I seriously don't see any difference between raising your kids to fear imaginary deity and raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers tbh and think in many respects the former is preferable

The French

Because instilling your seeds with a healthy respect for a status quo that's undeniably destroying the world is worse than encouraging them to be nice to other people so the big invisible punishment pixie doesn't get all smitey on their asses.

I mean I dunno there are shades and shades and shades and shades here, but no challop I wd rather be a monk than a stockbroker.

i wholeheartedly agree with this tbh

this is commendably ridiculous

at least good consumers contribute to society, y'know?

to a fucked society? good work, fellas.

the religious just instigate smiting/hang around waiting for the smiting to start

consumerist literature pushed through my letterbox might conceivably be of some use to me, as might some of the produce of a consumerist society.

people will always needs basic goods, they'll hopefully grow out of the need for magic

I should've called this Monk vs Stockbroker. I like that Ezra Pound devotes a chunk of The Cantos to hating on both, he is probly right on this score except for the whole anti-semitic right wing nutjob unfortunateness.

Still, the idea of "contributing" is an intriguing one that needs a proper dissection while we contribute to The Culture.

the gradual erosion of the need for magic will hopefully lead to a societal norm where humans act like maybe they have some responsibility/say in where things are headed, or help to focus otherwise distracted/misplaced attention in this direction

wars are fought over religion and political ideology- at least with political ideology wars there's a chance that the winner was right

Does the idea of monkdom/hermitage contribute something to the world for starters? Paradigm of simple life? Good works etc? I mean a lot of Western monks used to do farming/caring for sick/preserving Classical literature etc etc. I think some monks still do good for other people now. Problem with my argument is obv that doing good is really the same as other means of preserving the status quo but still

At least as fucked as society is there's no chance that any religions have contributed in any way to that fuckedness. I mean the Catholic Church eg has done nothing but good for the world amirite?

I completely agree that religion is at best some training wheels long overdue for discarding btw, that isn't my beef. I wd prefer people to be clear-sighted logical materialists striving to bring on the Uebermensch but y'know I've met a lot of people and let's not get carried away here.

And we have plenty of lol Dawkins threads so let's try to steer this in a slightly different direction which is more "is raising children in a moderate benevolent religion any worse than raising them in a moderate benevolent capitalism?"

Idealised examples of a better way of doing things can be produced for almost any rhetoric though? If only everyone acted rationally then perfect capitalism would work etc

oops xp

both are horrible and stupid. only one is bad parenting tho, the other is just delusional parenting.

which is which?

and why is 'raising your kids to be law-abiding passive consumers' either?

the only objectionable word is 'passive' and fuck that being more damaging to the individual or society than an unquestionable omnipotent fairytale

I think this is a failing of many militant atheists tho. It's a bit like those Rogan Taylor-y football guys who don't seem to have beef with any of the workings of society outside of football, but think somehow football can exist as some kind of mung bean commune inside the big nasty real world. Plenty atheists seem to think that religion is this separate oddity outside of the societies that shape it and those societies wd be more or less peachy if the religion bit just disappeared? People need magical hope because the world is shit and scary, surely?

xpost

Y'know I was v. unhappy with the word "passive" from the beginning and I don't know if I kept it for rhetorical fannydangle or cos I wanted to get at the idea of "actively supporting the status quo".

can't we trust people to work without religion, and without becoming textbook automatons? obviously.

what's the reciprocal question? 'can't we trust passively raised consumers to.....what?'

People need magical hope because the world is shit and scary, surely?

people need truth because the world is shit and scary, as plainly presented and accurate as it can be found.

truth isn't consumerism, and it isn't communion, but which would we come up with in the morning having been reset to original settings?

something about trusting passively raised consumers to go "hang on this alternately groovy/unbearably mundane lifestyle is unsustainable plus I am fucking over swathes of people to live it maybe some serious change might be in order"

eh with benefit of 2000 years of accumulated observed science that is.

