognitivist view to you, I was just saying that not all religious discourse is non-cognitive, as a statement of what I believe.)
Enjoyed this. Broadly agree. My view is that some religions do better in terms of truth than others, but that theists should be salvific pluralists. Seems unlikely that God cares *that much* about your metaphysical beliefs or makes important goods conditional on them, given the points you raise.
"Do better in terms of truth" -- one must be deep in the weeds of PhilRel to believe that religion is about constructing pseudoscientific explanations!
Don't think; Look! Become a scientist. View religion as an anthropologist and sociologist -- you will not find (much) overlap with Scientific enterprise.
“one must be deep in the weeds of PhilRel to believe that religion is about constructing pseudoscientific explanations!”
I mean, I don’t believe that!
Well you would call them metaphysical!
Well, not all religion is non-cognitive, and many outright beliefs that religious believers adopts are metaphysical: belief that the universe was created ex nihilo by a being with a mind is a metaphysical belief. This doesn’t imply that religious believers are using the tools of analytic metaphysics, entertaining metaphysical arguments, any more than English teachers who believe in evolution are constructing scientific explanations, using the tools of modern science, weighing scientific evidence, etc. Having a metaphysical belief ≠ doing metaphysics! Belief in fate, karma, free will, God, the soul, reincarnation, etc. are metaphysical beliefs, even though people who have them don’t have well-demarcated metaphysical distinctions in mind, aren’t think about philosophy, aren’t doing IBE, yada yada
Not a "non-cognitivist" view -- I reject your binary!
What you're saying here only works if you don't "Become a scientist. View religion as an anthropologist and sociologist -- you will not find (much) overlap with Scientific enterprise."
I believe the analyses you're giving to motivate the PhilRel concern are based on a mistaken view of language and religious claims (which is NOT "non-cognitivism").
I don’t understand what you’re saying now — this reads like a Kabir poem. What are you disagreeing with exactly? (I should say: I wasn’t attributing a non-cognitivist view to you, I was just saying that not all religious discourse is non-cognitive, as a statement of what I believe.)