From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 22:43:41 BST
Dear Sam,
You wrote 3 Apr 2005 12:59:14 +0100:
> Wim's preference for DQ over SQ, and whether that is what our society
> as a whole would benefit from.
I don't prefer DQ over sq in general. I prefer DQ over sq in religion.
Our society benefits from social patterns of value (static quality), because
they provide social stability.
Our society benefits from intellectual patterns of value (static quality),
because they provide social dynamism and evolutionary progress.
To the extent that religion consists of social and intellectual patterns of
value (static quality), society can benefit from religion, provided that
there is no better culture than religious culture available to provide
society with social stability, social dynamism and evolutionary progress.
Our grasp of reality benefits from intellectual patterns of value (static
quality), because they provide intellectual stability.
Our grasp of reality benefits from Dynamic Quality, because it provides
intellectual dyanamism and evolutionary progress.
To the extent that religion consists of intellectual patters of value
(static quality), our grasp of reality can benefit from religion, provided
that there is no better (intellectual) culture available to provide our
grasp of reality with intellectual dyanamism and evolutionary progress.
I experience a secular culture as better than a religious culture to provide
society with social stability, social dynamism and evolutionary progress.
I experience a scientific culture as better than a religious culture to
provide my grasp of reality with intellectual dynamism and evolutionary
progress.
I need and seek religion to reach beyond all patterns of value.
> I think our present emphasis on DQ in religion involves an exaltation of
> choice, conditioned by the wider structures of late capitalism, and as
such
> a religion which pursues DQ in the way you described is, I feel, rapidly
> suborned by those same economic structures.
You're falling again in your trap of (implicitly) supposing a subject
choosing between (objective) DQ and sq. DQ versus sq is not choice versus
static forms, but voluntary versus involuntary behaviour.
The structures of late capitalism, market organized creation of economic
value, increases opportunities for voluntary behaviour to the extent that
creation of economic value is organized in traditional ways or by the state.
They increase involuntary behaviour (consumerism, people following fashions)
to the extent that they replace creation of economic value organized by
convincement.
The religion I favour leaves providing social and intellectual stability to
'the world' to secular structures and to science and sees its role as
providing dynamism and progress by (prophetically) challenging all
involuntary behaviour, including consumerism and fashions. My voluntary
seeking and following divine guidance questions and changes my involvement
in any economic (and other) structures.
"True Godliness doesn't turn men out of the world, but enables them to live
better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it." (William Penn, 1682)
> I think the prophetic role at the moment is actually to be found most in
> those who are rooted in the static forms, because it is those static forms
> that enable them to withstand the flood of DQ (and degeneracy) washing
> away everything else.
You're twisting the meaning of words here. Prophets challenge static forms
(including intellectual exaltation of choice). DQ is creation of new dq and
not degeneration to lower quality old dq.
> Through the sacrament you are able to participate in the holy - and this
> enables your awareness of the holiness in everything else. What happens if
> you are not taught the holy in any specific fashion isn't that you are
able to
> see the holy everywhere, but that you don't see the holy at all.
[snip]
> taking a truth which rests on a body of static latches (that all of life
is holy),
> getting rid of the static latches (various religious teachings, especially
> to do with the Eucharist), and expecting that insight to remain floating
on
> its own, without any wider support. What in fact has happened is a
collapse
> of that whole dimension of existence
If you are not shown that people experience holiness, you won't seek that
experience yourself. Sure.
If people do not testify to their experience of holiness, of seeking and
finding divine presence and guidance, you won't seek and may only find that
experience by 'chance', or rather by the divine finding you.
Teaching that I found my experience of holiness in a specific way, so you
should seek it in that same way and will find it then, will never make
people find divine guidance. Teaching is human guidance.
The meaningful statement (not 'truth') that all of life is holy can rest on
a wide variety of religious experiences. Teaching that specifically the
Eucharist is required latch that insight, will never make people play music
(follow divine guidance) for themselves. The Eucharist is a performance
showing how Jesus' disciples followed him 2000 years ago.
The bible is testimony to their experience of holiness. Testimonies to
present-day experiences of holiness are better suited to stimulate people to
seek and find divine presence and guidance, however.
> whether it is legitimate to meet together in a group for worship.
Jesus is supposed to have said that he is where two or three meet in his
name.
I would rather generalize this:
Where people meet because of something they share, they re-create something
that binds them. They testify to That which connects everyone and
everything.
Where people don't meet, That which connects them can't show.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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