Religion IV: Deus vult!

[Sci-2]

The Revealer

The Revealer is a daily review of religion in the news and the news about religion. We’re not so much nonpartisan as polypartisan — interested in all sides, disdainful of dualistic arguments, and enamored of free speech as a first principle. We publish and link to work by people of all persuasions, religious, political, sexual, and critical. The Revealer was conceived by Jay Rosen of New York University’s Department of Journalism, and created by journalists Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce.

We begin with three basic premises: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR — everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it’s both and in between and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion: sharper thinking; deeper history; thicker description; basic theology; real storytelling.
– Jeff Sharlet, 2003

[Gears of the Beast]

This video of a teenager coming out to his parents has gotten pretty viral.

People often ask me why a give a fuck what other people believe. Beliefs inform your actions; rational people don't do this to their children.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

GotB,

Yeah, there is no way I can see to justify those parents behavior.

[TerraPrime]

That's pretty much par for the course for a long time. A large percentage of the gay friends I knew from college in Georgia had similar stories of being threatened, beaten, disowned, pushed out of the house, etc., by their parents.

*shrugs*

[Wise Fool]

This video of a teenager coming out to his parents has gotten pretty viral.

People often ask me why a give a fuck what other people believe. Beliefs inform your actions; rational people don't do this to their children.

You think in a world without religion, these parents would be decent and understanding people?

Beliefs inform actions? Okay, so this woman says she loves the teenager. Does that mean she does? Is she behaving in a loving manner by giving ultimatums, threats, violence? No. People believe all kinds of stupid, contradictory things. She said she loves him because maybe on one level she does, but more because that's what she needs to believe in order to justify the self-serving narrative, that she is a good person (just as Jesus commands). So instead of taking her beliefs and modeling her behavior on them (to actually BE loving and kind), she does the opposite, convincing herself that her un-loving behavior is justified because deep down she's a loving person. Everyone's the good person in their own story, always. People act based on their emotions and impulses, and then justify or rationalize their actions in any way they can, no matter whether it makes sense.

[Gears of the Beast]

You think in a world without religion, these parents would be decent and understanding people?

What a vacuous and inane conclusion to draw from what I said.They're intolerant and homophobic (even to the point where it's towards their own child) because of their religious beliefs. They're completely averse to any kind of evidence that contradicts their beliefs that are predicated on their religion because of their religious beliefs. To say otherwise would simply be dishonest. I didn't say without religion they would be decent and understanding people because that's fucking stupid. I did say rational people don't do this to their children, which is true. If instead of being indoctrinated into a death cult these people had been taught to how to rationally view the world that kid would have a much higher chance of being treated like a human being by his family. Non religious and rational aren't the same thing. It is possible that these people may have found religion even without indoctrination, it's possible they're just stupid pieces of shit who would have succumb to this kind of thinking outside of a religious context. I'm not as eager to make stupid categorical assertions as you think I am.

[Sci-2]

Whitehead's Idea of God

Yes, in one sense the people and butterflies are like partners in a dance, with God as the lead dancer. God is trying to guide them into forms of dancing that are beautiful, joyous, and mutually enriching. But God's power is not absolute. What happens in the dance as a whole is an outcome of divine creativity and the universe's creativity, not divine creativity alone.Process thinkers call this the co-creativity of God and the Universe. Co-creativity can result in tragedy as well as joy, horror as well as beauty. In process theology God, understood as the lead dancer, is always trying to guide the world into joy and beauty, not tragedy and horror. God is good.

But the dance metaphor is problematic, inasmuch as it depicts the universe as outside God's life. For process thinkers the universe is not outside God but rather inside God, not unlike a baby is within a mother's womb. The dance of the universe, partly determined by creatures in the universe, is like the moving of a baby within the womb. As the baby kicks, the mother feels it and in some sense it happens to her, too.

There are many pure potentialities, perhaps an infinite number. Some are immensely abstract. They are the kinds of entities which mathematicians explore in pure mathematics. But some, when considered in their relation to the real world, are relevant to how we live our lives. When they are considered in this more practical way, they become part of what Whitehead calls propositions.

Consider the proposition: I will love my neighbor. In this sentence the word I refers to an actual entity, in this case a person, and loving my neighbor refers to a potentiality which can be actualized by the person at issue. When actual entities are juxtaposed with propositions in this way, they become what Whitehead calls propositions or lures for feeling.

