An open letter to JHP

Dear John:

I am pleased to hear that you enjoy reading our blog. The compliments, backhanded or otherwise, are a mixed blessing (to extend the religious metaphor that animates our exchange), so I feel a need to acknowledge them. As you like to dissect matters, I will provide the same courtesy to your response regarding my last posting.

First, taking my opening salvo as a serious comment was a bit off the mark. Moreover, I would assume that you understand most phrases are “loaded”, hence the importance of knowing connotation and denotation. The purpose of my introduction accomplished its goals—you began a dialogue and here we are.

Next, I don’t think you can say that my posting ever posited “God” as a guilty party in these exchanges. Rather, I had questions regarding a particularly zealous sort of individual who takes the bible literally and his/her ability to reside comfortable in a democracy. I will let Definer take up the issue of fundamentalism, as this seems to be your beef regarding her/his last posting.

While I grant you that the Catholic Church has provided inspiration to many, and has been responsible for some truly selfless and humanitarian accomplishments, not all of the Church’s history is so laudable. In short, you provide a sanitized version of the institution’s past. We can discuss, for instance, the Church’s relationship to Germany and Italy during the Second World War. One can reach farther back still to the Crusades; and what of the Church’s treatment of particular astronomers?

Indeed, there may be fewer people interested in open debate and conversation than one might like, but why would you make such a ridiculous statement regarding the incompatibility of fundamentally different opinions under democracy. Clearly, your own knowledge of American history is problematic. Are you even aware of the public sentiment regarding Catholics in this country during the 19^th century? Were American democracy antithetical to different opinions then the conspiracy theories present at that time regarding Catholics would have meant exodus for many.

Really, how can you write, “the point of democracy isn't to allow diverse opinions to coexist, but for one opinion to be established as the law of the land. One is free to act according to one's own opinion until the matter is decided. Then one must act according to the law.” This is asinine to the point of being comedic. If there was no point in allowing different points to coexist then why protect free speech and assembly—to allow people to voice the same thing and congregate to celebrate that one idea? If we were to take you at your word and follow all laws blindly then we would still have slavery, women’s inability to vote, segregation, and discrimination of all sorts.

Democracy offers its citizens the rights to peaceably (or not so peaceably if you read Jefferson) to debate, contest, and change various laws. Blind allegiance to laws is problematic (see history for further details).

How can you, as an American who benefits from the protections of your individual, idiosyncratic, and assumedly divergent (at times) views, “suspect it is impossible for large groups of people who believe fundamentally different things about the reality of the world to coexist.” Isn’t this one of the better accomplishments of America as an experiment—being able to develop a flexible framework where different individuals, or groups, can advocate alternative positions in hopes of reaching a livable compromise?

And yes, I do feel that “coexistence [is] an ultimate good. . . . it [is] something worth striving for above all else.” Are you suggesting you prefer enmity, divisiveness, and genocide? Granted, I am being hyperbolic, but what is the alternative? As you are another American, I consider you a fellow citizen and worthy of particular guarantees, life amongst them. What do you offer the rest of us?

My reasons for putting the words “natural law” in quotation marks should be clear enough. Your ad populum rationale—“ that the vast majority of peoples have believed in God, and that the same is true in the history of philosophy”—does nothing for those of us who hold either difference concepts of god or a general disbelief/uncertainty in a creator. Moreover, if natural law does not derive from a notion of a higher power then from where does it derive? Biblical scripture is not the only possible foundation here—try the Greek and Roman pantheon.

I do not care to debate reading lists with you. In the very least, this is a rather shallow appeal to authority, one I did not care to make. Why, then, do you? I would hope that I am not to conclude that your opinions are incapable of logical support?

JHP, my post was an invitation and I welcome your exchanges here. However, I am not as welcoming of your overt hostility. In the very least, if you care to spar here, please learn to be clever. You appear to be a musician, or a least a student of this art. Well, then, give us the sound of learned debate free from such boring barbs.