[MF] MOQ and theism

Kevin Perez juan825diego at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 23 06:37:02 PST 2005


Thank you Anthony.

Sounds like the indeterminate nature of Dynamic
Quality counters the determinate 
nature of Northrop's "divine being."  And the "has no
personality" nature of 
Dynamic Quality counters the "belief that God is a
person" nature of my theism. 
Which leaves the "immediately apprehended" nature of
Dynamic Quality and the "is 
present in the world" nature of my theism.

Two out of three ain't bad.

Seriously though, I'd like to take a closer look at
the indeterminate vs. 
determinate argument.  I'm not sure I would agree with
Northrop's view on this. 
Sounds like an argument for holding God in a box.

And I'd like to hear more about why you believe
Dynamic Quality has no 
personality.  I'm an engineer so I know what it means
to be accused of having no 
personality.

The question that I ponder is, is the Quality of
Pirsig's MoQ in any way like a 
theist's God?

Thank you.


Kevin Perez

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ant McWatt" <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk>
To: <moq_focus at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 11:54 PM
Subject: [MF] MOQ and theism


> 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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