Well, what an interesting article. I do hope you'll forgive me- I’m afraid I know very little about the “presupposition,” “evidence” or other methods for analyzing. However, my own quaint sense of logic tells me there’s much wrong with how he attempts to justify his thinking. Here’s my thoughts, offered in the hope they might get someone else going in the direction you intended............<br><br>[snip]<br>So this day is an opportunity to look at perhaps the most fundamental divide between America and the rest of the industrialized world: faith. <br>(Yet later he says, “One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America. That has nothing to do with faith, per se.) <br>Religion remains central to American life, and is getting more so, in a way that is true of no other industrialized country, with the possible exception of South Korea. <br>(And here he equates religion with faith, a non sequitur, in my opinion.)<br>[snip] <br>The faith in the Virgin Birth reflects the way American Christianity is becoming less intellectual and more mystical over time. <br>(Is he suggesting that belief in miracles is patently unreasonable?) <br>The percentage of Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth actually rose five points in the latest poll. <br>(And what are the comparable figures for other countries? Isn’t he supposed to be comparing the US against the “rest of the industrialized world”? Do the poll numbers he references above support this claim?)<br><br>My grandfather was fairly typical of his generation: A devout and active Presbyterian elder, he nonetheless believed firmly in evolution and regarded the Virgin Birth as a pious legend. <br>(What evidence does he use to support the claim that having these two beliefs in tandem was “typical” of that generation? )<br>Those kinds of mainline Christians are vanishing, replaced by evangelicals. Since 1960, the number of Pentecostalists has increased fourfold, while the number of Episcopalians has dropped almost in half. <br>(This supposes that Episcopalians are “mainline” and since they are the example here, one has to suppose they believed as his Presbyterian grandfather did, i.e., that they were also “typical.” What evidence is there to support this? Additionally, is he suggesting that a changing belief in the Virgin Birth has something to do with the increases/decreases in church membership? Did these people also become more or less intellectual all of a sudden?)<br><br>The result is a gulf not only between America and the rest of the industrialized world, but a growing split at home as well. <br>(He has yet to provide evidence for any gulf he claims exists but supposes we’ll accept that and agree that it must be developing here as well.) <br>One of the most poisonous divides is the one between intellectual and religious America. <br><br>Some liberals wear T-shirts declaring, "So Many Right-Wing Christians . . . So Few Lions." On the other side, there are attitudes like those on a Web site, dutyisours.com/gwbush.htm, explaining the 2000 election this way: <br><br>"God defeated armies of Philistines and others with confusion. Dimpled and hanging chads may also be because of God's intervention on those who were voting incorrectly. Why is GW Bush our president? It was God's choice." <br>(Now it would be nice to know which of these he wants us to regard as the intellectual ones, and which are religious. He implies or otherwise suggests they are mutually exclusive things because he presents them as polarities.)<br><br>The Virgin Mary is an interesting prism through which to examine America's emphasis on faith because most Biblical scholars regard the evidence for the Virgin Birth, and for Mary's assumption into Heaven (which was proclaimed as Catholic dogma only in 1950), as so shaky that it pretty much has to be a leap of faith. <br>(Well, Sherlock, he understands the faith concept.) <br>As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng puts it in "On Being a Christian," the Virgin Birth is a "collection of largely uncertain, mutually contradictory, strongly legendary" narratives, an echo of virgin birth myths that were widespread in many parts of the ancient world. <br>(Is his argument supposed to be more tenable simply because he finds someone within the ranks of the very religion that reveres Mary the most willing to bash the Virgin Birth?)<br><br>Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Yale historian and theologian, says in his book "Mary Through the Centuries" that the earliest references to Mary (like Mark's gospel, the first to be written, or Paul's letter to the Galatians) don't mention anything unusual about the conception of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do say Mary was a virgin, but internal evidence suggests that that part of Luke, in particular, may have been added later by someone else (it is written, for example, in a different kind of Greek than the rest of that gospel). <br>(A rather flimsy and very common way to attack faith is to decry “apparent” inconsistencies of Scripture, and this we must assume he uses as a membership qualifier for “intellectuals.”)<br><br>Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians. <br>(The pious are so because of their faith in the truth of Scripture, no matter what the world thinks, a point that he overlooks entirely!)<br><br>I'm not denigrating anyone's beliefs. <br>(This is the same as saying, “Don’t take it personally that I think you lack intellect because you believe in the miracle of the Virgin Birth.”) <br>And I don't pretend to know why America is so much more infused with religious faith than the rest of the world. <br>(At last he admits to not knowing something. Where’s the evidence that we are more religious? Even based on what little I know I would say on a per capita basis, this is not true at all. Isn’t this also a backhanded admission, based on his own argument, that more religious faith equals more people believing in the Virgin Birth?!)) <br>But I do think that we're in the middle of another religious Great Awakening, and that while this may bring spiritual comfort to many, it will also mean a growing polarization within our society. <br><br>But mostly, I'm troubled by the way the great intellectual traditions of Catholic and Protestant churches alike are withering, leaving the scholarly and religious worlds increasingly antagonistic. <br>(His wires are getting more crossed. He lumped the theologians with the scholars earlier. Here the scholars are at odds with the religious, which means the theologians are not part of the religious camp. We must accept this based on what only two theologians think. He disregards the fact that there are a great many theologians who accept the Virgin Birth’s veracity. How these can be faithful while remaining scholarly seems not to be an important issue to him, but in fact, which answer is at the very heart of his argument over faith and reason.) <br>I worry partly because of the time I've spent with self-satisfied and unquestioning mullahs and imams, for the Islamic world is in crisis today in large part because of a similar drift away from a rich intellectual tradition and toward the mystical. The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain. <br>(Here he misses many things all at once: <br>1- a rich intellectual tradition is probably among the many avenues Islam has used evidentially to support their more “mystical” beliefs; <br>2- he doesn’t tell you whether it is an Islamic religious support of a belief in the Virgin Birth that moved them into a “crisis”; <br>3- this example does nothing to illustrate how Americans are moving in a different direction from the rest of the world. It actually supports his hidden and unrecognized implication that those who are Islamic are increasing their religious faith!; <br>4- lastly, it isn’t the brain religious or faithful people are trying to save, is it? Doesn’t it faze him at all that the miracles were reported via the New Testament in order that people could have faith and believe? They are not an appeal to the intellect for a very good reason which I will leave him to discover, since he’s so apparently intellectual himself.)<br><br>