I applaud Sells for putting his finger on the real problem plauging this discussion, over simplification. The criticisms showered on Sells remind me that George Steiner described 'fundamentalism' as 'a lunge towards simplification.' Sells's critics have been fundamentalist in the worst sense of the word - they reify Science and declare it Right; Religion they noisily denounce as Rubbish.

Surely the way the Galileo story has been hacked about exemplifies the problem. In the early 1600s, there were still many more astrologers and alchemists than there were astronomers as we would understand them; and even genuinely advanced thinkers like Bacon clung to notions that we today would regard as superstitious. So the Galileo fuss wasn't a quarrel between the massed scientific wisdom of Europe on the one hand versus an obscurantist church on the other, it was far more complicated than that.Most university faculties did not take Galileo's side when asked whether his findings should be described as "theory" or fact.

Copernicus's heliocentrism had been around since the early 1500s, Tycho Brahe destroyed the notion of spheres in the mid-1500s, Kepler described elliptical planetary orbits in the late 1500s. The authorities could live with that. Then Galileo, with access to the telescope and the confidence that engendered, directly attacked the astronomical language of the Bible as 'designed for the ignorant. 'Once the authorities were directly challenged, the fat was in the fire. They could live with two parallel forms of knowledge but could not tolerate a direct attack on the Bible.

Whenever an authority - civil,religious, academic, popular - is over powerful, suppression of opinion can and does occur. Sells's critics all decry religion as though it is the sole oppressive force. Self proclaimed anti-religious, scientific-socialist regimes in living memory have notoriously suppressed scientific opinion in the strictly scientific field of plant science. Authority, whether religious or civil, is fallible.

>> Religion they noisily denounce as Rubbish.

DonG, if you think that some religion is not rubbish, the onus is upon you to provide some argument or evidence.

you wrote previously that some posters here were tarring all religious thought with the silliness of a few "fundamentalists". i responded, and i'll say it again: the overwhelming evidence is that the majority of self-proclaimed christians believe in miracles, virgin births, some level of biblical literalism, god as a thinking being. in short, they believe a hell of a lot of rubbish.

that's the basis. if you are, as are sellick and relda, proclaiming some smarter religion (i presume christianity), then that's fine.

but:

a) don't pretend that majority religious belief is not infused rubbish.

b) put up or shut up. again, what are the merits of religiously couched thought? yes, religious people can usually think perfectly clearly about non-religious matters, including science. BUT, how is the religious aspect of their/your/anybody's thinking of any benefit whatsoever?

>> Authority, whether religious or civil, is fallible.

yes. so what? it means that one cannot point out the special, inherent danger of god-given authority?

Bushbasher is right on the money for mine.
Moreover, if you can't put up, then how about some self-examination? If religious thought can't be rendered in comprehensible language, then perhaps the dupe is the adherent.
Thanks for the stuff on tacit knowledge, Relda, but I don't see how faith fits into that category. Tacit knowledge comes in handy when you're carving Blackbean (as the grain is difficult to master) but in the realm of theology, you'd have to admit, it's more likely to be self-deception and sophistry. I take your point about Galileo, but his tacit insight is, was, surely evidence of the marvels, and conceits, of the human imaginative intellect. That's why we use the scientific method, because otherwise a range of prejudices, known and unknown, interfere with the outcome; indeed such prejudices will invade the most scrupulously objective experiments, or thought. I have my own reasons to doubt a purely rational approach to experience, but I have no faith at all in my conditioned human intellect; it cannot be trusted on its own terms--it has no meta-critical capacity or tacit-transcendentalism I can trust.

"Sells's critics all decry religion as though it is the sole oppressive force." Sorry DonG, but that's nonsense." Religion (for the masses) is part of the hegemonic infrastructure that keeps humanity in the dark; or it's a narcissistic diversion for those whose brains should be put to better (materialistic) use.
I would throw out the challenge to Sells and co: "how does religion serve to improve the human condition?"

Someone sent me this this afternoon:
Please look at the math below:
They say only people with an IQ with 120 and over are able to figure this out [I find that hard to believe].
Prove me wrong J
If:
2 + 3 = 10
7 + 2 = 63
6 + 5 = 66
8 + 4 = 96

Then:

9 + 7 =?

and I thought wow, a good illustration of tacit knowledge, just when I was wondering about that! And then the other day I was amazed at reading Freud and finding him so on topic. So did I say to myself, this is more than coincidence! No; the mind is merely selective about what it notices; thus Jung noted long ago that "dreamwork" generally precipitated dreams in his patients. Is it so amazing then that Crick dreamed of the double helix, or that Newton saw God behind natural law, or that Schroedinger or Einstein had a problem with the randomness of everything, or that Christians see God's divine handiwork within the petty events of their lives. Ah, 'tis a seductive fantasy that there's an underlying order to everything--and the mind all to eagerly renders the notion compelling.

The answer's 144.

God made me clever.

The problem with religion in general is the narrative. It's a problem with people and history generally really. People need to make up reasons for everything, and will often hold on to the made up explanations long after the real reasons have been found.

What Christians and other 'believers'cannot stand is the idea of a world where "randomness" rules and inexplicable phenomena abound. Everything must have a cause or purpose, they feel queasy if it doesn't. It comes from the same root cause of economic reporting why the stock market went up or down on any particular day. It doesn't matter what the cause is, as long as there is one offered. It's a deep seated heuristic problem in the human brain that prevents us from seeing the actual reality.

Squeers: That's 'gross' and I worked it out myself ;)