Steve, Akshay, Ron, Platt, and all -- It seems to me that trying to categorize Faith as Religion, Intellect, or a "social pattern" complicates the issue. Faith is simply what we as individuals believe in, whether our belief requires intellect, religion, or esthetic appreciation. If you are a rationalist, you believe in conclusions drawn from logical reasoning. If you're an objectivist, you believe in the empirical world as the primary reality. If you're an theist or a mystic, you believe in an entity that transcends the empirical world. If you're an MoQist you believe in Dynamic Quality and its four levels of patterned phenomena.
Akshay has made two assertions that seem ludicrous to me: > The existence of God is of relatively low importance. We only > have to define God and then find out if such an entity exists. If the existence of God is "of low importance", why do the atheists protest so vehemently against theism? Why, indeed, has belief in a divine being been fundamental to the history of virtually every nation that has survived to become part of Western Society? Is it just coincidental that the concept of individual freedom and human morality is rooted in the Judeo-Christian beliefs of the Free World nations? Akshay's second assertion is easier said than done. By all means, let's find out if "such an entity exists" and then define it. Theologists, prophets, mystics, philosophers, and cosmologists have devoted their lives to "proving" and/or "defining" God for at least seven thousand years, yet mankind is no closer to a definitive answer in our technological era than were the medievalists. What has taken us so long? I might offer a reasonable answer, but in deference to Steve's wish that "Ham should not see my quoting him as an invitation to tell me more about Essentialism," I'll simply suggest that perhaps we were not meant to know. It's far easier to profess atheism today. It doesn't require any intuitive reasoning or belief in a supernatural source. It doesn't contradict experiential reality or the findings of Science. It can't be criticized as making dogmatic or idealistic pronouncements, setting up false idols, or analyzing platypuses. Like egalitarianism, it's also "progressive" in that it does away with magic, superstition, discrimination, spirituality, wonderment, and all the other ideas that have wrought such evil in times past. (I guess that's what is meant by "the end of faith".) Good luck to all, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
