Mark says:
If you base your starting point on experience, and that experience is reality,
is the experience of desire real or outside of that empiricism? Are them some
experiences that are not considered as empirical? Does Quality incorporate
happiness, loneliness, hunger, fear, into its framework?
dmb says:
Radical empiricism says that any kind of experience can count as empirical
evidence. It also says that philosophers have no business making any claims
unless it is based on experience. It says that assertions about forces or
entities outside of experience can never be more than speculation and such
thing should not be admitted into our philosophies.
Mark said:
You seem to be suggesting that the experience of God is not empirical, but
something else. If so, how would you know if you haven't experienced it, but
others have? What measurement are you using for experience that differs with
Quality to separate it from Theism? This seems a rational and direct question
that is clear enough to me. I would ask for a rational answer how the
experience of God is does not fit in with your radical empiricism.
dmb says:
There is a wide range of religious experience and they can all be used as
empirical evidence. To claim that some certain experience was the experience of
God, however, is not empirical evidence but rather a conclusion and an
assertion as to the nature and meaning of that experience. Theism is not simply
the belief that people have mind-blowing experiences. It is a whole system of
belief, a set of assertion, a world view with a particular course of
development in history. Like I said to Ham, if you check out Stanford's article
on mysticism you'll quickly realize that scholars distinguish two distinct
types of mysticism. One is theistic and the other is not. Roughly, the theistic
varieties construe the mystical experience in dualistic terms so that it is
conceived as an encounter between the mystic and his God. In the non-theistic
forms, by contrast, to be enlightened is to fully realize the lack of division
between god and man. The non-theistic mystic doesn't encounter god. He
realizes that he is god and everything else. Dynamic Quality is this
undivided awareness.
Mark said:
Again these are clear questions which simply ask you to define the sensing of
experience which is at the heart of radical empiricism and how it applies to
Quality but not to God. I am not obfuscating or deliberately misleading, I am
honestly trying to understand your beliefs only because they seem to me to be
irrational. That is just the opinion I have so far, I would like to be
corrected.
dmb says:
Well, apparently I don't know what you mean by "God". In what sense did anyone
ever experience God? Isn't more like you had a powerful experience and "god"
seemed like a good explanation to you afterward? I once had a vision of Jesus
and a whole bunch of other gods but I did not take it as evidence or their
actual existence. It wouldn't explain a damn thing if somebody told me that
vision was caused of given by god either. And yet it was something I'll never
forget and it means quite a lot to me personally. On the other hand, this
second-hand report isn't going to very compelling to anyone else. And rightly
so. Why should my vision alter your way of seeing? I've heard lots of stories
about alien abductions and the people who tell those stories are quite sincere.
But I do NOT jump from this evidence to conclude that they really were
kidnapped by creatures from space. It that were literally true we'd have more
evidence than just stories. But all this fascinating psychological s
tuff might lead us astray because the MOQ denies no experience per se. It is
radically empirical. But to be anti-theistic is to be opposed to something far
more concrete. Theism is an institution in our culture and it has had a very
specific form in the West for 2000 years. Let's not pretend that we're talking
about anything different form regular old Christianity. In our world, theism
means the church.
Mark said:I sense that an alternative to theism is being proposed. Something
which is more fulfilling than what people have found in the past. Are there
rational arguments to support this increase in direct personal relevance? If
so, could you provide a couple?
dmb says:
There is a general trend in the West away from authorities and institutions and
toward increasingly individualistic forms of spiritual development. But
basically, it is simply a matter of obsolescence. How can we believe in heaven
in the space age? How can we believe the world was created in a few day just a
few thousand years ago. Virgin births and resurrection from the dead both defy
everything we know about babies and death. Is there a rational case against
theism?! Hell yes. Where have you been for the last century?
"Phaedrus saw nothing wrong with this ritualistic religion as long as the
rituals are seen as merely a static portrayal of Dynamic Quality, a sign-post
which allows socially pattern-dominated people to see Dynamic Quality. The
danger has always been that the rituals, the static patterns, are mistaken for
what they merely represent and are allowed to destroy the Dynamic Quality they
were originally intended to preserve." (Lila, p.385) "The MOQ associates
religious mysticism with Dynamic Quality but it would certainly be a mistake to
think that the MOQ endorses the static beliefs of any particular religious
sect. Phaedrus thought sectarian religion was a static social fallout from
Dynamic Quality and that while some sects had fallen less than others, none of
them told the whole truth." (Lila, p.376) "From what Phaedrus had been able to
observe, mystics and priests tend to have a cat-and-dog coexistence within
almost every religious organization. Both groups need each other bu
t neither group likes the other at all. There's an adage that, "Nothing
disturbs a bishop quite so much as the presence of a saint in the parish." It
was one of Phaedrus' favorites. The saint's Dynamic understanding makes him
unpredictable and uncontrollable, but the bishop's got a whole calandar of
static ceremonies to attend to;... In all religions bishops tend to gild
Dynamic Quality with all sorts of static interpretations because their cultures
require it. But these interpretations become like golden vines that cling to a
tree, shut out its sunlight and eventually strangle it." (Lila, p.377)
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