[MD] Moving On

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Mark]
You have to admit that the whole idea of leaving Quality undefined is highly religious in its instructions.  There is no wonder that Pirsig claims to be "anti-theist" since his explanations smack of theism.

[Arlo]
Hi Mark, I noticed this in your reply to Ant, and it seems to answer an unanswered question of mine, and that is whether "undefinedness" is equivalent to "religious". Or if one does not imply the other, how do you see them related? Would you consider Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems, for example, to be religious in nature? Is there any way for a metaphysics (in your view) to NOT be theistic? Or is any metaphysics (including the denial of a coherent metaphysics) ipso facto a religion?

I keep coming back to this because in your claims of Pirsig's 'theism', but I can't see any way in your view how anything can NOT be a theism (i.e. everything is a theism). Let me phrase it this way, for Pirsig to be genuinely "anti-theistic", what would you think he would have to do? Define Quality? (Is it the undefined term that makes something a religion?) What do you think are the distinguishing features between theism, anti-theism and even atheism?