Dan, The following makes my point from earlier, I think: "To the early Calvinists and to ourselves too this debasement of the > word seems outrageous, but it becomes understandable when one sees > that within the Victorian pattern of values society was God. As Edith > Wharton said, Victorians feared scandal worse than they feared > disease.
John: Or damnation! In many ways it was the great questioning of the existence of God, which drove a fanatic adherence then to the empty forms. They replaced faith in God, with faith in social patterns of wealth, nation and church. Lila: > They had lost their faith in the religious values of their > ancestors and put their faith in society instead. It was only by > wearing the corset of society that on oneself from lapsing back into a > condition of evil. Formalism and prudery were as to suppress evil by > denying it a place in one's "higher" thoughts, and for the Victorian, > higher spiritually meant higher socially. There was no distinction > between the two. "God is a gentleman through and through, and in all > probability, Episcopal too." To be a gentleman was as close as you > would ever get, while on earth, to God." [LILA] > > John: Yup. Exactly. Lila: "Good old technology. All this twentieth century sanity wasn't as > interesting as the old days of his incarceration but he was getting a > lot more accomplished, at a social level at least. Other cultures may > talk to idols and animal spirits and fissures in rocks and ghosts of > the past but it wasn't for him. He had other things to do." [LILA} > > Dan comments: > > In the first quote, he links higher spirituality with higher social > standing. To be a gentleman is to believe in God. In the second quote, > he declares while other cultures may believe in spirits and souls, it > isn't to be included in the MOQ. > > If you have a different take, I would love to hear it. > > Thank you, > I get where he's coming from, in that second quote. I think there's a good reason to go forward with a new term, rather than diggin backward to one that's already got a lot of static baggage attached. But I don't think that means in anyway, that just because "he had other things to do" people who do dig back into these things are immoral or doing wrong from an MoQ perspective. For one thing, the individual needs of people are so various, it's hard to picture ANY religious or philosophical system working for everybody. So you have to have patience with people's needs, and a way of transmitting the idea of just because you find a certain conceptualization helpful, don't get trapped by it, don't think of it as ultimate in anyway. Tha's my take and I'm stickin' to it! Thanks again, Dan 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
