So authority is fine for the physical world?

"You wouldn't go to a dentist to repair your brakes, nor go to your local mechanic when you have a toothache. Therefore, you should go to trained religious scholars when you need to know about religion."

Is there a difference in the way Sunnis and Shiites think about religious authority? There's a difference historically between Protestants and Catholics. A feature of the Protestant outlook is that you are your own priest, so to speak.

So authority is fine for the physical world?

On any sort of objective scale a doctor may know relatively more about medicine than a carpenter, and one may be called an expert without shame... But there are no objective standards of knowledge of spiritual matters... Ultimately all so called knowledge rests upon the testimony of the ancients...It is not a matter of knowledge at all, which can only be applied to the physical world, but is a matter of belief...With concepts we can capture the essence of the thing.. An artist may capture the essence of the thing...No one can capture the essence of goodness, or virtue, or God... If some one says they have, we must reject their words on faith, or accept them on faith...We know religions and dogma by what comes out of them, and very often that is not good...

That's a really interesting point. So you feel Protestant Christianity was more progressive because of the break away from the Pope?

maulana maududi himself explained it very well though i cant find it exactly now. i know he did say that without knowing the history of the changes that have been made in the past to law in the light of the historical changes that were the reason for them, he would be less in a position to make changes as they were needed in the modern world. some people want to get rid of scholars altogether, but that is not necessary, in fact would add to the problem.

here in india there are some people considered scholars who are exceedingly ignorant, but since they have an even more ignorant society around them who take their word for everything they are highly revered and cause a lot of harm. among the labor class and poorest of the poor, there is no motivation for studying religion so they are easy to manipulate. the kind of people who do this are not only not good scholars, they are not good people. the people here who are intelligent enough to understand what is going on either dont care or cant get enough support to change the situation. the clerics also use fear on the ignorant to keep a hold over them.

Well doctors and carpenters, are licensed by the state and are required to demonstrate some skills and training appropriate to their craft.

On the other hand ministers and preachers are not necessarily required to have any specialized training (varies by denomination), not licensed by the state, and may have poor knowledge of their subject.

First of all I'd like to say that I'm happy to see a thread about religion with minimal religion bashing just for the sake of religion bashing. That being said, onto the posting...

As Fido said a claim to religious authority is often a claim to an ancient authority that cannot be verified except through commentary written by other religous authorities. This is not unlike the real academic world in that reference is often taken at face value assuming that the source is trusted. What makes the source trusted is often that sources own knowledge on other trusted sources and on down the line of trusted sources. Much like the claim to authority in religion the claim to authority in academics is as easy/difficult as being accepted to the cabal of elites that "have a higher understanding" of that which is being studied. A person having lived in the realm of academics and who have also been immersed in the realm of religious scholars, especially those academics that do not revovle directly around a hard science very well may notice many similarities between their social structure and even their cultural disciplinary structure.