Beyond theism

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
OK, so this thread arises out of discussions between Infinite Thought and k-punk following our trip to the Meaning of Theism conference at the weekend.

(If you want to follow the trail, here it is, backwards:this, which was a response to this, which was a response to this.... (I could go yet another one back, but the key quotes from my original piece are included in the Infinite Thought response).)

Any way, the issues seem to me to be the following:

1. What is non-theism?

2. What would a non-theistic religion look like? Is there any point continuing to use a concept like 'religion' at all?

3. What role might Badiou, Zizek and Lacan play in the theory and practice of such a religion?

My own view would be that the actual term 'religion' is of no importance, but the concept of a 'collective devotion' is, or could be, enormously significant. To that extent, I agree with John Haldane: philosophy is missing something if it ignores or imagines that it substitutes for practice. Religion, like politics, are the two most obvious ways in which philosophy is not 'completed', as Haldane would have it, but - and I am not particularly fond of this term, either - 'lived'.

While there have been many Spinozist theorists, it is not clear that there has ever been a religion practised along Spinozistic or non-theistic lines. Might this be because 'devotion' always implies worship of a personal entity?

So, yes, the metaphysics might be sorted out lol, but the question of what a non-theistic religion would look like is indeed an open one.

As for how such a non-theism could be modern, I think this is answered by IT's other question: namely, what role would the concepts of Badiou, Zizek and Lacan have in/ for this non-theistic religion?

No credible modern theological position can afford to ignore psychoanalysis. Freud's masterpieces like Moses and Monotheism and Lacan's exorbitant 'commentaries' upon them clearly have enormous contributions to make to any radical theology. Lacan's remarks on religion are far from being trivial or 'passing'.

As for Badiou and Zizek: Zizek is less a religious or chirstian theorist than a theorist of religion/ christianity, but as such, his work would have to be dealt with in any serious modern non-theistic theology. It is not even clear that Badiou is even a theorist of religion; it is of course only the lazy who infer from the fact that Badiou writes about Paul that he is a religious thinker, or that he is even interested in religion at all in the way that Zizek is. Nevertheless, his work must have implications for religion, and it is those that I think it would be interesting to explore.
 

Wrong

Well-known member
k-punk said:
To that extent, I agree with John Haldane: philosophy is missing something if it ignores or imagines that it substitutes for practice. Religion, like politics, are the two most obvious ways in which philosophy is not 'completed', as Haldane would have it, but - and I am not particularly fond of this term, either - 'lived'.

Hmm... what actually is the distinction between religion and politics? They're both forms of collective action. The obvious distinction that comes to mind is that religion relies on transendence (it's about worshipping something both other and greater) whereas politics is, or can be, immanent (when it's about self-determination). But obviously you're not going to accept that, as you want a non-theistic religion.

The other idea that comes to mind is that politics is antagonistic in a way that religion isn't - religion being about acceping the objective truth where politics is about some kind of subjective (I don't mean individualist) struggle. This seems more promising, and perhaps ties in with your complaint about Badiou being a voluntarist.

I was going to say, if that's the distinction, I'd come down on the side of politics rather than religion, but actually nothing I've said so far suggests that the two are incompatible, and I suppose the main example of this is radical Christianity, which certainly engaged in subjective struggle to ready people for the second coming (the full realisation of the objective truth).

Still, I see the need for politics, but I'm not sure why we actually need religion. In fact, the example of Christianity suggests the perniciousness of religion in the sense of the division I've just sketched - the belief in the need for an objective completion weakens the drive to subjective action. So why an anti-theist religion, rather than (or as well as) a materialist politics?
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
Religion is a fuzzy concept, so anything interesting one may say about it is bound to
be untrue for some conceptions of the term religion. That said, I can't help but find
the following points characteristic for those religions i'm vaguely familiar with.

* Beliefs, especially what is beyond the observable.

* Rituals

* Ethical moral teachings

* Practices

* Community

all these relate in some form to the following problems

* the METAPHYSICAL problem: where does the world come from, why is there
something rather than nothing. How to deal with death?

* the MORAL problem: what should i do to increase my happiness?

