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On February 20 2013 01:09 ImAbstracT wrote:
I have read many of the theistic evolution arguments. BB Warfield was a theologian around the time Darwin published Origins, and he came to accept it as well.
The reason why I do not accept this view is that I believe evolution and the concept of God to be incompatible. Evolution is not order. It has lead to the extinction of 99.9 percent of all species which have been on this planet alone. The thought that a god could just sit in his throne and watch billions of the creatures he created suffer and die for no purpose is diabolical. And if a Christian says, "We were that purpose" then how can such arrogance be reconciled with the order to be humble?
well maybe these concept are incompatible with christianity, but not with god. wether you call it GOD or the world/universe, it appear to me it has no importance. importance is a human thing, we give importance. although there are rules/physics/phenomenon in this universe we do not grasp at all. things that are totally NOT under our control. bigger forces. science cannot either explain the "first" cause. again i think your vision of god is personified. he does not watch us nor have feelings like we do.
-> by the way this personifying of god was levistrauss' main explanation of the topic. every culture has god/gods who resembles them, who's the "real" god. how do you explain that every culture has its "every" beliefs.
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I like to think about religion as the Theory of the Real.
What do I mean by this?
There is a basic tripartite division in Lacanian psychoanalysis between the Symbolic, the Imaginary, and the Real. Without going into too much detail, you can think of the Symbolic as just language - it's the web of symbols that we weave in order to understand the world. The Symbolic order is where we spend most of our time - wandering about in language. But it's just a bunch of individual symbols, joined together by this shifty sort of web that connects all of them together. But it's still just a net, and it's got lots of holes in it. So the Imaginary order is what you sort of project in order to fill in the gaps between the nodes in the network. The Imaginary is like a pointillist painting - if the Symbolic order is the collection of dots, then the Imaginary is what you see when you step back from the dots and look at the painting. (the Imaginary actually precedes the Symbolic, just like the painting precedes the dots that make up the painting, but that doesn't matter for now).
The Real, though. The Real is what hurts.
The Real is what happens when something bursts up from behind the painting, opening up a hole in the Symbolic order, which then must struggle to reconfigure itself and deal with the trauma. The Real is a radical break - it is what resists Symbolization absolutely. The Real is a horrific glimpse of the Abyss.
Religion, as a Theory of the Real, is precisely this struggle - it is the struggle of the Symbolic order to grapple with the lack which is inherent in that very order itself. How can we, from within language, from within the Symbolic order, attempt to symbolize that which, by its very nature, is a traumatic excess which forever eludes Symbolization? How can we use language to attempt to grapple with that which is forever beyond language?
Can we SAY it?
Or must we somehow SHOW it?
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here's an interesting thing, from David Graeber's Debt
To one degree or another, all the major world religions[...] borrow[ed] the language of the marketplace as a way of thinking about the human condition. The reason is that all of them - from Zoroastrianism to Islam - arose amidst intense arguments about the role of money and the market in human life, and particularly about what these institutions meant for fundamental questions of what human beings owed to one another. The question of debt, and arguments about debt, ran through every aspect of the political life of the time. These arguments were set amidst revolts, petitions, and reformist movements. Some such movements gained allies in the temples and palaces. Others were brutally suppressed. Most of the terms, slogans, and specific issues being debated, though, have been lost to history. We just don't know what a political debate in a Syrian tavern in 750 BC was likely to be about. As a result, we have spent thousands of years contemplating sacred texts full of political allusions that would have been instantly recognizable to any reader at the time when they were written, but whose meaning we now can only guess at.
Jesus said to him[...] Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
"But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'
"So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.
is any of this starting to sound familiar to anyone
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Didn't read it all, but always good when people who's been brainwashed have the power to intellectually grow themself out of it, props to you for breaking through the nonsense. Probably sick hard when you're surrounded with so many lol ppl.
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I feel partly your expereience. I've been in a rather similar situation after finishing high school. I don't understand why you can stop believing in God after you claim you have experienced so much? One of the reasons that kept me back from falling away from the belief of a Creator, is exactly my experiences with Him. The prayers he has directly answered, the love he has directly shown. It is in a such a different and higher moral standard than anything, and yet you claim it to be immoral?
