Hi John, > I sympathize with disappointment with some in this forum. As far as I am concerned atheism or what ever one wants to call it posses no claims to defining oneself. It is a "not this" type of position. I believe the psychological roots that you speak of are real. Intelligence cannot be theistic, what is one thinking? Unfortunately, history does not bear this out. Recently there is some fear of theism. Perhaps they are thinking "there for the grace of God go I". It is no different from being against poor people, or rich people and trying to ignore they exist, or shying away from any difference or disability, simply because they do not want to be reminded that their form of thought and life is only an alternative to possible others. If one is fearful of his own premises or opinions, he does his best to destroy that which is foreign.
I don't think theism really comes into MOQ. One could say that the belief in Quality is theistic. But this has no meaning, anti-theism has the same issues. I have been trying to explain to the converted on this forum that Theism and Quality can live side by side, they are just words to express the ineffable. The actual structure or metaphysics can differ, which is where we should go. Let's define the structure. But nobody wants to do that for fear of actually expressing a personal opinion that may conflict with the teaching of RMP. This is really no way to proceed, this is not a religion with dogma. It is open to discussion not to just quoting the Book. So, I do not disagree with you, but non-theism does not mean anything to me. Unlike you I have no childhood roots in any religion. I guess I was brought up pragmatically or whatever. I simply read what theism is supposed to be from books and discussions with intelligent people who have thought it out and chosen theism. I really do not have something deep to draw from. This may put me at a disadvantage, but it may also give me some perspective. [Jphn] But non-theist, I can live with, even though technically speaking "a-theist" > means exactly the same thing. Atheists in the flesh, however, usually > aren't simply non-theists, they are usually actually strident anti-theists. > They think religion should be abolished in the name of scientific > rationality. The MoQ sees through that silliness - "scientific > rationality" > as just another thing that's only in your head. > > [John] Now I realize there are many, if not most, on this list who will strenuously > disagree with me. And this is for the very good reason that they truly are > antitheistic, and wish to force that view upon the whole. They don't have > any patience for varieties of religious experience, because they've got an > axe to grind, an anger to assuage or a social group to conform to. Thus > psychological dependencies that won't withstand question or inquiry, as dmb > so helpfully projected from within his own soul. But how can he help it? > When I'm talking about the common connotations of "atheist", I'm talking > about the academic community: chief enforcers of an anti-theistic view > based > upon a long, long pattern of community - formation through enemy > scapegoating and a social mechanism that is easy to explain with an > analogy. > > [Mark] There seems to be a demeaning of anything that can be explained. For some reason if we put words to something it becomes less. This is the illusionary power of words. It is not without intellectual reasons that the ancient Egyptian realized that by naming something you owned it. Now they were closer to the beginning of the symbolic use of words than we were, and there were only a few that could do so. Now that words are commonplace we have lost that knowledge of bewitchment and actually think that the words represent what they are naming. Truth or Quality, they are all just paintings and not the landscape itself. By the way, I liked your Pavlov analogy with Monkeys. Gotta banana? Mark > > > 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 > 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
