The God Squad on The Secular Conscience
As of yesterday, The Secular Conscience has won the endorsement of a priest and a rabbi. Writing in the nationally syndicated newspaper column "The God Squad" for Saturday, June 7, Rabbi Marc Gellman cites the book in a discussion of morality.
I urge you to check out a new book by secular philosopher Austin Dacey: "The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life." Dacey disagrees with most religious opinions about the big ethical issues of our time, and I disagree with him. However, I strongly agree with him that it's wrong to reject an opinion about some moral issue just because the person who makes it is religious.
Gellman concedes the significant secularist point that "the apprehension of the moral truth " can come "from unaided human reason."
All of us, secularists and religious folks, must talk to each other and be prepared to give good reasons why we judge some act right or wrong. Saying there's just one truth in the world doesn't free any of us, religious or secular, from the responsibility to give good, sound, accessible reasons for our moral judgments. That's what Dacey believes, that's what I believe, and that's what the best religious thinkers I know believe.
2 comments:
As a theist, I wholeheartedly agree with Rabbi Gellman and Dr. Dacey that all beliefs should be tested by being brought to the bar of reason, and that this provides common ground for naturalists, theists, and others to discuss beliefs and positions in a productive, civil, objective format. Although some theists might put this differently, I think there are very few who would deny it. If we can recognize this truth, it can ground the current culture wars in conversation that is far more civil and productive than has typically been the case.
As a theist, I wholeheartedly agree with Rabbi Gellman and Dr. Dacey that all beliefs should be tested by being brought to the bar of reason, and that this provides common ground for naturalists, theists, and others to discuss beliefs and positions in a productive, civil, objective format. Although some theists might put this differently, I think there are very few who would deny it. If we can recognize this truth, it can ground the current culture wars in conversation that is far more civil and productive than has typically been the case.
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