Dan, I leave in much, because I'm slow to respond these days and the conversation has had time to grow cold.
> > >> Dan: > >> As the Copleston book shows, the Victorians were staunchly religious. > >> They really believed in God and spirit and soul. Make no mistake. It > >> was demanded of them. > > > >John: > > Yes.. and no. They believed in reason and rationality, these were the > gods > > by which the Victorians oriented their lives. There was a lot of > religious > > questioning at the time and a great deal of freedom to be atheistic or > > anti-theistic even. > > Dan: > Do you have any evidence for this? John: Other than personal reading an study? No. But I'd say that the evidence of our own time is evidence enough of the time that came before it - that somebody had to be the first and the spirit of enquiry and rationalism were evidenced more clearly in Victorian times and by Victorian writers than any time previously - times mostly possessed by superstition and religious dogma. Dan: There may indeed have been some > atheistic thinking going on but I seriously doubt the Victorians > accorded anyone a great deal of freedom to do so. > > John: If so, Dan, then whence comes the freedom we experience today? We can freely believe anything we wish to and that is a change in world events. Did this come about in the roaring 20's? Were these the brave souls who created the social freedom we enjoy today, or were these the freed children of the Victorian giants who opened up the possibilites which they enjoyed? I think if you'll reflect upon this idea, you'll find it has much to recommend it. > Dan: > The social patterns of the time demanded that a gentleman believed in > God. Otherwise, a person was considered a heathen. > > John: One was considered a heathen if one turned one's back on the social order of the day. But like I said, as long as he acted the gentleman, the atheist was a viable part of society. No doubt he would be considered something of a heathen and infidel by the more church-oriented, but that's not the same thing as being burned at the stake. > Dan: > Well, I do like historical fiction, but to be honest, the Victorian > era doesn't appeal to me all that much. What books would you suggest? > > To my mind, the most fascinating illustration of the times is bound up with the history of California, for California arose at a most apropriate time in world history and relative to the Victorian Capitalists domination of the world economy. The gold rush itself created a boom with it's influx of sudden capital (in those days, before computer-generated funds, you ran out of money when you ran out of gold) and an impetus to industry and invention little imagined. For the spirit of the times, for the depths in the hearts of men, read their poetry - Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley. Or for that matter, have you read all of Jane Austen? She describes the ideas of Victorian society better than any modern historian could conjecture, although admittedly, from within it rather than with the perspective we have. > > > > > > > Dan: > >> Yes but to compare Native American culture with the Victorians is a > >> stretch. Not even in the same ballpark, I'd say. > >> > > > > John: > > Again, a vehemently disagree. The American character is largely a > synthesis > > of those two influences, and you don't have synthesis where there is no > > affinity. > > Dan: > Just because there is a synthesis doesn't lead to the conclusion there > is an affinity. That is a mistake, in my opinion. > > John: > One thing they both shared, was an idea of a supreme being and > > spiritual reality. As did the Greeks and just about every culture you > can > > name. > > Dan: > But the idea of a supreme being was much different to the Native > Americans than what it was to the Europeans. Culturally, neither could > understand the other without some sort of indoctrination. > > John: > The Victorians were the first society I can think of, to actually > > work at killing off the idea of deity. And today people think of them as > > "staunchly religious" is kinda ironic. > > Dan: > There may have been a few writers who proclaimed God is dead but > culturally that was far from the truth. Even today, God is not dead by > any stretch of the imagination. Just walk down the street and count > the churches, then tell me God is dead. > > > > > > > Dan: > >> Well, ruach is a Hebrew word that literally means both wind and god. > >> It has to do with a kind of vitalizing force... the wind of god > >> brooded over chaos in the creation story to bring forth life. > > > > > > John: > > > > Ok, now yer talkin'. > > > > > > Dan: > > > > > >> It is a > >> what, not a who, however. > >> > >> > > John: > > > > Now see, that's a choice too. Like I choose to treat my dog more as a > who > > than a what, but to ask what he ultimately is, beyond my conception of > him > > sorta makes the whole exercise ridiculous. We choose to view a who, > because > > we need a who. We choose to view a what, because it suits us to. I > get > > that. A lot. > > Dan: > My point was that ruach wasn't anthropocentric (a who, a God) so much > as it was considered a natural "force," some "thing" undefined yet > capable of bringing order to disorder. > > > > > Dan: > > > > > >> Now, they may have been talking Dynamic Quality! But not the > >> Victorians with their spirit and soul. Sorry. > >> > >> > > John: > > > > See, "Victorians" is too broad a brush to wipe out a whole generation. > Some > > were, some weren't. You have to dig down a bit to find out which is > which. > > Like everything. > > Dan: > That may be true. I assumed we were speaking of generalities rather > than specifics. > > > > > Dan: > > > > I don't think it is a good thing to conflate god and Dynamic Quality, > >> which you seem to be doing here, hence my discomfort with spirit and > >> soul as used in Copleston. It is nonsense. > >> > >> > > John: > > > > Well that's a tricky one, Dan, to answer. Because there is a sort of > > three-fold aspect of what I think when you say "God". I'm conditioned > along > > certain symbolic representative lines, and it's not really God the Father > > that I conflate with DQ, it's the Holy Spirit, and see, that's a whole > > 'nother problem because what THAT is, is a complete mystery even to > people > > who say they believe in the Bible, so just simply conflating God and DQ, > no, > > I don't do that. > > Dan: > Good. > > >John: > > One man's nonsense, another