[MD] Faith/Skepticism

[Michael Poloukhine]

> dmb said MP said to Andre [who supposedly said]:
> I disagree. [That Quality is known in experience and requires no
> faith.]

MP: That's not what Andre said. Andre said:

"Quality you experience and is *affirmed* every minute of the moment. No faith 
required, constantly *affirmed.*"

Essentially, that Quality is *affirmed* without faith, by experience alone. Nothing 
about what *Quality* requires, only that faith is not required to affirm Quality.

[all emphases mine.]

Maybe it is you that understood Andre correctly and I not, but in the end, my 
comment was in response to *my* understanding of what Andre said, not the 
one you inserted into my words editorially (however more or less correct a 
linguistic expression of MoQ they may be regarding Quality.)

Contrary to what you are saying, Quality itself may not require anything in itself 
to be affirmed or known, but to *affirm* Quality requires more than mere 
experience. It requires some kind of prerequisite knowledge of Quality to allow 
that affirmation through experience.

FWIW:

"Affirmed" <> "known"

That may seem like a subtle linguistic distinction, but IMO its a vital one.

I'm saying that experience only affirms Quality if one *already* has recognized 
something called Quality in the first place. One cannot simply affirm [A] exists 
without pre-existing cognizance of [A] on which to base such affirmation. As one 
cannot recursively affirm by previous affirmation ad infinitum, there must be an 
initiating event where the affirmation arises out of something OTHER than 
affirmation. As one cannot have objective evidence of Quality, Quality cannot 
be defined and Quality is not (for the sake of argument) a falsehood, the only 
other remaining "something else" that can give rise to such affirmation of 
Quality is faith. Even if its arrived at from a purely intellectual approach, it is still 
based on faith if it is absent objective evidence. 

If "faith" is too culturally loaded a word to allow yourself to use, too close to 
religion and theism for your intellectual comfort, maybe go with "personal 
conviction of truth absent objective rational evidence"? I don't know, that's yours 
to wrestle with.

"Faith" sums it up well for me.


> I can almost hear you saying, "Well, God is the reason I got out of
> bed and I prefer hamburgers, or some such thing".
MP: I didn't say any such thing. You might want to up the meds to take care of 
any remaining voices you hear ... ;-)




MP
----
"Don't believe everything you think."