[MD] Theism/epistemology

[skutvik at online.no]

Ron, Michael and involved parties.

11 Feb. Ron expounded:

For Michael,
> you given me quite a hill to work upward against. You want to discuss
> but preface by saying you are not open to any new ideas on the subject
> so lets work from the conclusion of your response to make my meaning
> clear.   "We *cannot* escape culture while remaining human."  and  
> " I dare say it is an innate (an not un-importantly notably unique)
> human drive to seek Quality in existence, Quality that transcends
> existence."  

I have tried in vain to get what Michael "thesis" is. If it rejects or 
supports the MOQ? However if the sentence "..we cannot escape 
culture ...etc"  is Michael's he is in agreement with Pirsig's "No one 
living in an ordered universe can escape metaphysics". Here 
"metaphysics" means an explanation of existence and I take 
Michaels "culture" to mean the same     

> My arguement then using your exact words, if we can not
> escape culture while remaining human , in other words human
> existence, then culture defines human existence, therefore
> transcendence of human existence IS transcendence of culture. 

Yes, a culture in the metaphysical sense (as an explanation of 
existence) definitely defines existence. It IS existence. No need to 
re-invent the wheel. 

> Then the innate human drive is to transcend cultural prejudices and
> move closer to Quality (immediate expereince). If you are proposing, as
> Ham does that there is meaning and purpose beyond immediate expereince
> then you are correct. 

Ron avoids using the MOQ. The DQ  always tries to escape its 
own latest static  level, the reason it looks like "an innate human 
drive" is because the human biological organism became the 
carrier of the social level, after that the Q-evolution (social and 
intellectual) necessarily became "human", but on a planet in the 
Andromeda Galaxy some totally different organism may have 
become the social "carrier".  

> Moq rejects it as a culturally derrived prejudice projected towards
> that immediate experience. Theism is a cultural response to immediate
> expereince the transcendental expereince cultural prejudices,
> definitions and explainations flow from.   

If Michael gets the impression that Ron represents the MOQ  ... 
phew!. "Theism a cultural response to immediate experience" 
What utter nonsense, and that goes for the rest too.  

The social level was a dynamic escape from biology's "dog eats 
dog" existence and it did so by inventing/discovering an existence 
beyond biological life. The social evolution is too enormous to 
recount, but its latest pattern was mono-theism which is (what we 
know as) "religion" This is all  the MOQ says about the issue. It's 
neither a-theist nor anti-theist, it just encompasses everything. 
Religions are static social patterns. 

The "semitic" type religions that is. The Eastern Tradition has 
transcended social (faith) and intellectual (skepticism) and 
reached some Quality like insight.      


IMO

Bo