Hi Ham, You said: >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.
I categorized religion as a social pattern that helps perpetuate a set of beliefs which are intellectual patterns. Religious people claim that when rational argument and evidence (or what intellectual quality terms you like) fail to support their beliefs one must "have faith." In this sense, faith is an intellectual pattern that says that some bad ideas should be considered good ideas. In the MOQ, this betrayeal of reason is immoral. >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. Steve: All these "believe ins" sound like faith which I think only applies to the theists you mentioned. I don't think the MOQ asks you to take anything on faith. It suggests skeptics should verify Quality for themselves by sitting on a hot stove. Ham: >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. > Steve: I agree. I couldn't tell what he was getting at. Ham: >It's far easier to profess atheism today. Steve: It's not an issue of being easy or hard. It is about intellectual quality. Ham: > 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".) Steve: The end of faith does sound like a good thing indeed. Regards, Steve 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/
