From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Wed Apr 06 2005 - 05:25:21 BST
On 5 Apr 2005 at 3:25, hampday@earthlink.net wrote:
ant said:
> Except the former is based on faith (and in MOQ terms read "low
> quality intellectual pattern") and probably induced by some form of
> hypnosis when part of a congregation or religious crowd while a
> relationship with Quality is a "matter of fact" one.
ham:
What a way to put down believers! If it's a spiritual concept it has
to be a "low quality intellectual pattern", whereas, if it's "a
matter of fact" it's worthy of the Quality stamp. Who's to say that
a religious experience is not a matter of fact? You've prejudged the
experience before even analyzing it. Can you not see the hypocrisy
of your argument?
msh:
Muslims faithfully believe propositions which directly contradict
propositions faithfully believed by Christians. Both claim their
beliefs are based on factual religious experiences. Can you not see
the philosophical problem with faith-based belief systems? THIS is
what Pirsig means by patterns of low intellectual quality.
ham:
Let's suppose that at your death you are faced with having to make a
voluntary choice between the following two options.
Option 1 (Nothingness): You may choose that, effective immediately,
your proprietary awareness, including all memory of your
life-experience will be permanently erased. Your
"consciousness-of-self" will, in effect, return to the nothingness
from whence you came.
Option 2 (Somethingness): You may choose "psychic continuity" in a
form or mode that is presently incomprehensible to you and that can
only be revealed by choosing it beforehand.
How would you choose?
This isn't a trick question...it gets to what I think is the
"essential core" of both religion and philosophy.
msh asks:
Why sugar-coat the question with jargon? You are asking whether or
not most people would like to believe they are immortal. It should
come as no surprise to you that the answer is yes. The primary
function of religious belief systems is to facilitate the denial of
personal annihilation upon death. If the majority of people were
comfortable with the notion of their own mortality, the need for
religious dogma would have gone extinct long ago.
You value philosophy and you are desperate for religion. This is
obvious in your attempt to place religion and philosophy at the same
intellectual level. You're right in claiming that this craving for
personal survival beyond death is at the core of religion; but to
suggest that it is at the core of philosophical inquiry is
ahistorical nonsense.
DMB touched on this earlier, so here's a question for you: Why is
it that the folks who find death most fearsome are the same who
adamantly believe in Heaven, and their own ballistic acceleration
thence? Seems like the transition would be a cherished upgrade, no?
And, since I'm asking questions, is it possible to have a a design
without a designer? A creation without a creator? You apparently
believe the universe was designed and created, and yet you don't call
yourself a theist. How does that work, exactly?
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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