Then again, William S. Burroughs.
So perhaps you win.
]]>Faith in something--by definition--is believing something to be true without sufficient evidence. That is, in many circumstances, the definition of insanity. If one had sufficient evidence, it wouldn't be called faith. It would be called knowledge.
]]>The first point that Justice is a religious cult is, in my opinion, poorly worded.
For one thing, "cult" is almost as inflammatory as the other 4-letter word that begins with c. For another it's almost always applied to small groups of people. I think it's a bit strange to label most of the population of the world as a cult.
But the point aside from that works with a small leap from what I would normally say.
What I would say is that every religion has a faith component. Some necessary thing that must be believed to be true without sufficient evidence.
The Justice concept certainly fits. One must believe--against all rational evidence--that if one does what is right, others will do the same. And we will magically live in a "just" world. It's not necessary to have a universally defined concept in order to subscribe to this concept. And, indeed, the fact that there are multiple concepts of justice tends to lead one down the faith path.
Not only do you have to believe that people will do what is "right", but you must also believe that they will do your version of "right."
It strikes me as an almost no-brainer to put justice in the faith category.
The leap I think I see here is that Stross is suggesting that any system with a faith component is, by definition, a religion. If you are willing to accept that leap, then all the other points follow easily. If you do not accept a faith component as both necessary and sufficient conditions of a religion, then you obviously disagree.
I'm comfortable with the leap, so I agree.
The disagreement from some posters seems to come from the attitude that x isn't a religion because I don't call it a religion. I think that's a lazy way of thinking about the topic.
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