I've been going through your archives and have come across several instances in which you seem to defend the validity of faith. Surely you can't be serious about this. I'm hoping it's some kind of weird test of your readers' intellectual integrity. If not, I implore you to reconsider. As an advocate of reason and the Enlightenment, you must see that religion is basically at odds with logic and man's rational faculty. Yet you appear to think that some of Pope John Paul's encyclicals are pro-reason. In part, perhaps?but overall, forget it. I can't understand how you justify this. Look, it's either reason or faith. Nothing between will work to the benefit of reason, only to the benefit of faith?which, please note, is defined as the absence of reason or evidence. Hence, one can tell up front that the Pope's ravings?or those of Pat Robertson, or Billy Graham, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the local Rabbi, or the Gaians, whomever?aren't worth the parchment they are printed on. Why bother? If you've seen one inconsistent religious font, you've seen 'em all.
?Reason Defender
ONCE AGAIN a reader gives me a golden opportunity to analyze an attitude all too common among many Secular Humanists and followers of Ayn Rand's popular Objectivist school of philosophical thought. To state it starkly, if you desire to improve your opportunity for knowledge, then the approach implied in your question is impractical, at best. As I'm sure you have observed, many people, perhaps most of them, tend to psychologically compartmentalize their lives. They are rational in some areas, but not necessarily in others. A physicist may be great at numbers, but lousy at love. A philosopher may be astute at metaphysics, but bad at epistemology. A student may be wonderful at spotting others' inconsistencies, but poor at spotting his own. The Pope may be good at advocating reason on principle, but inexpert at applying it certain cases.
However, if you refuse to even examine a man's position?especially a man with such far-reaching influence as Pope John Paul?on the grounds that he has been inconsistent on, say, metaphysical matters, then you will wastefully restrict your access to an enormous amount of human wisdom. Aristotle was an advocate of reason, but hardly consistent. Would you reject all of Aristotle because he was off base on some issues? I doubt it. It would needlessly trash the extremely valuable things that he said. If you wish to uphold objectivity and reason, then it is critical that you learn to pick and choose not only the best people, but also the best parts of what people say. Look for the good and the bad. The good, because you might learn something you didn't expect. The bad, because it is important to understand an enemy position (i.e., a position you consider unreasonable but potentially influential).
Yes, I know that many people reject thinkers like John Paul out of hand because they really believe it is the rationally moral thing to do. Their chain of thought typically goes like this: "I won't recommend anything he does because I don't want to morally endorse or sanction him." Well, if reason matters to you, then understand that this line of thinking is logically fallacious. It confuses the man with the ideas. They are far from the same. The essence of objective scholarship, one of our marvelous legacies of the Enlightenment, is to credit reasonable ideas no matter who thinks of them and regardless of his overall consistency. For instance, I frequently quote men such as Robert A. Heinlein, Alan Loy McGinnis, Thomas Sowell, Sun Tzu, and others. I do so because a particular way they put a thought helps clarify something for my readers and advances the causes of liberty, independence, optimism?and reason. That doesn't mean I think any of these men were or are godly paragons of consistency. It doesn't mean that I morally sanction their character. Maybe I do, maybe I don't; that requires a broader context. A man is much more than his openly stated ideas. He also holds a variety of implicit premises, which we can only detect by reference to his actions.
As I've watched this intolerance toward religious thinkers fester among Humanists and Objectivists, I've noted that they often reject men like John Paul not as much out of moral qualms, but out of laziness. Why? It is easier to brush off a man than to do the work of critically analyzing his position. It's simpler to dismiss people with a wave of the moral wand than it is to dissect and examine their ideas?and to suspend judgment until one has done so. For instance, what is the implication of the Pope's open advocacy of reason for understanding the nature of man? Is this position of so little consequence to the Catholic culture that we can sweep it aside like a ball of lint? No. The Pope heads the world's largest religion. His remarks in the encyclical "Veritatus Splendor," to take one example, are having profoundly positive effects for hundreds of millions of people. In many ways, "Veritatus" represents a break from the Church's recent past. It is a standing instruction to Church leaders and teachers to elevate reason to a level it has seldom enjoyed in modern times?especially when it comes to grasping the nature of man and his requirements. Are these not important issues? Are they not matters worthy of examination? If they are, is it not important to read and consider the words of their chief advocate in the Church, Pope John Paul? If you reject him out of hand because of his inconsistencies elsewhere?or, worse, simply because he is a "man of faith"?then all the pro-reason revolution in the Church and its positive consequences will pass you by. Ignorance of this type is a bad game.
I know you think that you are boldly standing for reason by dismissing all men of faith as illogical and shallow. In fact, you are not. You are violating a principle of rational scholarship and Enlightenment thinking: to consider ideas on their merits, regardless of who utters them. Perhaps you will reexamine your approach. The path you are on severely constricts the input available to your rational faculty.