....worst aspects of their egos projected onto the world . . .
-now you're just being mean.
...it's something I've thought for quite a while: naturalist/materialist/pomod/agnostic/athieistic thought has nearly done for ethics what the soviet union did for economics.
...it's something I've thought for quite a while: naturalist/materialist/pomod/agnostic/athieistic thought has nearly done for ethics what the soviet union did for economics.
What the hell are you talking about? Lets take a look at some ethical individuals: Newt Gingrich (womanizer, divorced what three times), Bill Bennett (Habitual Gambler that threw millions down the Vegas drains), Billy Graham (attributed watergate on satanic jews), Jim Bakker (defrauded countless old folks of their $$ in the name of god and lets now forget Jessica), Pat Robertson (man this guy is a crooked as they come). Yeah I see where one could attribute ethics to religion.
What the hell are you talking about? Lets take a look at some ethical individuals: Newt Gingrich (womanizer, divorced what three times), Bill Bennett (Habitual Gambler that threw millions down the Vegas drains), Billy Graham (attributed watergate on satanic jews), Jim Bakker (defrauded countless old folks of their $$ in the name of god and lets now forget Jessica), Pat Robertson (man this guy is a crooked as they come). Yeah I see where one could attribute ethics to religion.
I could go on, but I have to get some shut eye.
I wouldn't get sidetracked into the cult of personality.\
" (snip) It should trouble us that one of the greatest successes of the so-called collapse of totalizing meta-narratives or of any attempts to establish truth, meaning and value is the production of the ideal late-capitalist consumer, whose objectives stretch no further than acquiring something, reducing it to rubbish, and going on to the next desirable commodity."
--Janet Martin Soskice,
The quote you make, while erroneously conflating the social sciences with late-capitalist consumerism, does of course miss one more important point in this context.
The particular Christian fundamentalists this thread is about have wedded their doctrine to the preservation of what they percieve as the successful, 'end of history' American economic experiment. "The American Way of Life is not for negotiation," they say, and wish to impose Western democracy on (say) Iraq so it can benefit and be a beacon to the area. I wish I find that quote from a General talking about how it would now be safe for the McDonalds and Coca Colas of this world to go to Iraq now.
You (via your quote) are blaming the social sciences for the nihilism present in late capitalism. What a joke. These particular Christian flag-wavers consider the culture of consumption an idea the world should (and wants to) follow; they see the world as Americans-manqué. You don't like late capitalism? Blame the corporations; blame the Christian fundies in government who love it (but not Christianity). They'd like to spread it round the world, and it's going to bring them down.
Harald, I don't think the fundies actually have that much pull anywhere.
One my pet peeves with my Dipensational/Premillenial/Evangelical brothers is a gnostic/manichean impulse that is probelmatic when engaing the culture. (In at least a few ways the Evangelicals are in a faustian pact with the ambient culture.) In a way it seems you are left with "giving your testimony" and nothing else that is culturally relevant. "Christian rap" anyone?
I might blame some in the evangelical camp for tacitly following some aspects of popular culture---but you can't blame that on Christianity per se.
I might blame some in the evangelical camp for tacitly following some aspects of popular culture---but you can't blame that on Christianity per se.
Obviously you can't blame anything on Christianity, because Christianity is the Right and True Path. Anything bad that happens due to people who call themselves Christian is a fluke, an abberation, or things done by people who aren't true Christians. And besides, whether Christians behave well or not is besides the point -- whatever they do is forgiven, that's the important thing. Faith not deeds, ya know.
Oh, but you can heap blame high and deep on anything that isn't Christianity, especially (gasp!) any sort of Godless so-called intellectualism -- if it's not of God, it's of The Devil, as we all know. Why worry about whether Social Ill X or Immorality Y actually has any real cause-and-effect relationship with non-Christian Philosophy Z, why worry whether X or Y reflect the beliefs of "true" adherents to Z?
No, no... Z is BAD, by definition, because it isn't Christianity, and you don't have to be thorough or thoughtful when critizing Z. We know it's the Devil's Work, so scorn away!
I think in the case of consumerism it's pretty cut and dry.
How so?
After all consuming is part of the process of any culture . . . somewhere there is a mid-point where it suddenly becomes 'Consumerism'?
One moment normal living, the next, a whole culture, (as if it could be so singular of an entity! ) is entirely written off as 'Consumerism'?
Seems like you're stopping at the 'manichian/gnostic' impulse there yourself?
