[MD] Plains Talk and Pragmatism

[John Carl]

>
> dmb says:
>
>
> This theory claims that religion caters to those who have been deprived of
> certain emotional and psychological needs. You know, the sigh of the
> oppressed, the opiate of he masses, the expression of infantile wishes and
> the fear of death and, less grandly, people who just need love, acceptance,
> certainty and a sense of meaning or purpose. I don't think the deprivation
> theory of religion explains everything but it pretty well describes the
> psychological motives of many, if not most, religious people.
>
>
I agree dave.  I'd add the caveat, however, that it also describes the
experience of a vast number of people.  Who doesn't need love, acceptance,
certainty and a sense of meaning or purpose in their lives?  Point out those
people to me, so I have an idea of your "control" group, anyway.

You control groupie,  you.





> The Christian myth no longer functions the way it is supposed to. The
> symbols have been literalized, concretized and have lost their meaning AS
> symbols.



Here I agree completely.  It's admittedly a sad condition of the church.  I
didn't know you aspired to religious reformer, but you are exactly right.

However, isn't it possible that subsequent generations can realize those
symbolic meanings?  You do need then, an institution to transfer the
information, to communicate the symbols onward.  Give them at least some
credit.  In the name of the good.




> As Joe Campbell puts it, religion is a misinterpretation of myth. So the
> people who continue to subscribe to traditional religion have more or less
> agreed to believe lots of things that just aren't believable, things like
> actual virgin births and literally coming back from the dead, etc.. Sadly,
> they take the symbols literally and fail to understand that "the promised
> land is not about real estate", as Campbell puts it.
>
>
Royce and my wife have a very elegant refutation of the entire conceptual
misunderstanding you describe.  "the kingdom is within".  Is the keynote of
the message.  But in essence, anyone seeking for the kingdom, outside of
themselves, is searching in vain.



> Carl Jung disagreed with Freud almost entirely. Where Freud thought that
> religious belief indicated an unhealthy mind, Jung thought spiritual
> development was essential to human health. (Campbell was mostly a Jungian
> but he takes Freud and other psychologists on board as well.) At the same
> time, however, Jung saw a serious failure in the conventional forms of
> Christianity such as in his own father's church. Even as a child, he saw
> that his father and uncles preached sermons without having any actual
> religious experience.



Yes!  I know what he's talking about.  I've had the same experience.
Capiche?  there is a commonality of understanding possible, by dealing with
these social patterns.  There is value in perpetuating religion, even though
it sucks in the end.  Because it is in the overcoming of that "suckiness"
that strong individuals are created.

When you bring up a generation in a "anything goes relatively" society, they
don't have that impetus to overcome and they don't develop right.

"Developing right" being a subject we'll leave for a later day.




> He could see that they didn't know what they were talking about and hat
> they only believed on basis of faith rather than knowing from their own
> experience. In that sense, Jung thought, religion often prevents spiritual
> development. He considered religious experience to be a psychological fact.
> Radical empiricists would agree. Religious claims begin with such facts but
> the radical empiricist insists that we ought not go beyond the experience to
> assert supernatu
>  ral entities as the cause of such experience.
>
>
I'd say Absolute Idealism agrees there.  You can't really assert any cause
of experience, because "cause" isn't even a metaphysical fundament.
Experience is fundamental.  Experience of religion is just as valid as any
other experience.



> The archetypal images that present themselves in such experience will
> always be images that the experiencer can relate to, depending on one's
> particular context, but this is not taken as proof of anything beyond the
> experience itself. I mean, it doesn't matter if you have a vision of Jesus,
> Buddha or Bob.



Hey!  My fave trio.  I got their album.


The hero can wear a thousand different faces but it's essentially the same
> vision. And the test of the "truth" of these kinds of experiences comes in
> subsequent experience. Did the experience result in some kind of growth or
> transformation of consciousness? Does this change lead to a difference in
> the quality of life? A belief proves to be good (or not) depending on how we
> live with it but it'll never be good in practice unless it also harmonizes
> with all of your other beliefs. Pragmatic truth is very open and flexible
> but it's not so loose and casual that we can just say, "hey, whatever works
> for you".
>
>
I do think you'll need to tighten that last bit up a bit, if you wanna spin
in philosophical circles.




> If that were the case, Pragmatism would provide justification for believers
> who fit the deprivation theory of religion. They could say it "works" for
> them simply because it provides emotional comfort. Opium feels good too but
> it will take over your life and eventually kill you. Now (11/11/10) I'd also
> point out that beliefs held because they provide such things as meaning,
> purpose, security, an afterlife, atonement, forgiveness, redemption, and
> miracles are beliefs that the believer NEEDS to believe. If a belief give
> you all that there is no way in hell he's going to be open to criticism.


