Arguing that one cannot study religion academically, Stanley Fish writes:
>The difference between the truth claims of religion and the truth claims of other academic topics lies in the penalty for getting it wrong. A student or a teacher who comes up with the wrong answer to a crucial question in sociology or chemistry might get a bad grade or, at the worst, fail to be promoted. Those are real risks, but they are nothing to the risk of being mistaken about the identity of the one true God and the appropriate ways to worship him (or her). Get that wrong, and you don’t lose your grade or your job, you lose your salvation and get condemned to an eternity in hell.
But Professor Fish has a comparison problem. The penalty for getting questions wrong about religion on a test is a failing grade; the penalty for getting a chemistry question wrong in real life is death.
“But Professor Fish has a comparison problem. The penalty for getting questions wrong about religion on a test is a failing grade; the penalty for getting a chemistry question wrong in real life is death”
I believe you meant religion in place of chemistry.
I would agree with your assemssment. There is a significant difference between treating the Bible as a historical document, and analyzing its cultural significance, and teaching it as doctrine.
Nope. I inverted the comparison he drew. He compared an academic subject with the actual fact–when he ought to compare actual fact to actual fact, or academic subject to academic subject.
Does he really argue that one cannot study religion academically? I find that hard to believe. Does he deny that one can study religious phenomena historically? And does he deny that in normative disciplines like theology or the philosophy of religion one can evaluate students on the basis of the cogency of their arguements and their ability to engage in a tradition of debate?
In short, does he refuse to recognize the validity of a critical appraoch to the study of religion?
In short, if he finds anything the least bit convincing in another tired (and particularly unsophisticated) version of Pascal’s wager, he’s in no position to make any claims about acedemia or argumentation.
Hugh–
He seems to mean that you cannot study religion without assessing its truth claims. Earlier he writes:
>Stephen Prothero of Boston University, who is cited several times by Van Biema, describes the project and the claim attached to it succinctly: “The academic study of religion provides a kind of middle space. … It takes the biblical truth claims seriously and yet brackets them for purposes of classroom discussion.” But that’s like studying the justice system and bracketing the question of justice. (How do you take something seriously by putting it on the shelf?)
So I guess you can’t study it without assessing its truth claims. Of course, as anyone minimally familiar with “truth claims” understands, it’s not obvious what it means to take them “seriously” because it’s not obvious or uncontroversial what they are.
Why even take “seriously” a critique that revolves around a paltry ad bacculum anyway?