Religious Rumble 2020: Fedoras vs Magic

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Malkina_: May 13, 2020; by Fluffdaddy

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/religion/index.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyJ2azwmtoo

Malkina_ has issued a correction as of 04:09 on Oct 25, 2020

# ? Oct 25, 2020 03:08

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# ? May 4, 2024 21:23

Hodgepodge: Jan 29, 2006; Can't post for 236 days!

RasperFat posted:

Lol I’ve never seen that before.

Is it a full length movie?

yeah, though that's the only part I actually remember

# ? Oct 25, 2020 04:19

Zongerian: Apr 23, 2020; by Cyrano4747

Pulvis Sumus posted:

I'm a Buddhist chaplain working in a healthcare setting at the moment, I'll throw my two cents in. I'll start off by saying that I recognize the exploitation and destruction that has been engendered by religion and none of this is meant to ignore that - I want to be sensitive to the fact that religious trauma is real and I do not wish to be dismissive of that pain despite my involvement with religion. With regard to my own personal experiences, I initially found value in engagement with religion because in a period of great suffering I was desperately seeking some form of community within a capitalist society that pushes us more and more towards atomization and alienation with each passing day. As traditional models for community continue to breakdown, I find very little is offered up as a substantial alternative. Within religion I also discovered the importance of ritual and liturgy for making meaning out of our lives, for sharing grief as well as joy, for creating communal memory, for providing otherwise absent material relief/social safety nets, and for providing a way for people to explore the human condition together. Obviously, as others have pointed out, this has historically been done poorly, but I've encountered a number of healthy religious communities who've managed to do this in such a way that brings value into the lives of their members without traumatizing them with hateful baggage. I wish that was more common. I don't believe religion is the only way to accomplish community like this, but I personally haven't found many alternatives that emulate this well. We are creatures of language - we employ narrative and symbolism to organize our conceptualization of the world, and religion provides a way of doing that which can be aesthetically rich and meaningful in a way that I personally didn't really find possible with secular humanism since it by and large lacks the liturgical, symbolic, and shared communal life that is embodied in religious communities. Even if the literal cosmology is false, I think there are elements with these stories and symbols that have the potential to communicate profound insight into what it means to be human and can be the the source of some serious wisdom. Again, I will preface that this is my personal take on it, and I'm not dissing on secular humanism. If that's what works for you, more power to you. I don't think everyone needs religion, but I think there a lot of people who do end up finding a need for it in some way or another. I end up seeing most of my patients while they're in a time of incredible crisis/suffering/loss, and most of them, even those who don't have a particular religious affiliation, turn to the chaplain to provide some sort of framework for them to articulate their suffering. I don't provide concrete answers and it's certainly not my job to evangelize to them (nor would I find it ethical to do so), but I do help explore what it all means for them through these symbols/stories while providing a presence that lets them know they're not alone. I think that's what I find is the work of authentic spiritual praxis - alienation lies at the heart of the human condition, and the work of a healthy spirituality is to wake up to our relationality and the intimate existence we all share with one another. The material and social conditions engendered by capitalism, unfortunately, provides added difficulties in actualizing/realizing this.

Additionally, I found within Buddhism what I presently deem to be an accurate assessment of the ontological status of reality in the concept of Emptiness - there's no individual there, but an interconnected web of interdependent phenomena that is subject to flux. This had powerful implications for me, and provided the framework for me to challenge a lot of the western individualist freewill bootstrapping bullshit that I think is really harmful to our world. Suddenly there were no free willed agents there simply choosing right or wrong, there were people whose lives were the direct result of causes and effects stretching throughout history into the present that shaped their psychological, social, ideological, and material conditions (i.e. karma).

I saw this in direct contradiction to the way our criminal justice system will simply mangle someone's life by locking them away in a living hell for "choosing" evil instead of considering the ways in which systemic issues might motivate individuals to engage in certain behaviors out of survival among other things. The lesson for me was that we don't exist in a vacuum - we inherit certain conditions which give definition to our lives and shape the way we act in the world, and reshaping systems becomes a way to change those conditions which people inherit, hopefully for their benefit. When considering all of this in terms of our political landscape, I began to consider more and more the need to dismantle capitalism on an ideological and practical level - the destructive notions of free willed individualism that is wrapped up in it may as well be pseudo-science. I'd like to a see system that recognizes our interconnectedness and moves us to wonder what was missing from someone's life, or what factors were at play in shaping their destructive behavior that we might be able to address instead of shoving people into the violent hell of the prison industrial complex and pretending it's somehow therapeutic, restorative, or positively constructive. I was especially inspired by the Buddhist monk Uchiyama Gudo, who was an active anarcho-socialist that interpreted his political philosophy through the lens of Buddhist thought and the Great Vow to save all sentient beings. He advocated for radical land reform/wealth redistribution, the dissolution of the prisons, and the abolition of the Meiji government before being executed by the state for his activism.