I agree with the OP's premise. Children need metaphors. A bit of lite Anglicanism is a decent way to persuade them that there is more to life than cash. Plus, later on, it gives them enough cultural heritage that they can feel warm and fuzzy and nostalgic while slightly drunk at midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

religion can give people big picture thoughts which I think are necessary and religion is maybe more likely to induce those thoughts than the straw man happy shopper I'm weaving?

that was sort of to darragh but I basically agreed with mr Coin there.

People who are certain are dangerous. This applies to both ends of the spectrum. Cheerful agnosticism is this country's greatest invention, after queuing and pubs.

I dunno, my tolerance doesn't really extend to saying "hey, we've all got a point" so much as defending people's right to be wrong about stuff that doesn't matter much.

the only thing is that growing up in an overwhelmingly catholic atmosphere pretty much demonstrates the these two things are NOT mutually exclusive

I'm sure they dance hand in hand a lot. I'm reading Baltasar and Blimunda at the moment which is about lol 18th century Portugal and Saramago does a good job of reminding you how the Church used to be the brainwashing arm of the State. "Used to be" I guess.

capitalist economics is today's theology, innit.

being passive gonna make ppl vote for mr. nicey 'dave' cameron instead of having opinions that clarkson didn't tell them- thats what that word in this context means to me anyway.

xpost

I think it sort of is, tho it probably always has been as long as it's existed. French revolutionaries mostly good atheists and a lot of the US revolutionaries pretty much Deists in disguise. I know this is no duh but it does make the war vs Jesus more complicated than progressives vs reactionaries.

Sorry let's be honest mostly this is the war vs Allah cos he naughty God whereas Jesus mostly funny/cuddly.

Martin Amis not dropping any "compulsory internment for all Women's Institute members" essays any time soon.

6 billion and rising answers to yr point about 'everyone should get enough to get along' NV

multiple xposts due to work fubar

I mean if your beef is w/passive consumerism + capitalist theology, I hardly think that religious acculturation is the road to questioning authority. Except for maybe Jesuits and lapsed Catholics, challenging God is seen as kind of a bad thing.

passive my arse. i'm an active consumer.

PROTESTANT <--- the clue is in the name

TS: Being one of the flock vs. being one of the sheeple

Children need metaphors

metaphors = easy lies

better to live an easy/happy life based on a big lie or a hard/unhappy life based on a thousand small and nasty truths?

i mean, tbh when someone starts throwing 'mataphors' i find it hard to read it as anything other than 'i don't consider you capable of dealing with the facts'

'mataphors' = bullshitfighters i dunno

Difference in outcome more or less negligible.

Only seen the first Matrix but there is yr classic example of not really selling the small nasty truths world as being better than the big lie.

Fuck it. Religion is a negative on the brain, I don't doubt that overall. But as it exists for lots of its adherents its not a bigger brain-negative than all the other bollocksy ideas people carry around and I still think it's less of a brain-negative in its philosophical possibilities than the leading brand of brain detergent.

yes and the only reason people need metaphors is because they are STUPID and cannot "HANDLE FACTS" not because different people think differently and some people think in black and white facts and some people think in symbols and significators

the way you think is a one size fits all approach that works for EVERYONE yes omg i am bowled over by your superior logic

I liked Mordy's contribution upthread. Going to school from K-12 with smart Jewish kids showed me the cultural benefits of growing up in a faith where questioning authority/order is implicit; it also gave me a dim view of those whose beliefs were more rigid/couldn't 'take' questioning. REPEAT: if something is strong it can wear all the repeated questioning.

INTERESTING, HMMMM: ever since I was old enough to object to religion, the Abrahamic concept of original sin makes me think that any woman who is devout within its three religions has a whopper of a case of Stockholm syndrome.

I think explanations of how the free-market creates inequality and talk of alienation do go together.

