> dmb says: > 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: Lots of words that completely dodge the point. You are, if nothing else, consistent. > 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. MP: Hint: when you feel the urge to use the word "obvious" it probably isn't. Negation is only the mirror of image affirmation. Mirror the image it negates and it becomes affirmation. Atheism is an affirmation of a particular belief (in this case of the non-existence of God/gods/g*d) just as theism is an affirmation of its opposite. > MP also said:So why do you keep attacking what I do with my own head > and heart and hands? > > dmb (eventually, after putting us to sleep with more droning on from the same > soundtrack) says: > Because you're trying to insert your joyful theism into the MOQ,... MP: No. I'm not. In that sense, don't care about what my beliefs or actions mean to the MoQ. I have no skin to defend in that regard. And while I'm getting tired of having to keep saying this to you, I'll say it again in new words; I'm inserting the *MoQ* into *my joy.* I'm changing my SOM view into MoQ and its making all the difference, most notably in my theistic views. So ... "Hey! You! Get offa' my cloud!" My joy happens to include theism, and I happen to find MoQ fitting consistent with it. You and Marsha can't seem to accept that this distinction can be made, can't allow even the possibility of it and seem to think MoQ is only for you and yours as you see it. I am living proof you two are wrong in that regard. So far, having taken in a lot of opposing and/or differing viewpoints coming from other MoQers, I still don't find a conflict in my life taking an MoQ view of reality over an SOM one while holding theistic belief. And all your actively destructive prounoncements to the contrary have given me no rational impetus to believe anything else other than you are statically frozen in your acceptance of RMP's DQ discoveries. More fool you, FWIW. Let me try to explain it another way. Trees are a primitive MoQ value pattern. We don't reject "trees" because there is biology, nor do trees become irrelevant or meaningless because we have found them to in fact be MoQ value patterns rather than objects. Obama declares science will have its rightful place, this science then has the EPA declaring CO2 a pollutant, yet we all know trees have long affirmed the opposite and will continue to do so, affirmitively, regardless what the EPA declares to the contrary and for what reasons it decides to do so. Should we now accept CO2 is a pollutant, eliminated it, and call it a victory of science simply because science tells us to? No. Just because MoQ is, IN ITSELF *as a system of thought* atheistic, it DOES NOT FOLLOW that theism suddenly becomes irrelevant, "meaningless" or bad. Just because the tracks are straight doesn't mean the train can't turn. IMO, eliminating theism because MoQ sees the world atheistically, is like EPA telling us CO2 is a pollutant because it must be so for things to make sense in the new Political Religion. We all know CO2 can have harmful effects, but so can O2, and it does not follow that CO2 is in itself a bad thing for us simply because in one particularly dogmatic view it must be so for things to make sense. Good luck with your studies. MP ---- "Don't believe everything you think." 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/
