[MD] Platt's Pure Critique of Pantheism

[Mary]

Hi John,

Started yesterday to respond to your post.  Couldn't get it right, deleted
that and started again.  The great thing about writing is how it forces you
to focus your thoughts, and sometimes what you start out writing about turns
into something different, so you start again, but then you see that's not
right either, so...

This subject, I think, goes right to the heart of everything we've been
debating about with the MoQ lately.  That's too much stuff to put in one
post, though, so I'll focus on one thing.  Why do I lie to the
fundamentalists and why do I think it's ok to do that?  

There's nothing I can see wrong with Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any of
the others as a body of thought.  Lots of beautiful things in them.  I was
married to a Catholic, for instance, for many years, and never had
particular problems with that.  If we spent Christmas at his folks, I
attended the midnight Mass with everybody else.  To be fair, though, I fell
into the same category as the anthropologists Pirsig decries in Lila.  I was
merely an objective observer.  The holy water didn't burn my skin. 

There are differences between sects, though, and not all Christians are
christian.  Modern Catholics (I'm not talking about the Dark Ages here) take
a live and let live attitude.  This could be because they are the big boys
on the block and don't have anything left to prove.  Sure, the Pope says
stuff once in a while, but it seems like a lot of American Catholics
maintain their faith in spite this rather than because of it.  He probably
gets a little frustrated, but I think Popes are careful what they say these
days.  The tail wags the dog.

Some of the newer Protestant-type religions seem to be something else
entirely. Some are right on the edge of being a fanatical terrorist group.
To be fair, that doesn't mean everybody.  There are lots of nice people
attending these services every week; but, something is fundamentally
different about the underlying attitude, and if you're kind of turned that
way anyhow, it gets reinforced in these places.  Evangelicals know they are
right and see it as their duty to save you.  If you're not with me, you're
against me.  The Bible is literally true, every single word, and if you
don't believe it then you are evil and I have no respect for you.  Evil in
the world must be exterminated at all costs.  It is my duty.

I'm wracking my brain trying to remember if there are cases of Catholics
murdering an abortion doctor such as a fundamentalist did last year.  Can't
remember, but I definitely haven't heard of them flying planes into
buildings or blowing up FBI offices.  Now I'm just the "objective
anthropologist" when it comes to these things, so I could be totally wrong,
but when your church repeatedly hammers you with "shoulds" and "oughts" and
makes blanket condemning remarks about others from the pulpit every Sunday,
it's not religion anymore.  It's something else.

Mary

- The most important thing you will ever make is a realization.


-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of John Carl
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 3:38 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Platt's Pure Critique of Pantheism

Hi Mary,

I'm interested in your question,

> When you live down here you quickly learn to cater to religious people.
 You
> sort of pander like a sycophant.  It's the safest way.  I've been prayed
> over, invited to "pack the pew" night, looked at askance, and maligned at
> various times over the years enough to know it's best just to not bring it
> up at all, and if you get backed into a corner, just smile sweetly and
lie,
> lie, lie your way out of it.  Why is this so?
>


one of my favorite questions, why.  But I'm not sure in this case
which "why" you are seeking.

Why do they invite you and seek group conformity  so hard?  That's not
hard to understand, it's a common enough phenomena in group formation,
the attempt to convert the outsider to "the way".  There's a
self-perpetuating system to social groups that's easy to comprehend in
an intellectual way.  Woo hoo!  Intellect can be such fun!

Or do you wonder why you react the way you do?  Deflecting rather than
confronting or trying to convert them to your view, even though they
are in the majority?

Straighten that out for me and I'll do my best to answer your query.

I'm sort of curious as to how you notice  lying.  Does it bother you
to lie?  Do you see morality as existing separate from religion and
how do you define for yourself what is good and not good?

In my family I have this one uncle who makes a big deal about being an
atheist.  When I was a teenager, I sent his daughter, my cousin Beth a
poster of Robert Plant that I bought at a Led Zeppelin concert and he
threw it away!  I was highly offended.  I wondered where an atheist
gets off all moralistic?

Maybe because they recognize that without values life would be
dangerously chaotic and so those he "feels" are important are all the
more fundamental to his ego.

I know he feels it incumbent to send my mom, his sister, links and
articles about the logic and benefit of atheism.  I'm pretty sure she
sends him links and articles about the logic and benefit of
Christianity.  So they dialogue this way.  This morning, I stopped by
her house and she mentioned uncle Bob, and that she'd gotten so fed up
with Bob's needling and hurtful rejection of her God, that she prayed
for permission to just give up on him.  That is, unless the Lord sent
her a clear sign, she'd just have nothing to do with him anymore.  As
soon as she got up off the floor the phone rang and it was her brother
Bob calling who said, Hey sis, I just wanted to call and let you know
how much I love you.

My ma slammed the phone down and cursed, Damn, now i'm gonna have to
put up with that atheist son of bitch forever, because of God.

So I think in the main, it's a good idea to stay an atheist because
God makes you do stuff you really don't want to do.

Take care,

John
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