[MD] Plains Talk and Pragmatism

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

John
I'll chit and chat here some too,
Tim

a couple pages into the last chapter of 'Lila':

"Back in Kingston Rigel's whole breakfast sermon was a karma-dump. 
Lila's accusation just now was another one.  That's what made it so sad.
 She'd received too much karmic garbage in her life and she couldn't
handle it and that's what was making her crazy and now she's dumped some
of it and that will probably make her less crazy, for a while at least,
but that's not the moral solution.

If you take all this karmic garbage and make yourself feel better by
passing it on to others that's normal.  That's the way the world works. 
But if  you manage to absorb it and not pass it on, that's the highest
moral conduct of all.   That really advances everything, not just you. 
THe whole world.  If you look at the lives of some of the great moral
figures of history-Christ, Lincoln, Gandhi, and others-you'll see that
that's what they were really involved in, the cleaning of the world
through the absorption of karmic garbage.  They didn't pass it on. 
Their followers sometimes did, but they didn't."

I might add something about how he felt 'messianic' thoughts when he was
in his the heart of his whatever-its-called.  I might interpret his
perspective on theism, whatever it is, as a desire not to levy karmic
garbage on others.  He might view all solidified contemporary theisms as
a karmic dump sourced from that theist's inability to deal with the
unknown.  I shouldn't even have speculated this much on Pirsig.  The
whole reason I brought this up was that he mentioned Christ first in
that list.  To teh extent that he is anti- it was not so strong to keep
him from doing that.

Tim
 


On Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:09:08 -0800, "John Carl" <ridgecoyote at gmail.com>
said:
> Thanks for sharing your  response with us, Matt.  I appreciate your words
> and believe you make a good point.  I'd like to chit-chat a bit, about
> that
> point.
> 
> 
> 
> > My suspicion is that "anti-theism" is peculiar to the European West in
> > many respects because it is a cultural manifestation only possible after
> > we were able to off-load into the written text many of the noetic
> > responsibilities then only capable of being held in oracular form (e.g.,
> > dealing with the limits of memory).  In other words, "god" and "religion"
> > were very different concepts for primary oral cultures ("primitive"), and
> > asking them to be against god-talk would be like asking people to be
> > against education and thinking.  Doesn't make sense.
> >
> >
> Agreed.  And this is a very excellent point.
> 
> 
> 
> > However, it might make a lot of sense for the European West.
> >
> >
> Also agreed.  However, "might" in this case, is what makes  right.  ;)
> 
> I believe leaving it as an ongoing and open question is the heart of what
> "mysticism" means.  Or in pragmatic terms, it's the heart of pluralism
> and
> appreciation for the varieties of religious experience that give rise to
> ongoing realization that lies at the heart of any metaphysics or
> philosophical behavior.  If you're just gonna make dogmatic assertions
> and
> demand allegiance.... well, they have that back at the church I left
> behind.
> 
> Ultimately, we can't really prove anything, so we're stuck with which
> signs
> are useful, and which ones are not.  Which ghosts serve our purposes, and
> which ones don't.
> 
> Now what started this whole discussion in my head, was Dan's and gav's
> and
> dmb's assertions that the Coppleston Annotations make it pretty clear
> that
> RMP did and does intend the MoQ to be fiercely anti-theistic.  My
> disputation being that the words "regarding the term 'God" are not the
> same
> thing as having anti-theism at the core of the belief system.   We
> interpret
> the text differently, evidently.
> 
> I'm still not convinced by this small band of 'experts', but I highly
> respect your viewpoint and understanding (as I did Dan's and gav's, for
> that
> matter) so your opinion of the text might just be the final straw which
> convinces me that I seriously need to consider some reconsideration.
> 
> Capiche?
> 
> I said "did" respect Dan and gav's, because of the quality of their
> rhetoric
> in the past.  But I don't have much respect for Dan anymore, because
> while
> he totally disparages my words as "chit-chat" , he himself evidently has
> no
> true integrity in his word.  He said that I was wrong in my critique of
> gav's reasons for leaving, that gav was correct, and I'm wrong.  But if
> gav's conclusion is correct, then what is Dan doing here?  Gavin's
> conclusion was that the MoQ was at it's heart morally bankrupted by it's
> anti-theism, and ought to be left far behind.  Yet Dan's still here.  So
> obviously, he doesn't agree with gav, and thus evidently just wants to
> make
> some kind of disputational or oppositional point of his own, arising out
> of
> his own unspoken agenda, and he does not love truth or intellectual
> quality
> more than social acceptance or goals.
> 
> And he flushed our dialogue down the toilet, in a most rude and
> unthinking
> manner.  While I do wear the habliments of a fool, I do not suffer those
> who
> actually are, lightly.
> 
> So what do you think, Matt?  Is the MoQ, absolutely anti-theistic?  I am
> at
> the point where I will take your word for it.
> 
> However, given the caveats of respect toward native spirituality, I think
> you're going to have to, or somebody ought to, spell out exactly what
> this
> "anti-theism" means then.
> 
> With appreciation,
> 
> John
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