People don't need to BUY the party line of what G-d is in order to find values in a Nihilistic age: in fact I rather think that what is TRULY HARD is for people to understand what Nihilism really means: they can't let go of their values even if they try they cannot NOT believe even if they try . . . 'Nihilism' is thrown around as if it was a commonly understood inability to find meaning, but I think that the truth is more like this: very few can understand how values are not inherent, very few can truly feel Nihilism, and fewer still can overcome it after that . . .
two post-nihilism Paths: active and passive (take the old Nietzschean dichotomy here) Passive: despair, killing people in high school, ulcers and bitterness
active: make things, make, remake, awake
I also think that Herald hit the problem on the head with that quote: blame 'Consumerism' for the bads and say we need their kind of god, but notice that they (the apocalyspe-mongers-of-this-thread) are the primary spokespeople for this so called 'Consumeristic' way of life . . . after all, isn't it 'the American way"?
(I think the 'American way' is actually much more complex than some single vision . . . but I'lll leave that there for now)
....but notice that they (the apocalyspe-mongers-of-this-thread) are the primary spokespeople for this so called 'Consumeristic' way of life . . . after all, isn't it 'the American way"?
(I think the 'American way' is actually much more complex than some single vision . . . but I'lll leave that there for now)
I think that this is a place where Christians have "fallen down" in being proactive with respect to everyday life. There is something of a retreat in some Christian circles to the Rush-Limbaugh/Mom and apple pie/Ford Tailfin/Ozzy and Harriet/South-will-rise-again thing where Christian thought gets defeated by that gnostic impluse; left to rehashing "fundie" ideas "somewhere out of a memory of quite streets on quite nights."
Maybe that's what bugs you guys subconciously about Chrsitianity---all those great metaphysics going to seed.
Surely, let's get beyond metaphysics . . . or start doing and being.
One answer as to why Christianity for many: why weeds in my garden? the answer: that that's where the seeds landed: the dandelions are plentiful because there were so many dandelions there allready
== I'll just note that I do like much of Christian thought . . . but much stuff at the margins: Thomas JJ Altizer's book . . . Biblical Eschatology and Eastern Mysticism is good . . . he later gets a little too doctrinaire for me . . .
Comments
Originally posted by pfflam
....worst aspects of their egos projected onto the world . . .
-now you're just being mean.
...it's something I've thought for quite a while: naturalist/materialist/pomod/agnostic/athieistic thought has nearly done for ethics what the soviet union did for economics.
Originally posted by dmz
-now you're just being mean.
...it's something I've thought for quite a while: naturalist/materialist/pomod/agnostic/athieistic thought has nearly done for ethics what the soviet union did for economics.
What the hell are you talking about? Lets take a look at some ethical individuals: Newt Gingrich (womanizer, divorced what three times), Bill Bennett (Habitual Gambler that threw millions down the Vegas drains), Billy Graham (attributed watergate on satanic jews), Jim Bakker (defrauded countless old folks of their $$ in the name of god and lets now forget Jessica), Pat Robertson (man this guy is a crooked as they come). Yeah I see where one could attribute ethics to religion.
I could go on, but I have to get some shut eye.
Originally posted by faust9
What the hell are you talking about? Lets take a look at some ethical individuals: Newt Gingrich (womanizer, divorced what three times), Bill Bennett (Habitual Gambler that threw millions down the Vegas drains), Billy Graham (attributed watergate on satanic jews), Jim Bakker (defrauded countless old folks of their $$ in the name of god and lets now forget Jessica), Pat Robertson (man this guy is a crooked as they come). Yeah I see where one could attribute ethics to religion.
I could go on, but I have to get some shut eye.
I wouldn't get sidetracked into the cult of personality.
Originally posted by dmz
" (snip) It should trouble us that one of the greatest successes of the so-called collapse of totalizing meta-narratives or of any attempts to establish truth, meaning and value is the production of the ideal late-capitalist consumer, whose objectives stretch no further than acquiring something, reducing it to rubbish, and going on to the next desirable commodity."
--Janet Martin Soskice,
The quote you make, while erroneously conflating the social sciences with late-capitalist consumerism, does of course miss one more important point in this context.
The particular Christian fundamentalists this thread is about have wedded their doctrine to the preservation of what they percieve as the successful, 'end of history' American economic experiment. "The American Way of Life is not for negotiation," they say, and wish to impose Western democracy on (say) Iraq so it can benefit and be a beacon to the area. I wish I find that quote from a General talking about how it would now be safe for the McDonalds and Coca Colas of this world to go to Iraq now.
