[MD] Boromir's Journey

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt,

I think you may be right about the faith versus hope question. I'll
keep thinking about it.

The key issue seems to be the idea of certainty. Pragmatists have
given up on the project of becoming certain of their current beliefs
in favor of the hope of findging even better alternatives to our
current good beliefs.

Can't hope also get tied up with the idea of certainty as being
certain that things will get better?  Or more modestly being certain
that things really can get better?

If I give up the idea of faith as the world as it is being perfect,
perhaps the notion still stands as one description among an
inexhaustible possibilty of descriptions of the present or a
recognition that though some things about our current circumstances
may be bad many other things are simultaneously good. By focusing on
the good rather than the bad things in a given moment, we change the
reality we experience. Getting good at recognizing the good and
finding nourishment in what is good can strengthen us to change what
is bad while focussing only on the bad leaves us with helpless and
useless dispair. Can we then retain a notion of the importance of
being okay to some extent with things as they are as actually helpful
in our projects to make things better?

Still thinking.

Best,
Steve





On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hey Steve,
>
> Steve said:
> My complaint is that the religious people touting their
> faith in a "we have something that you don't have" sort
> of way, don't really have anything that I want or that I
> think they ought to be smug about. They only seem to
> have a bunch of factual beliefs rather than anything of
> spiritual worth. Likewise, those that do have this
> something aren't smug about it at all. Smugness would
> be a clue to me that a person does not have this
> something worth seeking. Based on reading about such
> people and knowing some people who seem to be
> closer than others to what is called Enlightenment, I
> think it is possibly to feel extreme outrage and deep
> sorrow and also have a deep sense of inner peace.
> Unfortunately, the phenomenon of holding these two
> perspectives simultaneously tends to only be spoken
> about in religious terms....
>
> Matt:
> Right, and I guess I'm not seeing how faith becomes
> redeemable from this religious context (assuming,
> blandly, that whatever "religious context" refers to is
> what we want to move away from).
>
> For instance, I take the Dalai Llama to be someone that
> does not exhibit faith, but hope.  Why?  Because I
> wouldn't take seriously his self-descriptions.  I see his
> actions as taking primacy over possible descriptions of
> "things are just as they should be," and as invalidating
> them as good descriptions of, say, where his calm
> comes from.  It is a commonplace too often forgotten
> that we ourselves are not always our own best judges.
>
> The way I see it, it is this "faith" that leads to smugness.
> Smugness _is_ a clue, but I don't thinks this spiritual
> worth, this "something," is always best described by
> those that have it--hence the frowny face you had when
> you said, "tends to only be spoken about in religious
> terms."  And "faith," in many of its guises--particularly
> the nonobject guise gav described--seems to me to be
> what leads large segments of culture towards
> inadvertent smugness.
>
> Actions speak louder than words and it is looking at the
> pattern exhibited between what people say and what
> they do that gives us clues as to what things we should
> keep saying.  And it is just not clear to me that we
> should keep repeating "faith" and not get everything we
> want from "hope."
>
> I have absolutely nothing against people who wish to
> self-describe themselves as religious, or theists, or what
> have you.  I'm not an anti-theist, as many here are.
> But I'm never more suspicious of what's really going on
> in the background of our beliefs when another person
> that seems to be just great, has radically divergent
> self-descriptions.
>
> Matt
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Bing™  brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place.   Try it now.
> http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MLOGEN&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MLOGEN_Core_tagline_local_1x1
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>