are you an atheist?

frequently and obnoxiously too, in many cases

I like the concept of a personal God

kinda the entire foundation of atheism is educating the world about god's non-existence

I've spent precisely 0 hours actively pursuing that education

is atheism necessarily proselytizing?

some ideological forms of it are, but--

maybe "ism" is the catch here

Pretty much every proselytizing atheist I've met turns out to be a former Christian. People raised without religion tend toward the "whatevs, as long as you don't bother me with it" side.

The earliest atheists were basically called out for proselytizing about a unorthodox view of the world. So there are the roots of it.

And yeah most of those early "atheists" were just weird DIY or anarchist Christians.

all beliefs are susceptible to doubt but religious (and anti-religious) beliefs are a special category perhaps. you could argue that this is the purpose of church: to continually affirm belief. it's something that has to be maintained, nurtured, adapted to shifting circumstances in a way that belief in ice cream doesn't. you might even call it an anxious belief. political and moral beliefs often work this way too. these are not beliefs that are "comfortable" with difference, they have to account for them and, usually, dismiss them somehow because they are beliefs that exist in a framework where the opposite belief is at least somewhat tenable. religions wouldn't make such a big deal about "believing" in God if the proposition were equivalent to believing in ice cream.

there's a chassidic story about a rebbe who was complaining to god, "you put the torah in a book and you put desire in the world. no wonder we sin. put the torah in the world and desire in a book and we would all be righteous." this idea that god is concealed and needs to be revealed in the world has really old origins. there's a midrash about abraham that he would invite guests to his tent to feed (which is the context for the 3 angels story) and after they ate he would teach them how to praise god.

ryan otm but deems's ice cream metaphor gets at something too

i'm an atheist (for lack of better word) but (so to speak) a dostoevskian/ kierkegaardian atheist-- i.e. a miserable one

i think religion/ theology (like "metaphysics") is deep down fundamentally encoded in human being (like grammar is)

putting aside for the moment hateful/ controlling/ ideologically necessary proselytizing (like ugh phil robertson) i have a lot of respect for serious theology; imo it recognizes and thinks through fundamental existential issues that much "atheism" (cf nietzeche's "last man") is facilely in denial about (everyone's on their own kind of opium)

ps not that i agree with nietzsche's "last man" depiction, diagnosis, or judgment (i don't); but agree that human/ societal response(s) to the "death of god" or "nihilism" call for serious reflection (and a facile atheist's "we are now enlightened/ free/ perceive true reality" is especially to be interrogated).

i think sharp distinctions should be made between:

1) religion as means of cultural identity--particularly in the modern context as a cultural identity that is not based on race.
2) religion as speculation about transcendence, the "whole," the creation of the universe, Being, etc (perhaps here derived from primitive mystery cults)
3) religion as generator of meaning, truth etc. (subset of 2 perhaps, but it feels distinct in modernity and the advent of nominalism, negative theology, etc.)

I think 1 is perhaps "encoded" if only in the sense that we are animals that have to be able to produce group identities. there's an immunitary/auto-immunitary logic here that is probably inescapable. 2 and 3, however, strike me as cultural adaptations/innovations.

The anxious belief/framework belief ryan mentions ear;oer isn't necessarily a quality of organized religion so much as a quality of organized authority. There is a history of a politically/commercially dominant Christianity and there is an alternative history of unorthodox believers, and it is easy to put everyone under the same "Christians" umbrella.

not sure about the virtue of serious reflection on religion

if you conceive of religion as a response to consciousness then it's not necessary but it has a root which precedes its particular expressions in culture

agree those distinctions v significant; but i think i'd still argue 2 & 3 are in a way (genetically) "encoded"

on a very basic level, e.g. the human universality of funeral rites

by "theology" i don't necessarily mean something sophisticated or theoretical (hence the analogy with "grammar"). e.g. languages have deep complex (somewhat mysterious) subject/ verb/ object/ attribute distinctions that are only "theorized" recently (last couple millenia) of human history (qua substance/ accident etc.); "grammar" as a science may be recent but grammar itself seems encoded

similarly, some "transcendental" conditions of human thought-- not just linguistic, but ethical, metaphysical, existential-- seem encoded

i'm not a kantian but kantian so otm on a lot of this-- esp the contradictions (e.g. re whole/ part, eternity/ temporality, etc.)

edit to: eternity/ finitude

on one hand if you don't believe in god then obv any speculations/discussions about god are a waste of time. but if you believe in a creator who wants to be known throughout the world obv theology becomes very important. u can apply all these different contexts for understanding religion (as culture, as political formation, as philosophy) but i think the ultimate drive in it is something transcendental - an infinite + incomprehensible longing, an irreducible need. this is why you have martyrdom phenomena where ppl are willing to die for the sake of asserting their faith. it's inherently a claim of exclusivity on the believer.

if you conceive of religion as a response to consciousness

this is (the) key imo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant

It can also be an act of desperation or rebellion. The emphasis on faith above all in Christianity came out of such rebellion.

