Religion and God, and My Theoretical Framework

I’m something of a postmodernist... critical theorist... structualist...

God is this abstract omnipotent, omniscient, and omni benevolent being. Religion is all text associated with god.

I spent most of my adolescents thinking about the question of religion and god. I’ve also taken a course on natural philosophy and religion. I did two years of seminary on the bible, which has also proved useful.

It’s difficult to talk about my opinion of religion and god without piecing it into my all around theoretical framework, which has managed to complicate itself and recomplicate its self exponentially over the past couple years with every new thing I read. Basically theory in general is my passion and I tend to assimilate it into a hodgepodge of my own. This makes for an extremely vague and often contradictory frame of thought. Some professors have told me that this is totally normal and eventually things will become more concrete as I mature.

That being said I’m something of a post-modernist/ critical theorist (vanilla Marxist)/ structualist (I tend to lop post-structuralism in with post-modernism). Translated, this means essentially that I think irrationality is an essential consequence of rationality and vies versa (structuralism). Thus, we all need to create our own mini-narratives between the two for dealing with our day-to-day lives (post-modernism). All the while, we need to keep in mind that there are powerful forces at play within society that may try and manipulate us to act in their interest rather than our own (critical theory).

Applied to religion and god, I should first clarify why I keep saying religion AND god. God is this abstract omnipotent, omniscient, and omni benevolent being. Religion is all text associated with god. Text is essentially everything (vaguely Jacques Derrida). Everything being the dogma, the institution, the scriptures, or the very name and function associated with god. Basically god could be anything; once we start textualizing (talking about, writing about, gesturing about etc.) him, this second stage takes on the form of religion.

After this there's a long spiel about the imperfection of text as a man made system of symbols, the disparity between the signified and the signifier (vaguely Ferdinand de Saussure I think), and how it doesn't do god justice.

Basically it all concludes with me arguing that god may or may not exist but this is hardly relevant as whether he does or not we should still be good people (this roots itself in totally different conclusion on the innate innocents of man and universal morality). Religion is of man and thus somewhat arbitrary and extremely susceptible to the manipulations of those in positions of power. This does not necessarily negate it, for many it serves a very important function, and as the saying goes, "what's wrong with a crutch if you need it." I don't mean that pretentiously, I mean it within the context of us needing to construct our own realities according to our own needs. (Lately I’ve been deeply contemplating to what degree I use theory in a similar manner; I think I may touch on this in some previous blog posts). The pious, just like myself, should always be weary of potential power structures within their chosen dogmas (in my case academia).

In conclusion, I’m doubtful of whether Jesus actually existed or not, although even more sceptical of his role in some kind of grand atonement as the Son of God. I am basically convinced the bible is not the word of god but man's. Religions tend to creep me out but I recognize that there are several kind and virtuous people within these institutions. Some of my closest friends are deeply pious, and I respect them for the fact that they stand for something and constantly strive to better themselves. I will often say "hi" to missionaries because I know they're young men that believe they are genuinely trying to make the world a better place and are sacrificing a great deal for this cause. I often lament that the world of Christians and other self-proclaimed religious types not take their prophets teachings more seriously and actually extend olive branches to one another. I get very upset when the church and the state interfere too much with one another, but this has more to do with civil liberties and democratic majority versus minority politics than any threat posed by the content of religious doctrines. Every once and awhile, and to the lament of my pious friends, when I’m feeling especially small, I’ll pray to what I don't understand, which is a great deal. Even though I am essentially praying to the space between the atoms, this often works. For romantic sake I sometimes like to think that this is less of me playing a mind trick on myself, and more some tacit universal force or spirituality reassuring me that none of us are actually alone.

Nobel Pizes for Everyone!... but me

Sometimes I wish I were going into something that could bring me a little status and coin.

