From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Apr 06 2005 - 17:47:25 BST
Hi Mark --
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.
I'm not aware of any "direct contradiction" between theistic belief systems;
but you're right that there are differences. Leaving Pirsig's "patterns"
metaphor aside for the present, I not only understand that religion causes
problems for philosophers, I posit Essentialism as an example of how to
accommodate the "spirituality" missing in most philosophy. It does this by
offering a plausible ontology in place of pagan- derived dogma which is a
palliative designed largely to 'control the masses'.
Ham's challenge:
> 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?
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.
May I then note YOUR answer to my challenge as "Yes"? (I have yet to hear
from Anthony.) Did you really mean to say "the primary function of
religious belief is to facilitate the denial of personal annihilation"? I
would say the opposite -- that the purpose is to engendor hope for the
continuance of personal awareness. I do agree with your conclusion,
however.
msg continues:
> 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.
That's not an unfair characterization, although I cringe at the notion that
I may be "desperate for religion". I think we, as philosophers, have lost
sight of our core belief -- what might be called a 'credo' in traditional
religion. Restoring that core value is what Essentialism is all about. If
philosophical inquiry has no core value for the individual, it is pointless.
The Quality that I've seen defined for the MoQ is a "universal" which is not
proprietary [subjective] to individuated awareness, and hence fails to
address man's core value.
Incidentally, my cosmology does not support the view that the individual
*per se* is immortal, which is why I couched my challenge question in terms
that you called "jargon". It is the valuistic Essence of man -- not the
individual self -- that survives finite existence. I think the word
"immortality" may be misleading in this respect, and therefore chose not to
use it.
> 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?
Perhaps such folks are lacking a personal philosophy that "makes enough
sense" to support their cherished core belief. (Does the MoQ have that
distinction?)
> 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?
No, I believe a design presupposes a designer; creation presupposes a
creator. William James asserted that we can't have "truth or falsehood"
without a physical world. [I'll quote you the passage from "Varieties..."
if you wish.] These are the extremes of a value system, and his statement
implies that we cannot have value without a primary source of value.
Concerning the "theist" allegation, I'm still on the fence in the sense that
it depends on your definition. I do not believe in a personal (i.e.,
existential) anthropomorphic god. I do believe in an anthropocentric
Essence. Does that make me a theist? You tell me.
And thanks for responding.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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