[MD] Plains Talk and Pragmatism

[John Carl]

tim,

A nice rainy day, everybody's gone for the weekend, there's a fire in the
fireplace and I can settle in and get back to unfinished threads I'd marked
earlier...

Tim:

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.

John:

That makes sense, it does.  There's a strong sense in which a theistic
interpretation is just gonna gobble up Quality, call it God and then
encapsulate it in sunday school and dispense it with priests.

ewww... been there, done that, didn't work out so well.  I agree completely.
A new approach is needed, and we have to avoid the slippery slopes.

Tim:

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.

John:

Speculating on Pirsig is what we do.

You can't leave out Jesus from any discussions of religion and society.  He
really is quite central to our entire mythic underpinnings and all.  Saying
"our" advisedly, speaking about the place I live.  No offense intended,
Khaled.

In fact, one of my favorite quotes from Christ, came in a little speech he
gave to a woman who explicated the religious problem quite nicely, "You Jews
say the Temple in Jerusalem is the only place to worship, my fathers tell me
it's up here in these hills."

Today we could extend the options extensively.  The varities of religious
experience open to us are as varied as the number of human societies.  What
kind of morality could God claim for condemning the world to following the
advice of their fathers?  Jesus answers this question so well, that he makes
me a lifetime fan - God is a spirit.  True worshippers worship in spirit and
truth and God seeks those. I'd call them, "faithful-I's" and later when he
points out to his followers that his whole message is meant to point them
back to this spirit inside themselves, this still small voice whispering
what is good and what is not good, well, I think Christ and Pirsig are
entirely congruent. Two different fingers pointing to the same moon.

But to many, that's the slippery slope!

deal with it.

John