From: Matthew Poot (mattpoot@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Apr 25 2004 - 01:19:25 BST
I think that attempts at reaching any consensus are good, and that this
topic can be quite fruitfull. I will have to reply at a later time, but I
thought I'd give a cent for now.
Poot
----- Original Message -----
From: David Buchanan <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2004 5:32 PM
Subject: MD Religion of the future.
> Howdy MOQers,
>
> I've started a new thread based of some statements made in the religion
and
> individual threads. Just to get oriented, let me begin with the statements
> I've extracted...
>
> Dave S said:
> Monotheisms draw lines in the sand of other people's beaches, and for that
> reason, we need to jettison the "literalist" faiths that marginalize
others,
> and that means scrapping the monopolizing monotheisms.
>
> DM said:
> I am not entirely convinced that we have turned secular forever. But,
> personally, if there is a way forward for religion I think it involves a
> conception of god that probably goes beyond what Christianity can
> assimilate.
>
> Mark replied:
> DQ cannot be assimilated. If Christianity cannot assimilate DQ in it's
> patterned structure, and if it fails to respond to DQ towards more
coherent
> states, then it will simply become more and more static. ...I have no idea
> where this will lead? I have no idea how religion is going to continue to
> battle intellectual progress? I guess it will have to discover better ways
> of holding onto it's fundamental tenets but in a modified form?
>
> DM also said:
> My hope is that post-religion, post-Christianity (in the West),
> post-science, and post-modern critical thinking, etc there is a
> post-secularism, where we can rediscovered our lost sources of value, and
> the transcendental value of being.
>
> dmb says:
> It seems that a number of posters are interested in the future of religion
> and I think Pirisg's MOQ can help us imagine it. Even better is Ken
Wilber's
> THE MARRIAGE OF SENSE AND SOUL. The subtitle is "Integrating Science and
> Religion". Not only does it address the issue in detail, it does so from a
> perspective that parallels and supports the MOQ. Here he boldly expresses
> the same basic idea that Mark and the two Daves have expressed...
>
> "...most of those premodern beliefs and functions of religion are no
longer
> sustainable in modern consciousness (except among those who remain at a
> premodern level of development). Mythology will not stand up to the
> irreversible differentiations of modernity; it confuses prerational with
> transrational; it fosters regressive ethical and cognitive modes; it hides
> from any sort of validity claims and actual evidence; and thus avoiding
> truth, is left only with power as one of its prime motives. ..This is why
> the Enlightenment, as Habermas points out, always understood itself as a
> COUNTERFORCE TO MYTHOLOGY. The clarion call of the Enlightenment was for
> EVIDENCE, not for myths..." Emphasis and parenthetical info is Wilber's.
>
> dmb continues:
> For the sake of those unfamiliar with Ken Wilber, let me explain "the
> irreversible differentiations of modernity". It refers to the same
> historical events described in LILA, where science seperated itself from
> morals, specifically church morals. Wilber goes into greater detail in
> describing the process than does Pirsig. He points out that prior to the
> Enlightenment and in the classical world, art, morals and science has not
> yet become independent realms. They were not yet differentiated. Once free
> and independent from the other domains, a painter can render non-religious
> images or an astronomer can publish his findings without being burned at
the
> stake. The differentiation of the big three is basically what has allowed
> the rise of the intellectual level and all that goes with it; Liberal
> Democracy with its seperation of church and state, freedom of expression
and
> the like. All this is good, and there is no going back, but there is also
a
> problem; SOM.
>
> I hesitate to offer an explanation of the problem because we're all too
> familiar with the limits of scientific materialism and the
representational
> paradigm that goes with it, but Wilber offers something extra, I think.
Like
> Pirsig, he thinks the Enlightenment threw the baby out with the bathwater
in
> its political struggle for independence. He points out that Modernity's
> rejection of mythology is proper, but that it threw out the great chain of
> being and its epistemological pluralism along with it. That, he says, was
a
> huge mistake. Prior to the Modern period, when art, morals and science
were
> not yet differentiated, it was believed that there is more than one valid
> mode of knowing, more than one valid mode of knowledge.
