I was disappointed to read Alex Epstein trot out the same tired arguments "proving" the superiority of reason over religion in his Sept. 16 column. His dichotomy between rationality and religion is false; his argument is coherent only because he crams religion into his own rigid definition.
Epstein says religion exists "to provide humans a comprehensive view of reality." This is simply not true; the definition of religion does not include having all the answers-even if some religions make that claim. Furthermore, faith and rationality are more than opposites; they are complementary opposites. There is no reason that a system of religious beliefs cannot entail one or several "leaps" of faith and then build rationally from there.
He calls religions "primitive philosophies," yet these are two different things entirely. Theology is the product of revealed truth; philosophy is not. True, theology and primitive philosophy have gotten mixed up and then used to produce comprehensive world-views. But just because, historically, the matter has been confused, it does not mean that religion either should or usually does seek exclusive authority to explain everything.
I can only surmise that Epstein believes that there is only one way of reading a text-literally. Thus any revealed truth must be taken literally, or one is, as he says, "merely being inconsistent." That is preposterous on its face. There is more than one way to read any other text, so why should religious texts be any different? According to whose authority do I accept one interpretation over another?
Epstein ought to diversify his reading in moral philosophy and see why rational morality projects (both religiously inspired and otherwise) have failed in the past. His position on rational morality is no more extreme than his cited opponents' position on the origins of the universe.
Jon Myers
Trinity '00
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