The basics of Christianity is the simple relationship with God, the Father & Jesus Christ in prayer.
In addition to reading the bible for spiritual nutrition. You said you were in a mega church active, but did you ever have a prayer life of your own? withdrawing, spending time alone with God daily? This is the most important thing in a Christian life.
There are plenty of good arguments that supports Genesis. (http://www.answersingenesis.org/) There is nothing about evolution that has ever convinced me to believe anything but the Bible, except the time I was brainwashed to believe in evolution during my early school years when I didn't know much about my faith. Evolution is a utter lie and a fantasy this world is wrapped under. There is no proof and still people claim it to be science...
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On February 20 2013 16:11 sam!zdat wrote:here's an interesting thing, from David Graeber's DebtShow nested quote +
To one degree or another, all the major world religions[...] borrow[ed] the language of the marketplace as a way of thinking about the human condition. The reason is that all of them - from Zoroastrianism to Islam - arose amidst intense arguments about the role of money and the market in human life, and particularly about what these institutions meant for fundamental questions of what human beings owed to one another. The question of debt, and arguments about debt, ran through every aspect of the political life of the time. These arguments were set amidst revolts, petitions, and reformist movements. Some such movements gained allies in the temples and palaces. Others were brutally suppressed. Most of the terms, slogans, and specific issues being debated, though, have been lost to history. We just don't know what a political debate in a Syrian tavern in 750 BC was likely to be about. As a result, we have spent thousands of years contemplating sacred texts full of political allusions that would have been instantly recognizable to any reader at the time when they were written, but whose meaning we now can only guess at.
Show nested quote +
Jesus said to him[...] Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
"But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'
"So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.
is any of this starting to sound familiar to anyone
Nice Graeber drop. Dude is brilliant (just not the best public speaker).
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5003 Posts
On February 20 2013 16:11 sam!zdat wrote:here's an interesting thing, from David Graeber's DebtShow nested quote +
To one degree or another, all the major world religions[...] borrow[ed] the language of the marketplace as a way of thinking about the human condition. The reason is that all of them - from Zoroastrianism to Islam - arose amidst intense arguments about the role of money and the market in human life, and particularly about what these institutions meant for fundamental questions of what human beings owed to one another. The question of debt, and arguments about debt, ran through every aspect of the political life of the time. These arguments were set amidst revolts, petitions, and reformist movements. Some such movements gained allies in the temples and palaces. Others were brutally suppressed. Most of the terms, slogans, and specific issues being debated, though, have been lost to history. We just don't know what a political debate in a Syrian tavern in 750 BC was likely to be about. As a result, we have spent thousands of years contemplating sacred texts full of political allusions that would have been instantly recognizable to any reader at the time when they were written, but whose meaning we now can only guess at.
Show nested quote +
Jesus said to him[...] Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
"But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'
"So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.
is any of this starting to sound familiar to anyone
sounds like economics to me 
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I never really believed in the bible, just think about this:
God is supposed to be all knowing, all rightful etcetc
But why is he warning us about what's coming (the end of the world) when he should know the future as it is. Is he expecting something to change?
BUT
I also don't put all too much trust into science.
A science teacher once told us this:
science is based on experiments and observations, and what if experiment and observations were actually not what we think they were?
Sure we think the earth had billions of years of history, we found dinosaur bones, we have methods to calculate how old Earth is.
But what if there is a creator? What is this earth is just created right a second ago? What we thought existed actually never existed. In fact, we wouldn't even know we have only started living a second ago.
similarly with black swan effect.
So science is just an easier target to put more faith in because our world is operating heavily based upon science improvement.
