[MD] new blog

[Steve Peterson]

MP,

MP:
> Thanks for the welcome. Yes, I'm new here, long (life long) story on 
> how I got
> here, the short is I found the link in the 25th Anniv. edition of ZMM 
> I recently
> read and figured I'd lurk a while and decided I'd dip in on this 
> thread.

Steve:
Though we disagree on much, I appreciate your thoughtful remarks.


>
> Steve Peterson wrote:
>> First of all, the blog I am working on is not aimed directly at
>> convincing theists that they have a bunch of wacky beliefs that we'd
>> all be better off if they dropped. That is indirectly part of my
>> goal,
>> but the blog is not to attract theists to the discussion. I want to
>> converse with other non believers in an ongoing  strategy session
>> that
>> would include the sort of suggestion you made.

MP:
> I guess I'm a little troubled by the "strategy" aspect. Strategy for 
> what?
>
> The implication is conflict, and by process of elimination I suspect 
> it is conflict
> with theists. To what end? You can't prove God does not exist any more 
> than a
> theist can prove He does. Even if you can prove a myth is false, it 
> would
> continue. Only an alternative myth can replace a myth.


Steve:
I don't think the question is ever really about proof but rather about 
what we have good reason to believe. Is there good reason to believe 
that any of the world's varied religions have it right given that they 
all say that all the other religions has it wrong? Even if we assume 
that one of them is true, as a matter of probability, we should expect 
to be damned under Pascal's Wager because we are unlikely to have have 
managed to pick the right one through the accidents of our births.

I agree that only a story can replace a story. Science, our best 
attempts at intellectual honesty and distinguishing what we have good 
reason to believe from what we wish were true, tells a different story 
from Christianity. The question is, which one is the better story? We 
may disagree, but I can't see why we shouldn't be able to argue for our 
favorite story.



MP:
> Wouldn't a "better future", ("better" defined in MoQ terms) be more 
> likely found
> through an approach that doesn't involve any of the theisms (including 
> "a-")?
>
> Another way to ask the same question; could there be a wholly 
> atheistic world?
> A world in which there were only atheists? Atheism, by definition is 
> the belief
> that there is no "God", but as such it MUST exist in a context where 
> the
> existence of "God" is contemplated as possible in some manner, that 
> is; in a
> theistic context. And while that theistic context exists, the context 
> always
> remains a theistic one, and as such any strategy to eliminate theism 
> through
> atheism fails.
>
> Any atheism "strategy" fails categorically because you cannot by 
> definition ever
> get past theism through atheism.

Steve:
I completely agree here. I wrote about this issue in my blog here,
http://www.atheistichope.com/2009/01/end-of-atheism.html , in a post 
called "The End of Atheism" concerned with the liabilities of 
self-applying the label, "atheist."

excerpt:
"I've also thought for some time that there is some subtle 
question-begging going on in the atheist/theist issue. "Do you believe 
in God?" is a question that pretty much presupposes that there is a God 
that can either be believed in or not. An end of theism would mean that 
this "God/no gods" game is one that we are no longer even interested in 
playing. In other words, could we reasonably hope for a world where 
there were only atheists? As a lack of belief in gods, atheism only 
comes up within a context where people are interested in gods--within a 
"theistic" context. A strategy of ending theism by means of atheism 
will necessarily fail because atheism helps perpetuate this fundamental 
theistic context.

I think it is this "theistic context" that Sam Harris, author of The 
End of Faith, was talking about when he asked, "Why should we fall into 
this trap? Why should we stand obediently...in the space carved out by 
the conceptual scheme of theistic religion? It’s as though, before the 
debate even begins, our opponents draw the chalk-outline of a dead man 
on the sidewalk, and we just walk up and lie down in it.""

MP:
> btw: In the MoQ context, isn't the goal of eliminating theism a lot 
> like saying we
> should get rid of cells because our bodies are more evolved than them? 
> Or to
> get rid of culture because we have society? Or to get rid of society 
> because we
> have intellect?

Steve:
I don't think so. I don't see how religion is at all necessary for the 
evolution of the intellectual level and in fact I think that it often 
hinders evolution towards dynamic quality.

MP:
> I happen to be "theistic" and while I can appreciate the status Pirsig
> evolutionary hierarchy leaves it on a lower rung, I can also 
> appreciate that the
> same hierarchy nonetheless leaves a place for it. Its a static "latch" 
> for a
> Dynamic quality it achieved. Take it away, and you can lose the 
> Quality it
> achieved, which enabled subsequent Dynamic Quality.

Steve:
Even if it is true that religion was important for evolution in the 
past, why carry the boat on your shoulders when it has already taken 
you across the river?


> MP:
> I also happen to think that "theism"'s God is not all that much 
> different from
> Pirsig's Quality. Its just understood, expressed and appreciated on an 
> earlier
> MoQ evolutionary level. Its an appreciation of one and the same thing, 
> just in a
> much older, and gradually more and more archaic evolutionary language. 
> The
> conceptual parallels between theistic concepts and, for instance those 
> of
> quantum physics are remarkable at times.
>

Steve
If you view Quality as the same as God, then you may have a different 
view of God than is typical for those who claim to be theists. I think 
the main difference is that Quality is not a person. It has no favorite 
color, ego to be bruised, only begotten son, or sense of humor. If all 
you mean when you use the word God is the ground of being, the creative 
aspect of the universe, emptyness, etc., then you have no quarrel with 
me other than that I would suggest that you are likely to be 
misunderstood in using the word God.

Best,
Steve