On Mar 8, 2010, at 10:27 PM, John Carl wrote: > Thanks Marsha, for doing the digging. > > RMP sez: > > <<<<<The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the term “God” is completely > dropped as a relic of an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic > freedom. The MOQ is not just atheistic in this regard. It is > anti-theistic. >>>>>"" > > > ------------- > >> >> I don't get what you are suggesting. It seems clear to me that the fourth >> stage represents the MoQ point-of-view. Quality as the Ultimate Truth is >> based on experience with no need of faith. You may understand it >> differently, and that's fine, but you will need to convince me that the the >> MoQ includes god as a necessary, high quality concept. >> >> > No, I couldn't convince you of that because I don't believe that. > Necessary? What makes any particular term or word "necessary"? Saying the > three letter word G-O-D is necessary would preclude and exclude all other > valuable fingers pointing to the same moon. I mean, what about the > FSM<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Sphagetti_Monster>? > for instance. > > My point is more particularly that the use of the shorthand term "god" to > represent ultimate value is no more degraded than defining it "Quality" or > dancing with bar ladies. What terms work best to communicate most is what's > at stake. > > Pirsig is addressing the pragmatic usefulness of "G-O-D" as a term due to > its history of association with social repression by religious forces that > were (and are) evil - devoted to the preservation of their own static > patterns opposed to DQ.
Hi John, And I think the use of the term "god" much more degrading because of the commonly acknowledged definitions, connotations and history. I think RMP chose the most appropriate label. Stripping the word "god" of all the garbage would be near impossible, imho. > > That's not the same thing as true atheism. Which is more along the lines > Krimel advocated with the world and all that is being the product of random > chance, with no positive force behind any of it. No matter what you call > it. Here's the definition of atheism I use: Atheists are people who believe that god or gods (or other supernatural beings) are man-made constructs, myths and legends or who believe that these concepts are not meaningful. If Krimel has a more esoteric, sophisticated definition that's fine but it would seem to narrow the discussion to only those individuals who share his definition. > > > I agree that one does not need faith to perceive Quality, whereas it does > take a sort of faith to perceive God. Just one more way that Quality and > God are differing concepts. I guess the purest way I can make the > distinction is that you can ask if God is any good, but you can't really ask > if Quality is any good. God is measured by Quality, not the other way > around. > > Does that make sense? Perfect sense. So what is benefit of holding on to the concept of God? Marsha ___ 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/md/archives.html