man's treasure. Hey, you gotta have some > kind > > of mythic conceptualization of it all in order to think about the whole > > enchilada. > > Dan: > Granted. > > > > > > > Dan: > >> I am not indoctrinated, sorry. Never been a church-goer. Never studied > >> religion, christian or otherwise. I did read the bible as a teenager > >> and actually memorized a good deal of it but that was on account of > >> reading somewhere that Hemingway did the same to better his writing. > >> I've also read the Gita and the Koran and checked out the Book of > >> Morman (God, what a load). > >> > >> > > John: Well, I'd put a broader understanding of what I mean by > > indoctrinated. We're all indoctrinated to an extent, and ideas about > > religion are just as much a result of our indoctrination as absorbing > those > > ideas from the womb as truth. I've never been much of a church goer > either, > > but I've gone enough to understand how it drives people. But like you, > it's > > mostly just driven me away. It really wasn't till Deep Ecology > Philosophy > > that I started having more sympathy for religious conceptualizations. > > Dan: > I would say we are all ensnared in the culture we inhabit. I think the > MOQ agrees. > > > > > > > Dan: > > > > > >> For the record, the ghosts that RMP speaks of in ZMM have to do with > >> social and intellectual patterns of value, not spirits or the soul. In > >> fact, he equates the theory(s) of gravity with those ghosts. > >> > >> > > John: > > > > Exactly! And the way I understand spirit, is that equate it with those > > things also - intellectual patterns such as the theory of gravity. > > Software. Programmatic information, rather than some substance. > Spiritual > > reality includes all areas of knowledge and wonder, ghosts. spirit. I > > mean geez, can't the meaning of a word be shifted from the exact spelling > of > > your expectation? If Spirit as they were talking about, is the same as > DQ > > as he's talking about. Spirit, apart from the dogmatic theories of any > > particular sect - that which drives the creation of ideas about gods and > > angels and sprites - THAT spirit IS DQ - the generator of the mythos. > Two > > terms which end up meaning the same thing in essence. > > Dan: > I still don't think that is the spirit the Victorians were talking > about. Not at all. Spirit to them was a manifestation of God, the > Divine driving the mundane world. That is not what RMP means by > Dynamic Quality. > > > > > > > Dan: > > > >> As I've told you before, I am not a philosopher and have done no > >> formal studies. I would be interested in going over the Copleston > >> annotations to further the MOQ, however. > >> > >> > > John: It's a very enjoyable process. Analytic philosophy isn't really > > necessary, its written as a commentary upon the ideas of a > philosophologist > > - Copleston, in his reading and analysis of British Idealism of the > > Victorian period. There's a lot that RMP finds agreeable and good, and > like > > you, he's put off by the religious construction of the thought, but if > > nothing else I think the whole passage is valuable as an illustration of > > other great thinkers who overcame the S/O paradigm in their thought. > > Dan: > I've been over the Copleston annotations many times, yes. There is > much good stuff there to further illustrate the MOQ. Clearly though, > RMP disagrees with any notion of spirit or soul as understood by the > Victorians. > > > > > > >>> Dan: > >> >> We both have a choice and have no choice, at the same time. That is > >> >> what the MOQ is telling us. > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > John: > >> > > >> > That doesn't satisfy me at all. Logical contradictions are not very > >> > useful. Philosophically -wise. > >> > >> Dan: > >> It is not a logical contradiction. To the extent we follow static > >> quality, we have no choice. To the extent we follow Dynamic Quality, > >> we are free. Where is the contradiction? > >> > >> > > > > John: > > The contradiction is at "at the same time". We can only do one at a time. > > We can either follow DQ, or sq. Thus we are either free or trapped, by > our > > choice. Choice is fundamental. > > Dan: > No, Dynamic Quality and static quality are not mutually exclusive. As > experience unfolds, they are both working all the time. Choice only > happens after we've intellectualized the world, however. > > > > > > > Dan: > > > >> Yes, co-fundamental works. We need both Dynamic Quality and static > >> quality. Quality (if we're talking Dynamic Quality/static quality as I > >> assume we are) is both free and determined. It is not synonymous with > >> free will however. > >> > >> > > John: > > > > I don't see how you can separate it and still remain logical. By free > will, > > I simply mean the ability to choose. I don't see how you can separate > > Quality from the ability to choose. When there is no choice, there is no > > betterness. If you want to avoid the synonymous labeling, then you'll > have > > to come up with a functional difference or way to divide them. > > Dan: > That's what the MOQ is all about. That is the fundamental split. > > > > > > > > > > > Dan: > >> As I told Ham, you are missing the point of the hot stove experiment. > >> Moving off the hot stove isn't an intellectual decision. That comes > >> later. Your 3-stove analogy completely missed that point and I cannot > >> see that you've grasped it yet. > >> > >> > > John: > > > > Well, that's because you persistently refuse to get MY point. There's no > > such thing as a "hot stove experiment". There is actual people involved > > with actual stoves and their reactions are all over the map, as varied as > > the people themselves. Some even intellectualize. Heck, some people > > intellectualize EVERYTHING dan, I should know, I'm one of 'em. I'd > > intellectualize myself off a hot stove, probably. So it's no conclusive > > proof of anything, especially not of anything as important as the > > fundamentalness of intellect. > > > > I thought I really explained this, but I can see that you haven't grasped > it > > yet. > > Dan: > That may well be. But you're explanation isn't in congruence with the > MOQ, so far as I can see. It is rooted in intellectualism. To you, we > make a choice to get off the stove. I am saying there is no choice > involved. That comes later. > > Thank you, > > 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 > 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
