Greg,

I'll do my best here.

Religion is almost invariably made up of irrational, unevidenced postulates that explain how and why the universe works the way it does. Religion is rarely "rational" or requires "intellectual" effort to comprehend. Religion creates a worldview. It is a given. It is tradition. It is dogma.

Magic, on the other hand, is the manipulation of one's surroundings based on the best understanding one has of those surroundings as supplied by one's worldview. Magic is dynamic. It is not static or stagnant. Practitioners of magic are often insightfully and frequently intellectually looking for new ways to work within their prescribed worldview to affect changes in themselves or their environments. A practitioner of magic will try different combinations of spells, potions and charms to create the most beneficial outcome to the recipient. They will then judge those actions against the results and modify their spells for the next situation, should the results be less than perfect.

There was a time when thalamide was prescribed to pregnant women. Clearly this was a disastrous combination. The effects were unknown, but it was prescribed anyway. Does this mean the people who invented thalamide weren't intellectuals, behaving in the most intellectual fashion they could conceive at the time it was invented? Of course not. Were the doctors being irrational when they prescribed it to the women? No.

Just because at some later time our science has shown us that our previous worldviews were probably wrong does not mean that people who investigated and attempted to understand and even manipulate the factors in their known worlds were any less intellectual in that pursuit than a modern theoretical physicist. If you were taught bad postulates in geometry, would that make your logical proofs less logical? No. When you found out a postulate was bad, you would have to revisit every argument that USED that postulate to investigate the change the correction would necessitate, but your original logic you employed is still perfectly valid.

Even the proponents of Intelligent Design are engaging in an intellectual investigation. We may find holes in their arguments big enough to drive a Mack truck through, but they are still intellectuals, doing the best they can within a worldview that gives them a false, flawed platform for their arguments. Once you accept that false platform, however, their argument becomes completely rational... and intellectually sound. When Einstein showed that certain physical constants were actually relative, did Newton suddenly become "unintellectual'? The quality of the platform does not necessarily change the value of the intellectual pursuit that follows on. You don't magically become "unintellectual" because somebody was able to disprove your theoretical foundation at a later date... especially 4000 years later.

I hope that makes sense.



Anthony

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.