* the DISAPPOINTMENT problem, why is life so shit?

simplifying greatly, and pulling apart things analytically that occur
mixed 'in the wild', these problems are dealt with as follows:
regarding the metaphysical problem, and contrary to common sense,
religion does NOT give answers at all, but rather blocks these
questions by transforming them into rituals and maybe by instituting
taboos on questions. the moral problem is attacked essentially by
convincing followers of certain means/ends rationalities and the
existence of punishment/reward mechanisms that are beyond observation.
disappointment is managed through promises of reward and more
mundanely, by way of the socialising that is part of the
aforementioned rituals.

so yes, religion deals with problems philosophy cannot but so what:
philosophy also doesn't produce ice-cream.

as to freud: he's been widely read, so his work on religion is
important, but strictly in that form. as a contribution to the
understanding of social phenomena i find his late stuff abysmal. He
was just a shit sociologist who could never integrate interaction,
communication, other people, into his framework.
 
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borderpolice

Well-known member
Wrong said:
The other idea that comes to mind is that politics is antagonistic in a way that religion isn't

how do you reconcile this with the fact that most wars were fought between different religious groups,
with monotheism espacially bellicose?
 

autophoron

A Loxian
k-punk,


"3. To be clear, then: the naturalism I call for is to be understood in two ways (1) as a total refusal of the supernatural and (2) an assertion of determinism. Again, though, it has to be made clear that there is no Nature which causes anything: rather Nature is the network of causes and effects that will have been the case."

How do you ground the network of causes and effects? Is it just an assumption, an article of faith, that leaps across the divide opened up by Hume? The refusal of the supernatural is linked to the very defined relationship between cause and effect you assume. Take for example al-Ghazali’s stance on the cause and its effect. Because there is no logical connection between them it is God who in fact performs the joining, so al-Ghazali denies the supernatural, or makes all events so. Is there any difference between a determinism that mechanically moves as if by billiard balls, and a determinism that operates by continuous divine intervention? Neither need be “transcendent”, and in fact al-Ghazali’s view seems closer to Spinoza than that of any physicalism in that it subsumes the “form of eternity” as an operator. What role does determinism play in your model? Is it simply the fulcrum against which one leverages subject out of the picture? Althusser anyone? If one lived one’s life (religiously as you propose) under the assumption of strict determinism and it proved later to be an occasionalism, what would be the difference, what would have been “lost” in your living it under that conception? Would the subject suddenly erupt? And I am unsure of your inclusion of Lacan here. Is not Spinoza’s universe partial to the realm of the Imaginary for Lacan? There is no “lack” around which to organize the Symbolic, and certainly there is no Real. I suspect that what Spinoza failed to include, -or perhaps artfully/wisely circumvented- was the jouissance of the inadequate idea, the circulation of which is essential to psychological structures. The absence of such jouissance placed in the petite object “a”, a foundation for the inadequate idea for Spinoza, forces rather the jouissance of the adequate idea wherein one becomes the (perverse) cog in the machine of the universe, taking pleasure in the absence of pleasure, in only serving that which is greater and cannot be else wise. Were not Stalinists practicing your Religion of History as they acted out the deterministic "iron laws" of the revolution, particularly as they experienced the "pleasure" of the purges?





autophoron
 
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borderpolice

Well-known member
autophoron said:
Is there any difference between a determinism that mechanically moves as if by billiard balls, and a determinism that operates by continuous divine intervention?

A generalisation of your question is the first sentence of one of the most interesting books on religion:
"How do we recognize, this question has to be asked first and answered, that a given social phenomenon
is religion?"
 

autophoron

A Loxian
borderpolice,


I am unsure if those two are strictly homologous, but to me any structuring of realty through ritual (repetitious action) would qualify as religion.




autophoron
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
autophoron said:
I am unsure if those two are strictly homologous, but to me any structuring of realty through ritual (repetitious action) would qualify as religion.autophoron

i do think that this thing about determinism is really quite closely
connected with the question just what religion really would be.

but if ritual = religion, my daily dental routine would be religion
and it becomes unclear what we gain from using the term. i agree that
ritual behaviour, ie behaviour that is simple in the sense of not
requiring conscious deliberation because it has been carried out many
times before, is a key feature of religion, but it hardly covers all
of the phenomenon.

an indication that religion = ritual is a problematic equivocation is
that when you ask religious believers, they would deny that
ritual is the key feature of being religious, instead they might refer
to transcendence, the numinous and values. of course
self-descriptions are not necessarily better than external
descriptions, but given that religious communication (in a very
general sense) is in some way the phenomenon of religion itself, such
self-description cannot easily be dismissed.
 
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autophoron

A Loxian
borderpolice,


i do think that this thing about determinism is really quite closely
connected with the question just what religion really would be.


I still don’t see it, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

but if ritual = religion, my daily dental routine would be religion
and it becomes unclear what we gain from using the term.


