[MD] new blog

[Michael Poloukhine]

> [Michael]
> you have no place to judge whether or not I can or cannot proclaim something
> about a God you can't manage to distinguish from a leprechaun.
> 
> [Arlo]
> See, that's just it. Your "God" has no more, and no less, reality than a
> leprechaun. Certainly the collective stories are larger, as a novel contains
> more than an essay or comic strip. This is like saying "you can't distinguish
> between Batman and Superman". Sure, one wears a blue suit and the other drives
> a black car. 

MP: But you can't know *why* Batman does one thing where Superman does 
not unless you've spoken to them at length. I'm getting at what Pirsig rightly 
reveals in his Heidelberg-esque discussion of the anthropological study of 
Native American culture. 

I don't disagree that you can make observations about the belief in God, I fully 
expect you can and that they will for the most part be intelligent ones, and even 
perhaps accurate. I'm just saying that if you are looking for a truly relevant way 
to address theism in culture v.a.v. MoQ, the quality of your conclusions will be 
necessarily less AS OBSERVED for having a lesser understanding of the 
theistic myths AS PRACTICED. So why do some necessarily reject the theistic 
POV on things when seeking greater Quality in the whole mess? Seems to me 
that that's where the most quality solution can be found if we apply ourselves.


> [Michael]
> that nothing quality can come from religion, let alone theism. 
>
> [Arlo]
> I have never said this. In fact I said the opposite. As I said, Leprechaunism
> may induce someone to assist old ladies to cross busy streets (a good thing),
> but this does not mean that everything about Leprechaunism *should be
> unquestioningly accepted.* 

MP: Apologies if I implied you did. I gathered you were defending dmb's view. 
And I have never said *this* (*emphasis mine*) about theism. I'm saying theism 
should not be ditched simply because MoQ has a dim view of it, or someone is 
willing to make a simplistic connection between it and some bad thing. 
Because, in your Leprechaun example, some people helping ladies across the 
street end up getting both of them hit by a truck. 

We have culture to contend with when going from the MoQ to practical 
applications, theism is a big one.


> [Michael]
> And by not understanding that context to the degree you, or dmb seem to do > how will you ever recognize quality within its ranks?
>
> [Arlo]
> I recognize Quality by the deeds of others. But I do not make the mistake of
> thinking of that those deeds would only exist but for theism. Just as I can
> recognize the goodness of helping old ladies across busy streets, I see the
> promise of a pot o' gold to be low quality. 

MP: I think we are basically on the same page in the book, just reading from 
different rooms. 

My entire disagreement with dmb (and my sudden immersion in this listserve 
where I had intended to dip in liightly, lol) has been his claim that the bad 
actions he sees exist because of theism rather than simply because people do 
bad things within an unavoidably theistic cultural context.

Andre, I think we are quite close on this. I am learning MoQ, so trip over things I 
say about it. Thanks for bearing with me.