[MD] False Messiah

[David M]

Hi DMB

The below is fine, I am happy for you to use theism in
the sense you have laid out below, as long as we recognise
there are other bases for religious thought, the east being
the most obvious and useful I would say but there are
western radicals and in the UK very few literalists. You should have
laid your case out more carefully in the first place. But
now, please proceed, yes the MOQ is totally opposed to
literal theism.

DM


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2006 11:05 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] False Messiah


> DM, Scott and all MOQers:
>
> DM said to dmb:
> I have no doubt that a large part of the story of organised religion fits
> the description you have cited below. I also have no doubt that a large
> number of people who would see themselves as relgious, as being associated
> with this tradition, have now come to a stage where their thinking is
> non-literalist (at least here in the UK) and non-traditional in many other
> ways...
>
> dmb says:
> OK. But as I said to Scott repeatedly, non-literalists are not the target 
> of
> my criticism. And when did I ever deny the existence of non-literalists?
> Heck, I've been quoting them like crazy to make my own non-literalist case
> so how could you possibly imagine that I mean to deny their existence? If
> you understand my point here then you'll understand why I think your
> criticism is bogus. This is the same sort of phony straw man Scott keeps
> setting up.
>
> MD continued:
> They live in the modern world as much as you do, perhaps more in fact as 
> you
> seem to think the middle ages are still with us and occupying religious
> thought. ...What are you trying to prove and how would you like to set 
> about
> banning theism? Personally I suggest encouraging radical theology of which
> there is a great deal. Have a look at Don Cupitt's After God.
>
> dmb says:
> As I said to Scott at least three times already, bring it. It would very
> likely be interesting if you imported some Don Cupitt into this debate. 
> But
> what I'm trying to say (whcih might be something short of proving 
> anything)
> is explain the MOQ's mysticism in contrast with theism, to explain the 
> MOQ's
> anti-theistic stance. And you may recall that this thread actually began 
> as
> a discussion of America's neo-Victorian moral decline and, by contrast, 
> the
> role the contrarian might play in America's moral regeneration. I was 
> trying
> to frame the current cultural and political climate of the united states.
> The subsequent discussions with Scott were a bit of a tangent and,
> apparently, we are still working this cul-de-sac. In any case, the
> discussions of church history and its central leaders is only meant to 
> show
> that, in the West, theism is the rule and mysticism is the exception. This
> is all by way of background to today's situation, where literalistic
> religion controls the Republican party, the Republican party controls the
> United States and the US controls the world. But this is what I never 
> really
> got around to because, apparently, people are just too personally offended
> and don't want to hear any of it.
>
> DM said:
> By the way have you ever been out and bought a new dictionary or do you
> still use one handed down to you from the Enlightenment? Funny thing is
> dictionaries do change and are updated? Why might that be?
>
> dmb says:
> It appears that I've been asked to defend Mr. Phony McStrawman's black and
> white position once again. Poor me. Sigh. Sigh. C'mon Dave. Do you 
> seriously
> think I don't know that language changes, that definitions change, that
> words have multiple, flexible meanings? As I already said to Scott - I 
> don't
> know, like five times - I was using the dictionary as a reality check. In
> fact, I used an On-line dictionary so that any interested reader could 
> check
> it out for themselves. As I've already said repeatedly, I used the
> dictionary definition to dispute the contention that my use of the terms 
> was
> unusual or biased or prejudiced and to show, by contrast, that I was using
> key terms in a completely normal way. Ironically, I turned to the 
> dictionary
> in order to dispose of another straw man.
>
> You guys are both driving me crazy with the straw man thing over and over
> again. Clarity is construed as rigidity, distinctions are treated as 
> bigotry
> and criticismism are treated as ignorance. You've both been kinda ugly and
> obtuse, insulting and irrelevant, about this whole issue.
>
> Please, respond to something I actually mean to say, not some distorted
> strawman version. Please, respond to the quotes, the many voices I've
> imported. But please don't bother trying to paint me as a rigid weirdo 
> just
> because I used a tangible, checkable source (the dictionary) to dispute
> Scott's bizarre confusions and obfuscatons.
>
> Northrop ("Logic of the Sciences & Humanities",p.376-77):
> "The divine object in the West is an unseen God the Father. This means 
> that
> He cannot be known by the aesthetic intuition after the manner of the 
> divine
> being of the Orient. Christ tells us that His kingdom is not of this 
> world.
> St. Paul asserts that the things that are seen are temporal and that it is
> only the things which are unseen which are eternal. All the theistic
> religions affirm in addition that the determinate personality is immortal.
> Certainly this is not true of the self given with immediacy in the 
> aesthetic
> intuition..  Western religion becomes [therefore] defined as one which
> identifies the divine with the timeless or invariant factor in the 
> theoretic
> component [of knowledge]."
>
> But thanks for your time all the same,
>
> dmb
>
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