What we would gain is an understanding that the sacred pervades the secular which pretty much is the point of immanent thinking.

i agree that
ritual behaviour, ie behaviour that is simple in the sense of not
requiring conscious deliberation because it has been carried out many
times before, is a key feature of religion, but it hardly covers all
of the phenomenon.


Ritual is simply the spatializing of the temporal, the drawing forth the “form of eternity” into diachronic change. By “covering all phenomena” the religious act is everywhere. Just because religions wish to appropriate this fundamental human and perhaps animal urge in the service of their ideologies does not mean that it is fundamentally so. Rituals spatialized the temporal and as such work to orient and establish subjectivities. The oriented subject is the primary “tool” of religious acts.

an indication that religion = ritual is a problematic equivocation is
that when you ask religious believers, they would deny that
ritual is the key feature of being religious,


I would not really be interested in the opinions of the subjects of ritual because their understanding of would be that of their personal experience and not the process itself. You actually imagine that brushing your teeth is a utilitarian act, or a chance to reflect on the day, or something your mother told you to do. That you are structuring the temporality of your world, establishing yourself as a subjectivity within multiple discourses probably is not something that occurs to you whenever you squeeze to tube.

instead they might refer
to transcendence, the numinous and values.


I’m sure you can wax poetic about the higher values that guide you to brushing your teeth, as can those that tune into their favorite television show. I’m unsure how “real” these motivations are

of course
self-descriptions are not necessarily better than external
descriptions, but given that religious communication (in a very
general sense) is in some way the phenomenon of religion itself, such
self-description cannot easily be dismissed.


I can’t dismiss it either, but assume that ritualistic processes are motivated to produce such feelings and orientations, and not revelatory of an ontology that lies beyond the process. They inscribe the subject within a larger order, but at the same time generate/construct that very order. This would be the difference between immanent and transcendental thinking.




autophoron
 

johneffay

Well-known member
Mark, can you just give us a point of clarification?

k-punk said:
1. What is non-theism?
First I'd like to know what you understand by theism, because I would have thought that the answer to this:

k-punk said:
2. What would a non-theistic religion look like?
Is simply any of the many religions which do not worship a single omnipotent creator.
 

D84

Well-known member
borderpolice said:
simplifying greatly, and pulling apart things analytically that occur
mixed 'in the wild', these problems are dealt with as follows:
regarding the metaphysical problem, and contrary to common sense,
religion does NOT give answers at all, but rather blocks these
questions by transforming them into rituals and maybe by instituting
taboos on questions. the moral problem is attacked essentially by
convincing followers of certain means/ends rationalities and the
existence of punishment/reward mechanisms that are beyond observation.
disappointment is managed through promises of reward and more
mundanely, by way of the socialising that is part of the
aforementioned rituals.

I was thinking about this last night and was reminded of my school Latin classes reading Lucretius and his Epicurean verses against religion (esp. re Mark K-Punk's thoughts on a Naturalistic belief system) which I've just looked up on google:

When human life, all too conspicuous,
Lay foully grovelling on earth, weighed down
By grim Religion looming from the skies,
Horribly threatening mortal men, a man,
A Greek, first raised his mortal eyes
Bravely against this menace.
[. . .]
So his force,
His vital force of mind, a conqueror
Beyond the flaming ramparts of the world
Explored the vast immensities of space
With wit and wisdom, and came back to us
Triumphant, bringing news of what can be
And what cannot, limits and boundaries,
The borderline, the bench mark, set forever.
Religion, so, is trampled underfoot,
And by his victory we reach the stars. (De Rerum Natura I 62-79)​

I like this quote:

'Hell does exist on earth--in the life of fools.' (De Rerum Natura III 1023)​

Don't I know it... :p

Re Mark's 2nd question here's another summary of Epicurean religious thought:

"Epicurus preferred friendship to love, as being less disquieting. His personal hedonism taught that only through self-restraint, moderation, and detachment can one achieve the kind of tranquility that is true happiness. Despite his materialism, Epicurus believed in the freedom of the will. Epicurus did not deny the existence of gods, but he emphatically maintained that as "happy and imperishable beings" of supernatural power they could have nothing to do with human affairs, although they might take pleasure in contemplating the lives of good mortals. True religion lies in a similar contemplation by humans of the ideal lives of the high, invisible gods."​

I find that last sentence a little sardonic but maybe that's just me.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
hello autophoron thanks for your interesting replies,

at this point I'm slightly puzzled by your characterisation of
rituals. maybe you are alluding to a well-established account that i
fail to decode, in which case it would be great if you could
elaborate. But i don't see why

autophoron said:
Ritual is simply the spatializing of the temporal, the drawing forth the “form of eternity” into diachronic change.

