[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[MarshaV]

At 11:58 AM 6/1/2007, you wrote:

>Marsha:
>What of the Religious Left?  And the poor, excluded religious middle?  Are
>they keen thinkers?
>
>
>dmb says:
>i suppose there are some people and organizations that could be described as
>members of religious left (Jim Wallace, Paul Tillich, Liberation Theology,
>the Unitarians) but if the religious left is imagined as a movement that can
>act as some kind of counterweight in American politics and culture, I would
>say that there is no such thing as the religious left. And generally
>speaking I'm with Sam Harris. He condemns religious moderates insofar as
>they seems to make the religious right seem legitimate, insofar as they lend
>support to the idea that its okay to believe things for which there is no
>evidence.
>
>Poverty is definately going to have profound effects on a person's
>intellectual development and I think that loss of human potential is a
>great, great evil. This is one of the central reasons that social Darwinism
>freaks me out. It blames the victims of this crime.
>
>How about you, Marsha? Do you think there are acceptable forms of theism? Do
>you think it a good move to fight right-wing theists with left-wing theists?
>Somehow I don't think that's what you meant to imply. I'd guess the problem
>you see here is something more like elitism. If that's the case, I guess I'd
>have to admit that it is a kind of elitism. Wilber definately has a
>hierarchy (holarchy, as he puts it)built right in to his system. That's very
>unpopular these days, but I'd point out that the MOQ also shares this
>feature and it is an important part of the perennial philosophy too. If
>Wilber is correct, the modern West is just about the only culture that
>doesn't rank reality in a hierarchy.

Dmb,

I really do not know that much about Social Darwinism to have an opinion.

I do not think that there is an acceptable religion, or form of 
theism.  Religions are a leading cause of intellectual poverty.  Damn 
them all!   Life, to me, is more 
everything-is-connected-to-everything, no top, no bottom.  RMP's 
hierarchical levels are a working model for the MOQ.  It's assistance 
to restructuring understand from SOM to a MOQ 
worldview.  Brilliant!  Brilliant!!  Brilliant!!!  But, to me, 
"reality", the now version, is more like the net-of-jewels model.

Marsha