Been wasting time (and procrastinating on creating new syllabus - ugh) by surfing randomly. It's this kind of random surfing, just following link after link till you end up in some really weird places that's the bane and attraction of the internet. I will go to the pool in a few minutes and soak up the last of the summer's rays (it's supposed to be cloudy for most of the rest of the weekend, and then the pool closes), but before then, I wanted to point to a page I randomly found. I wanted to respond to it, but my response was too big for the comments section, and it's also something that I've been thinking about lately too...amazing how much thinking you have time to do when you're not working!

The link to the byzantine calvinist for August 28th is interesting, particularly the part where the author argues that religious belief and economic 'belief' (a.k.a. theory) are identical and should be treated as such. [read the National Post article - this is one of the reasons I quit subscribing to them long before I left home]

One time, I decided that my sisters and I needed to get away for a weekend together, so we went hiking up to Glacier Lake, just the three of us. Things were going pretty well until the conversation turned to science & religion (if I remember right, the theory of evolution somehow worked it's way in there). They had a bit fight and I felt crappy 'cause I felt like I was stuck in between. I tried to express my view on religion then, but didn't do a very good job, and have thought about it since then. I think I have been able to summarize my thoughts since then and would like to respond to this blog in this way:

I would agree that secularism constitutes a belief system. There is, however, one primary difference between religious belief systems and secular ones, and that is the claim of the former to some form of ultimate truth. This claim requires one to assume that all other belief systems are wrong (because not based on this truth), and thus invalidates all other belief systems as valid beliefs. The secularist recognizes his/her belief as one of many, equally valid (including religious) belief systems. It is the judgement inherent in religious systems that creates a sense that the expression of religious belief is an unfair imposition on others by excluding the possibility that those others may in fact be the ones who are right, something secularists worth their salt are willing to accept.