I have to confess to and apologize for what has to be, for a self-professed rationalist and a resolute one at that, a grave lapse; I was tempted to say, “a grave sin.” That is, I have been posting to this blog for a couple of months now and have said a number of things about religion without having offered a definition of religion.
That a definition of religion is important is evident. Take, for example, the first amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which I brought up in my December 8th (Mitt Romney on Faith in America) discussion of Mitt Romney’s speech, “Faith in America.” The amendment reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
As I noted in the earlier posting, the clauses bearing on religion present us with two distinct theses:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
But one can only begin to determine whether or not a law is one respecting an establishment of religion if one knows what a religion is. Similarly, one can only begin to determine whether or not a law is one prohibiting the free exercise of religion if one knows what a religion is.
What the law has to say about the nature of religion is something that I hope to have, and fear that I will have, occasion to delve into in the coming weeks and months. For now I want to post a first draft of a definition and take note in its light of an obvious recalibration of what a resolute rationalist should be thinking of religion.
As for the first draft: a religion is:
(1) a set of beliefs bearing on that which is the primary and/or ultimate reality or mode of reality (or those which are …);
(2) a set of correlative attitudes and valuations; and
(3) a set of correlative approaches to practice and action.
As for the recalibration: it seems to me that we all, even the resolute rationalists among us and the physicalists or materialists among the resolute rationalists, have such beliefs: an absolute materialist takes physical reality to be the primary and the ultimate reality, prior to and beyond which there is nothing else, and furthermore has a set of correlative attitudes and valuations and a set correlative approaches to practice and action
It needs to be understood, however, that this recalibration is not a backing away from the rationalism motivating this blog; it remains that my aim is, as I said in my very first posting, “to persuade those readers who might be needing persuasion to adopt the point of view of philosophical rationalism and so to abandon fideism and indeed all forms of willingness to adhere to beliefs out of proportion to the evidence in their favor.”
That is, rationalism has no dispute with religion as defined above, that is, with rational religion. Its dispute is with fideistic or non-rational religion, which includes among its beliefs, whether explicitly or implicitly, one that says it is permissible to to adhere to a belief out of proportion to the evidence in its favor; indeed, it is typically not just permissible but virtuous or even obligatory to do so.