I was recently reading an article on economic sociology that I found on post at pubsociology. (I can’t cite the exact article because the motherfukers at the Boston Post want me to register. Might i add, only after i read three pages of the four page article. God knows I hate it when potentially useful sites have to bugger you with usernames and passwords.) The article begins by introducing some of the cacophony between economists and sociologists, but not without first mentioning that a mid-century economist won a Nobel Prize for his work using economic exchange theory to describe social phenomenon. Wow I sure whish sociology could have countered that with a Nobel Prize winner of our own. That’s when it occurred to me that such a come back would sure as heck be easier if there actually was a Nobel Prize for sociology like there is for economics.

For some reason in the back of my mind (and I’m sure in the back a many other minds) having a Nobel Prize seems to legitimize just about everything... just a little. This probably has something to do with the often talked about Nobel Peace Prize. So how the hell did economics get such an honour, to be associated in the same breath as Nobel and peace, and in virtue of this all things good and kind? Easy. I did a little research and it turns out the peckers bought it. “In 1968, the Bank of Sweden instituted the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. (nobelprize.org)”

Damn, sometimes I wish I were going into something that could bring me a little status and coin. To make matters worse two posts down Bart Simpson adds his commentary to my predicament:

Bart Simpson: "I was so bored, I cut the ponytail off the guy in front of us."
(Putting ponytail on his own head) "Look at me! I'm a grad student! I'm 30 years old and I made $600 last year."
Marge: "Bart! Don't make fun of grad students! They just made a terrible life choice."

Niger and Me: Hiding From the Way Things Are, With What I’m Going to Do

I know what’s happening and I know what’s wrong but I justify my existence using my passive awareness and the thing I’m ‘going’ to accomplish.

I can’t fucking stand it; it makes me want to vomit. I just caught the latest update on the famine in Niger on BBC World. These people are dying slow and painful deaths in consequence of our luxury. And don’t tell me that they’re lazy and we work harder and that’s just the way supply and demand works. A three-month-old child born into starvation and surely suffering brain retardation from mal-nutrition can hardly be blamed for their circumstance. We weep when a dozen or so get shot up by some spoiled others in a school shooting but thousands are dying of starvation because of our own ignorance.

But what really makes me sick in all this is myself. I know what’s happening and I know what’s wrong but I justify my existence using my passive awareness and the thing I’m ‘going’ to accomplish. I know what’s happening but what can I really do? These things are macro problems (Take that you post-modernist. Actually I’m a pot-modernist, only a critical one) and need macro solutions. So I bury myself in an education so that I can keep telling myself that one day I’ll write the book that changes all this.

But what if such intentions are just a façade typical of the intellectualizing class. Maybe we construct such aims in order to hide from the truth. How many intellectuals are there and how many really make a difference? So one or two every fifty some odd years sifts through all the pretension and posturing and writes something worth reading. And this is the goal I set for myself because if I didn’t I couldn’t justify anything.

Someone once asked me whether I thought this kind of accomplishment was really a realistic goal. I replied, “No, of course not.” Then I repeated myself, and trailed off. What else was there to say? At that moment I understood the existentialists, but what does this mean? Is my seemingly benevolent cause only a justification made in blind faith, a kind of mega-justification on which all the other justifications of my fragile life relies?

Jumping Off Bridges and Playing Chicken and the Global Free Market

Written quickly and poorly but I thought the ideas were kind of clever and worth publishing. Could definitely make for a fun and interesting article with a little research and effort.

If your friend jumped off a bridge would you follow? Who never had their parents tell them this after demanding that they buy them the latest fad? Then why would you jump off a bridge if your competitors do? Welcome to the child games of global market forces. Once again two large Canadian banks want to merge, they’re justification is that they must in order to keep up with larger global competitors (watched this on CBC News Business). This is how global free market capitalism works.

Market forces could also be compared to a game of chicken with each business moving ever closer to the brink of complete and total destruction. Don’t believe me? Let’s use the environmental analysis. Who in their right mind believes that if we let the oil companies do what ever they want they wouldn’t destroy the planet. Ironically what profits could an oil company reap from an extinct planet?

