[MD] Case's Answer to Marsha

[ian glendinning]

Interesting DMB,

The Voltaire / Lisbon earthquake effect on "faith", something I've
referred to before, but did you notice this more recent shattering of
faith when shit happened (following the Beslan school massacre) ?
http://www.psybertron.org/?p=1336

Ian

On 11/4/06, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Case's Answer to Marsha was interesting and amusing. A few comments, just
> for the fun of it.
>
> First of all, God's answer to Job was just plain rude. God's answer was
> cruel and arrogant. Its the kind of answer one expects from an egomaniac
> like Donald Rumsfeld. And, having just read Freud's "The Future of an
> Illusion" for school, I would object to the whole premise. As he has it,
> religion is the cultural equivalent of the infantile wish for a parent
> figure who will protect us and tell us what to do, a figure we both fear and
> need. And, he says, the whole complex is a reation to the hostile forces of
> nature. You know, we're all God's children and all that. God was invented to
> protect us from these uncontrolable forces. Or so says Freud, anyway. Its an
> interesting idea as far as it goes, but I'm not offering Freud as a reply so
> much as pointing out how the story of job sort of exemplifies what Freud was
> talking about. The central question in Job's case, as you point out, is that
> really bad shit happens to people and people always want a reason for it. It
> is concieved as some kind of injustice. But the fact that bad things happen
> to virtuous people only seems odd when we suppose there is a reason they
> should be immune to calamity, disease and disaster. It only seems
> objectionable when you suppose that some kind of cosmic justice exists in
> the first place. The problem of evil is only a problem insofar as we can
> imagine its absence as the way things are supposed to be.
>
> There was a huge earthquake in Lisbon, on a Sunday, during Voltaire's
> lifetime. It was big news all over Christian Europe because of the way it
> defied this sense of cosmic justice. Lisbon was a very religious town, full
> of churches and the churches were full on that fateful Sunday. Lots of
> church-goers were crushed that day and, like Job, everybody wanted to know
> how such terrible thing could happen to God's devoted children. It must have
> been like a real life Stephen King novel to them. Voltaire had a lot of fun
> beating up the church with that.
>
> The idea in Chinese divination techniques, that the general flow of reality
> will manifest itself on every level, is the same notion behind Jung's
> syncronicity. As I understand it, he explained that these acausal meaningful
> coincidences revealed an underlying unity. We find these events so striking
> because of the way they defy our notions about how separate things are
> related by cause and effect. The coincidence reveals a connection that is
> something else. Like other marginalized "occult" beliefs, this is one of
> those little cases where we can pull back the curtain. SOM is the man behind
> the curtain in this case, of course.
>
> A Definate Case said:
> Several times I have pointed out my objections to Pirsig's use of the term
> Quality to name the Tao. The term Quality serves his purpose in his
> discussion of Value but by giving it a name we know he creates the illusion
> that we know it...
>
> dmb replies:
> Maybe I missed it last time or just forgot. In any case, I think Pirsig
> likes the term because he wants to say that we do know it. Its not an
> abstraction or a thing you have to believe in or understand, but something
> you already know directly. As in the case of "Blink", the idea is that
> Quality is the first thing you know. Its what you know even before you can
> conceptualize that knowledge. You know if its good or bad right away, even
> before you know what it is. (What smells so good?) This fits with the whole
> metaphysical system and the epistemological starting point I've been talking
> about, but I think the idea of calling it Quality is to keep it from being
> an abstract or exotic. It has a way of putting Quality right in your lap,
> makes it ordinary and natural. You know, it exists in the gears of a bike
> and hangs in the butcher shop window.
>
> Despite my butting in here, I don't know what Marsha's question was. Judging
> from the answer, Marsha asked why shit happens. Somehow, I don't think she'd
> ask that. I don't mean to be glib or dismissive here but it seems to me that
> question is a bit crazy. I mean, why the hell not? Why should we expect an
> absence of shit? Of course shit happens. The rain doesn't care who gets wet.
> That's what Jesus and the weather man says.
>
> ...So bring an umbrella and say Amen?
>
> Thanks,
> dmb
>
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