This statement seems to ignore that

* behaviour is not ritualistic as such, but only for somebody, namely
where it can be performed effortlessly, as the result of a history
of repeat performances, leaving mental room for concentrating on
other things. This becomes immediately clear where one tries to
participate in unfamiliar rituals, like a novel form of dancing.

* ritual should maybe be seen as a specific form of communication, one
that emphasises perception, but nothing else: one sees others, one
is being observed, one observes others observing that one is
adhering to the ritual ... this (re)produces not only the ritual
but also various social classifications.

from what you say, i seem to get that you mean religious rituals to
produce certain kinds of mental states, a certain kind of attitude
towards the world, and especially towards other people, call it
"sacral", in those carrying out rituals. you also seem to think that
the sacral attitude is preferable to its absence. if so my questions
are:

* does any ritual, any spatialising of the temporal in your words,
create the sacral attitude equally well, or are different forms of
spatialisation differently effective producers?

* given my own experience with bona fide religious rituals, I'd doubt
their effectiveness as sacral attitude engineering. apart from the
aforementioned (re)production of group identities, the ritual's
chief effect, especially in their tame incarnation found in western
religions (absence of dancing), is relaxation, a freeing of the mind
for other things. another noteworthy feature of religious rituals is
their being entirely non-competitive, hence a lacking fear of
failure associates with just about everything else one does [at this
point it may be worth pondering that various religions induce fear
by other means, for example by alluding to the possibility of
punishment for present actions in an unspecified future. the subtle
balances and shifts between removing and imputing fear may be
characteristically religious]. this repeated removal of the burden
of everyday life in religious ritual is rather pleasant in a
chill-out kind of sense and may indeed be at the heart of what the
sacral attitude.
 

autophoron

A Loxian
borderpolice,



"at this point I'm slightly puzzled by your characterisation of
rituals. maybe you are alluding to a well-established account that i
fail to decode, in which case it would be great if you could
elaborate."


I speak only from my understanding. There is no single orthodoxy to which I refer.


behaviour is not ritualistic as such, but only for somebody, namely
where it can be performed effortlessly, as the result of a history
of repeat performances, leaving mental room for concentrating on
other things. This becomes immediately clear where one tries to
participate in unfamiliar rituals, like a novel form of dancing.


This conception of ritual would ignore the performative nature of Tibet prayer wheels, which conduct their “prayer” in the automaton of their own spun momentum. I would include their mechanistic repetition in “ritual”. A novel form of dancing is simply complicated because not only is the “exterior” attempting to be constructed and spatialized, but also the body itself. Once a dance is “learned’ and the body synchronized to it, then the ritual of the dance becomes less mindful in the way that you suggest. In fact it can be argued that the presence of the mind in terms of required attention actually makes the ritual less effective because the body itself is not so much sewn into the space. I do believe in unconscious rituals and the deep structuring of ideological space through unconscious repetitions. Autistic rocking is an attempt to constrain and structure time, to secure boundaries and as such would qualify as ritual, by my understanding. Instincts performed by animals are also ritual spatializations of Time.

* ritual should maybe be seen as a specific form of communication, one
that emphasises perception, but nothing else: one sees others, one
is being observed, one observes others observing that one is
adhering to the ritual ... this (re)produces not only the ritual
but also various social classifications.


The proper witness of ritual is the Lacanian Other. It is before the gaze of the Other that one’s subjectivity is constructed. You could see it as a form of communication, but what Spinoza remarkably configures is the one-way prayer, the performance of determined actions in all freedom, for the witness of God, a performance that will never be applauded.

from what you say, i seem to get that you mean religious rituals to
produce certain kinds of mental states, a certain kind of attitude
towards the world, and especially towards other people, call it
"sacral", in those carrying out rituals. you also seem to think that
the sacral attitude is preferable to its absence. if so my questions
are:

* does any ritual, any spatialising of the temporal in your words,
create the sacral attitude equally well, or are different forms of
spatialisation differently effective producers?


The primary urge of an organism is to orient itself and it does so through various attempts at spatialization. The state that is sought is the experience of surety, which in humans is the equivalence of “knowledge”. Because knowledge is only that of relative assurance, -there is no absolute knowledge- one is constantly nesting orienting systems, various mappings of the Real. Religious attempts at ritual are just another form of mapping and spatializing fragmentary time. The experience of surety that they produce is antidote to the weaknesses of other spatializations.