Both games are illogical in virtue of their unsustainability; they were illogical when we were children because they might eventually kill us. And yet we consider them to be the accepted rules of engagement. Maybe we’re completely doomed, or maybe these are just growing pains. Capitalism is also still in its infancy but just like the rest of us it won’t grow into a fully functioning adult of it’s own. An effort needs to be made to mature it through socialization (pun intended). I don’t think letting it run wild is going to help it much.

Poser For Life!

I think this is just some kind of a note to my future self. It’s fairly poorly written and it sounds as if it is in the voice of a depressed teenager. It’s mostly just something on paper for blog’s sake because I haven’t written anything in awhile.

I’m an intellectual, or at least on my way to becoming one. Having grown up in punk rock and skateboard culture I know that a more appropriate name for what I am is a poser. Everybody starts off a poser.

I hate calling myself an intellectual because that term screams pretentious. It is pretentious because it sets me apart from others, as if I’m authentic and they’re not. But what about a poser intellectual? I suppose I’m something of a try hard that probably doesn’t deserve any respect from either the unauthentic or the authentic crowds. Unlike many posers before me I’m actually quite happy where I am. I don’t want to become an intellectual in order to exclude people. I want to become one in order to learn things, to better understand my life, and to maybe one day make the world a better place. I doubt leading an exclusionary lifestyle is going to fulfill any of these motives. I sometimes wonder why people of the intellectual breed act in such manner since they are of higher learning and must realize the virtues of knowledge, understanding, and kindness. Maybe true intellectuals are just the ignorant excluding the ignorant.

I suppose some ironies always stay the same. When I was punk, there were punks that called other punks posers. Ironically they were the excluded excluding the excluded. I was a poser then too I guess because I hated excluding.

Everybody starts off a poser but I hope that never changes for me. I’d rather be the excluded for life than ever be an excluder. I’m sure I’ve excluded someone somewhere in my past and that’s not cool. We’ve got to learn from past mistakes.

Famines Don't "Strike"

Impending famine cover stories lack the iamges of the emaciated and dying necessary to trigger viewer reaction.

The news headline tonight on BBC WORLD: “Famine strikes in Niger.” Are we so obsessed with by the minute shock and awe news headlines that we need to use a verb like strike to depict the occurrence of famine? There is nothing sudden about famine. It only comes as a consequence of severe error on the part of local and international authorities over a long period. People do not starve to death overnight.

The broadcast explained that that the famine occurred following a late rainy season. This implicates the food production cycle, which extends over seasons. The rain didn’t come to water the planted crops so they began to dry out and die. Then when it finally did rain, it only succeeded in flooding the scorched earth bringing with it insects and disease. At what point during this process did it not occur to observers that there would be no food grown. When no food is grown rations run out and people begin to starve.

Some might argue that when food doesn’t grow of course people starve. Well, when food doesn’t grow in Saskatchewan or Nebraska people don’t starve. Where was the plan of action when the experts first noticed there would be no food this season? Where was the international aid?

The BBC referred to their story as “exclusive.” What is exclusive about large-scale starvation? As far as I know starvation typically occurs over large geographical areas. I'm sure it must be accesible to more newsgroups than the forementioned. The story wasn’t exclusive to the BBC, rather the BBC was the only broadcast willing to investigate and run the story. It’s a shame the story couldn’t have been broadcast several weeks or even months earlier when the chain of events necessary for such a large-scale event began occurring. Unfortunately, I suppose, impending famine cover stories lack the images of emaciated and dying necessary to trigger viewer reaction.

By telling the story after the fact and as if it has just happened the long term history and socio-political economic conditions may be overlooked by some audiences. Rather than question the world systems that facilitate such events they will simply see the images and dismiss them as unfortunate. They may think to themselves, “what a shame nothing could have been done for that little dead girl.”

I am aware that the BBC is among the best television sources we have for such things, as most other networks won’t pay any attention until human death counters reach appropriate disgust levels. When they do, people will be horrified but unable to do much. Perhaps there will be an aid drive and someone will be able to unload his or her pity or guilt with an instantaneous twenty-dollar donation. Meanwhile the same inadequate social structures will continue producing many more famines in the future.

