[MD] False Messiah

[David M]

Hi Ant

Actually I was thinking more about Don Cupitt's recent books,
and he is not exactly a mystic. I also see no reason why religion could
not be social and no-authoritarian and have rituals yet be
highly conscious. I generally dislike most religious practise becuase
it is nowhere near intellectual enough for me, but there are some
more thoughtful pockets, and something much better is imaginable.
If we got together at philosophy club and read passages about Pirsig
and discussed in groups what we believed to be the good life, may
we not call our activity somewhat religious. Watch out for prejudice,
not all sausages have meat in them.

DM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ant McWatt" <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 2:14 PM
Subject: [MD] False Messiah


> David Morey in his seventh (!) post of March 29th stated:
>
> "For me there is plenty of scope for religious thinking and experience in
> the
> MOQ.  In fact I think we can improve the quality of both in such a
> context..."
>
> "Modern religious thought is about our human relationship to the dominant
> Dynamic Quality of experience and existence. Its a vast sea change from 
> the
> old religious thinking about what is permanent and beyond the reality of
> experience in some rather dull transcendental realm."
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> David,
>
> I take it in your e-mail that when you mention "modern religious thinking"
> you are referring to mysticism?
>
> I'd agree that there is scope in the MOQ for this type of religious 
> thinking
> and is no doubt why lthere are elements of Zen Buddhism and Taoism in
> Pirsig's system.  However, there isn't any scope in the MOQ for 
> supernatural
> beliefs (including Buddhist and Taoist ones) or institutions with hypnotic
> elements (such as the Christian mass - as pointed out by the hypnotist
> Derren Brown in his TV documentary "Messiah"), conditioning (often from an
> early age) or anything else which might disrupt individual critical
> free-thinking.  I don't see many traditional religions fulfilling these
> requirements and, as such, I think they are best avoided altogether.
>
> This is not to say people shouldn't read the Bible or the Koran or any 
> other
> religious text and make their own minds up about the messages being
> portrayed in such texts in comparison to other systems of ethics (such as
> humanism or the MOQ).  This is also why I would recommend that all 
> churches
> are turned into philosophy schools and colleges as soon as possible.
> Considering the increasing number of empty (or near empty) churches in the
> UK it's a pity that a more enlightened humanist politician has taken hold 
> of
> this idea yet.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Anthony.
>
>
> For more details of Derren Brown's "Messiah" documentary, read the 
> following
> (especially if you don't like French students!!!) :
>
> Derren Brown, mind-manipulator extraordinaire...  sets out once again to
> show us, not that our beliefs are wrong, but just how easy it is to dupe
> people into believing 10 impossible things before breakfast.
>
> Seal of approval
>
> The five experiments he sets up vary from standard tests for psychic 
> ability
> to physical methods of religious conversion. They cover all areas of 
> belief,
> organised religion and purchasable salvation. In each case his stated aim 
> is
> to get a reputable authority to endorse the results of the experiments in
> order to demonstrate the validity of people's experiences in the confusing
> world of belief. By securing this validation, he aims show how little such
> endorsements mean, even if they are genuinely motivated. After all, we 
> know
> that he's not a Messiah - he's just very good as pretending to be one.
>
> But there is another agenda in the programme: to encourage people to
> investigate what they believe more rigorously. Derren himself used to be 
> an
> evangelical Christian until his mid-20s. Then he started to realise that 
> his
> faith was just as vulnerable to suggestion as any of the New Age theories
> that annoyed him so much. His faith was rocked and he abandoned it. That
> could certainly be one response to this programme since, while we know 
> that
> his amazing acts are done by suggestion, they are immediately endorsed by
> almost all the 'authority' figures he approaches.
>
> Good questions
>
> Derren Brown causes a lot of anger (and complaint!) through his 
> experiments
> because he causes a lot of fear. Fear that your whole life has been based 
> on
> a lie, that you have been manipulated, that there is no comfortable higher
> authority making sense of your world - or that there is. This is powerful
> stuff. But what, after all, is wrong with his questioning of people's
> beliefs? If you haven't investigated what you believe independently and
> looked at the arguments standing against you, your beliefs have little
> validity. Investigation doesn't have to mean the end of your world view, 
> it
> can be a very constructive process, providing confirmation of what you
> already thought, or showing you new avenues for development.
>
> Derren Brown is right. Many people are being duped, innocently maybe, and
> this programme exposes how easy it is to do that. However, it doesn't
> necessarily follow that all the belief systems he investigates are
> fraudulent - just that a fraudster [such as a politician] could use them. 
> It
> is up to us to ensure that we approach our beliefs with an open mind; that
> we allow them to be challenged and perhaps through that, learn more about
> what real truth is.
>
> http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/derrenbrown.html
>
> ====================================
>
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