Dear Adam,
Some things I wrote before on Religion (and it's relation to SOM
and MoQ):
I wrote 9/6/01 20:54 +0100 in the 'Migration towards Dynamic
Quality'-thread:
'I am not gonna follow your suggestion to keep God out of
metaphysics either. The main competitor of a MOQ on the
meta-level is not SOM but religion. Being a former scientist,
Pirsig failed to see that. (Although "former" ...? Does an addict
to Ratio ever escape feeling the attraction of the game?)
Metaphysicists are a minuscule group of people compared to
religious professionals and the same is true of their followers
(scientists versus religious people). Religion (with its Latin
root re-ligare, to reconnect) can be defined as the essentially
human pursuit of re-experiencing DQ. Some of it crystallizes in
social and intellectual patterns of course, and those with a
vested interest in the output of former prophets will deny the
possibility of new DQ. Religion as a whole however has a good
claim to being the field of human activity that is most open to
incorporating DQ when it turns up. As such it has a longer
standing than science, and -after Kuhn showed the interdependence
of science and social patterns- it is in my opinion in no way
inferior. Religion needs a God-concept to communicate about
religious experience. (Buddhists tried to do without, but their
Boddhisatva's quack suspiciously like God-ducks.) For me too DQ
quacks like a God-duck. In fact I happen to be a Quaker (member
of the Religious Society of Friends) and most of my
fellow-Quakers would immediately recognize "pre-intellectual
cutting edge of reality", "the goal of everything" and "the
background of everything" as metaphores for God when I would use
these in meeting for worship. But I concede Quakers are an odd
bunch. The only dogma we have is that we don't have any dogma,
the nearest thing to it begin "there is something of God in every
person" (with every Quaker being free to rephrase it to his/her
own liking; my favourite is: everyone can directly experience
God). You can of course substitute "DQ" for "God" without any
Quaker taking offence. Some try to avoid the word "God" anyway.'
I wrote 20/6/01 10:29 +0100 in the 'Religion/God ~
MoQ/DQ'-thread:
'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
members.ams.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." (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.'
Don't forget to check contributions by others in the archives if
you are really interested.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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