Re: mapping religious thought space

From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sun Jan 23 2000 - 00:15:49 MST


Spike Jones wrote:

> One sometimes sees political thought space mapped on a line
> with liberal on the left, conservative on the right, with reactionary to
> the right of right and radical to the left of left, sometimes forming a circle
> with radical and reactionary adjacent.
>
> If one does the same trick with religious thought space, then the
> liberal believers such as unitarians might be on the left, with the
> fundamentalists on the right. To the left of left would be the
> agnostic. What is to the right of right? I propose it should
> be the dogmatic atheist.

I really like your sociogram, Spike. I only spot one difficulty -- as
you suggest, extremes tend to meet because they are really the
two opposing faces of one thing, "Agnostic::Dogmatic Atheist"
doesn't seem to work very well. Here's what I suggest, even
though it's a bit more complicated:

Positivist-Humanist-Liberal-Orthodox-Fundamentalist-Atheist-Nihilist

What do you think?

Bob

=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
=======================



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