Calling all mystics

[drwex]

http://harpers.org/ThroughAGlassDarkly-12838838.html

Harper's has a long and thoughtful essay on the (re)rise of American Fundamentalism - what I've called our home-grown Taliban.

[The new Christ's] followers are not anxiously awaiting his return at the Rapture; he's here right now. They're not envious of the middle class; they are the middle class. They're not looking for a hero to lead them; they're building biblical households, every man endowed with 'headship' over his own family. They don't silence sex; they promise sacred sex to those who couple properly - orgasms more intense for young Christians who wait than those experienced by secular lovers.

I invite readers' comments. Personally I find this sort of things a natural outgrowth of mysticism in general. From where I sit it's a matter of degree, not kind, linking everyone from the newageist Pagans to... well, those guys.

I'm currently failing to find the link so I can properly acknowledge it, but last year someone pointed me to an essay by a person who, when asked why he didn't believe in God said, essentially:

"I don't not-believe in God - I just believe in one fewer gods than you do. If you can explain to me why you don't believe in any of those other gods I probably explain why I don't believe in yours."

Comments

[dpolicar]

(nods) I don't think we disagree here, though I'm apparently not expressing myself very precisely.

That said:
1) it's not clear to me that Pascal believed he could reason his way to belief, merely to worship. Then again I'm hardly an expert on Pascal.

2) people who have (something they interpret as) direct experience of God seem tangential to the issue at hand, no? When the skeptic says, in response to the believer's attribution of belief to faith, that he lacks belief because he lacks faith, it's not clear to me that the existence of other (non-faith-based) causes of belief is relevant to their exchange. The believer isn't (necessarily) denying that other people can have direct experience. (Indeed, he isn't necessarily denying that other people can be brainwashed or deluded into believing what he does, without having true faith.)

[drwex]

I agree that we're in basic agreement. We're also off on a wild tangent, so dropping it here.