From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Thu May 15 2003 - 11:34:04 BST
Hi David, (and Scott and anyone interested),
I've been mulling on this one. I think I may have somewhat misunderstood your position, but perhaps
not quite as much as these quotations may have suggested. I'll repeat the extract first, and then
some comments.
: Sam said to Scott: I could be misunderstanding David, but
: I think he's denying
: that the faith traditions have any role to play, and that it is the
: cultivation of the 'mystical
: experience' which is the be-all and end-all. I think that's a mistake.
:
: dmb says:
: Yes, I believe you have misunderstood me on this. I'm saying that our
: Western religious CAN and SHOULD play a key role in cultivating the mystical
: experience. My complaint is that they don't do so.
In an earlier post, I said:
I (i) don't think it's possible to think without an underlying mythology (meta-narrative, final
vocabulary, whatever) (ii) think that science operates within a mythology which is largely
unacknowledged (iii) think that the Christian mythology, for all its faults, is superior to the
scientific one (more precisely, it's superior to Modernism). I think DMB would agree with me on (i),
(ii) and part of (iii), but I'd be interested to know for sure.
That was in the 'philosophy and theology' thread about a month ago, and we had some discussion from
which I came away thinking that we *did* agree on much of this.
So two things now. One is that my main 'objection' to your stance - or disagreement with your
stance - is the centrality of 'mystical experience'. You've often said that you think that
cultivation of the mystical experience is the most important part of a religious or mythological
tradition. I radically disagree with this, principally because I think 'mystical experience' is (i)
conceptually confused and confusing and (ii) it's not what I see as important about the religious or
mythological traditions. So whilst we can agree on the relative importance of mythologies/religious
traditions etc (as, for example, the story of Orpheus with you), I think we disagree on what it is
that is important about them. I guess that we're never going to agree on that one.
However, the second thing is this. If we used the word 'Quality' to describe what the various
mythologies and religions cultivate, then I think we could get much closer to agreement. In
particular, I would certainly agree with you that Western Christianity has often (and still often)
lacks Quality, both an awareness of and a cultivation of. I don't see that as essential to
Christianity though, whereas I sometimes suspect that you've concluded the opposite. So whilst I
agree that it is 'broke', I'm more optimistic that it has the resources available for fixing itself.
It's going to be hard work though.
Anyhow, if I am still getting you wrong, do come back to me on this. I think clarity is the most
important objective of a forum like this, rather than agreement. If we can agree on what we disagree
on, that would represent significant progress.
Cheers
Sam
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