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On February 21 2013 00:31 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2013 16:11 sam!zdat wrote:here's an interesting thing, from David Graeber's Debt
To one degree or another, all the major world religions[...] borrow[ed] the language of the marketplace as a way of thinking about the human condition. The reason is that all of them - from Zoroastrianism to Islam - arose amidst intense arguments about the role of money and the market in human life, and particularly about what these institutions meant for fundamental questions of what human beings owed to one another. The question of debt, and arguments about debt, ran through every aspect of the political life of the time. These arguments were set amidst revolts, petitions, and reformist movements. Some such movements gained allies in the temples and palaces. Others were brutally suppressed. Most of the terms, slogans, and specific issues being debated, though, have been lost to history. We just don't know what a political debate in a Syrian tavern in 750 BC was likely to be about. As a result, we have spent thousands of years contemplating sacred texts full of political allusions that would have been instantly recognizable to any reader at the time when they were written, but whose meaning we now can only guess at.
Jesus said to him[...] Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
"But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'
"So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.
is any of this starting to sound familiar to anyone sounds like economics to me
to me it sounds like we're ripe for a new religion
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5003 Posts
On February 21 2013 09:55 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2013 00:31 Milkis wrote:On February 20 2013 16:11 sam!zdat wrote:here's an interesting thing, from David Graeber's Debt
To one degree or another, all the major world religions[...] borrow[ed] the language of the marketplace as a way of thinking about the human condition. The reason is that all of them - from Zoroastrianism to Islam - arose amidst intense arguments about the role of money and the market in human life, and particularly about what these institutions meant for fundamental questions of what human beings owed to one another. The question of debt, and arguments about debt, ran through every aspect of the political life of the time. These arguments were set amidst revolts, petitions, and reformist movements. Some such movements gained allies in the temples and palaces. Others were brutally suppressed. Most of the terms, slogans, and specific issues being debated, though, have been lost to history. We just don't know what a political debate in a Syrian tavern in 750 BC was likely to be about. As a result, we have spent thousands of years contemplating sacred texts full of political allusions that would have been instantly recognizable to any reader at the time when they were written, but whose meaning we now can only guess at.
Jesus said to him[...] Therefore the Kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king, who wanted to reconcile accounts with his servants. When he had begun to reconcile, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But because he couldn't pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant therefore fell down and knelt before him, saying, 'Lord, have patience with me, and I will repay you all!' The lord of that servant, being moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt.
"But that servant went out, and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him one hundred denarii, and he grabbed him, and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!'
"So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you!' He would not, but went and cast him into prison, until he should pay back that which was due. So when his fellow servants saw what was done, they were exceedingly sorry, and came and told to their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him in, and said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt, because you begged me. Shouldn't you also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?' His lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due to him.
is any of this starting to sound familiar to anyone sounds like economics to me to me it sounds like we're ripe for a new religion
haha, I guess it went over my head a little bit then -- could you tell me what you were implying exactly?
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Graeber's thesis is that the major world religions are fundamentally about the question of what human beings owe to one another. What is the nature of debt? What do we owe to others, as a condition of being born into society?
For example, we can think about Christ the Redeemer (the term "redeem" of course is a debt term) as the savior who will come and absolve the tributary debt owed by the Judaeans to the Roman Empire.
Most popular uprisings in the classical world were about debt forgiveness and land reform. that is, periodically, the aristocracy would consolidate all the wealth, and the peasants would revolt and demand that the debts be cancelled and the land be redistributed. If you know anything about the Gracchi and things like that in Roman history, that's what we're talking about.
It seems to me that we're currently in a situation much like this. We have debt structures that have never existed before in human history, which are causing severe destabilization of society and raising fundamental questions about what humans owe one another (i.e. do we owe money to the financiers who crashed our market, and then were bailed out by taxpayers? do we owe money to the people who gave us home loans under misleading pretenses? Do third world countries which were aggressively invaded and colonized by western powers at the end of the nineteenth century really owe monetary debts to their aggressors, as the IMF insists? Are the people in those countries responsible for loans taken out by unelected dictators, who mostly put the money in swiss bank accounts? It's them who suffer when the IMF comes in and imposes austerity. In many cases, the amount paid in interest on these third-world loans has already exceeded the principle by quite a bit, although the debt remains outstanding, making these countries de facto imperial tributaries. Stuff like that)
If Graeber's thesis is correct, and it's persuading so far, we are now in precisely the sort of world-historical situation in which new religions tend to arise. Just sayin'
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5003 Posts
On February 21 2013 13:21 sam!zdat wrote:
Graeber's thesis is that the major world religions are fundamentally about the question of what human beings owe to one another. What is the nature of debt? What do we owe to others, as a condition of being born into society?
