Sarbajit, One of the great pleasures of FRIAM has been coming to know you over the last several months.
Thanks for your thoughts, here. You took mine in an entirely unexpected direction. All the best, Nick -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sarbajit Roy Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 2:06 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Faith Nick I'm glad you brought up a) Laws b) Protestant ideas in the context of faith. AND That you are still trying to define your beliefs.. I claim with some degree of certainty that at least 90% of the worlds religions don't set down precisely and completely their "Laws" in the form of "Rules"/ Beliefs ... BECAUSE it does not suit their establishments and clergy to do so. If The 10 Commandments was all that there is to Christianity there would there be fewer disputes and no organised church. I am very happy to say that my own religion has gone against the grain and done so, and very precisely too at various points of time. Its pertinent to mention that my religion is a "Protestant" (in the sense of reformist) one and we have done away with priests, churches and all the organisational claptrap. The first time we did so was by a legally registered trust deed drafted by 10 of the best legal brains in India at the time (all of whom were members of the faith) on January 8, 1830. It was a most remarkable document for its time and is so even today. This secular document was the basis for my country's "Tea Party" which allowed us to begin to boot out our British:colonisers (who were playing religion centric divide and rule politics to exploit us) eventually. Today our Beliefs are very few http://brahmo.org/brahmo-prime-principles.html and the Rules of the faith are crisp and precise (to Easterners at least) http://brahmo.org/brahmo-articles-faith.html We believe (like Al Qaeda or Chairman Mao) that an army which travels lightly (and simply) and can blend among the people travels furthest and fastest. Our annual adherent growth is hugely positive y-o-y despite that we don't proselytize or convert. Our Rules are very puzzling to Westerners who hear them. They are surprised to hear that our first rule is "Brahmos embrace righteousness as the only way of life". "Righteousness" apparently has a negative connotation in the West. Whereas to us, it conveys something entirely different we call "Dharma" referring to the "power/force" behind the natural balancing fields of "positive" and "negative" (aka. entropy and non-entropy) streams which propel this universe. Think Yoda instructing young Master Luke the first time. Less tolerant / trusting / evolved faiths however would setup a host of illogical rules like Thou shall not steal / kill / curse/ smoke / drink / covet thy neighbour's camel / wife etc. to the point of reductionism. Hope this helps you to define / understand your faith's beliefs a little better. Sarbajit On 9/20/12, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > Well, it would be nice to answer that action on our personal moral > principles should cease, when it breaks the law. > > The trouble is, there are laws and there are laws. > > The Protestant idea that each of us has a direct and personal > obligation to the law, no matter what a duly appointed law enforcement > officer may tell us, makes thinking about these issues VERY > complicated. Back in the sixties we were taught that we might be > obligated to "throw our bodies" on the machine to stop the vietnam > war. I am not sure to what higher law we appealed in those days but I > vaguely remember that it had to do with the Nuremburg trials. I > belief that in military law a soldier is obligated to DISOBEY a law > that is illegal? Whether the soldier gets a commendation for > disobedience or shot for it depends, in this case, on whether a > military judge, in the peace and quiet of a courtroom, comes to agree > with the decision of the soldier, which may have been made in a > split-second during the chaos of a battle. We have to have a way of thinking about this that rules in civil disobedience but rules OUT stalking abortion providers. > > Be careful to take note of how I am reasoning here. I am reasoning > backwards from my own actions to some principle that would justify them. > Pretty shoddy, as a form of reasoning, but, if one believes that > beliefs just are those principles implied by one's actions, then what > I am saying here makes more sense. I am trying to discover what my > beliefs ARE, not trying to justify them. The pragmatist Justice, > Oliver Wendel Holmes, famously said that Justice is what judges do [in > the long run, if they think carefully and well about precedent and the > facts of each individual case]. > On this account, our beliefs get justified by their long term success. By > "long term" I mean generations and generations and by "our" I mean the > species. This is the pragmatist doctrine of truth. > > I think the reason that people live about 60 years beyond youth is > that it takes about that long for the high=minded protestations of > one's youth to come home to roost. I cannot escape the feeling that > in some strange sense I am personally responsible for the Tea Party. > And bombing abortion clinics. But this s no doubt liberal guilt gone > mad. I guess we got THAT from the quakers? > > Nick ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
