From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Nov 05 2004 - 18:08:56 GMT
From: Ham Priday
To: Platt Holden, Sam Norton, and all
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: MD terror & religion
>
> > > This interview about religion & terror may be of interest.
> > >
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/542154/103-3536518-9271063
>
> Sam says:
>
> > Sigh. Yet another ill-informed diatribe. DMB will like it though ;-)
> >
> > Seems to me that there are indeed serious problems with the way that
> > monotheistic faiths are working themselves out, but if all the
criticisms
> > of those faiths are based upon ill-considered prejudice then there will
be
> > no way of finding a creative (ie DQ) resolution, which preserves those
> > things which are good in the western religious tradition, whilst
minimising
> > the bad. These sorts of thinkers, so it seems to me, are merely
replicating
> > the 'hippy' problem that Pirsig talks about - they are cutting out the
> > ground from under their feet. Wherever we end up, it will have to be an
> > ideology that affirms elements of the social level, otherwise we truly
are
> > doomed.
>
> Platt says:
>
> Right on, Sam. The religion of rationalism championed by this acolyte of
> amoral science completely ignores the role of the social level in keeping
> biological forces at bay. Another diatribe by a "hippy" who wraps himself
> in the mantle of science's unprovable assumptions.
>
I don't think we should be so quick to condemn Sam Harris, or Scientism, on
the premise that they are "amoral". Amorality, in itself, is as harmless as
agnosticism. It doesn't provide us with spiritual insight; but it also
doesn't lead to violence or genicide. More important, it seems to me, is
that our criticisms be focused on voices which claim to derive morality from
faulty philosophical premises. Religious fundamentalists certainly belong
in this category.
What Sam Harris says in this interview makes a lot of sense to me. I have
not read "The End of Faith" yet, but I do intend to purchase it.
I was particularly impressed with this statement: "Culture does not
systematically improve the design of its products (neither does biology for
that matter). So, while we should expect to see important differences
across cultures, these differences may not reflect anything deeper about us
than the fact that human communities tend to keep using the tools they've
got for as long as these tools are serviceable."
MOQ proponents, I suppose, will see this as a rejection of DQ working to
bring culture to a state of "betterness". To me, that notion is as mythical
(magical) as anything that the baggage of religious dogma
has left us. Harris has some positive things to say which deserve our
attention if only because they have the potential to bring some consensus to
this discussion. For example:
"While Eastern mysticism has its fair share of unjustified belief, it
undoubtedly represents humankind's best attempt at fashioning a spiritual
science. The methods of introspection one finds in Buddhism, for instance,
have no genuine equivalents in the West. ...When a Tibetan lama talks about
"nondual awareness" (Tib. rigpa) and the Pope talks about God or the Holy
Spirit (or anything else), they are not talking about the same thing; nor
are they operating on the same intellectual footing. The lama is using some
very precise terminology (albeit terminology that has no good English
equivalent) to describe what countless meditators have experienced after
very refined training in methods of introspection; while the Pope is merely
reiterating unjustified and unjustifiable metaphysical claims that have been
passed down to Christians in the context of a culture that has
failed--utterly--to find compelling alternatives to mere belief. Such
alternatives have existed for millennia, east of the Bosporus. This is not
to ignore the Meister Eckharts of the world, but such mystics have always
been the exception in the West. And it is important to remember that, being
exceptions, they have been regularly persecuted for heresy.
"'Spirituality' or 'mysticism' (both words are pretty terrible, but there
are no good alternatives in English) refers to any process of introspection
by which a person can come to realize that the feeling he calls 'I' is a
cognitive illusion. The core truth of mysticism is this: It is possible to
experience the world without feeling like a separate "self" in the usual
sense. Such a change in the character of one's experience need not become
the basis for making unsupportable claims about the nature of the universe,
however."
>
Doesn't this line of thought give some direction to the ideas being tossed
around in this forum? It's no secret that Mr. Pirsig himself was
considerably influenced by non-theistic Eastern philosophy. I suspect that
his omission of a clear concept of "selfness" in the MOQ reflects a
reluctance to identify completely with the mystical approach to philosophy.
Judging by the amount of interest I've seen here in Zen Buddhism, I would
think that the experience of the mystic (which, by the way, Harris regards
as "empirical") might offer some fertile ground for the metaphysical
inadequacies of the MOQ. I'll be interested to see how you all react to
this new book.
>
Essentially yours,
Ham
>
>
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