[MD] The Level of Intellectual Quality

[Steven Peterson]

HI DMB,


> dmb says:
>
> I close down? Unless I missed it, you still haven't said a word about the case I repeated. After repeated it and I walked you through the argument, which you accussed me of never making in the first place, you got discouraged and stopped talking. I mean, isn't it just a fact that you closed down?
>
> Same thing happened with Steve and I. After repeatedly challenging his concept of truth, he just dropped it without answering the one and only question I'd been asking. Then he started a new thread in which I did not participate (because I figured he was sick of me) and yet the thread was all about what a dick I am. This is a patten that repeats over and over. When the debate gets too tough, the topic somehow always gets switched to what a bad person I am. While this reaction is understandable, it is not intellectually respectable. It's pretty childish, actually.



Steve:

I do still plan to get back to our long running battle for the soul of
pragmatism. I don't expect our differences to be resolved any time
soon, so I'm sure it can wait while I work on some other things.






> dmb says:
>
> The MOQ does claim to unify art, science and religion by making DQ the basis of them all, but there is also the problem of comparing social level traditions (like institutional theism) with intellectual level patterns like science. That deserves a fuller explanation but that will have to wait. You could also revisit the case I walked you through, because that does explain something about this issue.
>
> But let me say that your impression is not at all accurate. The idea that I won't allow any other game but atheism is defied by the way I spent MOST of my time. The Master's thesis I'm working on is all about the pragmatic mysticism of Pirsig and James and this is the kind of research project that makes it completely impossible to avoid the arguments of theists. Right now I'm working on the bibliography and so there are about 50 sources at my side that discuss nothing but pragmatism as it relates to religious studies. As I see it, theism and atheism are both wrong. This area has interested me for a long time and I've spent a lot of time and energy thinking about it. I don't mention this stuff to make a case that being back in school makes me special or smarter than anybody else, but just to point out that my actual, non-virtual life bears no resemblance to the accusations of knee-jerkism or rigidity or closed-mindedness. It's just not possible to be that way and live the life
>  that I'm living. They would kick me out or flunk me out, and rightly so.


Steve:
I think the issue here may be about equating the terms God and theism.
There are those even among Christians such as retired Episcopal Bishop
who argue that theism as the belief in a supernatural deity existing
apart from creation ought to be rejected. Theism like deism,
mysticism, pantheism, panentheism, and polytheism are all  often
viewed as ways of conceptualizing about God. None ought to be equated
with God.

Also, Dave, if you come across any pragmatists writing about death,
dying, and the significance of life, I'd appreciate it if you pointed
to anything you interesting.

Best,
Steve