Now, onto God.
Wim, as you have probably have learned "Ask and you shall receive":
(Not promptly, though, because my computer completely died three days ago when I first began this e-mail)
Could you tell me more about what you have "studied and thought ... about the subject" until now and about your "opinions and arguments about it" (and/or refer back to your unfruitful attempts to discuss the subject on this list)?
Well, the "studied" and "thought" parts are quite long and different with a few points of intersection.
Since the question is biographical, I figure I should start biographically. I grew up as a Methodist. I never questioned. Never thought much about it in general (nothing I can remember, at least). It wasn't until I was 14, when I reached the High School Sunday School class, that I began to think and question. The class was taught by a Reformed Jew. He had grown up Southern Baptist, broke away, reformed to Judaism, and picked up a PhD in philosophy. You might be wondering at this point how a Reformed Jew PhD-holder got to be teaching backass, smalltown Methodist Sunday School class. I actually don't know how. To this day I think its really wierd how those circumstances must have come to be. But I think the reason why is that he didn't indoctrinate any specific parts of Christianity. (As a side note, I'm pretty sure almost all education up to age 14 is indoctrination. Unfortunately, most of it after that age is indocrination, too.) He taught us how to think for ourselves and how to defend our Christianity. In my case, I eventually became an atheist. But I still attended the class. I still attended church services. It was because of the community and the ideas. It was because our minister and my teacher were both exceptional. When I was asked to be on a Church Committee as a Youth Representative, I approached the head of the board and asked if my atheism would be a problem. He said it wouldn't. He said I was chosen because I best knew what the youths were thinking and what they needed. When all three of them left my interest in attending church fell greatly because the replacements had nothing to teach (or so I felt).
The POINT of all this is that I was an atheist, but with a very high level of respect for religion. I like most religions. Most people I get along with best are very religious. The people I get along with the least are hardcore, antagonistic atheists who think religion is destroying the world.
The other point is that my early philosophical meanderings concerned God, religion, and spirituality in general. I have way too many books that I haven't read thoroughly concerning the subject. And way, way too many of them have Atheism (or any of its allusions) in the title. Most of them I find boring. Only one I find really useful and that's because it's concise and to the point and makes no illusions about what it's doing (The Atheist Debater's Handbook). The studies I enjoy the most about the subject are not philosophological criticisms of God, but actual philosopers creating something. Namely people like Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Kiekegaard, Nietzsche--the list is extensive of real philosophers who have had an opinion about God. And they are almost universally and infinitely more interesting to read than anything written in the last 50 years, possibly in the last 100.
The most engimatic of those listed, to me, is Nietzsche. An amazing philosopher. A real asshole sometimes and (I would say) wrong about a lot of stuff, but I admire his genius and the insights he had and the biographical story surrounding all of it.
The two I admire the most are Spinoza and Kierkegaard. Both had inspirational personal lives (Spinoza worked for a living while writing on the side and Kierkegaard was throughly reviled during his lifetime, but rejoiced in death). But even more, I think both offered the two greatest philosophies in favor of God. Spinoza was a pantheist and Kierkegaard believed in the Absurdity of Faith, that one should believe in God because (not in spite of) of the absurdity in believing in God. Mind you, I'm not a scholar on either of these two gentleman, but I think the gist is right.
As a last note, I think Spinoza/pantheism offers the greatest connection to Pirsig. Pantheism is just as "absurd" as "Quality=reality". Both equate reality to something that is typically thought of as seperate from reality or just a part of reality. For adding an "extra" spiritual dimension, I think pantheism is the best point of entry for Western religions. Of course, pantheism isn't very Western.
Oh, I was about to sign off, but here's why I don't like disscussing the philosophy of religion (a horrible upstart branch): the terms of discussion are completely and understandably blurred. Are we using Reason? Are we using Faith? When is it okay to use Reason? How about Faith? I became frustrated earlier because it all seemed cyclical. No boundaries are placed. I think the discussion of politics in this forum suffered from the same thing. No platform, no place to plant your feet and gain solid footing. That's what the MoQ does. It gives a platform. Afterwards one can disagree with the platform, but it had better be for very explicit and carefully argued reasons. And I think that's why there has been some disgruntlement around here lately. Cries of "That has nothing to do with the MoQ!" and "Yeah, good argument about *suchandsuch*, now what the hell does it have to do with the MoQ!" Some feel as though others are getting off track. Well, what is the track? Bo Skutvik has said that "this site looking more and more like other Internet general dicussions with a “quality” thrown in for appearances sake." I almost completely agree. It does look sloppy from time to time.
The track and platform we need is, quite obviously, the MoQ. Discussions should include interpretations of the platform, extensions of the platform, and why particular parts of the platform are a load of crap. Everything should be about the platform. As to what should be extensions of the platform, since the MoQ is a general description of everything, everything is an extension of the MoQ. That makes God and politics and the death penalty all viable topics of discussion, but only in relation to the MoQ. It's gotten sloppy and is looking "like other Internet general discussions" because people differ on points of interpretation of the platform. That's fine. But those differing points need to be hammered out. If you think the entire platform is a load of donkey-doo, then hammer out what the oh-so-horrible implications of donkey-doo are. Don't go off onto a tangent that will distract from the platform.
We need a place to put our feet. Something in common. Hmm, let's see if the name of the Discussion group helps: MD. That stands for ... oh, MoQ Discussion. That should help someone.
Ran out of gas,
Matt
