Re: From the mind of Orson Scott Card

In article <ddcojf$ftc$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
William December Starr <wdstarr@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>In article <ddai52$rv9$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>mchary@xxxxxxxxx (Michael Alan Chary) said:
>
>> Yes, but they are talking about similarities which they choose to
>> interpret as "Catholics are all the same as that guy down by the
>> bus stop with the tin foil hat." This is clearly such a stilted
>> view of religion that it is tantamount to bigotry. And while
>> holding this view, Starr has asked me to defend the belief system.
>
>I'll repeat it yet again: as far as I can see, the category "People
>who believe in the objective existence of supernatural elements of
>reality, without possessing or being able to show objective evidence
>in support of that belief" comprise a single set. There may be --
>are -- zillions of subsets within that overarching set, each with
>its own particular properties, but they still _are_ all within that
>set.

But you are already showing a bias with "supernatural." If God exists as
promised, or if Vishnu exists, or if there is no reality as Siddharta
suggested, then that is *part* of the natural order.

>
>> Well, you might as well ask me to defend economics without telling
>> me which economic theory you want defended. There are a wide
>> variety of viewpoints some of which have no bearing on reality.
>> If Starr wants to believe some religious adherrents are insane, I
>> might be onboard. But then again, I also think supply side
>
>The appropriate question, under that analogy, would not be "Can you
>defend the premise that economic theory X is an accurate descriptor
>of reality?" but rather "Can you defend the premise that the
>science/philosophy of economics can produce an accurate descriptor
>of reality?"

Well, actually, the answer to that second question might be "No."
Economics is *REALLY* hard.

>
>Of course, the analogy is imperfect in that people proposing
>economic theories generally tend not to claim that they are
>literally/absolutely accurate descriptors of reality (as opposed to
>merely "closer to accurate than some previous and/or rival theory"),
>while religious premises _do_ seem to me to tend to be presented as
>such.

That's a reasonable point in distinguishing the two fields on
intellectual grounds from one another, but I don't think it's fatal to my
analogy.
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