For example, we can think about Christ the Redeemer (the term "redeem" of course is a debt term) as the savior who will come and absolve the tributary debt owed by the Judaeans to the Roman Empire.
Most popular uprisings in the classical world were about debt forgiveness and land reform. that is, periodically, the aristocracy would consolidate all the wealth, and the peasants would revolt and demand that the debts be cancelled and the land be redistributed. If you know anything about the Gracchi and things like that in Roman history, that's what we're talking about.
It seems to me that we're currently in a situation much like this. We have debt structures that have never existed before in human history, which are causing severe destabilization of society and raising fundamental questions about what humans owe one another (i.e. do we owe money to the financiers who crashed our market, and then were bailed out by taxpayers? do we owe money to the people who gave us home loans under misleading pretenses? Do third world countries which were aggressively invaded and colonized by western powers at the end of the nineteenth century really owe monetary debts to their aggressors, as the IMF insists?)
If Graeber's thesis is correct, and it's persuading so far, we are now in precisely the sort of world-historical situation in which new religions tend to arise. Just sayin'
That's actually a really fascinating thesis. Instinctively I kind of disagree with it -- My disagreements come from the fact that the way we thought about Christianity is something that constantly evolved over time, and I believe that stress tests from society such as things like that are things that really challenge what we believe through Christianity and it'll allow us to shade the things that we thought were right at one point but end up realizing it wasn't the whole picture. Structures like that helps us realize what's wrong with how we think about the world through the Christian lens. Because after all it's not like the structures got simpler, it has gotten more and more complicated and tests these beliefs more and more deeply each time.
I think it's a challenge, but doesn't mean we need a "new religion", but it'll weed out some of the interpretations we have had that is clearly leading people astray. The core message, imo, will always stay the same.
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I think phenomena like religions can be a bunch of different things all at once - far be it from me to present a reductionist thesis of the type "religions are just about debt."
But I think historical situations involving debt crises DO tend to make people ask a lot of deeper existential questions, and ask questions about the nature of human society and their relations to others.
If not a new religion, I do think we're in the makings for a new Great Awakening of sorts, a period of creativity in religious thought. These people who think that religion is just a dying-out vestige of the medieval world have got everything precisely backwards. Religion will play a big role in the 21st century, I'm pretty sure about that.
edit: I think the way that religious systems get adopted into social structures is a different question than their origins. Certainly the way that Christianity was used in Medieval Europe as a justification for an oppressive social order has nothing to do with the origins of the religious tradition, or with the actual teachings of Christ. Empire will always find a way to co-opt a subversive ideology - that's why you have to always keep making new subversive ideologies.
edit: at any rate, I would recommend this book to everyone, it's one of the best things I've read in quite a while
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5003 Posts
On February 21 2013 13:32 sam!zdat wrote:
But I think historical situations involving debt crises DO tend to make people ask a lot of deeper existential questions, and ask questions about the nature of human society and their relations to others.
It's crisis in general, no? Wars, Famine, disasters. Not sure why the focus is just on debt. All of those questions raise different questions. The thing is that a lot of these don't change so people are kind of trained to be able to answer these questions (or realize the true meaning of the answers they've been hearing from other people) during these crisis.
You are right in that, for crisis involving social and economic structures, which change over time, religion can't rely on such principles because they get outdated very quickly. This means that we need to dig back into it understand the core message again to see how it would apply. The entire tradition of talmud is about things like that, and iirc, Islam has a similar system in place for the interpretation of the Quran. It's a shame Christianty doesn't really do that other than Catholics. Shame everything else is a bit too decentralized which allows people to literally cherry pick their version of Christianity.
If not a new religion, I do think we're in the makings for a new Great Awakening of sorts, a period of creativity in religious thought. These people who think that religion is just a dying-out vestige of the medieval world have got everything precisely backwards. Religion will play a big role in the 21st century, I'm pretty sure about that.