e.g. re whole/ part, eternity/ finitude

and maybe especially the whole construct of a "self"--> "soul"

but also the problem of sociopolitical legitimation

one of the literary/ philosophical genres that interest me most are parables/ genealogies of the "fall" from "nature" to alienated humanity

but i think the ultimate drive in it is something transcendental - an infinite + incomprehensible longing, an irreducible need

imo this is otm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant

this may sound strange or too obvious, but the prevalence of "sexual" versions of this (beyond fetishistic idiosyncrasy) corroborates my sense of some kind of encoding, particularly re the problematics of power/ freedom/ will/ self

(one of my fave versions of this religious ascetic/ atheist sexual/ metaphysical ambiguity is in Beckett's Murphy, tying himself naked to a rocking chair)

i find myself imagining religion-in-the-world, in the metaphysical/meaning sense as opposed to the social/cultural/institutional identity sense, as analogous to an infinite convergence series a al zeno's paradox. there is a contradiction between the infinite and the finite but each coexists in a disjunctive way. similar to relativity and quantum mechanics. it's pretty half-baked. influenced by deleuze in a very basic way.

i definitely fall on the side of doubting that a metaphysical perspective can be marshalled toward any "good" social / cultural end though, at least not in the way it's presented in contemporary american evangelical forms. like, acknowledging any kind of mystical machinery at work can feel liberating but this is the tip of the iceberg and all the stuff underwater that comes along with it, the endless anxieties, neuroses, justifications of power, pure fiction required to keep everything moving along as a social movement, all that stuff is very .. pressurized, i think? hard to see any good in it.

it's probably obvious but most of this is reflection on my personal experience and not generalizable to many others.

basically, i see the institutionalization of metaphysical whatever-you-want-to-call-it, mystery, emergence, the empty set, as something that follows given how humans are but not something that *furthers* something that can't be *furthered*

(xpost)

ps of course by "encoding" i do not *at all* mean intelligent design (though someone who wants to take it that way could); i mean more like fallenness/ throwness.

i like to think of fallenness as, literally, gravity, and redemption as the diagram of differentiating galaxy clusters that operates within that framework of "absolute" limits, or emergence, contingency, chaos. the difference between these two realms is, idk, what enables their repetition? something. time for my cookies and milk.

i definitely fall on the side of doubting that a metaphysical perspective can be marshalled toward any "good" social / cultural end though, at least not in the way it's presented in contemporary american evangelical forms. like, acknowledging any kind of mystical machinery at work can feel liberating but this is the tip of the iceberg and all the stuff underwater that comes along with it, the endless anxieties, neuroses, justifications of power, pure fiction required to keep everything moving along as a social movement, all that stuff is very .. pressurized, i think? hard to see any good in it.

i think i agree with all of this except i don't think it's so clear where the "exit" or "exception" is.

for example, hypothetically one could (and I would) argue that it's healthy to have a church/ state, transcendental/ worldly distinction which stands against radical ideologues *on right and left*; but some "anti-right" critiques are so easy that I think the "left" too often exempts itself from its own possible metaphysical fictions. (For example, hypothetically, I may be more comfortable with a leader who "renders under Caesar" than an atheist who doesn't see any distinction between those realms.)

(even if, I know, those realms are always deconstructible)

xp oh definitely. i agree that these forms are difficult, maybe impossible to avoid in the political / social worlds we are all a part of. on some level though i don't know that it matters. i picture the "spark of life", for want of a better term again, maybe it's literally indescribable or pre-language, as purely migratory, making these formations possible but simultaneously escaping their attempts to represent it. so that we don't have to do much, but think about what we are somehow compelled to do and why, also maybe what we might be able to do together. i guess it's an approximate buddhism i'm aiming at, and i'm a little embarrassed about being so overbearing about it tbh.

i like to think of fallenness as, literally, gravity, and redemption as the diagram of differentiating galaxy clusters that operates within that framework of "absolute" limits, or emergence, contingency, chaos. the difference between these two realms is, idk, what enables their repetition? something. time for my cookies and milk.

I might not entirely get this but I like it! My own mental models of throwness largely resemble this; but (among other things) what I'm most stuck on is Guilt.

I'm not religious but I might as well be, in terms of certain psychological dynamics.

