psychoceramics: Re: stuff in #364

["Kip Starrett"<Kip_Starrett @ inso.com>]

hi all

just a quick comment after reading wm. tozier's intelligent words on
religion, new age bs, and our ever-growing legion of beloved kooks. note: i
hope this posting's contents fall within the parameters of discussion
defined for this list--if they arent, i apologize.

i agree with 95%, maybe even 98% of all you said in your previous posting
about religion, kooks, warped belief systems, fringe habituees, etc., but
would like to comment on your description of religion and its overlapping
border into the realm of kookdom.

i am fascinated by the excellent kookiness of martin luther's
ever-problematic intestines, soren kierkegaard's rantings and immobilizing
'sickness unto death', and cs lewis's more than literary fascination with
angelic beings as extra-terrestrials. but a blanket dismissal of religion
and religious experience as kookiness by the hard-line devotee of the
scientific method seems to me, just a tad stern...and maybe teetering
dangerously close to a possible definition of kookiness itself. my question
is this: could a strenuous unwillingness to accept the possibility of
validity of some forms of religious experience (e.g., faith, religious
conversion, grace, 'metanoia', etc.) be just a bit too defensive?

some of my own experience remains undefinable, beyond logic, and
mysterious--lying somewhere below articulation. through my own examination
of this experience, i have come to the conclusion that the universe is
bigger than our minds, God exists, and our lifes are indeed touched by him.
and simply because an experience isnt replicable under scientific scrutiny,
does not mean it isnt valid and believable. it may not be of value to the
scientific community, but it is an inextricable and valued portion of my
own ontology. so, while i share your appreciation of crackpot-ism, i
disagree with your evaluation of religion. my appreciation of things
psychoceramic is not in conflict with my religious experience.

thats all. oh, and SHOOT ME if i start posting stuff like THE ABOVE using
too many CAPITAL LETTERS!!!!

kip