The God Reflex
Think For Yourself! The God Reflex Tells Us How to Write Laws for 2006
With 2006 underway we find many important issues in public policy being addressed from the perspective of God's supposed opinion on the issue. The role of God in public policy is no sophomoric foil, as the many deaths over the Moslem cartoons remind us. There are so many such issues in the U.S. that turn on competing interpretations of God's will that we can list them alphabetically: abortion, birth control, cloning, death and dying decisions, euthanasia, farming conditions of animals, Golan Heights, homosexual unions…
This is a very serious issue underlying many policies that directly affect freedom, constitutional rights, and the type of world our children will live in, so it cannot be waived away as irreconcilable. We must look at why people refer to the will of gods or God. One likely explanation is the God Reflex.
The God Reflex is humanity's tendency to attribute anything not understood to God or gods. It is another example of the errors that result from our reluctance to simply say, "I don't know."
Comments
naw mate.. you lost me with that last bit ... it aint a choice for them (yes .. THEM) between "god did it" and "i dont know". take abortion for example ... they know from the nature of God that its wrong. theyre not prepared to say "i dont know" not because theyre afraid too, but because they do .. in fact .. er ... know .. that its wrong .. to kill people .. uh .. like that.
er. .. that doesnt quite cover it because then theY (as opposed to THEm) will insist that god dont exist man...
and im afraid no one can win that war...
napalmed
I kind of get what he is saying, but how would the statement, "I dont know, God did it" apply to any of "abortion, birth control, cloning, death and dying decisions, euthanasia, farming conditions of animals, Golan Heights, homosexual unions"??
In each of those cases, a believer would start with certain presuppositions based on his/her understanding of God and/or God's revelations. From there, the believer would have to extrapolate how those principles apply to the issue at hand. Someone else would start with a different presuppositions and end up at a different opinion.
To take abortion for example, one person starts with the presupposition that the fetus is a human being, with all the rights that implies. Another person starts with the presupposition that the fetus is sort of a demi-human, and contrasts that with the rights of the mother (a 'full' human). On an absolute scale, who can say which is right? We all have our opinions of course. One opinion is informed by an understanding of the Bible (for example), the other is informed by I dunno, women's rights theory (??? - sorry, no idea!).
The point being that everyone's political opinions stem from their worldview. I don't think someone's opinion should be discounted because of their world view if they used a valid thought process to move from world view to opinion on a specific point.
This leaves open (big) questions about whether a given thought process is valid (probably ameniable to basic laws of logic ) and whether a given world view is a valid or reasonable starting point.
Post a comment