[Fernando] How come? There is only bloodshed, violence, war... Why should one wonder on the mysterious if the signs are of a degradating world, of degradating leaders, of degradating societies. How should we elaborate a coherent religion when there is so much starvation in our houses? It's sad.
[Arlo] Because the path out of this mess (which in my opinion reflects the SOM-mindset malady of ZMM) is towards something better. Remember that Einstein also denied there was a "personal God" who was involved in the affairs of its creation. This "God of One Tribe" was a nationalistic mindset, which he found repugnant and small-minded. Also, from this article, one saw (still) a metaphysical separation that Einstein tried to close, but rather than look for a singular-uniter (as did Pirsig), Einstein simply tried to push the division together. A valiant attempt, but lacking a metaphysical piece such as Quality. From the article, "The realm of science, he said, was to ascertain what was the case, but not evaluate human thoughts and actions about what should be the case. Religion had the reverse mandate. Yet the endeavors worked together at times." It continues. ""Science can be created only by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding," he said. "This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion." The talk got front-page news coverage, and his pithy conclusion became famous. "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."" What Einstein likely missed was that he was seeing two levels of morals, intellectual and social, and was confounded by intellect's (science's) apparent blindness towards morality; a blind spot addressed by positing that Quality is the Source of All Things. But I don't fault Einstein for this, as he was also able to bridge the rhetorical divide between "religion" and "atheism", by denying the existence of a "meddler God", but recognizing the "mysterious force" (DQ, IMO) that lies behind the beauty and "harmony of the spheres". >From the article. ""The fanatical atheists," he wrote in a letter, "are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who--in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses'-- cannot hear the music of the spheres."" Thus Einstein divorced "spirituality", or an appreciation for the mysterious force that gives rise to the beauty and harmony of the cosmos, from the idea of an anthropomorphic deity who sided with one group of people. It is this same spirituality, I believe, that underlies the spirituality of Zen. But at any rate, I hope you enjoyed the article, even if it left you with unanswered questions about resolving the social maladies of our modern times. 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