Because We All Hate These Quizzes

I found this at The Weblog. Though I've never read this book, the bio seems to work. I especially like the last line.

You're The Sound and the Fury!

by William Faulkner

Strong-willed but deeply confused, you are trying to come to grips
with a major crisis in your life. You can see many different perspectives on the issue,
but you're mostly overwhelmed with despair at what you've lost. People often have a hard
time understanding you, but they have some vague sense that you must be brilliant
anyway. Ultimately, you signify nothing.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Life is my Right and Yours

Blow me up tomorrow and call me a martyr. If I die in the subway at the hands of a terrorist go ahead and celebrate.

In light of the recent bombings of the London subway, I thought I had might as well join the bandwagon and put my opinion down on the matter of “terrorists.” Especially since the media seems to be so damn sure it will happen in Canada next. Due to the class-race dynamic here (more on his some other time), I’m inclined to believe if one does occur it will most likely occur in Montreal.

Blow me up tomorrow and call me a martyr. If I die in the subway at the hands of a terrorist (I hate that word) go ahead and celebrate, I died for what I believed in. I died going about my daily affairs well aware of the risk but unwilling to bow down. If the CESUS or the USA or any other takes me out, fuck them too; terrosists come in shades of grey not brown. Life is my right as a human, and creature of this world, and I won’t allow anyone to restrain that whether that is through coercion or fear mongering or any other means.

I would like to stress that murder is not the only way to deny someone of their right to life. Denying someone any fundamental human right also denies them of their right to life. I use the expression of my right to life loosely. It simply means to live: to be able to experience this world freely, and to be able to realize ones potential as they see fit. Language, press, religion, and assembly are all means by which we experience this world and realize our potentials.

This doesn’t mean I’m an asshole that thinks I have a right to an automatic machine gun, private property (I’ll right another essay on this some other time… I’m not a communist), and to do whatever the fuck I want regardless of others. You see those things indirectly deny others their right to life, and that my friend is the only restriction I must abide by. If in order to reach my full potential I must deny others of their potential then I am not realizing my potential at all. I have no right to deny another of their right to life, and that is what these “terrorists” are doing, and that is what makes them terrorists. I will continue going about my life conscientious of how my actions affect others, trying not to impede another’s experience.

Naturally there is a normative almost Kantian implication to this. It is rather unlikely, if not impossible that I can go about my entire life without ever stepping on someone’s personal freedoms. What is necessary is that I never act in such a way that I can be accused of not trying to be conscientious of others. Can I be perfect, no, but I can contemplate my own actions using the knowledge I’ve acquired and decide whether I’ll repeat them. Make special note that I have mentioned the knowledge I’ve acquired. I also would like to imply that it is also my responsibility as a human to seek out knowledge in order to better understand my past actions.

Those terrorists are those that narrow their minds to their own fundamental values and disregard other’s right to life. They are not fulfilling their responsibilities as humans to continue expanding their knowledge in order to not impose on others. They are not prepared to consider the wrong in their own actions in consequence of this refusal to reflect, and thus they fail as creatures of this planet.

Pretention and 'The Sublime and the Beautiful'

It is void of debate in consequense of its inefibility. In otherwords it’s a convorsation killer. What better way to feel full of yourself than by capitalizing on the final word.

Awhile back, a good friend of mine told me of a jackass in her English Lit. Class that never seemed to be able to shut up about the “sublime and the beautiful”. She had deduced him to be a fourth year student making up a credit in her first year class. He would proclaim the phrase with a kind of astuteness that made all the ignorant beginners about him feign with envy, or at least he seemed to have this in mind. Naturally his pretension just made everyone despise him.

