From: "Matthew Asher Levy" <mattlevy-AT-mindspring.com>
Subject: Re: Mystify me!
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:30:08 -0500


What conflict?  We are speaking at cross-purposes, not conflicting.  If you
really think there is a conflict and want to delineate it, do me this favor.
Make a list of the beliefs you think I hold that you disagree with.  I will
do this for you and then you can tell me where I have misunderstood you.

1. I think you think are playing around with the idea that the world would
be a better place without religion.  I don't know if this is true or not,
but I doubt it would ever happen and suspect it would either make no
difference in the quality of life or make things worse.
2.  I think you are disgusted with certain versions of Christianity and this
has caused you to make statements about many different kinds of believers,
which you are now backing off of.

That's about it.  Not much of a conflict.  I have no idea what the following
paragraph means.  What did you perceive me to be saying?

> On the issue of autonomy, I would disagree with you regarding the role
> of religion in this.  To take the example of the religion I am most
> familiar with, Christianity, I do see it as governed by an implicit
> dualism between spirit deriving from God and the fallen body of man
> deriving from sin. (through the temptations of the woman!)  The
> Romantic, modern and postmodern attempts to live autonomously from the
> body and one's desires have been frustrated in part by Christianity's
> attempt to frame these as evil.

mal


> Mal,
>
> I agree with you that most of our disagreement is over the term
> mystification.  Let me make a few distinctions which may not completely
> resolve the conflict, but at least clarify where we differ.
>
> The first distinction I want to make is between religion as institution
> and religion as belief: the one being sociological/political, the other
> theological/metaphysical.
>
> There is a long tradition analyzing religion from the former
> perspective.  As a kind of shorthand, I would refer to the writings of
> Karl Marx, Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism)
> and even Lyotard, whose definition of the postmodern as incredulity
> towards metanarratives of emancipation would certainly include those
> framed in terms of religion.
>
> Such writings for me are not inherently metaphysical, but empirical and
> in the nature of a critique, one that can be critiqued in turn in the
> light of other facts and information.  I don't think that such arguments
> need to be dismissed out of hand as meta-science unless you are arguing
> that all political and social critique is necessarily involved in such a
> process and hence illegitimate.
>
> Either political critique is impossible and the positivist status quo
> trumps every time or political critique is possible (admittedly in a
> relative sense) and the institutions of religion are fair game to the
> extent they share in the power of existing regimes.
>
> I would agree with you however that religion as theology/metaphysics
> cannot be overcome for the simple reason that the grounds of
> determination are inherently lacking.  (your meta-science)
>
> I also personally am not completely opposed to religion, but have often
> been moved by its teachings and the individuals it inspires.  I see it
> at its best as a kind of poetics of being, one that like the political
> critique can lead us beyond the immediate situation into the further
> dimensions of possibility.
>
> Certainly, I recognize that the Abolitionists and people in the civil
> rights movement and the anti-war and anti-poverty movements have often
> been coming at things from a religious perspective.  I have also been
> personally interested all my life in the phenomenon known as mysticism
> and the possibility of a radically different consciousness, what Aldous
> Huxley has call mind-at-large in the universe and which Terence McKenna
> has gnostically termed the Logos.  (I do confess to some issues with the
> politics of Kevin Kelly. I think his libertarian philosophy at times is
> a little out of control. I admire Jimmy Carter more.  He seems to me
> like a good and decent man.)
>
> I wasn't attempting to castigate monotheism as primitive. I do think,
> however, in the history of Western science we have seen a movement away
> from God as primary metaphysical cause to a more and more unnecessary
> postulate who is now piously invoked, but now not really needed for
> causal explanation within the realm of science.  The concept of God is
> also the history of his rise and fall.  It isn't all just my personal
> antropological social construction.
>
> On the issue of autonomy, I would disagree with you regarding the role
> of religion in this.  To take the example of the religion I am most
> familiar with, Christianity, I do see it as governed by an implicit
> dualism between spirit deriving from God and the fallen body of man
> deriving from sin. (through the temptations of the woman!)  The
> Romantic, modern and postmodern attempts to live autonomously from the
> body and one's desires have been frustrated in part by Christianity's
> attempt to frame these as evil.
>
> Certainly, feminists have argued that Christianity legitimates women
> only in roles of service such as housewives, teachers and nurses (the
> ideal woman of course being a nun, or virgin mother) rather than
> allowing women to act autonomously upon her own desires. This conflict
> is the site of a long running battle between women and the church which
> is still far from over. I would say that the church as an institution
> has historically blocked the self-determination of women and this is
> also, in part, why I regard this institution as a mystification of
> social relations. (This isn't a theological stance, but a political,
> social and historical one.)
>