* given my own experience with bona fide religious rituals, I'd doubt
their effectiveness as sacral attitude engineering.


The sacral can be found in any act. Consider the Buddhist “carry water, chop wood”. If bona fide “religious ritual” is not effective it is simply that you cannot orient yourself as a subjectivity within their discourses. Like dance, the structuring of the body along with the space is a particularly potent path to orientation. For this reason religious ideology’s judgments upon the body are integral to the experience of religious ritual and the orientation sought within. As Spinoza suggests, all thoughts are thoughts about the body. When you brush your teeth you are experiencing the body under a specific ideology of health. If “religious” ritual does not move you, it is simply that you have not allowed your body to be configured by their ideologies of the flesh.




autophoron
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
autophoron said:
This conception of ritual would ignore the performative nature of
Tibet prayer wheels, which conduct their "prayer" in the automaton of
their own spun momentum. I would include their mechanistic repetition
in "ritual".
Hello Autophoron,

as you know, whenever one talks about complex phenomena such as ritual
or religion, one needs to simplify to the point of saying things that
are false under many reasonable interpretations. I'm perfectly happy
to include prayer wheels as ritual, for learning ritualistic behaviour
need not be difficult. Nevertheless, I'm sure there's some subtle
learning going on that may not be immediately obvious, even to the
learner: one imagines the (social) conditions under which one uses
prayer wheels, or hand and body posture are examples.

I also wonder if the strict conscious/unconscious distinction you
employ when evaluating the efficacy of ritual is felicitous. I prefer
to look at it as a matter of degree. What's essential is the deviation
from the expected behaviour: it's easy to see that even minor
deviations will be noted immediately, to the point that easy detection
of non-ritual behaviour may be one of the key social functions of
ritual.
autophoron said:
Instincts performed by animals are also ritual spatializations of
Time.
I'm afraid I still don't quite understand what you mean by this. All
human behaviour is in space and time. How can you turn time into
space?
autophoron said:
The proper witness of ritual is the Lacanian Other.
I would phrase this differently. For a start there isn't a singular
other. One imagines, internalises multiple others, John, Karla,
Ludmilla, Daddy, Kermit the frog ... and THE OTHER may be a
simplification of this process of internalisation, maybe ultimately
structurally indistinguishable from a representation of oneself as a
social (i.e. observing and communicating) being.
autophoron said:
The primary urge of an organism is to orient itself and it does so
through various attempts at spatialization. The state that is sought
is the experience of surety, which in humans is the equivalence of
"knowledge".
While trying to reduce the complexity, contingency of the environment,
which is what you call acquisition of knowledge i guess, is one of the
key human traits, i would assume there are characteristic: energetic,
biological ones, like breathing, eating. Also, to avoid boredom, one
sometimes exposes oneself to controlled amounts of unpredictability,
lack of kmnowledge, sometimes called entertainment. But I agree,
ritual gives stability. This is what I meant by the relaxation effect
of ritual, the chill-out, the removal of fear. But I'd still like to
know if you think all ritual is equally suitable to this or if there's
a specific class of rituals that's more suitable to what you imagine
to be religion. After all there are military rituals, football fan
rituals, drinking rituals, sexual and self-harm rituals. You say:
autophoron said:
The sacral can be found in any act.
The key point may be hidden in the "can". So is the sacral in the act?
or is it an observer attitude to acts? And any act really? or just
ritual acts?
autophoron said:
If bona fide "religious ritual" is not effective it is simply that you
cannot orient yourself as a subjectivity within their discourses.
I'm not sure if my vanity can accept this pathologisation. Let's look
at it like this: I performed the rituals just as well as all the
others in the religious group I was thrown into by default, in as much
as one considers observable behaviour (i.e. ultimately bodily
movement). That leaves the second mode of observation, which is my
private flow of consciousness while performing religion. But how do I
know that I could not orient myself? Maybe everybody else what just as
bored and distracted as I was? How would you, I or anyone possibly be
able to say? All I can give you is my self-description of what's been
going on and conventional religious descriptions of how one should
feel I guess.

This still leaves me with the question if religious ritual really
leads to "sacral attitude" or not.
 

autophoron

A Loxian
borderpolice,



I also wonder if the strict conscious/unconscious distinction you
employ when evaluating the efficacy of ritual is felicitous. I prefer
to look at it as a matter of degree.


I was unaware that I was drawing a strict distinction, but rather imagined myself to be including unconscious behavior where you seemed to be excluding it.

I'm afraid I still don't quite understand what you mean by this. All
human behaviour is in space and time. How can you turn time into
space?


