[MD] apologia, mea culpa, flagellata, orwellian irony, meat and two veg

Tue Mar 9 21:01:37 PST 2010

well dude,
well i do apologise for saying your ego is monstrous - takes one to know one. that was a reaction on my part - i am sorry.

i do not apologise for voicing my objections to your position and attitude. i think this was warranted and was done fairly, honestly.

theism is not necessarily dualistic - look at spinoza.

by pronouncing an enemy we are back in SOM, and we do the MOQ and ourselves a disservice.

perhaps my heartfelt reaction to this stuff is borne of the times - there is a growing fundamentalism - feels like 1930s germany. dawkins is an ignorant racist disrespectful man and yet he is selling out the sydney opera house - people like dawkins (and strawson it seems) are giving the 'intellectual' validation for reactionary politics - fascism, nazism (lot of australian flags around at moment here - we are turning into the US).

the moq, i hope, is a voice of dissent, an inclusive voice that does what dawkins et al can't - ie it tries to integrate the bodies of knowlegde we have, rather than demonising. ironic that sagan's book 'the demon haunted world' was about science being ignored in favour of irrational ideas like astrology - such hubris, such irony. it is science, or scientism to be fair, that is now driving the wedges of hatred between people - not religion. dawkins is a prime example.

i will not take part in this criminal stupidity - this dangerous historical ignorance, this pseudo-intellectual arrogance. i will gladly call such acts into question, and take the piss.

yours sincerely
brave sir robin

--- On Wed, 10/3/10, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [MD] apologia, mea culpa, flagellata, orwellian irony, meat and two veg
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Received: Wednesday, 10 March, 2010, 2:18 PM
> 
> gav said to dmb:
> i need to apologise to you dave? what for? for disagreeing?
> ...i think the MOQ is in danger of adopting dawkins as its
> pin up boy - that's weird for ya....and again dawkin's
> single biggest fault - the main thrust behind his moronic
> position - historical ignorance, he even admits it! ...dave
> your ego has become monstrous - and uni is perhaps to blame,
> sorry if this offends you but i am not here to stroke you
> mate
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> 
> I think you owe me an apology for this too. It's just one
> insult piled on top of another. What's worse, this repeats
> the insult and injury that prompted me to ask for the first
> apology.
> 
> On 2/27 you said I protest too much about theism, as if my
> position had no merit, as if it were some kind of personal
> failing, demanded humility as if it's hubristic to have a
> position, and complained that I should also condemn
> materialistic science. But, as I tried to explain when I
> asked for that apology, my comments did include a
> condemnation of materialist science and the case against
> theism was a response to a specific claim. I repeated the
> post you were complaining about and walked you through it to
> show that it was not at all the way you so unkindly
> characterized it. I think you might have been stoned when
> you responded to that because you seemed quite confused, at
> one point even asking why I was saying all that, as if you
> didn't even realize it was a re-posting. You responded to
> the request for an apology with something like, "it's not
> about that, man.
> 
> It's not a big deal but usually people who think they're
> owed an apology feel that they've been injured, hurt or
> unfairly treated. And so how do you respond to that? You add
> more injury and more unfair treatment of exactly the same
> kind. I thought we were friends so now I'm sad as well as
> hurt.
> 
> Just for the record, here is the original post that you
> provoked you in the first place. Take another look and ask
> yourself if it really calls for such a treatment. Am I
> protesting TOO much? How do you figure this isn't humble
> enough? What makes you think this displays ignorance or
> egotism? That's the reaction you gave that I think is so
> unfair. Seriously, tell me specifically where these faults
> are in this post.....
> 
> -------------------------------------------------
> 
> 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 d
>  ualism 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 makes 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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