Religion and Bad Debate
Religion and Bad Debate
This chapter argues that the ways in which some people and not others pursue credibility in the public sphere shape the possibilities for good debate in the future. In general, respondents understood public religion to be contrary to good debate. They negatively evaluated individual representatives who were seen as “conservative” in public life. They also negatively evaluated religious attributes and language in public life, even when they shared religious commitments with the representative being evaluated. Ultimately, respondents mobilized a normative preference for deliberative debate that conservative religion was seen to violate. Yet to ordinary persons, it is only conservative religion that operates in public life, in the form either of individual religion representatives or of religious arguments and reasons.
Keywords: public credibility, public sphere, good debate, public religion, deliberative debate, conservative religion, religion representatives, religious arguments
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