> I certainly recognize that any insight is partial.  Seeing through one
> institution invariably leads to new falsehoods that must in turn be seen
> through, but I think this is how the game must be played if we are to
> remain open to the paralogics of the event.
>
> Eric
>
> PS - sorry if it appears I was presuming you to be religious. IMHO God
> is a hydra and there certainly remain aspects of him (her?) that simply
> won't go away.  Christian philosophers such as Etienne Gilson and Paul
> Tillich have argued that God is the name we give to our conception of
> what underlies the universe, what is the meaning of things, our ultimate
> concern and hence that some concept of God is necessary to any system of
> thought.
>
> In this reading, even atheism is a form of theism.  Thus, Marx's God was
> history as the process of dialectical materialism, Nietzsche's God was
> the will to power as eternal return. Perhaps!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Mal,
>
> I agree with you that most of our disagreement in over the term
> mystification.  Let me make a few distinctions which may not completely
> resolve the conflict, but at least clarify where we differ.
>
> The first distinction I want to make is between religion as institution
> and religion as belief: the one being sociological/political, the other
> theological/metaphysical.
>
> There is a long tradition analyzing religion from the former
> perspective.  As a kind of shorthand, I would refer to the writings of
> Karl Marx, Max Weber (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism)
> and even Lyotard, whose definition of the postmodern as incredulity
> towards metanarratives of emancipation would certainly include those
> framed in terms of emancipation.
>
> Such writings for me are not inherently metaphysical, but empirical and
> in the nature of a critique, one that can be critiqued in turn in the
> light of other facts and information.  I don't think that such arguments
> need to be dismissed out of hand as meta-science unless you are arguing
> that all political and social critique is necessarily involved in such a
> process and hence illegitimate.
>
> Either political critique is impossible and the positivist status quo
> trumps every time or political critique is possible (admittedly in a
> relative sense) and the institutions of religion are fair game to the
> extent they share in the power of existing regimes.
>
> I would agree with you however that religion as theology/metaphysics
> cannot be overcome for the simple reason that the grounds of
> determination are inherently lacking.  (your meta-science) I also
> personally am not completely opposed to religion, but have often been
> moved by its teachings and the individuals it inspires.  I see it at its
> best as a kind of poetics of being, one that like the political critique
> can lead us beyond the immediate situation into the further dimensions
> of possibility. Certainly, I recognize that the Abolitionists and people
> in the civil rights movement and the anti-war and anti-poverty movements
> have often been coming at things from a religious perspective.  I have
> also been personally interested all my life in the phenomenon known as
> mysticism and the possibility of a radically different consciousness,
> what Aldous Huxley has call mind-at-large in the universe and which
> Terence McKenna has gnostically termed the Logos.  (I do confess to some
> issues with the politics of Kevin Kelly. I think his libertarian
> philosophy at times is a little out of control. I admire Jimmy Carter
> more.  He seems to me like a good and decent man.)
>
> I wasn't attempting to castigate monotheism as primitive. I do think,
> however, in the history of Western science we have seen a movement away
> from God as primary metaphysical cause to a more and more unnecessary
> postulate who is now piously invoked, but seldom really needed for
> causal explanation within the realm of science.  The concept of God is
> also the history of his rise and fall.  It isn't all just my personal
> social construction.
>
> On the issue of autonomy, I would disagree with you regarding the role
> of religion.  To take the example of the religion I am most familiar
> with, Christianity, I do see it as governed by an implicit dualism
> between spirit deriving from God and the fallen body of man deriving
> from sin. (through the temptations of the woman!)  The modern and
> postmodern attempts to live autonomously from the body and one's desires
> have been frustrated in part by Christianity's attempt to frame these as
> evil.
>
> Certainly, feminists have argued that Christianity legitimates women
> only in roles of service such as housewives, teachers and nurses (the
> ideal woman of course being a nun, or virgin mother) rather than
> allowing women to act autonomously upon their own desires. This conflict
> is the site of a long running battle women and the church which is still
> far from over.
>
> I certainly recognize that any insight is partial.  Seeing through one
> institution invariably leads to new falsehoods that must in turn be seen
> through, but I think this is how the game must be played if we are to
> remain open to the paralogics of the event.
>
> Eric
>
> PS - sorry if it appears I was presuming you to be religious. IMHO God
> is a hydra and there certainly remain aspects of him (her?) that simply
> won't go away.  Christian philosophers such as Etienne Gilson and Paul
> Tillich have argued that God is the name we give to our conception of
> what underlies the universe, what is the meaning of things, the ultimate
> concern and hence that some concept of God is necessary to any system of
> thought.
>
> In this reading, even atheism is a form of theism.  Thus, Marx's God was
> history as the process of dialectical materialism, Nietzsche's God was
> the will to power as eternal return. Perhaps!
>