[MD] The End of Faith

[skutvik at online.no]

Steve and all MOQsayers

21 January. 

Bo earlier:
> > Dogmatic religions - Judaism and its offshoots - are social
> > patterns, but in themselves they aren't "an attempt to devour
> > intellectual patterns", rather attempts to control BIOLOGICAL
> > value. The social lever is infinitely older than the intellectual.

Steve:
> True enough. That must be why they ever came in to existence, but 
> what are they doing now? Are they not "a social pattern attempting 
> devour an intellectual one" in some ways today?

Bo now:
An intriguing issue. The MOQ says that present western 
civilization (nothing about the Orient here!) is dominated by 
intellectual value, meaning that all social patterns are "controlled" 
by intellect. Now, the levels are neither external (objective) 
entities that humankind subscribes to or internal (subjective) that 
only exist in our minds, but existence itself, thus we are social 
beings like we are biological and inorganic ones, under the 
intellectual layer. OK, elementary, but we must understand that 
the social level is the necessary base for intellect. "Religion" is a 
terribly wide concept so we must identify the said dogmatic 
"semitic" kind that are obsessed with controlling biology with 
endless rules and regulations about sex, food, dress, prayers, 
gender and surely a lot more. In an intellect-dominated culture 
these are  "social patterns attempting to devour intellect". No 
good! In social-value dominated ones, they are great value.     

Steve:
>   The claims that religions make about the origin of the universe, 
> the divinity of their prophets, the miracles that occur in their 
> rituals, the power of prayer, etc. are scientific and historical 
> claims to "truth," thus, they are intellectual patterns. The 
> religions themselves are social patterns. Religions maintain these 
> low quality intellectual patterns to maintain themselves at the 
> expense of higher quality intellectual patterns.

Back in social values' heyday (that stretch further into the past 
than the the few thousand years of the monotheism religions)  no 
one spoke about the truth of their world, it was reality itself. Yours 
is intellect superimposing itself on the past imagining that there 
were skeptic that questioned things. Nowadays, however, as 
intellect rules the (Semitic) religious pundits have to rationalize 
their claims resulting in "creationism" for instance, which truly are 
"low quality intellectual patterns".   

Steve:
> As well as to save intellect from society's anti-intellectual  
> tendencies. In this case it may be even better to say "to save  
> society" from society's anti-intellectual tendencies, since religion 
> seems to be incompatible with civilization now that people who hold 
> onto religion's claims without reason or evidence are blowing 
> themselves up in crowded busses and crashing airplanes into buildings 
> and their family's are being congratulated and honored by their 
> neighbors because of the "martyrdom" of their children in these 
> "sacred bombings." 

Agreement, yet we must have the biological/social struggle in 
mind. That Semitic monotheism religions were the ultimate 
weapon against biological "license".      

> These people honestly believe they are going to eternal paradise. 

I must lecture. When the intellectual level established itself (IMO) 
in the Greek culture and spread with the Romans trouble began 
for the still social-value-steeped  culture of the Mid East.  
Christendom was intellect's first offshoot (Jesus a rebel against 
Mosaic Law) and is still a peculiar mixture of the two.  Judaism 
itself repelled all Greek influence and the orthodox Jews are now 
a pathetic bunch, while Islam (which was as reaction to Christian 
influence) still fights on. Their resistance takes the form of 
refusing all secular (democratic) developments (ref, Afghanistan 
and Iraq) Dictatorship - religious or military  - is the only option. 
The muslim fundamentalists know that secularism (intellect) will 
diminish the religious element and rob them of their "super-
weapon" - human sacrifice. 

> This belief is an intellectual pattern that is very dangerous to other
> intellectual patterns and civilization itself. 

>From the MOQ seen, saying that religious beliefs are 
"intellectual" is the 4th. level debunking the social one by 
relegating beliefs to its own "intellect" which is the subjective 
realm. We must be able to perform this SOM-MOQ 
transformation ... at the end of each sentence. 

But again, all this makes me uneasy about MOQ's impact on this 
intellect/society struggle. Pirsig seems at times out to make the 
same alliance with society to quell intellect  (that he claims 
intellect makes with biology to quell society). He hammers on the 
point of intellect not recognizing its social roots, but no level 
recognizes any roots - this is only visible from the MOQ - so why 
intellect? It's struggle with social value is a moral one and it's 
value can't be reformed to include the VALUE metaphysics itself.  

Enough!

Bo