Ketchell Begs the Question...But He Begs It Well.

Ketchell’s paper is thought-provoking and interesting in the same way that “Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore is thought-provoking and interesting. What it does, is attack the established “slant” on things by providing another slant that we are not used to seeing. At the outset of his article, Ketchell attacks other documentation of what religion in the US for their abuse of the “slippery definitional issues surrounding the term religion.” By this he means that they have the bias that religion is confined to “a bastion of belief removed from the conditions of everyday life.”. He then points out that this “overlooks the functional aspects of religious practice and their multifarious manifestations in social arenas marked as ‘profane.’” Which is, by all means true; however he then pulls a Michael Moore, and immediately takes the opposite slant: that there is some more secular definition to religion such that whenever its moral code is present so is the religion. (That may be an over-simplification of his views, but at any rate, he does immediately slant on other “slippery definitional issues surrounding the term religion”.)
So, I find his views, (like I find Michael Moore’s) refreshing, and challenging. Especially since we are used to seeing things from the other side of the table. However, one needs to step back and realize that the issue at hand is still unresolved: wether or not these things are religious, and where that “slippery definition” can be tacked down. So, I tip my hat to Ketchell for taking a different and refreshing slant, but at the same time I must recognize it AS A SLANT. It is in its own ways as flawed as the views he is trying to attack. Simply put: he begs the question. (Which is a logical fallacy). But, at the same time, it is a question well begged. . . by this I mean, it is a question that needed to be begged, so we can better realize the argument at hand.