Ya' see?
This is why I don't like to take part in discussions of religion and the like.
It's why I find it quite fultile and not illuminating in any way (where I take
something positive away from it).
A lot of "It's not really that way, it's really like this."
And I just looooove being told what I really think.
Is almost finished with the Behe section,
Matt
At 11:29 AM 6/20/2001 +0200, you wrote:
>
> Dear Matt, Rasheed, Marco, John, Roger & others,
>
> Matt, on 16/6 22:39 -0500 you reject defining religion as "the essentially
> human pursuit of re-experiencing DQ" "because, by definition, you don't
> re-experience DQ", because "that implies religion as the only way to
> experience DQ" and because "Being part of a religion means being part of ...
> static social patterns.".
> If you "define" (undefinable) Dynamic Quality as (or rather point to the moon
> of DQ with) "pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality" and if "reality =
> experience", than you don't re-experience the same bit of DQ you experienced
> last time you experienced DQ. You can however re-experience DQ as freedom
> from (even the new) static patterns of value (that have formed from last
> time's DQ-experience). The futility of trying to re-experience the same bit
> of DQ, doesn't deter human beings from pursuing it, though, so I'd still
> leave the "re-" in my definition as a kind of malicious side-note :-)
> Pursuing DQ is a way of experiencing DQ (if you are not so stupid to try to
> re-experience last time's bit of DQ), just experiencing anything and pursuing
> only static goals is another way, as those static goals (sex on the
> biological level, status on the social, truth on the intellectual) are just
> DQ in disguise (reflections of the moon?). And if you pursue only static
> goals you may still "accidentally" experience DQ that goes beyond these. My
> definition simply does not imply that religion is the only way to experience
> DQ (even if the static intellectual patterns of some religions seem to imply
> such exclusivity. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to God
> but through me.").
> Does being part of static social (and intellectual) patterns deter people
> from pursuing DQ??? Maybe they don't experience them as static because they
> identify with them and use them as "platform" to jump to the moon? Maybe they
> are busy "putting them to sleep" (Lila ch. 30)?
> Religion is not the static patterns associated with it. They are only the
> result of DQ experienced in the past. Once experienced DQ sometimes latches
> and creates a new static pattern of value. Even if it doesn't latch, the
> platform that was used for jumping gets the credit. Different religions are
> like different platforms humanity uses for jumping to the moon. That which
> connects and defines them is the act of jumping, the pursuit. In another
> often used metaphor: religion is the climbing of a mountain, not the
> different paths we follow to the top. (I like the moon-jumping metaphor
> better, though, because of the implied unreachability of the goal.)
> Religion is essentially human. Some of us call ourselves atheists. Others
> restrict religion to a separate part of their lives. Once we do so, we start
> creating metaphysical patterns as platforms to jump to the moon from (in the
> the rest of our lives, for those who restrict religion).
> If you write "what each of these religions is pointing at (the moon, as it
> goes) or trying to experience, well, that may be DQ." I read that as support
> of my definition...
>
> Matt, you wrote further:
> "Where I stand now, I guess, would be that it doesn't matter if God exists or
> not. ... because the Western conception of God is always as a separate being
> alongside the universe. ... I ... cut him out. My life doesn't change a
> bit."
> Marco, you apparently agreed on 17/6 12:49 +0200:
> "Now call it God, if you want. It doesn't change a lot."
> You are right. It doesn't change anything at all on the rational level of
> knowledge to equate DQ and God. (See John's posting of 15/6 15:38 +1000 or
>
> <http://www.members.ams.chello.nl/f.visser3/wilber/science.html>members.am
> s.chello.nl/f.visser3/wilber/science.html for an explanation of Wilber's
> levels of knowledge.) It diminishes both DQ and God to equate and define
them.
> To be more precise: it takes them down to the rational level of knowledge,
> depriving the spiritual level of a focal point for communication about
> meta-level experience.
> I propose not to equate them, therefore. Just leave them -undefined- at the
> spiritual level of knowledge, beautiful moons to jump at. I just want to
> point out the analogy of religion pointing at God and a MoQ pointing at DQ.
> The act of jumping and trying to build up the platform we're jumping from is
> the same. Accepting that enables us to learn from each other: MoQites and
> religious people (sometimes combined in the same person.
>
> Matt on 16/6 22:39 -0500 you also wrote:
> "I am extremely intrigued by pantheism"
> A fellow Quaker (now deceased) dug up the concept of "panentheism" somewhere
> before World War II which sustained her through the concentration camp of
> Mauthausen. "Everything exists within God." Isn't that a beautiful metaphor,
> too? Comparable to Pirsig's "Dynamic Quality is not ... in any block. It
is in
> the background."
> (<http://www.moq.org/forum/emmpaper.html>www.moq.org/forum/emmpaper.html
p.13)
>
> Matt, you wrote you don't experience God and do experience DQ. I'd say
> they're both moons of which you and I only experience the projections (in our
> eye-balls or wherever). The real thing eludes us. Who knows whether it
> "really" exists? Who cares? The "lure of God" (John 20/6 12:05 +1000) and
> "lure of (Dynamic) Quality" experiences are real enough.
>
> I say I believe in God. I even call myself a Christian. Essentially I do so
> because I want to feel included by other people whom I want to communicate
> with about our experiences. From what I wrote just now, you could just as
> well conclude that I am an atheist believing only in what I experience or an
> agnostic who couldn't care less.
> My favourite pointer to God is "that which connects everyone and everything",
> meaning to me: that which refutes everyday (static) experience of separation
> and disconnection. I just as easily speak about God as a person, though, with
> those who prefer to do so. Another fellow Quaker legitimizes describing God
> as a person by explaining that "being a person" is the highest Quality he can
> attribute to something. I very much respect that.
>
> John, in reply to your 18/6 13:34 +1000 posting: Pirsig seems -very wisely I
> think- to leave to us the writing of the "third novel dealing with
meaning"...
> I won't forget my offer to describe Quaker methods of discriminating the
> dynamic, but I haven't time for it now. You could take a look at the
> "Introductory items"on <http://www.quaker.org>www.quaker.org meanwhile.
"How a
> Quaker <http://www.gla.ac.uk/~gkea04/business.html>Meeting for Business
> works." should include the most important parts of what I mean to write, but
> I haven't checked yet.
>
> With friendly greetings,
>
> Wim Nusselder
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