Definitely traditions of doubt in lots of religions. I think looking inside & explaining religion in terms of personal impulses or biological make-up gives you a very incomplete view. Although there is a long history of religious dudes cutting themselves off to go inside and find God or whatever, most religious practise has come about through social interaction. I still think religion is a social phenomenon first, built on community and shared conventions, and I see the ultra-personal form of religion post-Luther or whatever as being almost a form of proto-atheism anyway.

hey I don't actually have anything to say as I haven't read it but if you're into the mystical hogwash side of capitalism / consumerism then I hear that this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Theology-Money-Philip-Goodchild/dp/0334041422/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264603068&sr=8-1 is good stuff.

Original Sin, unless you're using it in a way I'm not familiar with, isn't present in Islam or Judaism. Just in Christianity. xp2 suzy

Obviously even in christianity ppl pick and choose w/the bible/christian tradition all the time, and original sin is a deserved asthmatic fat kid lots of ppl don't want on their team.

suzy maybe talkin' more about the fall I'm guessing?

Yeah again I think there are plenty of churches you could go to for a decade and it'd never come up.

Ognor, you could attend Christian Science churches for 20 years before you needed a blood transfusion. Somehow female subjugation comes up, either in lesson or as a subliminal. I'm not down with using either original sin or fall myths as a go-to for why women 'deserve' to be subjugated by men (usually when 'because I said so' fails).

i'm sure this thread is FULLA enlightenment but wtf @ bringing kid-raising into it, let them color and play in sandboxes and shit

and not worry about them learning right from wrong?

it wuz a passing comment on another thread that darragh suggested we take out for a run round, also it made a change from "False Consciousness: C/D?"

Yeah again I think there are plenty of churches you could go to for a decade and it'd never come up.

― ogmor, Wednesday, January 27, 2010 2:48 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Somehow female subjugation comes up, either in lesson or as a subliminal.

Again tho, this happens plenty outside of monotheism plus I strongly doubt that religion itself wd transform an otherwise liberal and decent guy into a jerkwad - jerkwads tend to bring their jerkwaddery to the party imo

Even if I thought some things were essential to Christianity, female subjugation wouldn't be one of them, even tho its track record is awful. I have never heard of vacation bible school and suspect the same is true of lots of ppl. Anyway gotta leave you ppl to it.

I think a lot of you would dig The Evolution of God

The book is essentially about how "facts on the ground" tend to dictate the principles and theologies of religion -- for instance "loving your brother" emerging as a response to trade conditions, or monotheism as a feature of isolationism.

Noodles, the jerkwaddery happens because our culture has been constructed around the premise of male primacy for 6000 years. That comes with entitlement issues that just plain would not occur in a world that did not bust out the ultimate dick move of claiming an offstage deity said man was the boss of woman.

Mordy, monotheism seems to have become more accessible as an idea because of the evolving ability to comprehend abstract notions past myth or metaphor; also humanity learned to better control its surroundings compared to times where polyteism prevailed. You went from this poly situation where the divine is in everything, to a mono situation where it is distinct and outside, with a fun interim where religion = soap opera of the pantheon.

that book looks cool, Mordy. I've been reading Alain Badiou's book on St. Paul, which very very briefly touches on some of the political maneuvering in the early centuries of the Christian Church leading up to the consolidation of the Gospels, and it's been totally fascinating for me, Mr. Lifelong Atheist Hardman.

so suzy, acc. to the theory of this book, monotheism developed because Josiah, backed by a bunch of isolationist traders, pushed for Yahweh as the only God at a time when His iconographic stock was really high in Israel. He kicked the other gods out of the Temple, etc. Acc. to Hume, by contrast, Monotheism developed because pagans kept topping themselves in their praise of their Gods until one of them was like, "Oh, yeah? My God is so great, He's infinite," and that kinda ended the game because if your God is infinite that means he's the only God.

And yeah, obviously you're right that stuff like understanding astronomy helped with that. It doesn't make sense to say that a God is responsible for the tides when you can calculate them, or eclipses, etc. That's kinda the source of a lot of Greek stuff.

Mordy, your book sounds cool; the above was just my own hypothesis. I've been having to read a ton of Joseph Campbell myth etc. books which are (of course) big on the embedded history metaphor and syncretism, most of which I can get down with (and no sign of the country club anti-Semitism people used to mention in the '80s PC wars jumps out with any immediacy).

