Re: virus: Consciousness

KMO (kmo@c-realm.com)
Wed, 12 May 1999 23:26:44 -0700

Dave Pape wrote:

> That feels a bit like you're using "phaith" in the same way that xtians use
> "faith"- as a fence with a sign saying "in here I don't have to be rational."
>

Phaith and faith may be the same types of fence, but they enclose different kinds of critters. In the faith corral you'll find lots of beliefs which are falsifiable and which get expressed as supposed statements of fact about the purpose and history of the world.

This phaith-based position that I've expressed is not a statement of fact except perhaps as a report of my own experience and about my psychological make-up. I VALUE consciousness. Saying I don't have to be rational about THAT is a horse of a different color than saying I don't have to be rational about my beliefs concerning the age of the universe, the origins of humans on this planet, or the question of whether all animal life on the earth was wiped out in a flood except for the contents of one floating zoo.

Phaith is a subset of faith, so you will notice significant overlap in which you might be tempted to say, "Hey, phaith is looking a lot like faith here," but then you realize that phaith looking like faith is exactly what you would expect, because phaith is what you get when you cull the elements from faith which inhibit flexibility of thought. Phaith is faith minus BS (belief system) and UTism.

-KMO