Re: Politics and morality

Marvin Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> The ability of the secular to communicate with the religious is serious
> business. If we presume there is no God, then what does religious language
> mean. We know it means something, because it is used by the religious in
> everyday speech. What they mean by "sacred" is something which they believe
> must be retained as valuable, and not spoiled or degraded. Humanists hold
> certain values and principles sacred. They experience similar emotional
> responses as do the religious. We can communicate that feeling with the word
> "sacred", and we can understand that word when we hear it from the
> religious.

Secular refers to the style of communication, not an ideology. People of 
different religions need to communicate with each other and all that I 
am advocating is that they do so in a secular manner. When the religious 
use the word "sacred" they mean different things depending on their 
religion and that is the very reason it isn't a suitable word for 
establishing communication.

The whole idea is to avoid using a vague and ambiguous vocabulary. OK, 
that's hard to do using a human language. 

This newsgroup has trouble when it comes to concepts like morality and 
evil precisely because of their religious connotations.

-- 
   Ron