I <3 the idea of the pantheon as quarreling family, each with a job to do and interdependent.

the gradual erosion of the need for magic will hopefully lead to a societal norm where humans act like maybe they have some responsibility/say in where things are headed, or help to focus otherwise distracted/misplaced attention in this direction

super late to the game but you realize that this will never, ever happen, right

yeah, that quote fucks up the casualty

so many false binaries I feel Momus may appear

where's the false binary? Noodle wasn't like T|S Consumerism / Religion. Obv you can do both if you really want

Again tho, this happens plenty outside of monotheism plus I strongly doubt that religion itself wd transform an otherwise liberal and decent guy into a jerkwad - jerkwads tend to bring their jerkwaddery to the party imo

I am not a jerkwad and I wasn't an un-questioning disciple even when I was IN the system, but I learned the subjugation lesson all too well. Don't underestimate how much this forms the underpinnings of worldview and self-view.

T|S Consumerism / Religion might as well be the thread title, dude. The only thing I'll say is that both should either be looked at in practice or in their ideal textbook definitions. Looking at consumerism in practice vs religion up on the shelf is gaming the T|S.

Laurel, ty for that, until you showed I was the only nun in the abbey.

this thread title is fuckkkkkked and i don't really understand what is being argued by it

Anyway, off to my Queer + Religion class to discuss American religion + consumerism!

If only somebody had bothered to explain.

well since disbelief in god is implied in the thread title and first post i don't even see how it's a choice?

Just wanted to lay down a lot of dogmatic false dichotomies tbh

well then excellent job my dude

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2206/1770894668_27ac604ffc.jpg?v=0

you really nailed it ;)

had to run w/a work mess there for a while, basically after a quick read through suzy covering most of my viewpoint.

the way you think is a one size fits all approach that works for EVERYONE yes omg i am bowled over by your superior logic

― Karen Tregaskin, 27 January 2010 13:08 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

hmmm. i'm pretty sure i explicitly stated that was 'for me'. YMMV and all that, but if something so trifling is enough for you to go off the handle like that then i guess asking you to read the post is a bit of a waste of time in any case.

the tone of the thread has hardly been crazy confrontational or anything, as NV said we're just musing away a wednesday lonely guys/girls just thinking baout things.

Darragh, you did pretty much say that stories & metaphors and anything except the literal truth (to the extent that we can even know it) is for weaklings and fraidy cats and imbeciles. I would have refuted that myself except Karen & others beat me to it and then the thread moved on.

well then i will fight u now madam

if it came across like that (as i've said i was dipping in and out in a kind of hurry) then apologies that it came off like that. most anything i come out with on ilx carries an unspoken 'this is from my limited, graceless and impatient POV' and if i could find a way to add that to my username then i think i'd get into a lot less trouble.

IRL my eyebrows are v funny and soften the tone of anything i say somewhat

Pistols at dawn iirc

my catholic upbringing forbids violence towards women i think

except on an institutional level obv

i think there's a potential for religious beliefs to be a) liberal and questioning, and b) oppositional to the worst excesses of free market fuckwittery.

yeah this is how mine are, or how i want them to be, at least. in particular, the way i think of individual worth is very much based in the idea of people's inherent value, and very opposed to the rationalistic self-transformation model that i think western capitalism pushes. and while my deeply held belief about that existed before i became christian, it's one of the few things i've always believed based on a sort of inexplicable faith, and religion gives me a vocabulary to talk about it and a worldview to fit it into. religious beliefs are less important in opposing the excessive oppressions of capitalism, i think, because there's a strong moral case to be made for social justice in purely secular terms.

Thread premise: false dichotomy.

http://www.hypeful.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/groundhogday.jpg

xpost
unfortunately your inscription of that lack within the thread has now become the very condition of the thread's possibility

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/groundhogday.jpg

did I just xpost continental philosophy across an empty signifier

I'm gettin' too old for this shit

Fuckin' groundhogs, always driving with their id.