We always say this but I don't think it'll happen. It'll always be the same. I think it's something to hope for, but it's unclear that any single idea can diffuse that fast in modern society where everyone already has a strong opinion on what they want to believe. If everyone was open minded and were trying to expand their understanding to get a "great awakening", then we'd understand it a bit more.
But maybe we're just seeing all of the friction we see in society right now and we're just hoping it gets greased out and we're talking about the diffusion of such a stress building up in society as we understand the world better.
edit: I think the way that religious systems get adopted into social structures is a different question than their origins. Certainly the way that Christianity was used in Medieval Europe as a justification for an oppressive social order has nothing to do with the origins of the religious tradition, or with the actual teachings of Christ. Empire will always find a way to co-opt a subversive ideology - that's why you have to always keep making new subversive ideologies.
People will use anything to gain favor. The abuse of economics in modern day politics, for example 
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On February 21 2013 13:49 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2013 13:32 sam!zdat wrote:
But I think historical situations involving debt crises DO tend to make people ask a lot of deeper existential questions, and ask questions about the nature of human society and their relations to others.
It's crisis in general, no? Wars, Famine, disasters. Not sure why the focus is just on debt. All of those questions raise different questions. The thing is that a lot of these don't change so people are kind of trained to be able to answer these questions (or realize the true meaning of the answers they've been hearing from other people) during these crisis.
Those might make people become more religious, but I don't think you see any religious traditions being developed in times of war and famine. War is just war - people fight and die. Famine is just famine - people starve. But debt crises require a reexamination of one's place in the world on a much more symbolic level, I think. I don't know, it's an intriguing thought, at any rate.
You are right in that, for crisis involving social and economic structures, which change over time, religion can't rely on such principles because they get outdated very quickly. This means that we need to dig back into it understand the core message again to see how it would apply. The entire tradition of talmud is about things like that, and iirc, Islam has a similar system in place for the interpretation of the Quran. It's a shame Christianty doesn't really do that other than Catholics. Shame everything else is a bit too decentralized which allows people to literally cherry pick their version of Christianity.
Cherry picking your version of Christianity is what the Reformation was all about! Well, that and a period of radical economic transformation
Show nested quote +
If not a new religion, I do think we're in the makings for a new Great Awakening of sorts, a period of creativity in religious thought. These people who think that religion is just a dying-out vestige of the medieval world have got everything precisely backwards. Religion will play a big role in the 21st century, I'm pretty sure about that.
We always say this but I don't think it'll happen. It'll always be the same. I think it's something to hope for, but it's unclear that any single idea can diffuse that fast in modern society where everyone already has a strong opinion on what they want to believe. If everyone was open minded and were trying to expand their understanding to get a "great awakening", then we'd understand it a bit more.
oh, it's just a little hunch I have. You're right that the modern media landscape makes things different. I don't think everyone's going to convert to some one big new religion. Mostly I just see religious discourse as a way to get out of the rational-utilitarian-positivist deadlock and offer some sort of resistance to the totally amoral power of capital. That's part of what the Church was supposed to be doing, offering a counterweight to the secular power, and I think we need to bring back an institution that accomplishes some of that same function. Our government certainly isn't doing it, because the government just works for capital.
But maybe we're just seeing all of the friction we see in society right now and we're just hoping it gets greased out and we're talking about the diffusion of such a stress building up in society as we understand the world better.
Yeah, I mean, we're definitely building up some pressure in the old boiler tank. I'm just sitting here trying to think of ways out, and some progressive development on the religious side of things just seems crazy enough to work. I'm sick of seeing religion as a force for conservatism and bigotry, I want to see religion as a force for compassion and moral cultivation. I don't really think that's all that far-fetched.
Show nested quote +edit: I think the way that religious systems get adopted into social structures is a different question than their origins. Certainly the way that Christianity was used in Medieval Europe as a justification for an oppressive social order has nothing to do with the origins of the religious tradition, or with the actual teachings of Christ. Empire will always find a way to co-opt a subversive ideology - that's why you have to always keep making new subversive ideologies. People will use anything to gain favor. The abuse of economics in modern day politics, for example
ugh, well, tell me about it  sam just makes himself sound angry and over his head when he tries to talk about that, however which i guess he is
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EPT
