From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Fri Jul 15 2005 - 03:06:51 BST
Ant,
Ant said:
Pirsig has recently noted to me that these (private) annotations weren't
written with as much care as his other writings that were originally
produced for publication. I'd therefore be very careful in how "definitive"
you take each comment especially when quoted as a single sentence (a la
Scott).
Scott:
It would be more interesting if he indicated a change of opinion about
theism (or faith) than to tell you they weren't written with as much care.
Unless he does so, I have to assume that he means what he says. To say that
the term 'God' is "a relic of an evil social suppression of intellectual and
Dynamic freedom" is to ignore the fact that a large number of very careful
thinkers, such as Bernard Lonergan, Karl Rahner, and Alasdair MacIntyre,
continue to use the term 'God', well aware of suppressive role that theism
has often played (and in many ways continues to do so), but who are working
to change that from within. What comments like Pirsig's do is to alienate
potential allies in the struggle against social suppression of intellect, by
tarring all theists with the same brush.
And if you think his comments are to be taken somewhat differently if viewed
in a wider context, you should point out that wider context, rather than
insinuate that I have somehow shaded his thought by quoting a single
sentence (actually two, but in any case, the entire annotation at that
point -- the paragraph where it occurs is given below, if anyone is
curious).
- Scott
[Copleston:] In the third stage, that of 'absolute religion', the
selfconscious subject and its object, Nature, are seen as distinct yet
essentially related, and at the same time as grounded in an ultimate unity.
And God is conceived 'as the Being who is at once the source, the sustaining
power, and the end of our spiritual lives'. This does not mean, however,
that the idea of God is completely indeterminate, so that we are forced to
embrace the agnosticism of Herbert Spencer For God manifests Himself in both
subject and object, and the more we understand the spiritual life of
humanity on the one hand and the world of Nature on the other, so much the
more do we learn about God who is 'the ultimate unity of our life and of the
life of the world'. [Pirsig:] The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the
term "God" is completely dropped as a relic of an evil social suppression of
intellectual and Dynamic freedom. The MOQ is not just atheistic in this
regard. It is anti-theistic. ]
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 : Fri Jul 15 2005 - 05:06:12 BST