"Mormon Student, Justice, ACLU Join Up"

[RJLipkin at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/7/2007 9:33:17 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
davideguinn at hotmail.com writes:

Both  atheists and evangelicals adhere to particular ideological  
perspectives.

        While this may be true of  particular individuals, it's far from an 
accurate account of the  concepts--"evangelical" and "atheist"--themselves. 
Moreover, we will never  understand the actual debates in public discourse 
without having some  familiarity with the "theoretical" sense of these terms. And so 
 "theoretical" analysis is inescapable.  In that regard, I think it is a  
radical mistake to use the term "ideological" to capture what might be term "a  
pragmatic atheist." Sure everyone has their starting points, but all starting  
points are not equal and only some are ideological. If "ideology" is used to  
depict all starting points then the word loses any analytic punch  and should 
be abandoned. I think the mistake derives from thinking that a  passionate 
devotion to one's position is the same thing as not needing  reasons or embracing 
faith to substantiate one's position. "Faith" and a  commitment to the 
proposition that "God works in mysterious ways" when used by a  theist to reject any 
ordinary attempt--"ordinary" in the sense of the way we  reason about 
non-religious matter--to refute or criticize his or her position  reveals or at least 
suggests that pragmatic reasoning has come to an end.  Don't get me wrong! 
Many atheists are probably driven by "faith." But that is an  inessential 
feature of explicating the meaning of "atheism."  And further  when a theist 
contends that reason guides his or her commitment to God that  commitment, in my 
view, is equal to the pragmatic atheist's commitment to the  position that there 
is no God. Neither are ideological. Both are  driven by reason. In this case, 
reason not God governs. It's unclear  whether the Court needs the distinction 
between evangelism in its  religion-clause jurisprudence, but I think it's 
probably true that the  distinction is not used by the Court.
 
      
Bobby

Robert Justin  Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of  Law
Delaware

Ratio  Juris

, Contributor: _  http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/_ 
(http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/) 
Essentially Contested America, Editor-In-Chief 
_http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/_ (http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/) 



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