Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Right, Wrong, Democracy and Religion

Once I was chatting with one of the researchers at my old faculty. We were flipping through the latest issue of American Economic Review for some reason, and there was an article which surveyed academic economists on some economic principle or other.

His response, "science isn't a democracy".

He was totally right, and ever since I've had a pretty cynical view of the American Economic Review and many other elite journals. You'd be surprised the amount of dodgy articles you can find in them...

Well, religion sometimes is a democracy and sometimes isn't. The Catholic church it is pretty much a dictatorship. Islam is more democratic, and I love that there are so many shades and colours, refreshing!

Anyways, Ireland only legalised contraception in '79 (and then u needed a prescription until the 90s [I think?]) unfortunately the Catholic church is still followed verbatim in the Philippines though...

3 comments:

David said...

Hi John,

Just one question, well two actually. Why do you create a dichotomy between an institution, The Catholic Church, on one hand, and a religion, Islam, on the other?

Shouldn't you be comparing Christianity with Islam, or Wahibbism with Roman Catholicism? Two religions in the first instance, and two institutions in the second (except that Wahibbism is more an ideology than a physical institution, but you know what I mean). If the Catholic Church is dictatorial, Wahibbism is not all that pretty either.

If you were instead to compare Christianity with Islam (two religions), are not there just as many 'shades and colours' in Christianity as with Islam?

Cheers,

David

Unknown said...

u r totally right.

i was going to include the rest of Christianity in with Islam, but decided to be controversial :)

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