RE: Compassion

["Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>]

David:

I am glad you do not agree with the rude and insulting attitude expressed by 
John Harrell towards women.

The ethical issues you raise are important and complicated.  We could 
discuss them for years and not completely resolve the factual and logical 
difficulties involved which are of the highest order.  If you are really 
interested in studying a non-religiously based ethical system, read 
Principia Ethica by G. E Moore.

I suspect you will try to argue that only your theistic ethical system can 
be correct, while my agnostic or atheist system has no compass by which to 
judge ethical direction.  Why don't we just agree to disagree?  But allow me 
the dignity as a human being of having my opinion on ethical matters.  I do 
not completely deny you the validity of many of your ethical beliefs, I am 
sure.  So why must you insist, as it seems you are, that I have no basis for 
making any ethical judgments?  Here I sense the arrogance of the 
fundamentalist who must be right and all other views that challenge must be 
wrong!  Excuse me if I misjudge you.

As far as my statement about accepting the validity of and sacredness of the 
many valuable cultural and religious traditions of the human race, this is 
just what I mean, though not in the extreme way that you might be 
interpreting this statement.  To answer two questions at once, for example, 
I accept that Doug Wilson can be right about many ethical issues based on 
his faith.  I admire many of the ethical teachings of Christ, so I accept 
the validity of and sacredness of this tradition, but I do not swallow it 
whole without a critical and skeptical analysis of what faults there may be 
in Christianity.  I could go on and on listing numerous spiritual traditions 
and what validity they have, but why labor the point?

Perhaps I can suggest, if I may, a way out of the apparent intractable 
quandary of the insane religious wars that plague the human race.
When defining what is meant by "sacred" we will wade into very deep waters 
very quickly that often do not lend themselves to precise logical 
clarification.  Some spiritual traditions, Buddhism among them, make it very 
clear that the true experience of the sacred is beyond definitions and 
words.  If you are talking about the sacred this event is NOT SACRED.  As 
far as my appreciation of the sacredness of the spiritual traditions of 
Christianity, I am certain that I understand, again perhaps at a level of 
experience that transcends logical or verbal definition, the exalted 
spiritual states of Hildegard Von Bingen that she expressed in her music.  I 
know that because of my connection to music that I can assure you plumbs the 
deepest wells of the human soul.  Please excuse my vanity and pretension 
here, but I feel strongly that I know of one way to unify spiritual 
experiences across culture and religion.

I think we are structured as human beings to feel religious experience, the 
experience of the "sacred," perhaps we are even hard wired in our brain 
networks for a religious faculty of mind.  Thus music in all cultures is 
used to evoke the sacred based on this commonality of structure of the human 
mind.  There are other ways, I am certain, in which religious experience is 
linked across religions.  Why not embrace the commonality of the experience 
of the sacred across cultures?  Is this not a wise and humane project?  
Would not this endeavor do much to stop hatred and war based on religion?  
Humanity is not so at odds with itself as is commonly thought!

Well, I suspect my ideas will not resonate with joy in your mind.
Sorry....

Of course I do not believe in many of the religious beliefs that Hildegard 
held dear, nor do I buy into much of the mystical trappings of Buddhism, but 
should that preclude an appreciation of the mystical sacred dimensions of 
the music of both Christianity and Buddhism?  And based on this commonality 
can I not truly state, as I did, that I accept the validity of the spiritual 
traditions of religions across the human race, to shorten my statement?  Of 
course, of course, I should have qualified my statement to indicate I do not 
mean ALL religious traditions to the letter, especially any religious 
traditions that inflict pain and harm, such as forcing women under threat of 
force to keep their lovely breasts all tied up and hidden from public view, 
which are actions that any humane ethical system would seek to avoid.  But 
this is obvious!

Read Principia Ethica!  You will not agree with it, but just maybe you can 
open your mind to another viewpoint!

Ted



>From: "David Douglas" <ddouglas@pacsim.com>
>To: "'Ted Moffett'" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>, <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: RE: Compassion
>Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 22:17:17 -0700
>
>
>Ted Moffet says:
>
>"You do a disservice to your ideology and/or theology by coming to the
>defense of misogynist mud slinging."
>Ted,
>
>I *just* about gave a little preamble in my letter distancing myself from
>Mr. Harrell.  However, I really didn't think it was necessary because that
>wasn't the point of my post.  For the record, I neither justify nor defend
>what Mr. Harrell wrote.
>
>I see no active defense for Mr. Harrell in my post.  My "defense" of him,
>such as it was, came from my disagreement about *your* reasoning.  Based on
>your reasoning, I saw no basis for *you* to make any kind of value judgment
>at all.  That you can indicates (to me) that your reasoning was
>inconsistent; whether you agree with my reasoning or not, it does not
>constitute a defense of Mr. Harrell.  Lucy made a pretty good case, I
>thought.
>
>Perhaps I was in error in picking that particular example, especially 
>since,
>based on your response, I didn't communicate my point well.  Mind if I try
>again, sans Mr. Harrell?  By way of a less volatile(?) example, you seem to
>be disagreeing with Doug Wilson in a different thread:  let me rephrase and
>ask again a couple of my questions.
>
>
>Mr. Moffet writes:
>"  ...mindset, that accepts the validity of and sacredness of the many
>valuable cultural and religious traditions of the human race.  "
>
>And I ask:
>	What, (and/or how) specifically, does one believe that is consistent with,
>and accepts as valid, the many religious traditions of the human race?
>and
>	"Some say there is no God, while others say God is everything (or rather
>everything is God).  If everyone can be correct, why not Doug Wilson? "
>
>
>
>David Douglas




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