Re: mapping religious thought space

From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Sun Jan 23 2000 - 22:48:46 MST


> [EvMick@aol.com] wonder what the relegious equivalent of the Pournelle
> Political axis might be? EvMick

EvMick, I want us to keep in mind the actual purpose of making
these diagrams, or any theory for that matter: to make predictions.
We went over almost this exact discussion about a year ago, until
it was drowned out by a g*n thread I think. I might comb over
the archives to see if we have contributed anything new.

What I had in mind to start with was making a map that would
predict where a person's thoughts might end up should they
continue a rational line of thought from where they currently
stand. One can see why a fundamentalist Judeo-Christian
believer is similar to a staunch atheist: the FJC holds the opinion
for instance, that the bible is the word of god, must be literally
true, etc. When such a person is convinced, against their will
or otherwise, that even one precept in those writings is simply
not true, then all of it becomes untrustworthy, and atheism is
a logical philosophical next door neighbor.

Keeping that in mind, what is the upwing equivalent of the
religious thoughtspace axis, and does such a theory have
any predictive value? Im thinking some of Rowen's terms
(positivist, humanist, etc) belong on an orthogonal axis. spike



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:02:37 MDT