[MD] still going?

Horse horse at darkstar.uk.net
Tue Feb 16 17:48:32 PST 2016


Hi All

The archives for MD are public so Tim probably gets them from there - 
unlikely he's a member here as he's so unstable I think he'd have a hard 
time not posting or trying to post!
Not a lot that can be done about it really.

Cheers

Horse

On 16/02/2016 07:43, Adrie Kintziger wrote:
> apparently the jesusmail Irina received and the youtubelinks that are
> sent to other listers as well, are sent by tim raps&cows, and also he
> mirrors
> the conversations from this list to the lilasquadlist and comments on it
> either he is still a silent member her or someone else hands over the
> conversations.
>
> Adrie
>
> 2016-02-15 2:25 GMT+01:00 david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>:
>
>>  From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
>>
>> "Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
>> understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James delivered
>> the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments against
>> Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
>> James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, were
>> a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had never
>> been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
>> community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the extraordinary
>> religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first education
>> was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a respect for
>> the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
>> consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy of
>> religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
>> ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary people.
>> There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered on a
>> metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was at
>> bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
>> pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
>> religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."
>>
>>
>> Adrie said to dmb:
>>
>> ...Given the 'gospel,' which is clearly present in Royce's work, Auxier's
>> field of interest, and John's field of interest possibly and probably as
>> well John
>> as Randall would like to restrict and restrain our interferences to the
>> theological field of Catholicism, thereby avoiding any possible question
>> about monotheism
>> polytheism, Islam, thora or whatever available. Needless to say that this
>> also would restrict and restrain us only to their (Royce,Auxier,John, the
>> pope's?) field of expertise, an expertise that is apparently shaped and
>> polished so to speak, to induce a theistic revival in filosophy again. This
>> is not strange nor indecent, but of course if one takes the other questions
>> in consideration (monotheism/polytheism/islam etc, etc...) then you are
>> quite right that it is nearly an impossibility to have the debate as long
>> as the other debates remain unsolved; If we cannot define our variables a
>> priori, and the John/Royce/Auxier train only wants to restrain us in the
>> catholic corner.
>>
>>
>> dmb says:
>>
>> Well, I don't think the problem belongs to any particular kind of theism
>> or type of Christianity. And I don't think the other guy's view puts any
>> restrictions on us either. As I see, the problem is that we're dealing with
>> people who pretend to be thinking seriously but have already committed
>> themselves to certain final answers. If a person has prior commitments like
>> that, their thinking process will be in the service of that prior view. The
>> problem is that it restricts and restrains what they able to appreciate and
>> remember. Such prior commitments amplify the confirmation bias that effects
>> us all so that criticisms are, in effect, filtered out and the information
>> that seems to confirm their beliefs gets seared into their memories. Even
>> further, religious faith (and political ideologies) are totalitarian in the
>> sense that every part of reality must be made to fit within their
>> worldview. And everything that does not fit is explained away, dismissed
>> and/or immediately forgotten. That's what fanatics seem so impervious to
>> evidence and reason.
>>
>>
>>
>> Adrie continued:
>>
>> However this does not mean that it offends me or disturbs me; as John
>> suggests, it only offends me to go back to the luggage left behind when the
>> Mayflower moored in the America's, or the Halve Maen or the Pilgrim
>> fathers. This is the wrong luggage. ...But quid pro quo for what John is
>> proposing, as apparently some unseen quality is emerging in his postings,
>> consistency is back and he made major improvements on the field of
>> philosophy and writing about it.
>> So i will not advocate to boot out Royce as John is not really demanding
>> to get rid of Ol' William. Should we, as Irina suggested, keep our religion
>> out of this debate? Or is religion too interwoven and twined with idealism
>> or many forms of philosophy in general to leave it aside?  The last remark
>> should be interesting for John to resolve....but regardless of his lead, i
>> will not take his word for it without delivered content.
>>
>>
>> dmb says:
>>
>> It would be foolish to exclude religion as a topic or issue for discussion
>> because it's a major feature of human culture and because idealism in
>> general, and especially Royce's idealism, is a religious view. Again, the
>> problem is that such religious people are coming to the discussion with a
>> large set of prior commitments about what's true and what's real. Coming to
>> the table with a prior faith almost always brings a strong bias that
>> hinders and frustrates a productive exchange of ideas. It creates blind
>> spots in the mind, so to speak.
>>
>> John continues to insist that James and Royce were equally religious and
