[MD] Pragmatically useful Religion

[david buchanan]

Ron said:
W.James makes a similar statement that religion is indeed pragmatically useful that is why he and Pirsig agree that religion and science do not conflict, incorporating both the rationalist and the empiricist.



dmb quotes:

"The theistic conception, picturing God and his creation as entities distinct from each other, still leaves the human subject outside of the deepest reality in the universe. God is from eternity complete, it says, and sufficient unto himself; he throws off the world by a free act and as an extraneous substance, and he throws off man as a third substance, extraneous to both the world and himself. ...An orthodox theism has been so jealous of God's glory that it has taken pains to exaggerate everything in the notion of him that could make for isolation and separateness. Page upon page in scholastic books go to prove that God is in so sense implicated by his creative act, or involved in his creation. That this relation to the creatures he has made should make any difference to him, carry any consequence, or qualify his being, is repudiated as a pantheistic slur upon his self-sufficingness. His action can affect us, but he can never be affected by our reaction. ...This essential dualism of the theistic view has all sorts of collateral consequences. Man being an outsider and a mere subject to God, not his intimate partner, a character of externality invades the field."
(William James in  A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE)


"The notion that James advocated belief in what is personally attractive, without scrupulous regard for all factual considerations, and for the theological implications of these considerations, is utterly false. Any belief, religious or otherwise, James argues repeatedly, must be made to square with all the relevant facts about the world presently at our disposal. Among such facts, in the case of religion for example, is some version of natural selection. ...The world may be creation but it is also food chain. Nowhere does James allow that personal utility of religious belief would in any way justify ignoring such facts." (Hunter Brown in WILLIAM JAMES ON RADICAL EMPIRICISM AND RELIGION, 2000)

On top of the main point, which is to show that James does not endorse mere utility, I'd also point out that the "essential dualism of the theistic view" that make man "extraneous to both the world and himself" has SOM as one of its collateral consequences. I mean, the idea that we (subjects) are ontologically distinct from the world (objective reality) has grown almost directly out of theism. In fact, elsewhere James says that the Cartesian subject is a quasi-secularized version of the Christian soul. It occurs to me now that the notion of one eternal Truth beyond the grasp of we mere mortals is common to both theism and scientific materialism. 

I mean, there are lots of philosophical reasons for rejecting theism and it's not just a coincidence that they overlap with the reasons for rejecting SOM. But apparently there are people who think theism is somehow a better option than scientific materialism and because Pirsig rejects scientific materialism, they imagine they'll find some comfort in the MOQ, some sympathy for their theism. The philosophical mysticism might make it look even more tempting to a theist, but those sections of Lila are actually where we find the MOQ's most elaborate anti-theistic arguments. I really don't think it can be done. Given all that, it seems to me that trying to squeeze an endorsement of theism out of Pirsig's isn't just incorrect, it's also kinda sleazy.

The thing is, there is quite a bit of amazing wisdom on spiritual matters in there. If there is a hunger for such things and you're willing to drop the theism just long enough to listen to what Pirsig actually says about, what other mystics actually say, I think you'll find something gooder.









 		 	   		  
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