Thanks to David, Arlo, and Mary for detailed and thoughtful responses to my issues. I appreciate the time and effort you devoted to my inquiries and concerns. You were generous of your time and your scholarship. In response, I will think deeply about the insights you have contributed, and I will apply them to my "project'. I have been working on a major "thesis" covering several metaphysical systems that relate to MOQ, especially those that have interpreted evolution or incorporated cosmic evolution into their fabric. I have completed chapters on the work of Henri Bergson and of Teilhard de Chardin. I will undertake Pirsig's chapter next, including highlights of ZMM, and will articulate the MOQ as I understand it. Then I'd like to submit it to for review, especially of my explanation of the MOQ. David is right to insist that I can't presume to extend or supplement or improve upon the MOQ unless I know it inside and out and understand what it really says. As Arlo points out, it will also be important to distinguish and make clear what Pirsig says and what the MOQ says.
Dan, in Issue 11, in addition to your gracious response to positive comments I had made about your contributions, you suggested that I had been hasty to judge Andre. You were right. Soon after that I contact Andre personally. I was moved by his candor and sincerity. I offered my hand (metaphorically) in fellowship, and he graciously accepted. We have mended fences and gained each other as respected colleagues. Let me be clear, if I wasn't in issue 11, I apologize publicly to Andre and wish to acknowledge him as a good, sincere, and helpful scholar. So thank you all again for your valued contributions. Wish me luck with my "homework"! John L. McConnell Home: 407-857-2004 Cell: 321-438-6301 Email: [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Moq_Discuss [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 3:12 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Moq_Discuss Digest, Vol 106, Issue 13 Send Moq_Discuss mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Moq_Discuss digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: MOQ is good. What is it good for? (Mary) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 23:47:48 -0600 From: "Mary" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>, "Mary" <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for? Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Someone who is distractingly named John on MD, but is not our John at LS said: If I'm misunderstanding the MOQ, please show me. But I don't see how I can be mistaken. It clearly stops at the intellectual level and clearly says, "That's all there is." But that's not "all there is" for me! >From my view, the transcendent experience of faith and worship is more Dynamic than intellectual experience, and its patterns are further advanced, Dynamically, than intellectual ones. Mary: This argument is around a lot. If science or the MoQ doesn't validate religion - my religion anyway - then there's something wrong with science or the MoQ. My experience of the divine is completely real, it is said, and I know I've experienced God, etc., etc. John2 cont'd: you haven't excluded religion??? C'mon!! The only religion you haven't excluded is Buddhism. You have made it patently clear that you and Pirsig are anti-theistic. The MOQ tolerates religion but does not accept it as anything more than a flawed social pattern. You have dismissed faith in God as "garbage, low quality". (Pirsig seems somewhat more tolerant.) Pirsig avers that the four levels of the MOQ embrace all of evolution and of human experience. Well, it deliberately (and I think arbitrarily) excludes the most significant dimension of my human experience! I feel like someone who sees colors, and you see shades of grey and insist that seeing color is "very low quality". I agree that some "very low quality" patterns have been of religion and in the name of religion. What's very low quality is subversion of color vision (faith) to social institutions that screw it up, or to bad intellectual constructs that are used to judge and abuse other people. But seeing color isn't a bad thing just because you don't! Mary: There's the crux of the issue. Not fair! Not fair, you cry! Why don't you treat my religion with the same respect you show for science? Well, as DMB is fond of saying, the MoQ is based on experience. I agree for the most part, and would add that this must be extended to bring clarity. Get this. The MoQ is based on experience but NOT on your interpretation of experience. If you choose to interpret a personal sense of well-being, for instance, as being caused by God, that is your interpretation of experience, and static interpretation has very little to do with the actual experience. Simple. Same goes for science, to be completely fair. We used to think the earth was flat. That was the epitome of science in its day; but then, somebody showed that the experience that looked like the earth was flat, was a wrong interpretation of the experience! The point is, the experience did not change, but the static interpretation did. The biggest mistake a person can make is believing that their interpretation of experience is the only right one. That causes trouble (and things like ISIS/ISIL). I'm sure they believe America is being unfair to them too. When religion, of any type, provides the most satisfactorily logical interpretation of reality, then, and only then, will people unite behind your interpretation of experience. Best, Mary of LS ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Moq_Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org ------------------------------ End of Moq_Discuss Digest, Vol 106, Issue 13 ******************************************** 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
