Reply #90: An Interesting Exchange, Mr. Hunter

[The Magistrate]

Several points seem worth commenting on.

It seems to me what you call "a fundamentalism without the god" is materialism, or the ruling out of court of any supernatural existances or influences. It would probably be fair enough to describe me as a fundamentalist materialist, though to me that would seem to omit some nuances of the actual view. The most important of these is that my exclusion of such items does not strike me as an exercise in faith, but a natural result of the inability to prove that any such things exist. Further, it seems to me that, by the very characteristics claimed for supernatural existances or influences by their proponents, such proofs would be impossible. Those offered generally boil down a claim no material proof for some claimed phenomenon can be found, a claim that can be at most a contingent one held hostage to future investigation, and that requires acceptance the phenomenon occured in the first place, or to a statement that, for one reason or another, such a thing or things simply "must" exist, and this is really, at best, simply a declaration that one's taste in thought runs in a particular direction, which another might well fail to share.

A good part of my inclination towards this view stems from a conviction that it is a safer view for me to hold, that will give me less warrant for doing damage, since it seems to me that a great deal of harm has been done by people convinced of things they acknowledge to be immaterial, to the point that they value them well above mundane concerns of material well-being and comity. But what seems best suited to my own character does not necessarily make a good general foundation for everyone. You are quite correct that a great deal of damage has been done by people acting in the name of reason and with impeccable logic guiding the act. Neither side in this debate can make the claim evil is done only by those hewing to the opposite view.

Your tale of your grandfather reminds me of a common stream in Taoist literature, that opens a spiritual element in the most mundane and material of experience and existance. There are many tales of a Sage observing some person working at a trade or occupation, be it a butcher or a ditch-digger, and remarking that the fellow is so immersed in the experience of it that he has reached a degree of enlightenment the listening student canot nearly emulate in his studies, and frequently finding that, when asked about his work, the man replies in a way that indicates a joyful awareness of that immersion and one-ness in and with his doings. To me, at least, an important element of this is that it does not require any belief, either in a supernatural exitance, or even in the spiritual practice itself, to be efficacious on the mind experiencing it. The experience of being at one with all, and even a great joy in it, does not seem to me the least bit incompatible with a materialist view, that accepts as existing nothing beyond the natural and mundane matter that exists all around us.