Few things I have more contempt/ mockery for than a lot of New Age gobbledygook; but I do get where that need is coming from. (In the present historical moment, that housewife will turn to Oprah, not Epictetus.)

i picture the "spark of life", for want of a better term again, maybe it's literally indescribable or pre-language, as purely migratory, making these formations possible but simultaneously escaping their attempts to represent it. so that we don't have to do much, but think about what we are somehow compelled to do and why, also maybe what we might be able to do together. i guess it's an approximate buddhism i'm aiming at, and i'm a little embarrassed about being so overbearing about it tbh.

feeling this, very much

you are garbage

u can apply all these different contexts for understanding religion (as culture, as political formation, as philosophy) but i think the ultimate drive in it is something transcendental - an infinite + incomprehensible longing, an irreducible need.

what's interesting to me about this is that it's so often now expressed in secular terms. in psychoanalysis as "desire," in science as the asymptotic approach toward truth, in art as the continual search for the new...because of this i dont really assign religion any kind of unique place in society but i do think it represents a heightened form, and one of the oldest forms, of what all kinds of discourses or social systems have to cope with. much as in hans blumenberg's argument that religion leaves an "unoccupied place" in secular modernity's differentiation that gets filled with whatever's at hand.

like, what mattresslessness is talking about in onto-theological terms i'd rather describe in terms of "modernity"--that term in itself can describe the transition from societal forms of hierarchical wholeness or totality to the "fallen" forms of what Hegel might call a "bad infinity."

Do you guys not believe in the independence of these things from religion when people claim "spiritual but not religious"?

That's a fine claim if you mean "interested in this stuff but not dogmatic" but popular over-use of that it makes it come across as mostly low-risk self-serving statement. There is tremendous value in exploring religious/spiritual ideas wo adhering to orthodox/mainstream interpretations but people use it as an intellectual status symbol (tho again that's not exclusive to religions).

This idea of encoding, could you explain it more? Is it like Jungian archetypes?

I can see a lot of religious ideas that have been shifted over to secular areas in modern times.

isn't "spiritual but not religious" just a religious claim that tries to disavow institutions?

i think the very possibility that that distinction can have meaning is a fascinating thing. puts me in mind of Jonathan Edwards's notion of "religious affections" as feelings that are essentially devoid of actual content.

if you start to codify what "spiritual" means at all then its sorta religion by my definition. but as that phrase tends to get used i dont think it's terribly coherent unless its taken as "i make up my own religion."

You can be religious about Jesus's anti-authoritarianism. There are a lot of things the Bible says about not holding public office or serving two masters whether that be God/state or God/money or God/idolatry of the Bible. Institutions clearly don't own a monopoly on religious meaning - just look at The Indulgences for a historical example of them thinking they did.

i think the pt is that "religion" is a pretty dumb term which was supposed to shoehorn a variety of practices known in the 18th century into one rubric so that you could compare christianity to whatever shamanic cult anthropologists had just discovered.

even anti-authoritarian forms of religion are still, in a sense, doctrines or loosely organized forms of belief. "spiritual but not religious" implicitly claims, i think, to be free of that kind of social organization--it's just an extension of the cult of individualism imo.

The "spiritual" part of that phrase seems to mainly a reference to Spiritualists, maybe it's more of a modern version of that mostly 19th century social phenomenon. Belief in ghosts, telepathy, auras, hypnotizing, etc. mashed together with heretofore unseen Eastern concepts like reincarnation, chakras, yoga, and encompassing true believers, charlatans (skeptics), and on-lookers. All those elements are still around but they don't really seem to be based on any doctrines other than pop culture or pop folklore. Throw in quantum mechanics/collapse of waveform/holographic universe/What the Bleep!/The Matrix and here we are.

this conversation reminds me of a book i like a lot about the link between 19th century spiritualism and technology (like ppl hearing ghosts through the static of a television):
http://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Futures-Past-Spiritualism-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0520274539

what's interesting to me about this is that it's so often now expressed in secular terms. in psychoanalysis as "desire," in science as the asymptotic approach toward truth, in art as the continual search for the new...because of this i dont really assign religion any kind of unique place in society but i do think it represents a heightened form, and one of the oldest forms, of what all kinds of discourses or social systems have to cope with. much as in hans blumenberg's argument that religion leaves an "unoccupied place" in secular modernity's differentiation that gets filled with whatever's at hand.

like, what mattresslessness is talking about in onto-theological terms i'd rather describe in terms of "modernity"--that term in itself can describe the transition from societal forms of hierarchical wholeness or totality to the "fallen" forms of what Hegel might call a "bad infinity."

true, modernity “reocuppies” religion in various ways; but i’m thinking more the continuity of questions than answers; i guess i want to call some fundamental questions/ questioning “religious” (for lack of better word). i think thinking human(ity) as fundamental lack, thinking radical finitude, just *has* an ontotheological or “sacred” dimension, transcendent rather than immanent (even if that transcendent thinking is just vertigo, or bumping up against contradictions, aporia). An irreducibly mythic & untheorizable dimension, whether or not it involves an idea of “god” or is enacted through rites of organized religion.

"spiritual but not religious", for me Trevor, is equal to "spiritual without even the poor excuse"

drash I think that's a fair take; but for me dragging in theological or religious baggage isn't strictly necessary. I'd like the idea of the "untheorizable" to be more prosaic, less burdened with the high stakes of religion or existentialism--especially because when we talk about the untheorizable in such terms we tend to reify it in a backhanded way.

another way of putting that is that I am intent on preventing religion (or philosophy, or science) from claiming a central or universal competence, even if it's one achieved through a negative transcendence.

agreed