[MD] Terry Eagleton on Dawkin's God Delusion

[Case]

[Bo]
After having ingratiated myself may I ask if you know my so- called SOL
interpretation and if it makes any difference?  Regarding our respective
interpretations of Jesus' role we don't differ that much so I proceed to
this.

[Case]
Sorry to disappoint, Bo. But I don't take the levels all that seriously. I
think the whole idea is more about technique than something fundamental. In
any situation you can think of, a fairly oblivious set of factors will be
important to analysis. Some times they are Pirsig's levels, Sometime Jung's
archetypes. Sometimes it's just stimulus and response. Deciding in advance
what to look for doesn't seem that helpful to me. But generally I find
whatever you look at has forces that push for change and forces that want to
hold still. That is MoQish enough for me.

[Bo]
General agreement. Still I think I have some reason for my thesis that Jesus
was a sensitive "antenna" who picked up the intellectual signals from
Greece, there were after all a lot of commerce and travel across the sea.
Admittedly, he spoke of fulfilling not overcoming the Law (change must be
gradual)  but the essence of his message is "the Law is for mankind's sake"
(how this is said in English?) and that was revolt enough then and there. 

[Case]
If this were a different discussion I might quibble on the details but maybe
another time. I have often wondered why, if Pirsig was looking for the rebel
visionary against the status quo motif, he didn't pick Jesus. Lots of
baggage for sure but it could shake up people's preconceptions.
            
[Bo]
My knowledge is limited to say the least and I had to do a little research.
Take Japan for example. When the Portuguese arrived in the fifteenth century
they were much admired for their  technology and the Japanese let themselves
be christened in droves, not to save their souls but to get access to the
said technology. To make it short, this changed by and by and the "samurais"
saw their traditional values threatened and there was a closing of the
Japanese mind .. and ports. Foreign ships were banned from their waters and
the Christians were massacred. However this was not because of their being
"infidels" but as representatives of the  foreigners.  Religious wars and/or
missionary fervor was/is unknown in the (Far) East. That is not to say that
they were particularly lenient in their warfare or conduct, to the contrary,
but wars weren't fought over religious beliefs  ... perhaps because they
didn't know "religions" in the Semitic sense. Still don't.   

[Case]
Thanks for the example. About all I know about that sort of thing I learned
from Shogun and The Last Samurai.  But on a side note don't you think it is
odd that the philosophical Hellenists gravitated to Jewish ethics to create
Christianity while in China the philosophical Taoists got balanced by
Confucian ethics? Much as we would like to believe that rationalist ethics
are desirable, their track record is not so good.