[MD] John's Reading of Absolute Idealism Confirmed by Bob

[John Carl]

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> John, Louise,
>
>
> We can tease apart the language and labels in many ways,
> but I've never been able to figure--apart from personal
> reasons--the _philosophical_ justification for the ruling out
> of God-talk.


What struck me so forcibly in my reading was the specific expressions of
animosity in a supposedly "philosophical" paper.   It reminded me of a
certain piece of writing I recall along the lines of condemning estheticians
smacking their lips over the putrescence of something they killed.  Real
vituperation with real power behind it.  Revealing something personal,
rather than philosophical.  Here, I'll give you  concrete examples:

"There is that word “spiritual” again. Whenever I hear it I smell a rat."

"Here, with the word “his,” is the anthropomorphism of the rat.  All we need
now is a priest to collect money for the rat and pocket it for himself."

"The reason he “knows not why” is that he has abandoned intelligence for
religious conformity.  Actually Green is saying things that are very close
to the MOQ and it is angering to see him curtseying in this way to medieval
dogmatic superstition.  The selling out of intellectual truth to the social
icons of organized religion is seen by the MOQ as an evil act."

"The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the term “God” is completely dropped
as a relic of an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic
freedom.   The MOQ is not just atheistic in this regard.  It is
anti-theistic. "


Matt]

 Most prominent Pirsig-interpreters, not to
> mention Pirsig, have been anti-theistic (though Pirsig is
> typically more measured).  But I don't get it.


John]

More measured?  Where?



> Granted, I
> don't get God-talk either, but that's the point--philosophically
> speaking, using God-talk, or Buddha-talk, or Nature-talk, or
> Plato-talk, or Yeats-talk: they should all be on a
> philosophical par, each its own finger pointing at the moon.
>


That is where I am at.  I was raised on the God-talk and at the same time
distanced from it so I never felt quite trapped by it.  It doesn't bug me
but I do have a different perspective on because of the MoQ.

But there is more than that to this issue, I'm gonna take it up more in my
reply to Ron's reply in a minute, but Dave's posting of Lila Chap 29 where
Pirsig talks about discovering James displays quite an interesting tidbit of
reasoning.



>
> For the most part, Pirsig and Pirsig-interpreters reserve
> their spite for social institutions/incarnations like organized
> religion and the like.  In this sense, I think we can all be
> anti-clerical.  But there are times when the reaction seems
> to be emitting from a non-Pirsigian place.
>
> Matt


Well thanks Matt for confirming my own intuition of a jarring reaction.

john





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