You (via your quote) are blaming the social sciences for the nihilism present in late capitalism. What a joke. These particular Christian flag-wavers consider the culture of consumption an idea the world should (and wants to) follow; they see the world as Americans-manqué. You don't like late capitalism? Blame the corporations; blame the Christian fundies in government who love it (but not Christianity). They'd like to spread it round the world, and it's going to bring them down.
One my pet peeves with my Dipensational/Premillenial/Evangelical brothers is a gnostic/manichean impulse that is probelmatic when engaing the culture. (In at least a few ways the Evangelicals are in a faustian pact with the ambient culture.) In a way it seems you are left with "giving your testimony" and nothing else that is culturally relevant. "Christian rap" anyone?
I might blame some in the evangelical camp for tacitly following some aspects of popular culture---but you can't blame that on Christianity per se.
Originally posted by dmz
I might blame some in the evangelical camp for tacitly following some aspects of popular culture---but you can't blame that on Christianity per se.
Obviously you can't blame anything on Christianity, because Christianity is the Right and True Path. Anything bad that happens due to people who call themselves Christian is a fluke, an abberation, or things done by people who aren't true Christians. And besides, whether Christians behave well or not is besides the point -- whatever they do is forgiven, that's the important thing. Faith not deeds, ya know.
Oh, but you can heap blame high and deep on anything that isn't Christianity, especially (gasp!) any sort of Godless so-called intellectualism -- if it's not of God, it's of The Devil, as we all know. Why worry about whether Social Ill X or Immorality Y actually has any real cause-and-effect relationship with non-Christian Philosophy Z, why worry whether X or Y reflect the beliefs of "true" adherents to Z?
No, no... Z is BAD, by definition, because it isn't Christianity, and you don't have to be thorough or thoughtful when critizing Z. We know it's the Devil's Work, so scorn away!
I think in the case of consumerism it's pretty cut and dry.
Originally posted by dmz
That was weird shetline.
I think in the case of consumerism it's pretty cut and dry.
How so?
After all consuming is part of the process of any culture . . . somewhere there is a mid-point where it suddenly becomes 'Consumerism'?
One moment normal living, the next, a whole culture, (as if it could be so singular of an entity! ) is entirely written off as 'Consumerism'?
Seems like you're stopping at the 'manichian/gnostic' impulse there yourself?
People don't need to BUY the party line of what G-d is in order to find values in a Nihilistic age: in fact I rather think that what is TRULY HARD is for people to understand what Nihilism really means: they can't let go of their values even if they try they cannot NOT believe even if they try . . . 'Nihilism' is thrown around as if it was a commonly understood inability to find meaning, but I think that the truth is more like this: very few can understand how values are not inherent, very few can truly feel Nihilism, and fewer still can overcome it after that . . .
two post-nihilism Paths: active and passive (take the old Nietzschean dichotomy here) Passive: despair, killing people in high school, ulcers and bitterness
active: make things, make, remake, awake
I also think that Herald hit the problem on the head with that quote: blame 'Consumerism' for the bads and say we need their kind of god, but notice that they (the apocalyspe-mongers-of-this-thread) are the primary spokespeople for this so called 'Consumeristic' way of life . . . after all, isn't it 'the American way"?
(I think the 'American way' is actually much more complex than some single vision . . . but I'lll leave that there for now)
Originally posted by pfflam
....but notice that they (the apocalyspe-mongers-of-this-thread) are the primary spokespeople for this so called 'Consumeristic' way of life . . . after all, isn't it 'the American way"?
(I think the 'American way' is actually much more complex than some single vision . . . but I'lll leave that there for now)
I think that this is a place where Christians have "fallen down" in being proactive with respect to everyday life. There is something of a retreat in some Christian circles to the Rush-Limbaugh/Mom and apple pie/Ford Tailfin/Ozzy and Harriet/South-will-rise-again thing where Christian thought gets defeated by that gnostic impluse; left to rehashing "fundie" ideas "somewhere out of a memory of quite streets on quite nights."
Maybe that's what bugs you guys subconciously about Chrsitianity---all those great metaphysics going to seed.
One antitdote.
the Philip Jenkins book review is pretty good
One answer as to why Christianity for many: why weeds in my garden? the answer: that that's where the seeds landed: the dandelions are plentiful because there were so many dandelions there allready
== I'll just note that I do like much of Christian thought . . . but much stuff at the margins: Thomas JJ Altizer's book . . . Biblical Eschatology and Eastern Mysticism is good . . . he later gets a little too doctrinaire for me . . .