[MD] a-theism and atheism

[John Carl]

Hey Ham,  correction, I believe is in order:

Ian offered a more "objective" rationale with much the same sentiment . . .
>
>> The trouble as I see with labeling the MoQ plainly atheist, is as I told
>> Dan, the MoQ is no more anti-theistic than it is anti-theory-of-gravity.
>> People come up with ideas to deal with their world. The MoQ says
>> they do this as a function of Quality. What the MoQ is against, is
>> assigning objectivity to subjective ideas about reality. Or reification,
>> in simpler term. And what usually goes by the name "atheist" does this
>> just as much as any theism you can name. Which is why I have no
>> peace of mind with the term "atheist".
>>
>

John:  Those words are mine.  I recognize 'em!  Words are like kids, ya
know.  Other people's tend to blur but your own you always recognize.

No offense taken, except probably by Ian.


Ham:


>
> Last, but not least, Tim declares himself an "ignostic".  (Might he have
> meant "Agnostic"?)
>


John:

Nah,  he was very pointedly  making his own creative term there.   But he's
come up with some nice terms.  I like "faithful -I" a lot.  I've been saying
it to myself.  I hope he doesn't mind if other people appropriate his
terminology, but I'm wicked that way.  Voraciously wolfing down what appeals
to me and throwing up stuff later if it doesn't meet digestive standards.  I
might even start thinking of myself as Ignostic, if the faithful-I is the
center of that formulation.  For one thing, it ryhmes quite nicely with "I
and I" of my rastafarian leanings.

Ham:

Since this appears to be an open discussion, let me make a few points
> regarding the conclusions asserted here.
>
> First, a question to John: Why should the MoQ, or any other philosophy, be
> "non-theistic" so that it can ask "what good is your god"?  Since when is it
> necessary that proponents of a philosophy slander theists "as a tool" of
> their credibility?  Isn't it more logical for the author to establish in his
> thesis whether his philosophy is based on god or not?
>

John:

Because choice is fundamental to philosophy, Ham.  Without betterness, there
isn't even any reason to be here, or doing this, or asking any questions at
all.  At the center of everything, there must be a discriminating agent,
deciding what is good.  I'm sure you'd agree with that part.  What you
sometimes fail to see, or so it seems to me, is that such a discriminating
agent would be completely impossible without some sort of betterness "out
there" by which to judge.  Thus the idea of god, is subordinate to the idea
of good.   That just seems logical to me.


Ham:


>
> Calling oneself a "theist" or an "atheist" is more than choosing a label.
> Ian has nailed the terminology problem, I think, by pointing out that
> "atheism" objectifies reality "just as much as any theism" does.  And I
> believe Pirsig would agree with Tim that agnosticism "is fatal to a belief
> in 'quality'."   Mark, who confesses he has nothing "deep to draw on" from
> his upbringing, is obviously not yet decided on the nature of Pirsig's
> Quality.
>
> The real question, it seems to me, is whether "Quality is everything", as
> Mark suggested, in which case it is absolute and primary by definition.
> Pirsig wrote in LILA that "... if Quality or excellence is seen as the
> ultimate
> reality then it becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist."
> Aren't we supposed to infer from this statement that Quality is the
> metaphysical equivalent of God?
>
>

John:

Well, it seems plain that when Phaedrus wrote that Quality generated "all of
it".  He hesitated for this very reason.  That this could be construed as
the metaphysical equivalent of God.  Or at least the rhetorical equivalent!
But he went and drew that line anyway, so he must not have been quite so
anti-theistic back in those days.


Ham:

Metaphysically an absolute source is necessary for there to be anything.
> Whether you call it God, Supreme Being, the All-Encompassing, the Divine
> One, Dynamic Quality, or Essence matters only to the context in which it is
> conceptualized.  I prefer "Essence" because metaphysics is a "non-theistic"
> approach to reality and because it is not dependent on "beingness" as its
> fundamental principle.
>
> Here's the way I see it:
>
> We are all "created in God's image" because we are immersed in its
> omnipresence, but we are neither its identity nor its essential nature.
> Instead, we stand before this absolute source in awe and total dependency,
> tasting of its essence as the value of what is greater than ourselves.


John:

But Ham?  What about "value must be realized by a valuing agent to be
real?"  Is not the creator just as dependent upon his creation  for his
being, as his creation is dependent upon Him?  Without a created realizer,
all this essence is just sitting around and contemplating nothing, being
realized by nothing.  Is nothing, in other words.  Thus, I'd challenge your
"absolute dependency" and change it to "absolute co-dependency".

Ham:

We are embraced by the "beingness" that is a valuistic representation of our
> substantive nature; yet being is not Essence, because it is delineated by
> nothingness, whereas Essence has no "other".



John:

I'm confused again.  I thought beingness was differentiated by otherness;
there's no such thing as nothingness in nature.


Ham:


> We are caught up in a stream of relational events which is our experience
> of value in time and space. These, too, are appearances of  our
> "being-aware" -- of value perceived objectively as an ordered, evolving,
> pluralistic universe.  While all of this constitutes our existential
> reality, only Value itself is essential, and our sensibility of it is
> subjective, finite and incremental.
>

John:

Now that part sounds fine to me.  I don't understand how we can
simultaneously be in such close agreement, and yet such vast disagreement.
All I can say is that trying to harmonize with you is definitely gonna take
a lot of transcendance of myself.  But then, that's what I'm hear for.

Ham:


>
> This lays out the premise for the metaphysical thesis I've called
> "Essentialism".  You can see that it goes beyond the MoQ conception of
> ultimate reality.  Is it theistic, a-theistic, or anti-theistic?  Is
> "essential value" the equivalent of Pirsig's Quality, or is it something
> different?  Can a moral philosophy based on the universe's evolution to
> 'betterness" accommodate a metaphysical ontology founded on an unmoved
> source?
>
>
John:

Unmoved source and dynamic evolution sound pretty different critters to me.
Maybe in the end it's just a preference of perspective, but I gotta say I'm
going with dynamic evolutionary pull.

And the label, "Absolute Pragmatism".  But that's a whole 'nother topic.

Thanks Ham, as usual,

John