From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 23 2003 - 00:00:02 GMT
Sam, Platt, Wim and all heaven-bound souls:
Sam said to Platt:
I would quibble about what 'in both body and spirit' meant, but yes. I
believe in the resurrection of Jesus, but I don't think a conclusive answer
can be given to 'what happened?' It's a mystery - pure DQ!
Upon reflection, two days later, Sam said:
What I quibble about is the notion that religious belief is a) caused by
that comfort or b) deficient as a result. ...I'm probably a slightly
untypical believer in that respect. ...Certainly if I came to have
confidence (rather than ambivalence) in the notion of 'life after death' in
some form or other, it might change the way I act in certain cases. I still
think that 'you have to lose your life to save it' though - and that makes a
simple understanding of 'life after death' problematic.
DMB says:
This is one of those cases where the distinction between mythic thinking and
intellectual thinking is impossible to avoid. In scientific and rational
sense, people do not come back to life after being dead for three days.
That's a fact. The resurrection is a myth. That's what "makes a simple
understanding of 'life after death' problematic. The difference between
myths and facts is the cause of your ambivalence. Any attempt to mix
theology and philosophy has to be predicated on a failure to respect that
difference. It makes intellectual sense only when we read the myth
symbolically and poetically instead of literally and actually. In that case
we can see that it is about transcendence, about transforming one's
consciousness so that a new life begins and the old one dies. In this way,
salvation is not about forgiveness so much as transformation, an
enlightenment, an expanded scope or vision. All the allusions to conquering
death, to eternal life, to heaven, to the virgin birth, to the rapture, to
being born again and many like them all refer to the transforming power of a
mystical experience, to the cup being emptied, to a new life. I'm painting
in broad strokes, but I imagine your interest in and knowledge of this area
will let you flood it with detailed examples and confirmations of this
general idea.
About the spiritual depth of the MOQ, Sam said:
I think Pirsig's conception of the intellect is a problem. Yet I'm also
dubious about how far intellect can 'create' rituals by _fiat_. I would
expect that, in so far as the MoQ flourishes, it would combine with various
different pre-existing religions, in the way that Aristotle's philosophy
combined with Christianity and Islam. You could say that it is already doing
that in my own understanding (I really should write that paper!)
DMB says:
Pirsig says that ritual has to grow out of your own nature and shouldn't be
intellectualized or patched on. Campbell basically says the same thing. He
says you can't invent a myth or ritual anymore that you can decide what your
dreams will be about tonight. It just doesn't work like that. But you're on
to something very interesting here. You say you'd like the MOQ to "combine
with various different pre-existing religions"? I've been trying to tell you
that it already does. That's where esoteric, mystical core of the world's
great religions, the perennial philosophy, comes in. By analogy, this core
message is like a single person that has been dressed in a particular
cultural style by each particular religion. When you lay out all the various
pre-existing religions, read them symbolically and not literally, one can
see the difference between the man and his clothes. The core is a universal
set of beliefs, that is to say it is the area where all religions agree. Not
only are all religions responsible for controlling biological values with
social codes, there is also a message of a cosmic order and of transcendence
within that order. The social level not only civilizes the animal in us, it
opens the human heart to transcendent realms. Not only does the MOQ
recognize and seek to preserve this biological control function, he insists
that mysticism shouldn't be excluded from the intellectual descriptions
either. i don't know if any of this will help you start that paper. My only
point is that I think the MOQ already does what you'd like it to do, include
religion, even if that's not exactly what you had in mind.
On religion's ability to comfort us about death, Sam said:
I don't think religion eases the pain very much in practice. That's
certainly been my experience, both in my own bereavements and when taking
funerals for other families. What it does is preserve the possibility of
meaning (ie value). We experience pain in the world, it's an inevitable part
of the human condition. The question - if you go down the path of thinking
about it, which you don't have to - is whether life still 'makes sense' in
the face of that pain, ie is it worth carrying on? Religions are all built
around a positive answer to that question. (As are some contemporary
philosophies, eg Camus's variety of existentialism).
DMB says:
Death is a HUGE subject, but I can offer a few thoughts.
The promise of eternal life in heaven, taken literally, is one of the things
that makes death such a horrifying thing in the West. Its such a colossal
disappointment when our deepest wishes are so conspicuously dashed every
day. Uprooted from the cultural context in which the myth was born, it has
become an elaborate form of denial to protect the rational ego from the
undeniable truth; one's own mortality. Its crazy.
In addition to the symbolic, intellectual interpretation of life after death
as a reference to the mystical experience, there is death as a literal,
biological event too. The earliest planting cultures could see that new life
sprang from death. They could see new green shoots sticking up out of the
fallen tree trunk and such. This basic motif evolves so that we soon get the
seasonal regicide, as in Fraizer's Golden Bough, etc.. The sacrifice of
God's only son is directly related to the ritual and literal human
sacrifice that we see all over the world. The central American people took
it to the extent that were almost constantly sacrificing people Death
brings life, round and round, that's what the perennial philosophy seems to
say. Life is a bloody and murderous affair. You know, meat is murder and all
that. (So is salad, but who's counting?) Religion most definately deals with
and controls, to whatever extent it can, this aspect of our biological being
too. Modern theologians tend to gloss over all that old testament stuff
commanding animal sacrifice, genocide and executions, but its loaded with
such lethalities. The instinct to survive might even be the most powerful
and compelling instinct of all, so that instincts for sex, food and such
only serve survival. Its a whopper.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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