From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Apr 24 2005 - 23:11:57 BST
Anthony, Scott, Ian, Sam and all:
Here's another issue that was raised in the "Access to Quality" thread but
I've changed the name to better reflect the content. It began with questions
about the conflict between science and religion...
Ant asked Scott:
For starters, what about transubstantiation? i.e. the Roman Catholic belief
that the Eucharist (that represents the presence of Christ in the mass) is
literally the body and blood of Jesus.
Scott replied on April 18th:
Where's the conflict? The doctrine of transubstantiation does not declare
that something that science can measure has been changed. If you are going
to say that there is conflict because science cannot detect Christ in the
bread and wine, then you would have to say that art and science are in
conflict because science cannot detect the beauty of a painting.
Scott said to Ian on the 19th:
This all hinges on what you mean be being "part of the real world". A
substance, to a Catholic, is not, or not just, matter (it is roughly
equivalent to the word "essence" or "nature", as in "the nature of God"). So
to say the substance has changed does not mean that what has changed is
measurable by any of our senses or instruments. The doctrine is that the
appearance is the same (it will still taste like bread and wine, there is no
change in chemical composition, etc.), but the substance has changed.
Science can only study appearance, so there is no scientific test that can
be made. The hypothesis is being made in a language that science has no use
for. To take that as being in conflict with science is to imply that only
scientific language is valid, that is, to be a scientific materialist.
dmb says:
Catholics have their own definition of the word "substance"? Well, ok but if
we are going to have a discussion I'm going to insist that we speak English.
You're certainly free to express Catholic "ideas", but you're going to have
to express them in the only common language we have because I, for one, do
not speak Catholic. I would also point out, as Ian nearly did, that if the
bread and wine were actually transformed into the body and blood of Christ
then conventional science could quite easily detect that through a simple
chemical analysis. Its one of the things science does best. But of course
that would be missing the point because we are talking about religious
rituals and not about chemistry.
Further, I would like to point out that trying to get at religious rituals
by way of physics is quite preposterous. The conflict is between myth and
intellect. I mean that we simply can't approach the conflict if we limit it
to the analysis of the physical attributes of wonderbread and grape juice.
But intellect is much broader than physics or any particular branch of
science. So I want to get at this by way of a bigger picture.
And thirdly, I would like to suggest that the resulting idea, expressed by
both Scott and Sam, that science simply has nothing to say about these
"supernatural" events because they are just too different is way too
convenient. It has the effect of making religious immune to philosophical
inspection, to intellectual scrutiny. It has a way of putting up a wall for
the purpose of protecting dogmas from criticism. And this, my friends, is
pure bullshit. It expresses a certain disrespect for intellecual values, a
willful disregard for the facts of the matter and otherwise shows a
willingness to hide from the truth. This is a species of bullshit - and I
mean that in the philosophical sense of the word.
Scott said to dmb on the 23rd:
A miracle is a supernatural interruption of the natural order. Science
explores in depth the natural order. It has nothing to say on whether or not
that order can be supernaturally interrupted. On transubstantiation, see my
reply to Anthony. Scientism and theism are in conflict. Science and theism
are not.
Scott also said to dmb on the 23rd:
On "reasonable", you might be interested in the following, said by Juanita
Marquez, a character in Neal Stephenson's novel *Snow Crash*
"Nintey-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches
has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people
all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one
hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being
intelligent in people's minds."
dmb says:
This is refreshing. It shows that there is a possiblity of some agreement.
In the interest of that hope let's see if we can get at the 1% that doesn't
stink. I'd like to take a look at transubstantiation from a mythological
perspecitve. This is a much more appropriate form of intellectual inquiry.
This method is good at showing that religion is most definately NOT walled
off from religion.
Myths are many things at once and they are open to a wide range of
interpretations, but in the most basic sense we are simply talking a picture
language, a metaphorical and symbolic mode of expression. Reading them
literally, as the Modern mind tends to do, is to misread them with horrible
consequences. I'm glad to see that even the theists among us are eager to
distance themselves from the fundamentalist, but that is only the most
obvious and the crudest form of literalism. And let us also agree that none
of us subscribes to scientism or scientific materialism. (With Ian being one
possible exception.) With that in mind, let's think about transubstantiation
in terms of what the picture conveys, ok? Let the theists suspend, for a
moment, all the theological beliefs and opinions about it. So what does the
picture tell us?
Its ritual cannibalism. One eats the flesh and drinks the blood of a
particualr person, namely Christ. At the first glance this might seem to be
quite horrifying and disgusting, but actually it gets at one of the most
basic facts of life. LIFE UTTERLY DEPENDS UPON DEATH. Even the most
primitive religions recognized the fact that MEAT IS MURDER. In order to
live, we must kill. Something has to be sacrificed in order for existence to
continue. And this is not just a gruesome way to advocate vegetarianism
because, my friends, salad is murder too. John the Baptist's wish to avoid
this reality by feeding on bugs and honey won't cut the mustard either. Its
utterly inescapable. In the mythologies of the primary cultures in North
America this guilty horror was made tolerable through a pact with the hunted
animals so that they said grace over their meals but not by thanking god but
rather by thanking the slain animal itself. They saw this act as a way to
draw strength from the animal. Even if they had no concept of vitamins or
proteins, it was easy to see that one would die without food.
And of course its not just about food. (I'm presently eating a can of
peaches, which didn't kill the tree, but let's not get too picky here, ok.)
The act of eating can itself be seen as a kind of natural metaphor, one that
says life in a broader sense depends upon death and sacrifice. If we want to
put it in terms of the MOQ's levels we could say that breakfast, lunch and
dinner are just about the biological level. On the social level we can see
that cultures absorb each other, consume each other and otherwise exist and
grow at the expense of each other. It goes all the way up and down. Its
interesting to note that at a spiritual level the Mass is not so very
different from the peyote ritual as Pirsig describes it. The buttons are
seen as the flesh of mother earth in a way that is similar to the way the
communion wafer is seen as the flesh of the son of God. In both cases, one
snacks on the divine meat and is transformed by it.
This is another one of those posts that probably raises lots of questions,
but in the interest of getting it through I'll stop here and just hope that
it begins a conversation. But I want to add one more note to this
underdeveloped line of thought. At a certain point the assertion that life
depends on death and sacrifice raises a question; whose death? Whose
sacrifice? When we take a survey of all the myths and rituals that depict
this idea it becomes clear that it doesn't depend on the death of any
particualr individual being. And ultimately what needs to die and what needs
to be transformed is you. When Phaedrus finally reaches the end of reason he
experienced a kind of death. His insanity was a dissolution of self. And
then there was the transformational experience in the teepee. This sort of
experience is not quite so total but it also provides us with something more
intelligible. In that case the static patterns of his life were not
obliterated so much as liberated. You may recall that this is where the MOQ
was born, sort of. There, his mind was "drawn to the contemplation of
complex metaphysical realities" and he was allowed to see things in a new
way. It was not pure DQ, but it was extremely dynamic nevertheless. There,
we could say, a great many of his old idea died, his cup was poured out for
a time so that fresh tea could replace the old. And both of these personal
events should be kept in mind when we read Pirsig's advice about being a
dead man, about emptying out the static patterns in favor of DQ itself. Its
a way of saying that the central task is to transubstantiate yourself. See,
its not about the bread and wine of Dionysus or the ritual mutilation of
Orpheus or the crucifixion of Christ. Its about you. So, go eat yourself.
Burp.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Apr 24 2005 - 23:19:24 BST