Wise Fool Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 I think the issue is you seem to be ignoring the cultural dimension that is in play here. In the last iteration of this thread I pointed out that if religions were video games people would likely be far less tolerant of the content. The issue is not that people use holy texts as vehicles to the sacred, but rather people think the content has to be accepted "whole cloth" with a specific interpretation. If we could say, "Hey the Koran/Bible/etc has some good points but face it there's a lot of bat-shit in there" things would be a lot easier. I agree that this phenomenon - the One True Belief/interpretation thing - is problematic. It's not limited to fanatics, or even believers, though. I honestly don't know of anyone who has ever used a holy text as a vehicle to the sacred. It's more like a supplement. Some people take supplements and see some good gains, other people just don't know what they're on about and should be doing something different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeping Sore Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 The (Thomas) Jefferson Bible is an example of someone agressively editing a holy text (It's quite short, and basically all the hocus-pocus is missing). He forgot to add the part about how he thought it was okay to own the people you have sex with, though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 I agree that this phenomenon - the One True Belief/interpretation thing - is problematic. It's not limited to fanatics, or even believers, though. I honestly don't know of anyone who has ever used a holy text as a vehicle to the sacred. It's more like a supplement. Some people take supplements and see some good gains, other people just don't know what they're on about and should be doing something different. I'm not sure I understand the supplement analogy? The (Thomas) Jefferson Bible is an example of someone agressively editing a holy text (It's quite short, and basically all the hocus-pocus is missing). He forgot to add the part about how he thought it was okay to own the people you have sex with, though... I think the mixing and matching of texts to find something in accordance with one's own sense of what is meaningful is the ideal goal we should be pushing religion toward. This will mean religion is ultimately private practice even if people come together for a time. Since we're looking at either an energy/resource crisis, mass employment due to AIs, or maybe both I feel like this is the kind of religious belief that can sustain people without a descent into fanaticism. =-=-=Jewish Witch: Despair, Tikkun Olam, and Rewilding Witchcraft I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Peter Grey’s talk “Rewilding Witchcraft.”....Grey’s essay is about the human-caused mass extinction event that no one wants to acknowledge. He explicitly states that “our loyalty lies” “in plant and insect and animal and bird.” He doesn’t talk much about people. Yet his essay comes to mind when I think of Ferguson, of America’s history of gunning Black people down simply for existing. His essay comes to mind when I think of the multiple massive interlocking systems that culminate in human bodies lying dead on concrete. In Judaism there’s this concept of tikkun olam, or “repairing the world.” It started as a way of fostering social harmony through law, and was then refined by the Kabbalists into the mystical concept of repairing not just the world, but God him/herself. Then it gradually made its way into mainstream Judaism, so much so that it’s now pretty widespread even among secular Jews. The reason it’s so popular is that at its core, it’s so simple and commonsense. Anyone can see that we have broken our world. We must put it back together. It’s been fairly easy for me to transfer this concept into Witchcraft. It’s more or less already present in the Reclaiming Tradition, which sees the world and everyone in it as the living, breathing body of the Goddess and views pursuing justice as a sacred act. ....I’m not even fully Jewish. I’ve been pushed out of Jewish communities for not being Jewish enough, and now I’m being challenged in Pagan spaces for being too Jewish. Blessed be the in-between places! So the other day, with all that weighing on my mind and the curfew in Ferguson and the children fleeing drug cartels and the Palestinian lives that take a back seat to squabbles about who’s allowed to think what about which deity and by the way, those Nigerian girls still haven’t been found, I sat down to work on my prayer shawl. My daughter was playing on the other end of the couch and, without warning, she launched herself into my lap. She didn’t gouge an eye out on my needles, thank goodness, but she did make me drop two stitches. Irritated (although later I’d be encouraged at the display of affection), I went upstairs to repair it with a crochet hook. I thought it’d be easy since I was still working on the garter-stitch border and hadn’t started the lace pattern yet. But, as sometimes happens when you try to fix something, I found that the damage went deeper than I thought, and the tools I was using just made things worse, and soon I realized that I’d have to unravel the whole project and start again. I began to cry. Then I began to rage.For the rest of the evening I cried and raged. I let it all pour out. I gave in. I despaired. Because doing good can be so straightforward in theory but so difficult in practice. Because so many people tell themselves that hatred and division and power-over will fix the world, and then they can’t figure out why everything continually unravels around them. I faced my despair and I let myself be wild. Then, after awhile, the despair subsided and the wildness relaxed into peace. I started the shawl again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 I think the mixing and matching of texts to find something in accordance with one's own sense of what is meaningful is the ideal goal we should be pushing religion toward. This will mean religion is ultimately private practice even if people come together for a time. Since we're looking at either an energy/resource crisis, mass employment due to AIs, or maybe both I feel like this is the kind of religious belief that can sustain people without a descent into fanaticism. I hope you're not implying Thomas Jefferson was into this wishy washy new age mumbo jumbo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sci-2 Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 I hope you're not implying Thomas Jefferson was into this wishy washy new age mumbo jumbo. Perhaps you could stop your desperate attempts to play internet tough guy and post something substantial and worthy of a reply? Because it's not clear to me what you mean by "wishy washy new age mumbo jumbo". