Roger, Elliot and everyone else:
Elliot to DMB:
I understand your very anti-athoritarian, but your view of intellect is
surprisingly elitist. How can you be very anti-athoritarian if Galileo was
right and christainty wrong? If galileo needed some help from an athority,
would you give it to him. Also, i think a true understanding of
un-athoritarianism is to accept there are no athorities who know what is
right and no sheep who believe what is wrong.
Rog:
Isn't the best way to look at the issue a matter of finding which view --
reason or church authority -- is best? I know this sounds tautologous, but
the point is to evaluate whether following reason/science or religious
scripture leads to the best results. Of course, it could be that each is
better in certain realms of endeaver.
DMB SAYS:
Elliot is confusing two different meanings of the word "authority". The
first one, anti-authoritarian, describes a political view, one that could
just as accurately be call libertarian. Its a position on matters of the
distribution of political power. It favors individual freedom and individual
rights over the obedience and subjegation of individuals by the state.
The second meaning refers to moral and/or intellectual expertise, persuasive
abilities, substantiated views and such. And so Elliot's question and his
assertion about "un-authoritarianism", which isn't even a word, make no
sense and can't really be answered.
But if the issue is, as Roger paints it, a matter of finding which view is
best, then its a slam-dunk no-brainer. In a contest between verifiable
empirical evidence and religious dogma there is no contest. Whenever social
level views are contradicted by intellectual level views, the 4th level has
to win out. Here's a brief explanation. Roger, I'd like to know what you
think of this...
Galileo's critic was arguing from a position where natural philosophy and
theology were integrated into a wholistic worldview. (Christian theology had
been wedded to Aristotelian physics in the age of Scholasticism.) Galileo's
discoveries helped to begin the differentiation of these realms or domains.
And that is what the Enlightenment project was all about. In spite of the
defect, which is a matter of taking this differentiation process too far so
that science become totally divorced from moral, the Enlightenment project
definately produced an improvement. Fixing this defect means reintegrating
these realms so that there is no contradiction, it means reintegrating these
realms back into a wholistic view, but now at a higher level. And this
higher level will no only explain the world better, it will be more moral.
Not only does science need to recognize values and purpose, but religion has
to become more rational and reasonable. I think that Pirsig is trying to do
this in his attempt to integrate mysticism into empiricism and Wilber is
trying to do this with a kind of science of spirituality.
Thanks,
DMB
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