Steve said:
While there are some interesting similarities between Pirsig and James, at some
point DMB will have to put his secularism up against James's "The Will to
Believe" and see what wins. I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on the
article as a secularist and a Jamesian.
dmb says:
Man, you really don't pay much attention to the things I say to you. I used
James's "Will To Believe" just the other day to explain that for James the
"will" part only obtains where belief can not be decided on the basis of
evidence. And theism does work for some people in the pragmatic sense of
improving their everyday lives, as your friends in the 12-step program will
attest to. I figure with a short-term memory like yours, you must be in a
program.
Also, I'll have you know that I am presently surrounded by books about religion
and mysticism in James's work. If James's tolerance for theism was ever going
to freak me out, it would have happened years ago. Pirsig and Dewey are more
thoroughgoing atheists and that's pretty much where I sit too, but I've found
that James's work on religion is totally fascinating. It'll be central in my
thesis, thus all the books.
He himself was not a theist, however. He felt that such a view was alienating.
He said "the theistic conception ...leaves the human subject outside of the
deepest reality in the universe". That's pretty much how he felt about the
Absolute too. I think the alienation of theism is analogous to SOM and probably
its mother too. As I see it, they are two versions of the same stark dualism.
James almost says so a few sentences later. "This essential dualism of the
theistic view has all sorts of collateral consequences. Man being an outsider
and mere subject to God, not his intimate partner, a character of externality
invades the field."
_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your
inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2
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