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Perhaps you could stop your desperate attempts to play internet tough guy and post something substantial and worthy of a reply? Because it's not clear to me what you mean by "wishy washy new age mumbo jumbo". "I think the mixing and matching of texts to find something in accordance with one's own sense of what is meaningful is the ideal goal we should be pushing religion toward." That's exactly what I mean by new age mumbo jumbo. The reason why I think that's nonsense is that religion doesn't provide anything useful that can't be found through secular means; people should be encouraged to seek the truth, not mix and mash various religious texts until they find something they like. At least there's at least some kind of consistency and intellectual honesty in sticking to one text. New agers may all have slightly varying beliefs but they're united by their ability to believe what they want to be true rather than an honest search for the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrim Fox Cauthon Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I don't think the above is completely true. Scholars who are experts on the history and culture of the time when an ancient book was written usually have a much better idea of what "authorial intent" was than "only guessing." That of course goes for all ancient literature, not just the Bible. It depends on which biblical scholars you talk to. The old school historical-critical scholars believe in an ability to determine authorial intent. An emerging current influenced by post-structuralism, literary criticism, and ideological criticism are typically less concerned with (or even care about) authorial intent and more with the textual readings, ambiguities, gaps, etc. one can draw from the text. Death of the author and all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 You can't hide behind ambiguity/metaphors for every dodgy thing in the Bible, in Exodus 20/21 where God lists a ton of laws and one of them says you can beat your slaves as long as they don't die, it's pretty clear what is meant - is it not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrim Fox Cauthon Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 You can't hide behind ambiguity/metaphors for every dodgy thing in the Bible, in Exodus 20/21 where God lists a ton of laws and one of them says you can beat your slaves as long as they don't die, it's pretty clear what is meant - is it not? I am talking about trends in academic biblical scholarship regarding historical-criticism, hermeneutics, and literary theory. Pay attention to the conversation being had and not the talking points in your head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I am talking about trends in academic biblical scholarship regarding historical-criticism, hermeneutics, and literary theory. Pay attention to the conversation being had and not the talking points in your head. I wasn't directly responding to you, I would have quoted you if that were the case. Maybe the fact that one doesn't address anything you say at all is a good indication they're not addressing what you said... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matrim Fox Cauthon Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I wasn't directly responding to you, I would have quoted you if that were the case. Maybe the fact that one doesn't address anything you say at all is a good indication they're not addressing what you said... Based on past conversations I've had with you, that's not always the case. Also notice the overlap below. It depends on which biblical scholars you talk to. The old school historical-critical scholars believe in an ability to determine authorial intent. An emerging current influenced by post-structuralism, literary criticism, and ideological criticism are typically less concerned with (or even care about) authorial intent and more with the textual readings, ambiguities, gaps, etc. one can draw from the text. Death of the author and all that. You can't hide behind ambiguity/metaphors for every dodgy thing in the Bible, in Exodus 20/21 where God lists a ton of laws and one of them says you can beat your slaves as long as they don't die, it's pretty clear what is meant - is it not? One might also wonder as to whom you were responding to considering that you had already posted earlier at 2:57 PM PST. The next post is mine at 5:31 PM PST. The next post is yours again at 5:51 PM PST. Gee, I wonder why on earth I would possibly think that you were responding to me and not someone else? Perhaps though you were tilting at the wind that decided to breeze through this thread? