[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Platt]
Looking forward to your description of Tao ethics.

[Arlo]
ZMM. It should be in your bookstore. Its a good place to start.

[Arlo previously]
Can you refer me to where Pirsig proposes the existence of a "transcendent
consciousness"?

[Platt]
I never claimed he does.

[Arlo]
You said "I answer as possibilities the existence of Consciousness and Quality
as creative forces. I gather you disagree with Pirsig on that score". This
implies Consciousness and Quality agree with Pirsig. 

[Platt]
I don't dismiss the possibility of God as Pirsig does, nor do I "pander" to
Christianity. That's just another example of your effort to distort what I say.

[Arlo]
In the entire time we've talked, Platt, you have said NOTHING in favor of ANY
OTHER religious tradition. You've repeatedly, even yesterday, maintained that
"Judeo-Christian ethics" are the sole ethical system on which our laws should
be based. You have never posited, for example, that the Eightfold Path should
be a basis for our social law. (I am not arguing that it should, only that you
exclusively pander to Christianity). You dismiss the entirety of Pirsig's
comments on Native Americans in favor of one quote, and yet you dismiss all the
atrocities perpetuated by the Christian religion. This is pandering to
Christians.

[Platt]
Anyway, I see much value in Christian ethics as do many here, including
yourself.

[Arlo]
Of course. But I don't see it as an "exclusive" system. Nor do I think it is a
literal system. Nor do I think social law should be based on its literalized
doctrines. Indeed, I think the Eightfold Path, and Buddhism in general, comes
closest to a ethical system that represents Quality, and so did Pirsig. 

[Platt previously]
No. I consider Consciousness and Quality to be "natural processes."

[Arlo then]
Not if they are "transcendent".
 
[Platt]
Transcendent means "beyond comprehension," as are many natural processes.

[Arlo]
In that case, making sticky buns appears to be transcendent for me. 

[Platt previously]
And the rest is just a fabrication of my views to meet your own desperate need
to demean others to build up your own ego.

[Arlo then]
Got a mirror handy, Platt?

[Platt]
I take that as acceptance of my assessment.

[Arlo]
Perhaps for us both.

[Platt]
You've admitted to "oops" i.e., "luck" as an explanation a number of times.
Check the archives.

[Arlo]
"Oops" is simply meant to demean. The question is, do you believe that a "plan"
for everything existed before everything? If so, where? In some "transcendent
mind"? I don't ascribe a plan to the unfolding of the cosmos. It does so
because of Quality, and as particulars collectivize into more and more complex
patterns, yes, there are moments of "AHA!", where complexity takes off in a
whole new direction. The question is, 100 trillion years ago, was there a
design for "people"? Where?

And then all my other questions come back into play. 300 billion years of life
on this planet. 150 million years of dinosaurs, with primates occupying only a
blip in the biosphere. Only after major, random, climate and environmental
events were primates able to flourish, and only then after 65 million years of
evolution, with increasing complexity and thousands and thousands of species,
was anything resembling primative man able to exist. And only then, due to a
biological part of his brain, was man able to build social patterns (or social
patterns were able to emerge out of biological co-activity). Was all this
"planned" before it happened?