From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Jul 17 2005 - 16:41:32 BST
Ham and absolutely ALL.
14 July you wrote about this Pirsig quote:
> > " 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. "
The discussion has gone on after this, but this is the central
issue.
Firstly: One must see much further back than Christianity or
Judaism or even the term "religion". What Pirsig speaks about is
that these relatively recent phenomena are relics of the social era
when all existence were animated. Later this developed into more
systematic mythologies with a god for everything.
In this era (original participation) there was not anything about
worship or faith, it was simply reality. Yes, even when
monotheism emerged in the Middle East region I don't think they
knew anything about "religion" - this concept is intellect's - but
when Christianity emerged intellect had begun to influence
things. Jesus did not speak of religion, but the concept "faith" had
begun to show up.
Next, we must observe the level struggle and also that it is only
seen from the MOQ. The upper level (in this case intellect) looks
down on the lower (society) as something bad that must be
eradicated. Society on the other hand does not recognize any
higher value, but looks upon intellect as corruption of own value.
From this point of view the Church authorities you mention ...
> There was no "evil" motivation on the part of church authorities in
> working scripture into the symbols and practices needed to sustain
> their believers' faith. It didn't prevent theists like Eckhart,
> Aquinas, and Cusa from contributing profound observations that planted
> the seeds of modern scientific investigation.
...meant no evil. On the contrary they defended GOODNESS
itself, yes they may even have believed that by being positive to
the emergent new times (that we know is intellect awakening
from the Medieval hibernation) they hoped to absorb it (like all
invaders have been absorbed by China). But they were wrong,
intellect overran much of the social component of Christianity and
continued to do so by Luther's Reformation, and by now (in
Scandinavia at least there are pastors who do'nt "believe in God"!
Finally, Pirsig is correct: the MOQ is anti-theist, no need to waver
on that point. Intellect is the highest value and the social level (of
which traditional Semitic religions are relics of) is subordinate to
it. But because intellect is a static level it is subordinate to MOQ's
DQ/SQ system. And this have put things in a new light; the
Semitic kind of religions are still a lower value level, but the MOQ
have reinstated GOOD as the central issue.
> You see, this demonstrates what I call "throwing the babe out >
with the
> bathwater." The nihilists want to advance a postmodern, "scientific"
> notion of the creative source -- minus a Creator.
Nihilists are the objective intellectuals, but the subjectivist speaks
a lot about believing in spite of reson.
> Because they
> consider themselves "above" the spiritualism of religion, they
> renounce all possibility of belief in a supernatural source.
Supernatural (vs natural) is an intellectual construction, back in
the social era (original participation) this S/O offshoot wasn't
known.
> This is not only negative thinking, it's nothing short of intellectual
> hypocrasy.
It's intellect's value to have lifted existence from its (in intellect's
view) superstitious past, but it is MOQ's even greater value to
have shown that intellect is the not the last word ..that some
want it to be.
Bo
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