[MD] Faith

[david buchanan]

dmb asked:
[Faith is] That which gives substance to our hopes? What the heck does that 
mean? Seriously.

Joe ansered:
Hope is that which anyone wants as an individual, and doesn't have.

dmb says:
Yea, Joe. I know what hope is. Everybody knows what hope is. I'm asking you 
what it means to "give substance to our hopes". What does he mean by 
"substance". What is the difference between a hope with substance and a hope 
without a substance? How does "faith" give substance to anything? Maybe you 
come from a background where everyone knows what this sort of talk means, 
but I have no idea what what this means. I prefer Twain to Paul. He says, 
"faith is believing what you know ain't so."

Joe said:
Pirsig placed his hope in DQ. What evidence does he have for that?

dmb interupts:
What evidence? "Placed his hope in DQ"? But isn't it true that Pirisg 
insists that DQ is entirely empirical? That its impossible to disbelieve 
that some things are better than others, that its the first things we know 
ahead of everything else, that Quality compells us to get out of bed in the 
morning, to jump off the hot stove and to buy the expensive cut of beef 
because it really is better. Doesn't Pirsig say that Quality is direct, 
everyday experience? Yea, he does. Faith and hope and trust have nothing to 
do with it. We're talking about something that everybody experiences every 
day. So, I think its quite incorrect to suggest that there is no evidence, 
that its just based on hope.

Joe continued:
...It is not something he could see. He sees only the result, SQ. He is 
convinced of something he cannot see. There is plenty of evidence that DQ 
exists. Mystical evidence! The evidence is always there, but you have to 
look in a special way to see it. Faith.

dmb says:
Well, if we don't take "seeing" too literally, as limited to visual contact, 
then we do "see" DQ all the tme. The evidence supporting mystical 
experiences would be a slightly different deal. I mean, there is no way for 
us to avoid the primary empirical reality but there are a limited number of 
mystics. In either case, however, faith simply doesn't enter into the 
picture. In either case we are refering to experience, not hope.

Joe said:
IMO evidence can be gathered logically, analogically, metaphorically 
(mystically).

dmb says:
I'd agree that its a mistake to limit evidence to sensory data and I think 
the MOQ's espistemology admits a much wider range of experience. But I can't 
imagine what analogical or metaphorical evidence would look like.

Joe said:
...Language expresses evidence. When I see a road sign that is simply an 
arrow, I drive accordingly.

dmb says:
What? Do you mean language "describes" evidence or do you mean that language 
"constitutes" evidence? Either way, I fail to see the point. Nor do I 
understand what your driving habits have to do with anything. Or are you 
just saying that road signs tell us something about the road? If so, that 
goes without saying, don't you think?

Joe said:
...God is metaphorical. If taken logically error results.

dmb says:
Are you saying metaphors are to be taken illogically? Don't you mean that 
error results when God is taken "literally"? If so, I'd agree.

Joe asked:
..."belief held in the absence of evidence" is vague. What kind of evidence? 
Only objective evidence?

dmb answers:
That's a good question. I think it would be helpful to fully explore various 
kinds of evidence, the kind of evidence that goes beyond the sensory data of 
scientific objectivity. But at this point I'm still in the middle of a 
battle just trying to get certain MOQers to admit that evidence matters and 
that beliefs held in the absence of evidence or contrary to evidence are not 
good.

Joe finished the paragraph:
...What is the denial for hope?  "things we cannot see" is an affirmation 
that the eyes are not the
only vehicle of sight upon which we can guide our steps.  The blind man 
walking.

dmb says:
Yes, we experience reality in ways other than just visually and other than 
just the senses. Evidence does not have to be limited to eyeballs. I'm just 
objecting to the notion that non-visual experience requires faith or hope or 
anything like that.

Joe said:
The clearest hope expressed in today's culture is for sexual favors. The 
clearest intimacy needed for relationship is expressed in sexual terms. Love 
is sexual in modern terms.

dmb says:
What? Are you saying everybody wants to get rich and famous, everybody wants 
to be a player, a mover, a shaker, just to get laid? That's not true at all. 
Even lazy, penniless, counter-culture, bohemian, hippy slackers do what they 
do just to get laid. The culture has nothing to do with it. Joe, you really 
gotta hang out with a different set of friends. Get out a little more. Meet 
better people. And for god's sake, if these so-called friends are demanding 
sexual favors or otherwise sexually abusing you, call the police.

Joe continued:
...I think you are being disingenuous when you say "I have no idea what 
that's suppose to mean either". Yearning is expressed as sexuality. Hope 
does not have to be sexual.

dmb says:
Believe me, Joe. I'm really, really not following you. I mean, of course 
hope does not have to be sexual. We could hope to not die, for example. We 
could also hope to make sense. But I don't get the point of saying something 
so obvious. In fact, if my hopes were sexual I would call thems hopes. I'd 
just call it lust or desire. Yearning is expressed as sexuality? Do you mean 
to say that lust can be used to symbolize other kinds of desire? Or are you 
saying something Freudian here?

Joe continued:
...The intimacy which results when I express my hope to learn about DQ does 
not have to have a
baby.  I am sorry for being obscure.

dmb says:
Intimacy results from your hope to learn? What? Obscure is one thing, Joe, 
but you got a whole nuther thing going. You're not being obscure, just very, 
very fuzzy.

Joe said:
I hope I have clarified some of my statements. Thanks for your input.

dmb says:
No, not even a little bit. But that's okay.

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