From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 16:25:31 BST
Arlo,
> [Arlo previously]
> > > No, of course not. But my point is that money is not the only means to
> > > express value. So is compassion. So is concern. So is respect. So is
> > > supporting adequate health care for all people (and not even just US
> > > citizens). So is a focus on being kind rather than wealthy.
>
> [Platt]
> > No one in the U.S. prevents you from expressing the values you cite,
> > except for universal health care which would require coercion that you.
> > say you are against.
>
> Sigh. "Public roads" also constitute coercion. So does the funding of
> "police and miliatry structures". So do the majority of "firehouses". You
> feel no qualms about forcing me to support your military, do you? You'll
> tell me I reap the benefits of it, even if I disagree with funding it.
>
> Tell me why you feel I should be coerced into funding your military, and
> that's perfectly moral, but that it is immoral for you to be forced to
> support adequate health care for the nation's citizens?
>
> It cracks me up that "Christians" in this country reject providing health
> care for its citizens, citing that it takes away their individual wealth
> stockpiles. WWJD? Where are those "Christian morals"? (feeding the poor,
> sheltering the homeless, healing the sick...)
>
> If we are founded on "Christian morals", shouldn't the actions advocated by
> Jesus be the basis for our static social government?
Sigh. You are probably among the first to get all exercised when you
detect a violation, no matter how innocuous, of the separation of church
and state. I'll bet you favor removing "under God" from the pledge of
allegiance, or removing the pledge all together. As for universal health
care, most Americans are not willing to sacrifice quality for quantity,
and rightfully so if you're a follower of the MOQ.
> [Platt]
> > Are not theologians intellectuals? Will you ever address Pirsig's claim
> > that today's "critical thinking" intellectualism "has no provision for
> > morals?" Do you agree with that or not?
>
> [Arlo]
> Theologians advancing "religious nationalism" are just as stuck in static
> social patterns of religion as the congregation who follow their words. I
> find that most Quakers participate in religion "more" on the intellectual
> and Dynamic levels than most "theologians" who continue to advance
> nationalistic ideas such as "My Prophet is the Only True Prophet", or "God
> Only Revealed Himself To A Select Tribe in The Middle East". Theologians
> who spend their time writing lengthy treatises on why only their God is the
> true God, and everyone else all over the world is wrong and going to hell,
> to be mere voices for static social power reification.
Sounds to me like you only agree with intellectuals who preach social
revolution, right?
> "Intellectualism" has no provision for morals because of the underlying
> metaphyics in the language, right?
No. There's no provision for morals because of the underlying metaphysics
of science. "The defect is that subject-object science has no provision
for morals. Subject-object science is only concerned with facts. Morals
have no objective reality." (Lila, 22)
> The MOQ is designed to "give" a moral
> structure to "intellectualism" (as well as the other layers).
Agree. But how many are buying it?
> Are you saying that your reading of Pirsig is that he finds intellectuals
> ipso facto amoral? That is, even with a MOQ foundation, intellectual
> thinking is less moral than static social morality provided by static
> social institutions? If so, why didn't Pirsig elevate the social level
> about the intellectual?
Pirsig found today's intellectuals wanting a moral foundation, and thus
they end up spouting vacuous notions about "human rights." He believes
intellectuals can find a moral foundation in the MOQ. But until that
happens, what is the alternative? I suggest a moral foundation that
consists of Biblical teachings and the common law, i.e, human experience
over millennia. I ask you and all MD participants, "What do you suggest be
the basis of morality until the MOQ is widely accepted?" I've asked this
before with few answers forthcoming other than the usual bromides.
> My contention is the critical thinking intellectuals, with a MOQ
> foundation, advance a "more moral structure" than static social power
> structures. Would you disagree?
No. I agree. What concerns me is our collective inability that we, as
believers in the MOQ, have in convincing others, much less agreeing among
ourselves.
> [Platt]
> > The rhetorical move on your part is to talk about the past 2000 years and
> > in
> an attempt to cast a smokescreen over the positive role of Christianity
> vs. communism in the 20th century.
>
> [Arlo]
> Oh please. What is rhetorical about showing the historical context for the
> wonderous "morality" you say pervades Christianity in the last hundred
> years. If it is so wonderfully "moral", why was it so brutal for the two
> thousand previous years? I submit it has to do with a transfer of power
> from religious structures to secular structures.
Again the smokescreen. You have yet to show all the supposed brutality of
Christianity other than the Inquisition, and are blind to the role of
Christianity in the evolution of individual liberty.
> By the way, I've notice you've cut out my question as to the historical
> origins of democracy. You made the claim that it was "Judeo-Christian". I
> made the claim that it was pre-Christian Greek and Iroquios, asking that if
> was a Judeo-Christian construct, why it never appeared during the two
> thousand years that the Judeo-Christian church held power? No response?
I thought you were kidding, especially about the Iroquois. David Landes,
economic historian and author of "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations"
explains. Europe's buoyant political and economic dynamism (remind you of
Pirsig?) required three specific theological breakthroughs: the Judeo-
Christian respect for manual labor, the Judeo-Christian subordination of
nature to man, and the Judeo-Christian sense of linear time. He also
emphasizes how the authority of God, conscience and church limits the
authority of secular state claims and thus creates space for liberty.
> [Arlo asked]
> > > Is intolerance of intolerance itself intolerance?
>
> [Platt answered...]
> > Of course. Words mean things. Your attempt to define the "real meaning"
> > of
> intolerance is typical deceptive use of language, like trying to convince
> us that Marx's call for "forcible overthrow" didn't mean guns and bullets
> and gulags. Talk about twisting the language, not to mention ignoring
> history!
>
> [Arlo]
> My attempt to what??
>
> Our founders called for a "forcible overthrow" of monarchical power. Did
> they mean that we should employ gulags in support of a dictator? Guns and
> bullets, maybe. We used them in our "revolution". Indeed, they've been used
> in every revolution (force has, before gunpowder it was swords and arrows).
Our revolution was for liberty from government while Marx's revolution
requires the imposition of a dictatorship. That you don't see a difference
is startling. That you don't admit to the secular communist horrors of
past 100 years is mind-boggling. That you see Christianity as threatening
(talk about fear-mongering) compared to the godless ideologies that
produced the Holocaust, the Gulag and the Terror of the French Revolution
is beyond belief.
Platt
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