[MD] are theism and mysticism mutually exclusive notions?

[david buchanan]

dmb had said:
...the Jesus Seminarians "all operate on the assumption that all texts, all 
books, were written by people.

Glove replied:
Yes but the message is divine.

dmb says:
That's exactly what intellectually honest scholars CAN'T assume. Nor can 
such a thing be determined through any known method of textual analysis. And 
I would point out that this is the sort of belief that leads to so much 
trouble in conventional reality. See, if the message is divine there is not 
much room for debate or dissent. If the message is taken to be divine, it 
will be taken to trump everything else. This is the main ingredient in the 
recipe for fanaticism. I mean, on what basis does a person make such an 
assertion? How could anyone determine such a thing? I see no reason 
whatsoever to assume that books are written by anything other than people. 
Do you have any reason for asserting that divine messages can be found in 
written works?

dmb had said:
As I understand the present sad state of affairs, the rituals and symbols 
and myths of a culture have become obsolete and can no longer function.

Dan said:
Oh please stop; you're frightening the children.

dmb says:
Good. Maybe they'll go away. Metaphysics ain't kid stuff anyhow.

Dan continued:
Myths and symbols and rituals don't function -- people function.

dmb says:
I don't get your objections here. Why deny that myths and rituals function? 
Isn't that like saying motorcycles don't functions, bikers do. Isn't obvious 
that bikes and bikers both function and that both can fail to function? 
Anyway, as Campbell and others explain it, myth and ritual has had several 
functions throughout history. They serve to transmit the values of the 
culture, they serve to integrate the individual into the larger society, 
they provide a cosmology or worldview and they serve to activate the 
spiritual life of the individual. And what's happened is that the values and 
cosmology of the West have evolved to the point where the symbols and 
metaphors no longer evoke the responses they used to. What does it mean to 
be "annointed with oil" in our time, for example. To the modern 
imaginination, this is not an honor, its just a mess. To put it simply, the 
images of Western religion come from another place and time and so they have 
lost their meaning, their resonance, their relevance. You may recall those 
passages from the book of Numbers, which I had contrasted with a section of 
the Geneva conventions. The difference in values was so stark that the old 
testament looks downright psychotic to our modern eyes. There, the "divine 
message" is one that tells people to commit horrible crimes.

Glove said:
I should think it hard to believe in a literal Heaven at any time.

dmb says:
Well, no. That's the mark of a myth that no longer functions, when people 
don't or can't believe that its actually, really true. Think of SOM, for 
example. That myth still functions insofar as we do not have to defy common 
sense to believe it. And people believe that they really are subjects who 
exist in an actual objective reality. We take these beliefs quite literally. 
And so it was with Heaven. Basically, as soon as we can say its a myth its 
not a functioning myth anymore.

dmb had said:
...the traditional religions were a positive and crucial moral force in 
taming the biological impulses and most of its moral values are aimed at 
that. The seven deadly sins, for example.

Glove replied:
Old Testament bullshit.

dmb says:
Well, Christianity in the West has included the old testament in the Bible. 
And it seems pretty undeniable that the Catholic Church as well as the 
Puritans, the Baptists and every denomination I know of makes a pretty big 
deal out of the bio/social code. We still see this same impulse today so 
that we have lots of heated debates about abortion, homosexuality and 
traditional gender roles, a.k.a family values. That's all about sex and the 
socially acceptable forms of sexuality. We see this in the Victorians and 
the reaction against this in Margaret Meade's popularity and free loving 
hippies in today's NeoVictorians. We don't kill women for being non-virgins 
on their wedding nights and we don't murder homosexuals with rocks anymore, 
at least not very often, but what kind of damage occurs when these prudes 
de-fund anti-AIDS programs or put the breaks on stem cell research? I mean, 
if you're suggesting that this sort of bullshit is all behind us now, I 
think I have to disagree.
>
> >But, because the
> >intellectual level has evolved and become its own distinct level of
> >morality, history has put this moral force in an inferior position. And 
>she
> >doesn't like it one bit. She fights back now and blood is spilt. These
> >traditional moral values, the ones that are rightly supposed to assert
> >social values over biological ones, are now too oftern used to reisist 
>and
> >suppress intellectual values.


dmb had said:
...The good guy keeps doing what he's doing, but history and evolution has 
moved on in such a way that the very same activity is now evil instead of 
good.

Glove replied:
That which doesn't change dies. So that good guy who just keeps on doing 
what he's been doing, well, he has no future. Why concern ourselves with a 
dead man?

dmb says:
Because this so-called dead man has a great deal of power and influence and 
has a billion followers. Look, I hate to echo the fear-mongers in the White 
House, but the idea of mixing religious fanaticism and nuclear weapons 
really is something to worry about. Assuming that we are concerned about 
human suffering, this combination is thoroughly undesirable.

Glove said:
...when knowledge becomes static and unchanging it starts to die. Dynamic 
understanding is infinitely flexible and allows one to adapt to any 
situation as it is always changing. The master needed reminding of this 
point. The student has turned into the master and the master has become the 
student. That is the way of things.

dmb replies:
Did the master need reminding? I don't see why a book like that should be 
thought of as dead, especially since it was an unfinished, open ended book 
that was to grow larger with each generation. Isn't it true that DQ all by 
itself lacks the ability to last, to persist? Isn't it true that we need the 
static and Dynamic equally? I did not see any clues that would lead me to 
think the master was enthralled or entrapped by the static quality of that 
text and its destruction struck me as the horrible waste of an extremely 
valuable, unique piece of wisdom. A priceless, irreplacable artifact was 
lost for no good reason. See, I think there is all the difference in the 
world between understanding the limits of intellectual descriptions and the 
destruction of intellectual quality as such. My joke about brownshirted, 
jackbooted book burners was supposed to remind you that there is a 
difference between Zen and anti-intellectual vandalism. One transcends 
rationality, while the other simply despises it as a threat from a 
pre-rational perspective.

Glove said:
One doesn't need a book to know the way.

dmb says:
Therefore books are of no value? And we should throw them in the fire? See, 
I think that's not Zen, that's just degenerate and destructive, a 
de-evolutionary impulse. And besides, where did you get the idea that books 
can't show you the way? I suspect you got it from a book.

Glove quoted the bible without explanation:
>Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him
>when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down at table'?
>Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself 
>and
>serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'? 
>Does
>he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when
>you have done all that is commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we
>have only done what was our duty.' (Luke 17: 7-10)

dmb says:
Unless waiters and bartenders count, I've never had a servant. Never been a 
servant. Never ran a farm. I just can't relate to this at all. Makes be 
bristle. The whole thing smells like inequality and oppression. Its not all 
that far away from the bits about how we should be nice to our slaves and 
all that other business about who should obey who? Yuk. Commantments from 
the master are just about the opposite of dharma, eh?

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