I beg to differ.  Some men value truth, dave.  And there's clearly an
impelling force to hearing truth, even when it rocks your world, attacks
your views and changes your agenda.  To those who pursue this ring of truth,
pretty soon worlds, views and agendas don't mean nearly so much as this ring
of truth.  These then, are philosophers.  And them I salute, everywhere.

I believe there is a way in hell.



> If you dispute that belief, from his point of view, you are not merely
> debating the merits of an idea. You are a serious threat to his central
> coping mechanism. You are challenging the very purpose and meaning of his
> life. In that kind of situation, facts, reasons and evidence are viewed as
> demonic enemies rather than material for reflection.
>

You do know that when a guy starts using "he" a lot in his disputation, he's
addressing a creation of his own experience?  And not necessarily anything
generally meaningful?

Just as a reminder, a metaphysical discussion revolves around what is
generally meaningful.  Not necessarily just YOUR experience, ya know.

The innate absolutizing of dmb's personal experience, just may be the most
damage W. James ever did.  Although Hitler was pretty bad too.



>
> The deprivation theory of religion is relevant here, obviously, because we
> are supposedly here for the very purpose of debating and discussing and
> changing our beliefs.



Yes!  I agree completely.  If you're 100% satisfied with your current
beliefs, you should go off and write your own damn book.  Those who find the
MoQ fascinating, should be always open to examination, re-question and
probing.




> It is literally impossible to have a reasonable discussion with anyone who
> needs to believe their beliefs that much.



This is true.  And sort of sad.  But I have a different perspective, I
think, than yours.  Even though it's not often labeled as such, there is a
basic set of beliefs that really constitute an unacknowledged religious
stance that I'd term, "Atheistic humanism"  It's a belief that predominates
in academia and all professional life and the underlying metaphysics of the
media-culture that we all swim in.  I think Pirsig termed it 'SOM", and its
basically that, the only values in existence are *merely* subjective.  But
there's a lot of intellectual "need" for this religion, and thus it refuses
to be questioned.

So while I do agree with your words, I differ with your intent because what
you use to deride what you see in your projections, I see plainly in the
community to which you are loyal.


Remember what happened to Jamie when he tried to take that doll away from
> Lila? That "baby" was her religion, her religion of one. She didn't believe
> it because it made sense or because it was harmonized so well or explained
> so much. She believed it because she NEEDED to and when Jamie posed a threat
> to her religion she slashed him across the face with a knife. Think about
> that scene the next time you see one of our theist friends respond to any
> criticism of their theism. Then ask yourself if that response is more like a
> knife in the face or more like a reasonable engagement with the concepts in
> dispute. Does that response evade the reasons and evidence with insults or
> does it intelligently comm
>  unicate an alternative point of view? Is that response intellectually
> substantial or is it just anger and abuse?


You are correct, but what I don't understand is how you can say this in the
face of all the experience I've had of you doing exactly what you accuse.
You don't respond fairly.  You don't construe fairly.  You answer so often
with illogical insults and abuse that are beside the point.  I should know!
I've been the brunt of most of it!  "poor white trash" comes to immediate
mind.

Which even if true, is completely beside the point, so its obviously not in
the service of intellectual truth, that such aspersions are cast.  The
central point of contention, I'd say, boiled down to a nugget of gold, is
the Coppleston Annotations and the aspersion of Antitheism, and I'd also add
the end of the CA, where Pirsig endorses Absolute Idealism as congruent with
the MoQ.  This is a very clear and obvious point of intellectual contention,
which you have repeatedly refused to engage with me, because you deem my
academically unqualified and because of "connotations".

Has your response to my challenge been intellectually substantial?  Or has
it just been anger and abuse?

Even your best friends have repudiated your idiocy in hating theism so much
and so irrationally.  I'm a nice guy so I won't remind everyone what is
plain in the archives, to those who seek.


> Obviously, there is no way to have a meaningful conversation with those who
> respond with knives to the face and such persons aren't really interested in
> philosophy anyway.
>
> In a context like this, the presence of this kind of psychological
> incorrigibility is very destructive. It's a wrench in the gears. It's not
> just that these beliefs are incompatible with the MOQ. It's that such
> beliefs are incompatible with any kind of open discussion because that's
> about as full as any teacup ever gets.
>
>
A wrench amongst the gears is sometimes called for.  Sand, never.  Wrench,
on occasion.  You wouldn't, I know, but you oughta listen to that video
snippet I posted of dr. Kara Barnette.  She says some very interesting
things about "virtuous traitors" which are relevant and entirely congruent
with Pirsig's insights into the Zuni Brujo.

But you won't.  You don't really care that much, when it comes down to it.
You care about dmb.  That's your experience.  And you will have no other
gods before you.

 "In a context like this, the presence of psychological incorrigibility is
very destructive."

I agree completely.

John