Obviously religions are institutions, and even if there are aspects of the religion that speak to something true about the nature of our reality or the way we experience our humanity, and thus provide a way for us to address the human condition, they are still subject to the same ossifying forces and bullshit that plagues every other ideology or institution. I'm personally in favor of more decentralized religions - smaller communities/networks over the grand imperial institutions of the past that served as a way to reinforce class/caste systems. Though, I understand there will always be grifters no matter the size or the power of the institution and that the state inevitably capitalizes on that if it's not already outright supporting it. I'm not sure that's a reason to abandon religion though since that's essentially a problem in everything. I'm not saying religion is a panacea or that everyone ought to be religious in some ways - I don't think you necessarily need religion to find transcendence or community or whatever you might be seeking, but as for myself I have a profound sense of gratitude for the opportunities of religious engagement that I've had, up to and including the current community I'm a part of. Religions aren't monolithic, and some of the more "progressive" factions are going through a period of growing pains where they're trying to figure out how to be relevant in an era that has moved away from ancient models for conceptualizing the world - maybe they will die off and something new will emerge that communicates whatever wisdom is there in another way. Maybe not. Buddhism taught me we continually mistake the map for the territory - I recognize there are a lot of problems within theistic religions whose theological imaginings of the world are grossly at odds with what we've learned through the scientific method (I also won't pretend Buddhism doesn't have its own problems which others in this thread have already pointed out). Maybe we can find a way to reinterpret those stories, symbols, and rituals going forward and discard what isn't useful anymore. Maybe they're better off fading away, I don't have a solid answer. At any rate, I'm not sure how much of that was coherent. It's late, I'm high, and I'd just thought I'd speak to some of my personal experiences and thoughts.

This was an illuminating journey of a post and it was a big disappointment to find out you were just stoned all along at the end

# ? Oct 25, 2020 08:22

Les Os: Mar 29, 2010

for anyone out there who�s interested in stoned ramblings on religion and drugs I�m gonna recommend John M. Allegros the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, which posits that Christianity originated as a psychedelic sex cult and that Jesus symbolizes the fly agaric

# ? Oct 25, 2020 09:47

docbeard: Jul 19, 2011

Malkina_ posted:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/religion/index.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyJ2azwmtoo

After seeing Engels' facial hair megaphone there is no way not to believe in a higher power, if not necessarily a benevolent one.

# ? Oct 25, 2020 10:42

Pulvis Sumus: Jul 27, 2011

Zongerian posted:

This was an illuminating journey of a post and it was a big disappointment to find out you were just stoned all along at the end

Sorry to disappoint. If it means anything I sincerely meant all of what I said and I hope having smoked a bowl doesn't invalidate that.

Les Os posted:

for anyone out there who�s interested in stoned ramblings on religion and drugs I�m gonna recommend John M. Allegros the Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, which posits that Christianity originated as a psychedelic sex cult and that Jesus symbolizes the fly agaric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtiMw0-akAM&ab_channel=Dscanner

I find myself singing this with some regularity.

Pulvis Sumus has issued a correction as of 14:42 on Oct 25, 2020

# ? Oct 25, 2020 14:24

RasperFat: Jul 11, 2006; Uncertainty is inherently unsustainable. Eventually, everything either is or isn't.

Pulvis Sumus posted:

Sorry to disappoint. If it means anything I sincerely meant all of what I said and I hope having smoked a bowl doesn't invalidate that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtiMw0-akAM&ab_channel=Dscanner

I find myself singing this with some regularity.

I don�t think drug use, especially weed, should really have a bearing on whether or not your insights are valid. I�m a regular smoker and I�ve done a decent amount of hallucinogens. They can be a good experience for personal journeys.

I liked Buddhism and dabbled in it as a teenager. Meditation is helpful for calming your mind.

I just find it falls into the same trappings of focusing too much on the human experience. The universe existed long before life did so anything that places too much importance on our emotions is working from a fundamentally skewed perspective. It�s great for introspection, but when we�re talking about the fundamental nature of existence it�s still off for me.

# ? Oct 25, 2020 22:46

RasperFat: Jul 11, 2006; Uncertainty is inherently unsustainable. Eventually, everything either is or isn't.

Hodgepodge posted:

yeah, though that's the only part I actually remember

That scene was fun but I can�t imagine wanting to sit through more than 30ish minutes of that tops.

# ? Oct 25, 2020 22:47

Hodgepodge: Jan 29, 2006; Can't post for 236 days!

RasperFat posted:

That scene was fun but I can’t imagine wanting to sit through more than 30ish minutes of that tops.

yeah, though it does omit jesus' sidekick, the luchador 'el sante'

# ? Oct 25, 2020 22:56

Big Hubris: Mar 8, 2011

He changed the probabilities and ignored athletes demonstrating autonomic control and other talents that fit his standards. He's a carnie.

# ? Oct 28, 2020 23:20

War and Pieces: Apr 24, 2022; DID NOT VOTE FOR FETTERMAN

RasperFat posted:

You need proof that energy is required to make any changes in our universe?

Every piece of information interpreted by your brain is energy, whether its sight or smell or taste or touch or sound or even balance.

It�s a fundamental law of reality. Even a super-dimensional all powerful being would only be capable of making their world knows through the medium of energy.

What are you looking for exactly?

Would what Neo does within the Matrix be read by scientists within the Matrix as exerting energy?

# ? Oct 1, 2022 12:21

RasperFat: Jul 11, 2006; Uncertainty is inherently unsustainable. Eventually, everything either is or isn't.

War and Pieces posted:

Would what Neo does within the Matrix be read by scientists within the Matrix as exerting energy?

If they could measure it most likely, but I�m pretty sure most people hooked up up the matrix by the machines could be pretty easily controlled/memory wiped anyways.

# ? Oct 1, 2022 12:57

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# ? May 4, 2024 21:23

War and Pieces: Apr 24, 2022; DID NOT VOTE FOR FETTERMAN

RasperFat posted:

If they could measure it most likely, but I�m pretty sure most people hooked up up the matrix by the machines could be pretty easily controlled/memory wiped anyways.

if you can conceptualize dystopian AI memory wipes that then you can conceptualize an omnipotant God

# ? Oct 1, 2022 13:56

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