From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Mon Feb 16 2004 - 18:16:54 GMT
Paul:
I agree, but again, if Dynamic Quality is to be equated with God, I
think it is important to realise that it is not the supreme being of
many theistic traditions.
DM: Very much agree, Heidegger calls it the coming
of a new god. Perhaps prayer is not a minor evil when
dsecribed as listening, as making a space in which
the dynamic can appear, similar to artists walking
in nature, waiting for inspiration, or the sudden inspiration
that comes to scientists when they stop thinking directly
about a problem, or in a dream.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 9:26 AM
Subject: RE: MD An atheistic system?
> Hello David
>
> DMB said:
> Since, in the MOQ, DQ is associated so closely with religious mysticism,
> it can't rightly be called an atheistic system.
>
> Paul:
> Okay, is "non-theistic system" any better? In Pirsig's words (from Ant's
> Textbook)
>
> "Quality can be equated with God, but I don't like to do so. 'God', to
> most people, is a set of static intellectual and social patterns. Only
> true religious mystics can correctly equate God with Dynamic Quality. In
> the West, particularly around universities, these people are quite rare.
> The others who go around saying 'God wants this,' or 'God will answer
> your prayers,' are, according to the Metaphysics of Quality, engaging in
> a minor form of evil. Such statements are a lower form of evolution,
> intellectual patterns, attempting to contain a higher one." [Pirsig,
> 1994]
>
> DMB said:
> Pirsig in Lila chapter 30:
> "He thought about how once this integration occurs and DQ is identified
> with religious mysticism it produces an avalanche of information as to
> what Dynamic Quality is. A lot of this religious mysticism is just
> low-grade "yelping about God" of course, but if you search for the
> sources of it and don't take the yelps too literally a lot of
> interesting things turn up."
>
> Paul:
> I agree, but again, if Dynamic Quality is to be equated with God, I
> think it is important to realise that it is not the supreme being of
> many theistic traditions.
>
> "The idea that God can hear one's prayers can be meaningful only if one
> assumes that God is a social and intellectual entity. The Buddhist
> "nothingness" does not listen to prayers. It has no discernible social
> or intellectual existence. Dynamic Quality also does not listen to
> prayers. It also has no discernible social or intellectual existence. If
> one considers the Bible to be the center of the Christian faith then it
> is evident that the Christian faith is dominantly social. Attention is
> sometimes drawn to various mystical statements in the Bible, but the
> fact that attention has to be drawn to them indicates how rare they are.
> Read any book of the Bible and count the number of lines classifiable as
> mystic, the number classifiable as intellectual, and the number
> classifiable as social. Then read the Tao Te Ching or the Buddhist
> sutras or the Bhagavad Gita and do the same. Compare the results and I
> think you will come to the conclusion that Christianity is dominantly
> social and intellectual whereas these Eastern religions are dominantly
> mystic." [Pirsig, 2000]
>
> dmb continues:
> Further, this connection between mysticism and Quality can even be
> traced back to prehistoric, preintellectual times. One of Paul's recent
> favourites points out that Quality is the generator of social level
> myths as well as intellectual philosophical descriptions.
>
> "Dialectic, which is the parent of logic, came itself from rhetoric.
> Rhetoric is in turn the child of the myths and poetry of ancient Greece.
> That is so historically, and that is so by any application of common
> sense. The poetry and the myths are the response of a prehistoric people
> to the universe around them made on the basis of Quality. It is Quality,
> not dialectic, which is the generator of everything we know." [ZMMp.391]
>
> dmb adds:
> And this series of quotes adds to this picture. I think it shows that,
> contrary to the standard readings, there has always been a spiritual
> quest within the Western philosophical traditon. And it seems to me that
> one of the central themes in Pirsig's work is to uncover and recover
> this hidden aspect.
>
> Check it out and tell me if you see what I mean...
>
> Paul:
> Thanks for the quotes. I do see what you mean, and I think one could
> find a thread of mysticism in literature, art and even science reaching
> all the way back, but I think "spiritual" often carries misleading
> connotations, it suggests something supernatural. Quality can be found
> in a well-tuned engine as well as at the top of a mountain.
>
> Regards
>
> Paul
>
>
>
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