More on Law and Religious Arguments

Like Michael P., I substantially agree with Eugene Voloch here.  I think part of the difficulty with the criticism of the use of religious arguments is illustrated by the language of the reader Voloch quotes.  The reader complains that:

  "once someone says "a little man in the sky whom you don't think exists ordered humans not to do something", that ends the debate. I realize that I am being sarcastic, but to the nonbeliever, that is exactly what it means to say that God ordered something. To the nonbeliever, saying God ordered something is no different than someone saying that he was visited by an apparition who ordered him to do something, or that his palm or tarot card reader told him that the spirits have ordered it."

It is the grossest misstatement of those who take religion seriously to say that one's belief is simply a matter of God (I'll ignore for present purposes my views on characterizing God as a man in the sky, little or otherwise) ordering something.  Yet that is precisely how opponents of religious argument most often seem to characterize it.

A mature faith is not a matter of externally imposed rules incapable of being understood in rational terms.  (My own view is that God "orders" nothing, but, rather, invites us to grow in love and unity with Godself and with others.)  Rather, it is about living in accordance with a set of principles aimed at developing our full human potential.  Those principles are no less capable of being discussed and argued about than are nonreligious motivations for action.

It may be that some people making religious arguments are not making them well.  But I suspect it is also the case that many of those who criticize religious arguments are not really listening to the arguments being made, but are simply operating out of a knee-jerk fear of (and lack of understanding of the nature of) religious arguments. 

Susan