Re: MD quality religion

From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Mar 21 2004 - 20:24:22 GMT

  • Next message: Sam Norton: "Re: MD quality religion"

    Hi Steve,

    > Can you explain what you mean by faith? As I understand the term there
    > are three uses: belief, trust, and loyalty. All could apply to
    > Christianity.

    I'm happy with those three to begin with. I'd probably include decision as well though.

    > Is there something that must be believed for the Mass to be mystical?

    Yes. "Truly truly I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life...this is
    the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die... the bread that I
    give for the life of the world is my flesh" (John 6, 47-51) Although we could probably have
    entertaining conversations about what it all means!

    > > You also equate mysticism with religious experience, which is a
    > > Modern (SOMish)
    > > mistake.
    >
    >
    > How do you distinguish these two?

    Are you on MF? I suspect we'll be thrashing this out there. But briefly, I would identify mysticism
    with a particular religious 'way' or tradition (and the growth of a person within that tradition).
    The idea that it depends on a particular experience (and that it is therefore analogous to taking
    drugs or similar) is a product of SOM thinking, mediated most particularly by William James (in
    other words I think that the language of 'religious experience' is premised upon subjectivity as one
    pole of the SOM system). It also disregards the historical evidence, but that's another story.

    Cheers
    Sam

    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 : Sun Mar 21 2004 - 20:57:50 GMT