One cannot simply turn time into space, but you can spatialize it, make it subject to the controls, the coordinate systems that map space as territory. This is accomplished through repetition. The most effective analogy is that of music. A pure diachrony of notes, absolutely random notes played at random intervals of time has no cohesive value. Repeat internal values, ether in interval or scale and borders begin to frame, portions of temporal unfolding begin to stand in relation to each other, a relationship that is in some sense spatial. Just as you cannot entirely spatialize time, you cannot entirely de-temporalize space. A space is known through the unfolding of a narrative of events. The repetitions of certain spatial experiences at patterned intervals in the temporal narrative of the unfolding of the space itself is what makes the space a stability. All bodily and performative repetitions are simply the attempt to territorialize time, to create markers, boundaries and regularities. The distribution of jouissance throughout that space is what establishes it as ideological. The “body” is one of the primary ideological spaces.

I would phrase this differently. For a start there isn't a singular
other. One imagines, internalises multiple others, John, Karla,
Ludmilla, Daddy, Kermit the frog ... and THE OTHER may be a
simplification of this process of internalisation, maybe ultimately
structurally indistinguishable from a representation of oneself as a
social (i.e. observing and communicating) being.


You are not phrasing this differently, but is disagreement with Lacan. Of course you are free to disagree, but Lacan suggests what without the structuring of the Other, the multiple others are not in Symbolic communication. The Other is not a simplification but rather the armature for cultural effects. In the end it is a question of theology. God is and always has been only the principle of coherence. That which follows coherence, the multiple small “others” are simply the consequence of that coherence.

The key point may be hidden in the "can". So is the sacral in the act?
or is it an observer attitude to acts? And any act really? or just
ritual acts?


This is a profound question. What I suspect is that all acts are structuring and therefore sacral. Following Spinoza in that God is in all things, then all acts are acts of God. The variant is the knowing of the sub-agent. Knowing in my book produces Being, so unconscious knowing draws certain things into being and conscious knowing draws other things into being. The intentionality within a ritual is an aspect of knowing, it is a coherence of power, but this is only a specific type of assemblage. If the universe is an immanent process, all acts are sacral, from the collapse of stars to picking your teeth with a toothpick.

This still leaves me with the question if religious ritual really
leads to "sacral attitude" or not.


This question just seems to me to be standard religious doubt.




autophoron
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
autophoron said:
One cannot simply turn time into space, but you can spatialize it, make
it subject to the controls, the coordinate systems that map space as
territory. This is accomplished through repetition.
I still don't see in what sense repetition spatialises time, but maybe
it's not so important in this context.
autophoron said:
The most effective analogy is that of music. A pure diachrony of
notes, absolutely random notes played at random intervals of time
has no cohesive value.
In fact purely random notes are very distinct and stand out as just
that, random. it's a well-known stylistic device that has been
experimented with quite a lot since the beginnning of the 20th
century. my own music uses this too, though usually hidden in the
background. Randomness means that the observer (in this case the
listener) cannot detect patterns, i.e. cannot predict, not even
probabilistically, what's gonna happen next. This unpredicatability
itself is however predictable with random notes, which allows
randomness to be a distinctive stylistic device.
autophoron said:
Repeat internal values, ether in interval or scale
and borders begin to frame, portions of temporal unfolding begin to
stand in relation to each other, a relationship that is in some sense
spatial.
Ok, you are talking using "spatial" as a metaphor for the temporal and
chromatic relation you detect in music.
autophoron said:
The repetitions of certain spatial experiences at patterned
intervals in the temporal narrative of the unfolding of the space
itself is what makes the space a stability. All bodily and
performative repetitions are simply the attempt to territorialize
time, to create markers, boundaries and regularities.
Well yes, rituals are spatial in this sense, in that they relate
bodily movements spacially and temporally, that's not
controversial. But the cruicial bit about ritual is not that, indeed
is impossible to move through space and time without such
relations. The key bit, and this is an effect mostly of repetition, is
that these relations become predictable. This makes deviation easily
detectable, but more importantly, means less mental effort in
participating. I contend that this (energie preservation) is the
source of ritual's jouissance. But as this is a low-level, somatic,
energetic, neural effect, it will be entierly unconscious, except as
an unspecific feeling of pleasure onto which one can project all
manner of causes.
autophoron said:
The distribution of jouissance throughout that space is what
establishes it as ideological. The ?body? is one of the primary
ideological spaces.
In what sense are you using "ideological" here?
autophoron said:
You are not phrasing this differently, but is disagreement with
Lacan.
Indeed. Maybe this is not the place and time to discuss Lacan?
autophoron said:
God is and always has been only the principle of coherence. That
which follows coherence, the multiple small ?others? are simply the
consequence of that coherence.
This description of God(s) would be widely denied by most religions and
their followers. Isn't that a problem for you?
autophoron said:
This is a profound question. What I suspect is that all acts are
structuring and therefore sacral. Following Spinoza in that God is
in all things, then all acts are acts of God.
Events and actions are themselves produced by communication in the
latter's self-simplification is probably how I would describe it.
I'm going to ask a question that I always ask Pantheists: what is the
use of saying all acts are sacral, all acts are acts of god then?
It doesn't seem to say anything that "acts relate to each other and
are in this world" or something like this would assert.
 