I made special note of this, concluding in my typically knave mind, that this! Yes, THIS must be the ultimate path to pretension (I’m not sure whether finding this inspired me to avoid it so as to not become a dick, or on the contrary, to use it in convincing mankind to despise me.) If only I had a clue of what the sublime and the beautiful were. I don’t mean that I wanted to figure out some kind of age-old debate on what are the good things in life. I mean that I had to look up sublime in the dictionary. Although it was useful to know that it was something “Characterized by nobility; majestic," (Dictionary.com) this didn’t seem to elevate the statement to the kind of prolific meaning that would cause such a feeling of status in the mind of the speaker.

Time past, and the terms came up together often in many academic and literary texts however there never seemed to be a common bind between them. I was beginning to give up hope until today. While passing time dodging through the Wikipedia: The Free Encyclodedia I came across the term under “gothic horror.” Upon clicking the link this poped up:

“For Immanuel Kant, the sublime represented a feeling derived from aesthetic judgment, in which we realize the limits of our human nature: that is, we realize we cannot conceive of something because it is part of the noumenal realm. Much like being next to a brick wall, we know the wall is there and that, presumably, there is something inaccessible on the other side. For Kant, the thrill we get from this realization is true sublimity; the realization that we cannot fully comprehend our own nature. (Wikipedia)"

Naturally it dawned on me right away. How could I have missed this? Obviously the sublime and the beautiful, being as grandiose as they are, must be completely and totally beyond classification or witness. It is all encompassing and hence empty. It is void of debate in consequense of its inefibility. In otherwords it’s a convorsation killer. What better way to feel full of yourself than by capitalizing the final word.

An image of several intellectuals gathering at a table in silence. Like a dewl, once the last actor is seated they simultaneously as quickly as possible, blurt out the coveted words. The first to bleat them out completely wins the debate. Naturally, since they are of a supurior moral quality, he silently rises and leads the others out of the room. They disperse into the night. The great debate is over.

Testing, Testing... First Political Thing I Ever Wrote: "Anarchy"

This essay was written about five years ago, when i was fifteen. Since i make reference to 9/11, I must have edited it at a later date, most likely the following fall.

Radicalism: a word that sends most people running for shelter after hearing someone even whisper it. It brings thoughts of riots and tear gas, war and death. But is it really all that bad.

Without radicalism there often would have never been change. It is something that people see and hear. What good are ideas if they are not heard? It is so easy to dismiss or not even mention peaceful protests because once they are over, they are gone; however, a destructive riot will be remembered for years to come, particularly if someone died in it. We very rarely hear of protests in social studies which didn’t have costs.

It is the job of the radical to get the attention of the people on top. Sometimes the people on top refuse to change, even if they know the whole world is against them. It is in situations like these, where the majority supports the change but the boss isn’t listening, that violence may be an option. He might just listen when he has a gun pointed at his head.

Though their acts of theft and vandalism are generally more of a nuisance then a contribution to society they can occasionally make a positive difference. Look at the war of independence for example. Most Americans don’t regret the blood their ancestors shed for them to be free.

In the case of the Quebec City Riot I honestly think the radicals were a necessary part of the protests. You see the government kept the peaceful protesters so far away from the picture that foreign leaders probably wouldn’t have even noticed there were even protests going on. By breaking the barricade they delayed the meetings, thus forcing them to notice. I would also like to note that the barricade was the only thing they broke. They did not vandalize any surrounding property. Perhaps even the radicals are looking for more exact methods of getting attention. Notice how they only wrecked what they were protesting; a fence witch symbolized oppression.

Unfortunately today we are faced with a great threat to radicalism. Since September 11th they have been selected as scapegoats for terrorism. It is dangerously easy for the “man” to get rid of opposition by labeling them terrorists whether they are or not. Laws are being passed that would give the government rights to act on such persons without following the usual judicial procedures. Would you consider the protesters in Quebec City terrorists?

It often scares me just how trusting people are of the government and how little they are willing to do to change things that are obviously wrong. In a country of pacifists maybe we need a few small cliques of extremists to keep the government on their tows and the people up to date with what’s really going on.