Word: religione
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...only it were really so simple. Pinker writes as though philosophy were a dead letter, faith a kind of retardation, and religion a form of mass insanity. He may well believe that, but I doubt his reasons extend much beyond faith...
...writer is a graduate student in the Study of Religion...
Unless Golding is really trying to say that he would never vote for a candidate that belongs to any religion at all, the kind of prejudice he is advocating amounts to a validation of guilt by association—in other words, you share a religious affiliation with some people who have beliefs that I find unacceptable, therefore you are unacceptable. According to that logic, Golding should never vote for a Democrat, because party affiliation is entirely a matter of choice, and some Democrats defended slavery and opposed civil rights...
Steven Pinker writes that religion “is an American anachronism, I think, in an era in which the rest of the West is moving beyond it” (“Less Faith, More Reason,” Oct. 27, op-ed). As a consequence, he believes, we should reconsider the “Reason and Faith” requirement in the Report of the Committee on General Education. At best, this statement can be interpreted as hyperbole; looking at census data worldwide, in which religious affiliation is generally self-reported, 16 percent of those surveyed identified themselves...
...other significant claims generally ask why we should single out religion as either an “equivalent [way] of knowing” to reason or as a significant historical driving force—the same question could be asked about any requirement. Religion should be singled out simply because it affects us, just as the United States is singled out in the U.S. and the World requirement: because we live here. Perhaps there are other motivators that should be singled out as well (economic disparities, race, and so on), but religion seems at least as viable...