"Mormon Student, Justice, ACLU Join Up"

[David E. Guinn]

I do not think I am going outside of the rigors of a theoretical understanding.  The very term "atheism" (as an -ism) definitionaly acknowledges its ideological commitment.  My only concern is to point out that while everyone recognizes that theists start from a grounding within a particular belief system, so too do atheists.
 
Moreover, as I said before, atheism is a belief system that makes a affirmative commitment -- i.e. that god does not exist -- an assertion that stands outside the epistemological grounding of the empirical belief itself.  To me that clearly demonstrates the ideological nature of the belief.
 
As an agnostic, I acknowledge the virtues of the empirical world view.  I simply recognize that it has limits and cannot answer every question asked.  It cannot prove or disprove the existence of a first cause or what happened before the big bang (as presently understood--though it might disprove current understandings).David


From: RJLipkin at aol.comDate: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 10:21:17 -0400Subject: Re: "Mormon Student, Justice, ACLU Join Up"To: religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu



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 LipkinProfessor of LawWidener University School of LawDelawareRatio Juris, Contributor:  http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/Essentially Contested America, Editor-In-Chief http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/


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