autophoron

A Loxian
borderpolice,


Randomness means that the observer (in this case the
listener) cannot detect patterns, i.e. cannot predict, not even
probabilistically, what's gonna happen next.


Yes, and this is exactly the opposite of what happens when space is territorialized, the ability to predict what is going to “happen next” is established, borders, rhythms of appearance are all anticipated, just as in music.

“In what sense are you using "ideological" here?”

In the Althusserian sense, the interpolation of the subject, world and subject structuring.

“Indeed. Maybe this is not the place and time to discuss Lacan?”

If I am not mistaken, k-punk made Lacan part of his initial proposition.


”This description of God(s) would be widely denied by most religions and
their followers. Isn't that a problem for you?”


No problem at all. It is the primary structure of all philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Since this is the governing motif behind theism, one comes to understand both the entrenchant nature of the belief and the inability to disprove it. Coherence cannot disprove it own coherence. I also would suggest that most religious traditions have a doctrinal branch which is filled with historically mediated dogma, and a mystical branch which seems less historically mediated. The mystic branches of religion would probably have less problem with this then you imagine. For instance the Sufi thinker al Ghazahi predated Hume’s proof that there is there is no logical connection between a cause and its effect by about 600 years, and proclaimed that it is not logic that connects each event, but God. This is God as the principle of coherence at its most omni-present and philosophically blatant, quite in keeping with the tenets of the Islam Sufism of its day.

what is the use of saying all acts are sacral, all acts are acts of god then?

Well Spinoza would say if you want to find God, you don’t have to submit to the mediation of religious institutions. He might also say that in coming to understand things under the form of eternity, i.e. having adequate ideas, you become a more active being, and therefore live a happier (eudaimonic) life. The understanding of the causes around you and your aligning yourself with them becomes a sacral and empowering act. Its like the difference between being washed down the stream and swimming down the stream. The purpose of naming it “God” is simply to provide the sense of coherence to the process. Call it whatever you like though.



autophoron
 
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Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Mark, you may want to check out the saner elements of Wicca.

As Doreen Valiene -- one of the founding mothers of Wicca -- expressed it not long before she died (roughly, from memory) "the gods may be powerful, they may be magically powerful, they may manifest in the most convincing manner possible, but they are not real".
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
autophoron said:
The key point may be hidden in the "can". So is the sacral in the act?
or is it an observer attitude to acts? And any act really? or just
ritual acts?


This is a profound question. What I suspect is that all acts are structuring and therefore sacral. Following Spinoza in that God is in all things, then all acts are acts of God. The variant is the knowing of the sub-agent. Knowing in my book produces Being, so unconscious knowing draws certain things into being and conscious knowing draws other things into being. The intentionality within a ritual is an aspect of knowing, it is a coherence of power, but this is only a specific type of assemblage. If the universe is an immanent process, all acts are sacral, from the collapse of stars to picking your teeth with a toothpick.

doesn't there have to be some kind of encounter with the "numinous" for the act or ritual to be sacral -- either originally or down the road as redemption/renewal

that is, the discussion b/w borderpolice and autopheron of ritual as repetition that serves to spatialize time and orient the subject seems to me reminiscent of heidegger's discussion of the fundamental orientated-ness of dasein (being there) and the subject's ready-to-hand relation to the world of meanings and things

heidegger calls this mode of existence "inauthentic" and then goes on to assert that through an encounter with the numinous, or the radical un-ground that grounds, dasein (i.e., the always situated subject) may redeem (and reorient) the world as a set of (hierarchic) relations, such that the mode of existence is now authentic = sacral attitude