For Whitehead God "dwells in the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love." (Process and Reality, 343). People can participate in this tenderness whether they do or do not believe in God.

And Whitehead makes no pretense to offering a final word. He knows, as ought we all, that God is always more than our concept of God, not necessarily because God is higher or more mighty, but because God is more loving. and perhaps more tender and vulnerable, than we can possibly imagine.

Whitehead criticizes Christians, Jews, and Muslims who imagine God in non-tender terms. He believes that they have wittingly or unwittingly imagined God on the analogy of a political ruler, a divine Caesar, whose authority lies in a threat of punishment. He offers an alternative to overly monarchical images of the divine. He was not a Christian in a doctrinaire or church-going sense, but he did find meaning in the vision of Jesus. He offers a philosophical version of what he took to be a "Galilean vision" of God. He believed that, if theism is to evolve in our world, it needs to emphasize love, not fear. God, for him, is the inclusive love.

[Wise Fool]

What a vacuous and inane conclusion to draw from what I said.They're intolerant and homophobic (even to the point where it's towards their own child) because of their religious beliefs. They're completely averse to any kind of evidence that contradicts their beliefs that are predicated on their religion because of their religious beliefs. To say otherwise would simply be dishonest. I didn't say without religion they would be decent and understanding people because that's fucking stupid. I did say rational people don't do this to their children, which is true. If instead of being indoctrinated into a death cult these people had been taught to how to rationally view the world that kid would have a much higher chance of being treated like a human being by his family. Non religious and rational aren't the same thing. It is possible that these people may have found religion even without indoctrination, it's possible they're just stupid pieces of shit who would have succumb to this kind of thinking outside of a religious context. I'm not as eager to make stupid categorical assertions as you think I am.

First off, it's a question, not a conclusion. Yet you wind up answering it anyway - saying that their intolerance and bigotry is caused by religious belief. Although you later claim that it's possible they would succumb to bigotry and homophobia without religion, so I'm not sure if I should believe Early Paragraph Gears or Later In the Paragraph Gears on this one. I'll let you two argue with each other.

I do know that when you blurt out absurd phrases like "death cult" you are indeed making a stupid categorical assertion, but that's cool because you see the world rationally according to yourself, ergo it's not bigotry.

[sologdin]

a little frankfurt school analysis goes a long way here, where it's not quite right to state that religious persons are made irrational by their religion. quite plainly they are able to make means-ends calculations very rationally, and are thus equivalent to the normal bourgeois in terms of practical rationality. we might conclude that the ends sought are in themselves irrational, but that's a different type of critique.

[Gears of the Beast]

First off, it's a question, not a conclusion. Yet you wind up answering it anyway - saying that their intolerance and bigotry is caused by religious belief. Although you later claim that it's possible they would succumb to bigotry and homophobia without religion, so I'm not sure if I should believe Early Paragraph Gears or Later In the Paragraph Gears on this one. I'll let you two argue with each other.

Hahaha. Their bigotry is caused by their religious beliefs, they say so explicitly in the video. "You can deny it all you want to but I believe in the word of god and god creates nobody that way"..."you go by all the scientific stuff you want to, I go by the word of god". Saying that if they had not been indoctrinated into Christianity they may have ended up being homophobes for other reasons does not contradict the statement that they are homophobic because of their religion...at all.

I do know that when you blurt out absurd phrases like "death cult" you are indeed making a stupid categorical assertion, but that's cool because you see the world rationally according to yourself, ergo it's not bigotry.

death cult is not an absurd phrase at all and is completely applicable to Christianity.

Death cult: Any organized religion that indoctrinates members with belief in some form or other of a continuation of life after death

Cult: A system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object

so please enlighten me as to how absurd it is to use that word..? You don't get to call something absurd just because you don't like the connotations.

a little frankfurt school analysis goes a long way here, where it's not quite right to state that religious persons are made irrational by their religion. quite plainly they are able to make means-ends calculations very rationally, and are thus equivalent to the normal bourgeois in terms of practical rationality. we might conclude that the ends sought are in themselves irrational, but that's a different type of critique.

I don't think religious people are generally made irrational by their religion and I don't think I asserted such an idea. I think someone can be lead to irrational positions because of their religion and I think clear causal connections can be made between religious doctrine and certain actions of those who profess these religious beliefs.

[Serious Callers Only]

If you want to bash, Catholics even engage in symbolic cannibalism, which is always fun to point out at parties and seminaries (probably to underline, you know, the symbolic human/godly sacrifice).

