From: tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Mysticism (was Re: MINDWALK etc)
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:33:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.C0I0zx.4Er.1
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <1993Jan7.115546.1@kean.ucs.mun.ca> bill@kean.ucs.mun.ca (Bill Garland) writes:
>>>
>>>Mystics have been damaging society for a long time.
>> 
>>    Would you care to specify what you mean by mysticism
>> and further in what way you find that it damages this or any other
>> society?  (This question in no way upholds anything written by Capra)
>
>Mysticism in its most general form, is the practice of creating
>problems where none exist. 

You position seems unassailable.

>Persons
>who fall into this category are: all clergy, most lawyers, many 
>academics and journalists, criminals, and others. I admit that this 
>definition is somewhat broader than that provided by my Oxford Advanced 
>Learner's Dictionary of Current English:

So broad in fact that you should know better to discuss the matter with
anyone without letting them know that you are using the word in a special
way, namely, as the name of one of the bedrock-concepts of your theory of 
human existence. This is no longer a simple term for you, but a catch-all
for all that is impractical and wasteful! This is fine, but, again, you
should let people know what you're doing up front.

>     Mysticism : noun - beliefs, experiences, of a mystic; teaching and
>     belief that knowledge of God and of real truth may be obtained 
>     through medication or spiritual insight, independently of the 
>     mind and the senses.
>
>     Mystic : noun - person who seeks union with God and, through that, 
>     realization of truth beyond men's understanding.

These definitions suck. Not surprising. "Mysticism" is one of the most
abused terms in the english language. 

>My Consise Oxford Dictionary is home, and I don't want to bother my
>secretary for her humungous medical dictionary...   but even using
							 ^^^^
>those definitions, it is clear to me that a mystic is a fool,

"Even" using definiitons from a terrible dictionary? You seem to imply
that a more accurate definition would make them appear more foolish.
This is not necessarily the case.

>since he seeks realization of truth beyond his own capacity to 
>understand...   However, most mystics now are simply professional
>neocheaters who know bloody well that what they preach is a crock
>of shit and they do it to extract power and money from those who

Sturgeon's law, applied to the human race. Furthermore, this is
a tautology as stated: since you have defined mystics as you have,
now you are not condemning them further (though it appears that you
are) but rather describing them in more detail.

>Hence I'll assume that you don't accept that definition but rely on 
>the more traditional meaning, since you are presumably a religious 
>person, judging from your .sig, and thus not likely a reader of
>Neo-Tech literature. So to explain how mysticism damages society now 
>and in the past :
>
>(1) Consider Mount Cashel. [accounts of pedophilia by clergy deleted]

You seem to think that by restricting the definition of "mysticism"
from "generic human self-destructive fantasy" to "religious-context-based
self-destructive fantasy" that you are coming closer to the common
definition (the definition that is common among educated people, not
the one common among morons). You are not.

>If you can't see the damage to society by this brand of mysticism, or
>if you try to rationalize it away as to some other cause,

I'll try to summarize my understanding of your position in response to
this comment. You are claiming that the pedophilia of the Christian Brothers
orphanage is a result of the human propensity to create problems where there
are none -- your definition of mysticism. I presume that this refers, in
this case, to the existence of whatever theology underlies the Christian
Brothers organization, and impelled them to set up a monestary. Following that,
they started an orphanage, and began exploiting the boys there. If I
understand you correctly, you derive all of this ultimately from the initial
impulse to create a theology, which resulted from their misguided choice
to find life problematic.

So here's the chain: somewhere, someone found life problematic (the mistake
of mysticism), came up with a theology, which led to a church, which led
to a monestary, which led to an orphanage, which led to cocksucking. Therefore
mysticism is bad.

Okay, I'll buy it. This chain of causality is an accurate description of
what has happened. Therefore, we should not find life problematic and 
go about building various conceptual schemes to account for it. We should just
live our lives. We should strenuously avoid over-intellectualizing. Is
this what you are saying? I love it! It's wonderful! Guess what -- it's
Zen Buddhism! Surprise! 

Permit me to suggest that your abuse of the language (using "mysticism"
so broadly) is preventing you from understanding. If you didn't oversimplify
so badly, you could make use of the wealth of information out there -- for
instance, a little bit about Zen.

>|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
>| Bill Garland = bill@kean.ucs.mun.ca | Commercial: Send me your money.|
>|----------------------------------------------------------------------|


      Tom Price   |    tp0x@cs.cmu.edu   |   Free will? What free will? 
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Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta