Re: MD MOQ and The Problem Of Evil

From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Aug 18 2004 - 21:46:27 BST

  • Next message: Scott Roberts: "RE: MD Plotinus, Pirsig and Wilber"

    ----- Original Message -----
    Ham to David Morey
    Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004
    Re: MD MOQ and The Problem Of Evil

    You quoted me:
    > Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary cites as its first
    > definition for absolute: "a. free from imperfection"; b. "pure". (Only
    > the second definition refers to "...characteristic of a ruler completely
    > free from constitutional or other restraint". And even this is not far
    off
    > the mark for my Absolute.) Need I say more?
    >
    You say:
    > I am disquiet about 'free from imperfection', as
    > much of reality is awful and troubled, an absolute that
    > fails to recognise this is not taking responsibility for reality
    > and is detaching itself from reality. I prefer the language
    > Jung uses as per my Jung post. The 'ruler' idea also grates
    > with me, as this reality is made up of both SQ and DQ,
    > restraint and freedom.

    Of course the reality you see as "awful and troubled" is existential
    reality -- your experienced world -- not Essence itself. "Perfect" and
    "imperfect" are realities of this polarized existence in the same way that
    health and sickness are. In fact, we do not know, as finite creatures, if
    "imperfections" observed in nature may serve some essential purpose, just as
    pain does in alerting us to physiological damage or malfunction . For, as
    your poet Basilides says, "These qualities are distinct and seperate in us
    one from
    the other; therefore they are not balanced and void, but are effective.
    Thus are the victims of the pairs of opposites. The pleroma is rent in us."
    But the peroma, Essence, has no qualities: it is absolute and undivided. We
    only sense its Value.

    Another ham quote with your comment:
    > As for Essence, your "home brew" analogy expresses exactly what I did
    > to arrive at Essence -- i.e., boil down the complexity of reality in order
    to
    > reduce it to its "essence".
    >
    > DM: I do not like boiling down reality, I like Pirsig's
    > recognition in SQ and the levels of the full ontological
    > reality of the whole of being. Comments?

    I have trouble making sense of Pirsig's teleology. I uinderstand only that
    in social behavior, some decisions lead to change that advances man's
    condition, others are deleterious to man, while no change at all is seen as
    "static". I can not accept Essence as "the whole of being", and I cannot
    see an a priori Source divided in this way. It is unreasonable, to me, that
    Essence should have to be engaged in a continuous fight between its static
    and dynamic components. That is a "renting of pleroma" which Basilides
    describes as an attribute of the "creatura" -- and Pirsig should, likewise,
    restrict it to the SOM of existential reality.

    Essentially yours,
    Ham
    > >
    > > >
    > > > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    > > > Mail Archives:
    > > > Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    > > > Nov '02 Onward -
    > > http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    > > > MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
    > > >
    > > > To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    > > > http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
    > > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    > > Mail Archives:
    > > Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    > > Nov '02 Onward -
    > http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    > > MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
    > >
    > > To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    > > http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
    > >
    >
    >
    >
    > MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    > Mail Archives:
    > Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    > Nov '02 Onward -
    http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    > MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
    >
    > To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    > http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
    >

    MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    Mail Archives:
    Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net

    To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Aug 18 2004 - 23:13:20 BST