MP said to dmb:You're the self professed genius here, I should think you'd see her error once I'd pointed it out. Alas, however, bigotry dressed up as intellectualism is still bigotry. ...I'm not demanding that "everybody refrain from denigrating" anything. I'm asking *Marsha* why she insists on denigrating *my* joy as a means of substantiating *hers* for no reason other than she is completely ignorant of how I come by it and has read some things RMP wrote that lead her to be convinced of hers.
dmb says:Well, first of all I never claimed to be a genius. If the various standardized tests we all take are accurate then my intelligence level is slightly above average. When compared to other college graduates, one third of them scored higher than me. I only claimed to be a Master's student, a person who studies philosophy. While it's certainly possible to be a genius AND a Master's student, they're just not the same thing at all. It only means that I'm willing and able to do the work that being a student demands. Secondly (and more importantly) the main point was that one's level of "joy" is irrelevant to the validity of an idea. No belief or idea is immune to criticism on that basis. Sam Harris says that he hears this kind of objection all the time. It's the most common response he gets from atheists but, to use his example, it would give a person joy to believe there is a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in their back yard but that hardly makes it a true belief or rather a good belief. Or, to use Pirsig's example, the Nazis derived a lot of satisfaction from their program of genocide and, I would add, the whole racial superiority thing made them feel mighty fine too. I don't mean to imply that you are an insane lover of giant gems nor a murderous fascist. The point is simply that your personal joy doesn't lend validity to the beliefs that provide it for you. There are all kinds of destructive pleasures, beliefs and behaviors that give people pleasure but that can also have very nasty consequences. MP also said: But there is a difference between atheism and anti-theism, and don't ever think you can pretend the latter to be the former. One is affirmative, the other destructive. dmb says:I'd agree that they're not the same thing but how is atheism affirmative? The "a" in front of the "theism" means "not" and the "anti" in front of "theism" means "opposed" or "against", obviously. But these two things are consistent with each other, which is to say that opposition to theism is consistent with not being a theist. In Pirsig's case, those anti-theistic, anti-faith comments were made within the context of an examination of British Idealism. He was annoyed at the way they were trying to sneak god into their philosophy through the back door. In terms of the MOQ, it is considered immoral to put intellect into the service of social level values. In the MOQ, this would be a case of using the higher, more evolved level to bolster the lower, less evolved values. And I think that's what you're doing. What's worse, is that you're doing so to the MOQ, which is explicitly opposed to such a move for the reasons just stated. I'd also point out that the MOQ is not about destroying religion per se and it paints an historical picture that says SOM has been abusive and ungrateful toward the social level itself. If you want to understand what the social level is all about and why it's necessary to the overall picture, Pirsig says, reading Joseph Campbell will do the trick. More specifically, he names Campbell's four volume set called "The Masks of God". (Presently I'm taking a course on Campbell's first book, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces", which is taught by a Jungian therapist in the religious studies department.) And of course it's no accident that Campbell holds the same view with respect to contemporary theism, except that he's more detailed and specific about it simply because he wrote more books on the topic and his life's work was more narrowly focused on such issues. I think its only helpful to bring other scholars into the discussions here, especially wherever we get hints about where to look. So this also why I keep bringing William James and pragmatism into the picture. More or less, I take these hints from Lila and sign up for the relevant classes. This knowledge is available to anyone who is willing to do the work and that's all I mean when I say some people are in a position to know. It's just a matter of taking the time and effort required to gain knowledge. It doesn't take a genius to do this. Millions are doing this as we speak and it's nothing special, although it is a bit sad that some don't bother at all. MP also said:So why do you keep attacking what I do with my own head and heart and hands? dmb says:Because you're trying to insert your joyful theism into the MOQ, which is atheistic and anti-theistic. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings but that concerns me far less than the integrity of the MOQ or the effects of theism in our world. And in fact one of my central concerns with theism is that it's not about what's in your own heart and hands. If Christianity isn't a big program for everybody, then nothing is. This was what concerned Jung and Campbell too. Jung thought theism (his father and several uncles were Protestant ministers) was broken and that it can often actually get in the way of, forestall or even prevent "spiritual" growth. In that sense, theism makes people sick, keeps them fragmented and repressed. Campbell's theme song is also all about how theism distorts and hides the symbolic meaning of the myths. What all this amounts to, I think, is a serious philosophical, mythological, psychological, sociological effort to rescue religion and make the contemporary world spiritually meaningful again. I mean, these guys are not theists but they're not scientific materialists either. Their arguments are much more thoughtful than the usual red-faced fanatical atheists. They have quite a lot of positive things to say about the purpose and meaning of religion and each, in his own way, is concerned with helping people in that respect. And all three of them see faith and theism as a fairly serious problem. Personally, I don't see how anyone could fail to notice the harm it causes these days. On top of the obvious stuff we all know from news reports, (child rape, terrorism, war, the murder of abortion doctors, etc) there is also the problem of retarding the individual believer's moral and spiritual development. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™ Hotmail®…more than just e-mail. http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_hm_justgotbetter_howitworks_022009 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/