Might as well have kept Mitras and Pallas Athena if it has to come with so much baggage (thought the protestants). NY even has a giant statue of Athena ffs.

[Weeping Sore]

If you want to bash, Catholics even engage in symbolic cannibalism, which is always fun to point out at parties and seminaries (probably to underline, you know, the symbolic human/godly sacrifice).

Might as well have kept Mitras and Pallas Athena if it has to come with so much baggage (thought the protestants).

Mmmm...flesh and blood of Christ.

Interestingly the Church will only transubstantiate the flesh of Christ into wheat, not rice wafers. The gluten intolerant are SOL.

[Stannisaurus2]

death cult is not an absurd phrase at all and is completely applicable to Christianity.

Death cult: Any organized religion that indoctrinates members with belief in some form or other of a continuation of life after death

Cult: A system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object

so please enlighten me as to how absurd it is to use that word..? You don't get to call something absurd just because you don't like the connotations.

Except that this is not in any way the meaning of "death cult". If you ask 1000 people what is a "death cult", I doubt that even one would tell you that the death part in "death cult" is about "some form or other of a continuation of life after death".

(and I'm not even commenting on the definition of cult)

You don't get to simply make up definitions without any reasoning just so you could get a cheap shot at beliefs you have a problem with.

[The Marquis de Leech]

If you want to bash, Catholics even engage in symbolic cannibalism, which is always fun to point out at parties and seminaries (probably to underline, you know, the symbolic human/godly sacrifice).

I'd love to read a story about a Catholic Vampire, who subsists on Communion wine.

[Gears of the Beast]

Except that this is not in any way the meaning of "death cult". If you ask 1000 people what is a "death cult", I doubt that even one would tell you that the death part in "death cult" is about "some form or other of a continuation of life after death".

(and I'm not even commenting on the definition of cult)

You don't get to simply make up definitions without any reasoning just so you could get a cheap shot at beliefs you have a problem with.

So what's the meaning of death cult then? No I didn't make up the definition and to the best of my knowledge Hitchens coined it. I don't really care what 1000 hypothetical people think, it doesn't change what the phrase means and since I can't seem to find any definition to the contrary I'm not sure where those 1000 people are getting their information.

Religious people are free to whine about the connotations of the word 'cult' but that's exactly what religions are.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

I'd love to read a story about a Catholic Vampire, who subsists on Communion wine.

This invites some interesting questions. Traditionally, blessed Holy Water is harmful to vampires. So I think it's an open question whether wine transubstantiated through blessing into blood would sustain or destroy a vampire that consumed it.

[Galactus]

I'd love to read a story about a Catholic Vampire, who subsists on Communion wine.

Me too.

[Gears of the Beast]

I've gone through 12 years of catholic schooling and I still can't figure out if they actually believe in transubstantiation.

[Stannisaurus2]

So what's the meaning of death cult then?

A reasonable definition might be "A cult which worships death itself as a deity" (as in the house of white and black in ASOIAF) or "A cult which regularly practices sacrifices". Other definitions may exist but just because Christianity has a couple of resurrections in it (or even more if you count the final ones) it doesn't make it a death cult. In fact I am fairly sure that Jesus resurrection and the whole "resurrection after the second coming" is supposed to symbolize life's (and God's) triumph over death.

No I didn't make up the definition and to the best of my knowledge Hitchens coined it.

Which explains why that definition is completely biased and ridiculous. It was just Hitchens trying to take cheap shot at a belief he didn't like.

I don't really care what 1000 hypothetical people think, it doesn't change what the phrase means and since I can't seem to find any definition to the contrary I'm not sure where those 1000 people are getting their information.

You might want to start caring what people think because language doesn't exist in a vacuum. The meaning of words and phrases are the ones that are attributed to it by its speakers during communication. Anything other than that either needs a solid justification (and it is still not the actual meaning of the word, just a term used in a specific area/field) or its just Hitchens trying to control language in order to pass his opinions to others in an underhanded way.

Religious people are free to whine about the connotations of the word 'cult' but that's exactly what religions are.

I'm not religious I just point out the BS wherever they come from.

[Wise Fool]

Hahaha. Their bigotry is caused by their religious beliefs, they say so explicitly in the video.

I've already addressed this, and I can see you're just making a habit of ignoring arguments you can't handle.

Very much like the parents in the video.

Not much point arguing with your sorts. Bigotry is by definition close minded and unwilling/unable to change.