HOWEVER, i'm not trying to obscure what's under discussion here by introducing heidegger's difficult terminology, that is, i'd much rather see this discussion stay focused on the possibility of a non-transcendent, earthly religion w/ particular reference to spinoza and lacan

even so, heidegger's notions of ready-to-hand and present-to-hand, as well as authentic versus inauthentic modes of existing, seems to me relevant to a discussion of ritual
 
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dominic

Beast of Burden
k-punk said:
1. What is non-theism?

i think that non-theism means breaking away, in the first instance, from the notion of efficient causation -- i.e., that some entity "made" the universe or set into motion the principles & processes that animate/govern the universe

why must the universe have a beginning? -- this is the question that non-theism asks -- and never receiving an answer, the non-theist need not resort to gods -- i.e., the need for god or gods arises only with the positing of the beginning -- the non-theist begins with the fact of "thrown-ness" -- i.e., we find ourselves thrown into this universe -- and it is intellectual probity that prevents the non-theist from positing that which he does not know = he does not know whether there was ever a beginning

i.e., the notion of the beginning is anthropomorphic = it assumes that the universe was made in the same way that men make things

but in nature there are never beginnngs = only cycles punctuated by cross-pollination and genetic mutation

k-punk said:
2. What would a non-theistic religion look like?

i don't know much about voodoo -- however, i gather that both k-punk and blissblogger have read several works on the subject -- so if they're at all sympathetic to voodoo, maybe they could explain what they like about voodoo -- again, they may not be sympathetic to voodoo -- but i have some very vague and lazy notion of voodoo that i think is the true religion -- and yet i actually haven't delved into the matter

for a simple account of voodoo, i offer this:

swagga.com on voodoo said:
Within the voodoo society, there are no accidents. Practitioners believe that nothing and no event has a life of its own. That is why "vous deux", you two, you too. The universe is all one. Each thing affects something else. Scientists know that. Nature knows it. Many spiritualists agree that we are not separate, we all serve as parts of One. So, in essence, what you do unto another, you do unto you, because you ARE the other. Voo doo. View you. We are mirrors of each others souls. God is manifest through the spirits of ancestors who can bring good or harm and must be honored in ceremonies. There is a sacred cycle between the living and the dead. Believers ask for their misery to end. Rituals include prayers, drumming, dancing, singing and animal sacrifice.

The serpent figures heavily in the Voodoo faith. The word Voodoo has been translated as "the snake under whose auspices gather all who share the faith". The high priest and/or priestess of the faith (often called Papa or Maman) are the vehicles for the expression of the serpent's power. The supreme deity is Bon Dieu. There are hundreds of spirits called Loa who control nature, health, wealth and happiness of mortals. The Loa form a pantheon of deities that include Damballah, Ezili, Ogu, Agwe, Legba and others. During Voodoo ceremonies these Loa can possess the bodies of the ceremony participants. Loa appear by "possessing" the faithful, who in turn become the Loa, relaying advice, warnings and desires. Voodoo is an animist faith. That is, objects and natural phenomena are believed to possess holy significance, to possess a soul. Thus the Loa Agwe is the divine presence behind the hurricane.

Music and dance are key elements to Voodoo ceremonies. Ceremonies were often termed by whites "Night Dancing" or "Voodoo Dancing". This dancing is not simply a prelude to sexual frenzy, as it has often been portrayed. The dance is an expression of spirituality, of connection with divinity and the spirit world.

my suggestion is not that we embrace voodoo as it exists

rather, perhaps voodoo is more amenable to spinozism than are other religions

plus voodoo seems more akin to our own experience of music, which is the closest thing we've got to religion

so why not re-work voodoo?

k=punk said:
Is there any point in continuing to use a concept like "religion" at all?

isn't the (etymological) meaning of religion to "bind back to the origin"?

so religion consists in a binding back

by re-enacting (or celebrating) the originary encounter w/ the numinous = the Event that forms the subject

and by so doing we bind ourselves more closely to each other participant in the religion, i.e., with each other Subject of the Truth of the numinal/originary Event = to put the matter in Badiou's terms


obviously the great difficulty is in integrating the Spinozist "eternal" position w/ the Heidegger/Badiou "ecstatico-temporal" position

that is, perhaps these positions are antagonistic and there is no resolution to be had

that is, is there any room for an encounter with the numinous w/in the Spinozist scheme?

which is to say, can the Spinozist scheme account for the qualitative difference of authentic vs. inauthentic modes of existence

(and i of course pose these questions despite having no understanding of Spinoza -- i read the Ethics and my eyes glaze over as i try to make sense of the argument & the geometrical method -- i.e., i'm too damn lazy to face the task)
 
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