[MD] Theism/epistemology

[Michael Poloukhine]

> Bo said
> I have tried in vain to get what Michael "thesis" is.
MP: That could be because I haven't really got one. ;-) But if I had to ...

> Bo said
> [MoQ] is 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.      
MP: ... I'd say its in there somewhere. 

Where you make the distinction of "Western" and "Eastern" you and many here 
here also automatically appear to make a like and respectively associated 
distinction of "Theistic" and "Non-theistic." But I know from personal (Eastern 
theistic) experience this is not an inherent or inextricable connection of 
West/Theistic or Eastern/Non-theistic, but only a historically and culturally 
coincidental one. 

Theism is not incapable of the same transcendence of social and intellectual on 
the personal esoteric level you rightly attribute to Eastern faiths; I and those 
who taught me and practice my particular faith are living proof. I am the first to 
admit its the rare case in Western (or even Eastern) theistic manifestations, but 
it is *not* impossible. It is in my opinion *culture* which drives / has driven this 
particular aspect of most theistic beliefs, rather than it having been a direct 
attribute of their theistic nature. 

Relating this then to the MoQ, it is my opinion, that while the MoQ is not theistic 
in nature, this is not to say that anti-theism is a quality direction in MoQ terms. 
MoQ, as a view of reality, is anti-theistic primarily in the sense that it explains 
*all* of reality (essential and mystical) in one common systemic language. It 
alleviates theism of being the primary experience in explaining the mystical. But 
that said it simply *does not follow* that this means theism cannot remain (and I 
dare say be cultivated to be) a force for high quality, or more so that its 
elimination would be somehow be a high quality direction for society or culture 
to value.