Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA13836 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:42:03 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745A3D@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: mysticism etc Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:39:50 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Robin,
Jumping in here a bit, sorry (and to you Wade).
You said:-
> What do you think it means? I guess I'm really naive, or something,
> because I have been similarly shocked in the past, as by you and Vincent
> recently, when highly intelligent and in some cases well known people
> patiently explained how wrong it is to think you can gain knowledge of the
> world through meditation. Jesus, I asked myself, how can any educated,
> intelligent person take that seriously enough to think it worth refuting?
> Who on earth have they been listening to, and why did they think that
> person to be in any way representative?
>
> Of course, the answer is in the psychology of disputation: if you don't
> really respect your opponents, but do feel strongly about the issues, it
> is
> very easy to slide into caricaturing them, forgetting anything any
> of them said that seemed reasonable, and taking their most extreme
> statements as most truely representative of their position, regardless
> of the marginality of the position held by the individuals making such
> statements -- "they" are all on the same side, the wrong side, anyway,
> aren't they?
>
Well, you see I have exactly the same position but in reverse. I cannot
understand how intelligent, sometimes rational people, can believe that
meditation offers anything more than nice breathing exercise to help you
relax. I cannot see how experiencing a nice of bit of relaxation- even in
the hectic world we live in- can lead anyone with any intellect to start
seeing anything more than that in it. Why try to engender it with anything
more, some secret knowledge of the universe, what's the point of doing that?
I study Tai Chi, full of mysticism in its rhetoric (no doubt you'll reject
that- or maybe fall off your chair that I'd do such a thing, but hey I'm not
Mr.Spock :-)!), and I have real trouble when the teachers' start waffling on
about the 'greatness of the chi', or spiritual energy etc. The reason I
have trouble with it, is that it is entirely unnecessary to spiritualise Tai
Chi (I was going to say mystify but again I won't risk mis-directing your
attention), an enjoyable form of exercise, relaxation and self defence (The
Taiwanese founder of Tai Chi in the West, Cheng Man Ching, once said that
this was the advantage of Tai Chi over Yoga, since Yoga doesn't teach you
how to stop someone pushing you off your cushion!). I suppose its the
utilitarian nature of it that appeals to me (also socially, since Tai Chi
attracts a lot of nice people, unlike many of the 'hard' martial arts,
Karate etc., that attract the aggressive types, and is conducted in a nice
polite and largely informal manner), and that doesn't need obfuscation to be
seen and appreciated.
You then said:-
> I've come up against this time and again, especially on the net.
> Atheists take all religionists to be fundamentalists. You can explain
> over and over about religious liberals, for whom all religious talk is
> metaphorical, but it just goes in one ear and out the other. You can
> point out people like the former Bishop of Durham, who said quite
> explicitly that "virgin birth" and "resurrection" were not to be taken
> literally, but that doesn't fit the nice, simple little caricature these
> people cling to. If it's religious but not superstitious, it doesn't
> exist. Funny how those who make the biggest noise about rationality
> are -- well, let's just say, not always the most rational.
>
> Of course, maybe I'm caricaturing the atheists -- maybe a substantial
> proportion of them do fully appreciate the liberal point of view. I
> doubt it, but I'm willing to be convinced.
>
My problem here is that regarding religious doctrine as metaphorical is
pointless. The whole point about religious doctrine- i.e. the value in
believiing and following it- is that it is supposed to be the revealed
truth. If you start saying that it's just metaphorical then how is say, the
Bible, any more use as a model for how to live than the novels of William
Burroughs? (the first novellist that came into my head, make of that what
you will).
Of course, one reason why some senior representatives of major religions
start saying things like the examples above is precisely because it becomes
evident to them, as it is to all atheists, that the claims of religious
doctrine when judged rationally are ridiculous- only their livelihood
depends on them not rejecting it. (The jokes about the Bishop of Durham not
believing on God are far and wide now- didn't he also once describe God as a
random set of dots?) But denying the actuality of key events heavily
undermines all other claims. For example, if there was no virgin birth then
how do we know Jesus was the son of God? Maybe he wasn't the son of God,
but just someone who says he was- does that make his comments more or less
legitimate? Surely the entire faith is based upon Jesus definitely being
the son of God?
What are you left with- the morality of religions? Well, why accept the
dogmatism of religious laws if they are not preordained from above? If
they're human-generated moral laws, then they can be changed, particularly
when they are demonstrably unfair to certain groups (e.g. women, other
religions, different ethnic groups etc. etc. etc.)- or, as historically been
the case, changed merely to redirect unfairness towards other groups.
The problem is that religion is a house of cards which collapses entirely
once the literality of the mythology on which it's established is refuted.
'Liberal' religionists are simply people who haven't come to terms with that
yet, and in some ways are more loathsome than fundamentalists because of
their equivocation.
You then stated:-
> Meanwhile, to return to this particular argument, I accepted the
> dictionary definitions regarding mystical access to ultimate reality,
> while rejecting "God" and "spiritual truth". (Despite the claims made by
> Joe and Vincent that I rejected them all the definitions -- I guess
> reality didn't fit their particular pictures.) I was surprised that no
> one asked me what "ultimate reality" means in this context. I think the
> notion that one could directly access objective reality via meditation
> is ludicrous. But for me objective reality is not ultimate reality,
> because it omits subjects. And this, not mysticsm per se, is what I've
> been working on for twenty years -- in fact, it was only quite recently
> that I realised how mysticism connects with it. How do conscious,
> aware, experiencing entities like ourselves fit into the objective,
> material universe? That's the central issue for me, and the answer is
> that these entities are not as distinct as they think they are -- they
> don't have to "fit in", because AS DISTINCT ENTITIES they don't exist.
> It's the universe that's conscious. And mysticism is the route to
> actually realising this -- as opposed to playing intellectually with
> the concept, which is guaranteed to get you nowhere.
>
What you rejected from the definitions offered, is a central religious
element to the common historical development and understanding of mysticism,
namely that it relates to quests for spritual truths and making an
experiential connection to God (e.g. as in sufism). If you are proposing
some kind of secular version of mysticism, you are going against its
historical tradition- nothing wrong with that, but you've got to be clearer
about what this means, and why it is of value, to do so.
Here we see in your other comments, exactly the problem of religion- the
notion of revealed truth. "Ultimate reality" you say is achieveable only
through mysticism, which cannot be intellectualised, and that truth is that
the universe is conscious. What a vivid imagination.
Vincent
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