>
> "The traditional view of epistemological pluralism was given perhaps its
> clearest statement by such Christian mystics as St. Bonaventure and Hugh
of
> St. Victor; every human being has the eye of flesh, the eye of mind and
the
> eye of contemplation. Each of these modes of knowing discloses its own
> correspoinding dimension of geing and thus each is valid and important
when
> addressing it own realm. This gives us a balance of empirical knowledge
> (science), rational knowledge (logic and mathematics), and spiritual
> knowledge (gnosis). These three eyes of knowing are, of course, just a
> simplified version of the unversal Great Chain of Being."
>
> dmb resumes:
> The epistemological pluralism of the classical world was rejected by
> Modernity in favor of a single vision. It was based entirely of the eye of
> the flesh and its extensions. We can hear this in Pirsig's complaint that
> morals, the President of the US and the mystical experience can ever be
seen
> in a microscope. We can see this in Pirsig's explicit description of an
> expanded empiricism, one which includes experiences beyond the biological
> senses. That, along with his evolutionary levels of static quality, in
> effect, re-asserts the epistemological pluralism of antiquity. (The oldest
> idea known to Man)
>
> Wilber insists that this is essentially if there is to be reconciliation
and
> a re-integration of science and religion. It is the rejection of this kind
> of pluralism that has cause the rift between the two. If, he says,...
>
> "all three eyes of knowing were a commonly accepted fact in modernity, the
> relation of science and relgion would be no problem whatsoever. Empirical
> science would pronounce on facts delivered by the eye of flesh, and
religion
> would pronounce on the facts deleivered by the eye of contemplation. But
> mainstream Modernity has soundly and thoroughly denied reality to the eye
of
> spirit. Modernity recognizes only the eye of reason yoked to the eye of
> flesh - in Whitehead's phrase, the dominant worldview of modenity is
> SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM,"
>
> In other words, SOM, the metaphysics of substance, or as Wilber calls it,
> Flatland. Sure, we want to move beyond our premodern, mytholgical
religions,
> but we want to make sure that we properly sort out the baby from the
> bathwater in that process. And we want to move beyond the monological gaze
> of Modernity's representational paradigm too. Surely there is a core to
each
> of the world's great religions, an original insight disclosed by the eye
of
> contemplation, that we'd wish to preserve. Surely there is a dignity and
> freedom in scientific inquiry that we just can't give up. In other words,
> both science and religion are going to have to make adjustments if they
are
> to be reconciled.
>
> It seems to me that Sam's solution serves as a good example of what this
> DOES NOT mean. I mean, I can see that his Christian views are based on the
> classical forms of the religion and so the idea of epistemolgical
pluralism
> is detectable his recent flurry of posts. But he has turned to
> postmodernism's attack on Modernity's representational paradigm - in order
> to re-assert premodern social values. But postmodernism does not help
here.
> It too inherits the gutted interior of SOM. Its valid and important
insights
> are taken to extremes so that both science and religion can appear on
equal
> footing - because they are both as valid and arbitrary as poetry. It
> equalizes science and religion by shooting them both in the head, as
Wilber
> puts it. I think Sam has confused the epistemological pluralism of the
> classical world with this postmodern stance. The former implies a
hierarchy
> of being and a ranking of modes of knowing, while the latter is "the
> contradictory belief that no belief is better than any other - a total
> paralysis of thought, will, and action in the face of a million
perspectives
> all given exactly the same depth, namely, zero." Or put more simply, Sam
> points to the linguistic turn to make his claim that mythology is true,
but
> need not correspond to evidence.
>
> It is as if Sam, horrified that Modernity has thrown the baby out with the
> bathwater, has enlisted the help of postModernity in a desperate attempt
to
> retrieve the BATHWATER.
>
> "It is only when religion emphasizes its heart and soul and essence -
> namely, direct mystical experience and trancendental consciousness, which
is
> disclosed not by the eye of the flesh (give that to science) nor by the
eye
> of mind (give that to philosophy) but rather by the eye of contemplation -
> that religion can both stand up to modernity and offer something for which
> modenity has desperate need; a genuine, verifiable, repeatable injunction
to
> bring forth the spiritual domain. Religion in the modern and postmodern
> world will rest on its unique strength - namely, contemplation- or it will
> serve merely to support a premodern, predifferentiated level of
development
> in its own adherents; not an engine of growth and tranformation, but a
> regressive, antiliberal, reactionary force of lesser engagements."
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
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