[MF] MOQ and theism

[Ant McWatt]

Firstly, just a quick note of clarification.

The Copleston annotations are an entirely separate text from my MOQ Textbook 
though the latter might use quotes from the former.

Secondly, Dynamic Quality as used in the MOQ is non-theistic as it’s 
indeterminate, has no personality, and is immediately apprehended if using 
Northrop's (1947, p.375) definition of ‘theism’ i.e. a belief in an immortal 
"divine being with [inferred] determinate characteristics."

Therefore, as Ian G correctly stated, there is no theism in the MOQ (at 
least in the above understanding of the term).

Best wishes,

Anthony.



Marsha had stated to Kevin December 20th:

>Kevin,
>
>Here is a response to you from DMB written in November.
>
>----
>
>Kevin and all MOQers:
>
>Kevin asked:
>Is the MOQ an anti-theistic system?  Please support your answer with
>an appropriate citation from ZMM and/or Lila.
>
>dmb replies:
>The following Pirsig quotes have been extracted from chapter six of
>Anthony McWatt's book. They are also known as the Copleston annotations.
>
>180 "The MOQ supports religion but does not support many Christian 
>traditions."
>
>193 "Quality is nature. The MOQ says there is no spiritual principle
>in man that makes knowledge possible. Nature does the whole job."
>
>208 "The MOQ would add a fourth stage where the term "God" is
>completely dropped as a relic of an evil social suppression of
>intellectual and Dynamic freedom. The MOQ is not just atheistic in
>this regard. It is anti-theistic."
>
>216 "Faith is not required for an understanding of Quality. Here
>Quality succeeds where Bradley's Absolute and Hegel's Being and the
>Buddhist Nothingness and the Hindu Oneness and the theists' God and
>Allah and you-name-it, all of them fail. For Quality, no faith is
>required because there is no way you can disbelieve that there is
>such a thing as quality. You cannot conceive of or live in a world in
>which nothing is better than anything else."
>
>228 "The MOQ does not rest on faith. In the MOQ faith is very low
>quality stuff, a willingness to believe falsehoods."
>
>235 "When you hear the words 'spirit' and 'faith' always look for a
>traditional religionist trying to sneak his goods in the back door.
>...like the positivists, the MOQ drops spirit and faith, cold."
>

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