>> that my protests to the contrary are symptoms of fear, prejudice, or even
>> post traumatic stress induced by a bad experience with theism. This is mere
>> slander, of course, but even worse is that it defies what the Stanford
>> Encyclopedia and James himself have to say on the topic. It's like he just
>> doesn't care what's true and what's not true. He wants to make it fit no
>> matter what it takes. That's what happens when you are already committed to
>> some faith before you even start to think. It warps everything so that real
>> conversations are almost impossible.
>>
>>
>> Take it easy.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> 2016-02-05 16:41 GMT+01:00 david <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>>> Adrie quoted Wikipedia to dispute John's claims:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "His publication in 1885 of The Religious Aspect of Philosophy
>>>>> ...contained a new proof for the existence of God based upon the
>> reality
>>>>> of
>>>>> error. All errors are judged to be erroneous in comparison to some
>> total
>>>>> truth, Royce argued, and we must either hold ourselves infallible or
>>>>> accept
>>>>> that even our errors are evidence of a world of truth. Having made it
>>>>> clear
>>>>> that idealism depends upon postulates and proceeds hypothetically,
>> Royce
>>>>> defends the necessity of objective reference of our ideas to a
>> universal
>>>>> whole within which they belong, for without these postulates, “both
>>>>> practical life and the commonest results of theory, from the simplest
>>>>> impressions to the most valuable beliefs, would be for most if not all
>>> of
>>>>> us utterly impossible”. (see The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, p.
>>> 324)"
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> dmb says:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Since Royce was offering fallibilism as "a new proof for the existence
>>> of
>>>>> God" and "the necessity of objective reference of our ideas", his
>>>>> fallibilism is very, very different from the fallibilism of
>> Pragmatists
>>>>> like James and Pirsig. I think it's fair to say that Pirsig is NOT
>>>>> offering
>>>>> theism or objectivity. James, Dewey, and Pirsig are quite explicit in
>>>>> their
>>>>> rejection of SOM and even James, the most religion-friendly of the
>>> three,
>>>>> wrote his Varieties of Religious Experience in order to DISPUTE the
>>>>> religious claims made by Royce.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  From the Stanford Encyclopedia:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Royce and James had always disagreed deeply concerning the proper
>>>>> understanding of religious phenomena in human life. When James
>> delivered
>>>>> the Gifford Lectures in 1901 and 1902, he directed many arguments
>>> against
>>>>> Royce's idealism, though he did not there target his friend by name.
>>>>> James's lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience,
>>> were
>>>>> a popular and academic success . Royce believed that James, who had
>>> never
>>>>> been regularly affiliated with an established church or religious
>>>>> community, had in that work placed too much emphasis on the
>>> extraordinary
>>>>> religious experiences of extraordinary individuals. Royce's first
>>>>> education
>>>>> was into a strongly Protestant world view, he always retained a
>> respect
>>>>> for
>>>>> the conventions of organized Christianity, and his writings exhibit a
>>>>> consistent and deep familiarity with Scripture. He sought a philosophy
>>> of
>>>>> religion that could help one understand and explain the phenomena of
>>>>> ordinary religious faith as experienced by communities of ordinary
>>> people.
>>>>> There was a deeper difference between them, as well, and it centered
>> on
>>> a
>>>>> metaphysical point. Royce's 1883 insight concerning the Absolute was
>> at
>>>>> bottom a religious insight. Contrary to the open-ended pluralism and
>>>>> pragmatism of James, Royce was convinced that the object and source of
>>>>> religious experience was an actual, infinite, and superhuman being."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Since Pirsig was suspicious of James for trying to sneak religion in
>>>>> through the back door into philosophy, imagine what he'd think of
>>> Royce's
>>>>> "respect of the conventions of organized Christianity" and his stance
>>>>> "contrary to the open-ended pluralism and pragmatism of James".
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Like I keep saying, trying to make this Idealistic religious fanatic
>>> into
>>>>> a Pirsigian is like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
>> Why,
>>>>> why, why does John keep preaching this nonsense against all evidence
>> and
>>>>> reason? This covert theism is bullshit and cannot be sustained
>> without a
>>>>> huge dose of dishonesty, or ignorance, or both.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It's fine if a person insists on being an Idealist, an Absolutist, or
>> a
>>>>> advocate of conventional Christianity but it makes no sense to paint
>>>>> Pirsig
>>>>> or Pragmatism in these colors. The keys concepts of these two opposed
>>>>> views
>>>>> will crash into each other like two trains heading in opposite
>>> directions.
>>>>> It's worse than a pointless waste of time because, frankly, it's so
>>>>> obviously stupid. It makes me sad and angry that John is allowed to
>>>>> continue raining his bullshit on Pirsig and James.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>> Moq_Discuss mailing list
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>> Archives:
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>> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>>
>
>

-- 


"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
— Bob Moorehead


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