From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Fri Mar 11 2005 - 02:59:14 GMT
Sam,
Sam said:
I saw that you've been reading MacIntyre recently. His understanding of a
tradition is definitely part of how I understand things. But I wanted to
pick up on your comment about things changing in our present context, that
things are becoming different. I have a lot of sympathy with that. I don't
know if you're a fan of Frank Herbert's Dune sequence, but his vision of an
'Orange Catholic Bible', ie we end up with one religion, uniting elements of
all in syncretistic fashion is something which I suspect may well happen
(and be of high Quality).
Scott:
MacIntyre's book impressed me, but I'm not sure if there isn't a "fourth
way". While I can accept his rejection of the encyclopedic and genealogical
approaches, I cannot fully accept the traditional approach either. Just
knowing that one is working within a tradition -- that one has the option to
be working in others -- changes things.
I also doubt that the future of religion will be syncretistic. Rather, I see
more pruning away than joining together. But that is just another guess.
Sam said:
What I most disagree with in the discussion about mysticism and 'pure
experience' etc, is the Platonic notion that there has to be one common
factor between the different religions which serves as the definition of a
"mystical experience". I think that is a profoundly SOM interpretation. And
my rejection of that isn't due to special pleading for Christian belief, but
simply an acceptance of Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblance.
Scott:
I agree, though noting resemblances is an important part of inquiry.
Although their backgrounds and vocabulary are quite different, there are
intriguing similarities between the Catholic Bernadette Roberts and the
I'm-not-sure-what Merrell-Wolff. Given the similarities, that leads one to
think one has data so that one can say something interesting, metaphysically
or psychologically.
Sam said:
So whilst I'm open to there being a new development of 'generic mysticism',
I don't think it's going to correspond to the intellectual abstractions from
religious belief that get batted around here every so often. I think it's
more likely to emerge slowly as an international cosmopolitan culture starts
to put down deeper roots. In a couple of hundred years there will be a
dominant "world religion", which will be a reformed Modernism - at least I
think so.
Scott:
On the last point I hope you're wrong :) I hope for a wholesale rejection of
Modernism, though obviously not a simple return to the pre-Modern.
- Scott
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