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 One might also wonder as to whom you were responding to considering that you had already posted earlier at 2:57 PM PST. The next post is mine at 5:31 PM PST. The next post is yours again at 5:51 PM PST. Gee, I wonder why on earth I would possibly think that you were responding to me and not someone else? Perhaps though you were tilting at the wind that decided to breeze through this thread? Wow, one whole word of similarity! Since we're suddenly getting all forensic about this, I was responding to the line of thinking brought up by #35, Ormond replied to #35 in #36 and then conversation went off somewhere else for a bit, when you went back to #36 I felt like it was appropriate to go back to that conversation too. I'm sorry, I was completely out of line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 It depends on which biblical scholars you talk to. The old school historical-critical scholars believe in an ability to determine authorial intent. An emerging current influenced by post-structuralism, literary criticism, and ideological criticism are typically less concerned with (or even care about) authorial intent and more with the textual readings, ambiguities, gaps, etc. one can draw from the text. Death of the author and all that. Well, as a psychologist, although I appreciate the idea that every individual's unique experience will lead him or her to interpret a text differently, and that it is a valid scholarly enterprise to discuss how the interpretations of texts change according to the historical and social positions of most readers -- I think that the further intellectual leap some poststructuralists make to claim that therefore one can't make any valid conclusions about the intentions of the original author(s) is just wrong, and I'm sorry to know it is having an influence on Biblical criticism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wise Fool Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 "I think the mixing and matching of texts to find something in accordance with one's own sense of what is meaningful is the ideal goal we should be pushing religion toward." That's exactly what I mean by new age mumbo jumbo. The reason why I think that's nonsense is that religion doesn't provide anything useful that can't be found through secular means; people should be encouraged to seek the truth, not mix and mash various religious texts until they find something they like. At least there's at least some kind of consistency and intellectual honesty in sticking to one text. New agers may all have slightly varying beliefs but they're united by their ability to believe what they want to be true rather than an honest search for the truth. Finding meaning in things isn't exactly "new age" or "mumbo jumbo," it's what literally everybody does. On one hand, you claim people should be encouraged to seek the truth - but, not if that truth includes "various religious texts," because that's suddenly not intellectually honest according to the judgment of you. You've conflated intellectual honesty with consistency and exclusivity, so anyone who reads more than one religious text is like some sort of intellectual floozy to you. So much for open-mindedness. I guess basically anyone who has religious beliefs is inferior to you, it's just a question of what ways they're inferior, is that about right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Finding meaning in things isn't exactly "new age" or "mumbo jumbo," it's what literally everybody does. On one hand, you claim people should be encouraged to seek the truth - but, not if that truth includes "various religious texts," because that's suddenly not intellectually honest according to the judgment of you. You've conflated intellectual honesty with consistency and exclusivity, so anyone who reads more than one religious text is like some sort of intellectual floozy to you. So much for open-mindedness. I guess basically anyone who has religious beliefs is inferior to you, it's just a question of what ways they're inferior, is that about right? uhhh...no. We shouldn't be "pushing religion" towards some new age esoteric amalgamation. We should stop indoctrinating kids and start encouraging them to search for the truth themselves - if they end up with some kind of supernatural belief that's fine, it doesn't make them stupid or inferior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 GotB,uhhh...no. We shouldn't be "pushing religion" towards some new age esoteric amalgamation. We should stop indoctrinating kids and start encouraging them to search for the truth themselves - if they end up with some kind of supernatural belief that's fine, it doesn't make them stupid or inferior.I have children too young to leave at home when I attend church services. How to you propose that I, and the millions of religious believers like me, care for our children while refraining from the indoctrination you find so objectionable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 I have children too young to leave at home when I attend church services. How to you propose that I, and the millions of religious believers like me, care for our children while refraining from the indoctrination you find so objectionable? Taking them to church services doesn't automatically mean you're indoctrinating them, encourage them to think for themselves instead of telling them what to think and they'll be fine. Just put it into the proper context; "here's what I believe and why. This why we go to church. Other people believe different stuff", obviously it's a process, not simply one conversation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 GotB,Oh, I do encourage my kids to think for themselves but I don't see how "indoctrination" can be avoided when we say grace before every meal and they are always with us for services. If I take my kids with me to a gun range whenever I'm target shooting, what do you think their views on firearm ownership will be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gears of the Beast Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 Oh, I do encourage my kids to think for themselves but I don't see how "indoctrination" can be avoided when we say grace before every meal and they are always with us for services. If I take my kids with me to a gun range whenever I'm target shooting, what do you think their views on firearm ownership will be? That's not what I consider indoctrination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted November 1, 2014 Share Posted November 1, 2014 GotB,Others would disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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