How to Look at Religions

This post is a sort of prelude to several I’m planning to put up over the next few days.  I want to look at certain aspects of “families” of religions, and types of religions in general, and to preface all that, I want to explore a few concepts here.  More specifically, I’m going to look at classifications of religions and I’m going to discuss perspectives on how certain tendencies or views of religions tend to play out, affect their believers, and so on.  In this regard, people often take one of two different and opposite perspectives, each of which, in my mind, is problematic.

First, the believer in a given faith may have objections to the attempts to study that faith in a sociological manner.  He may think that this denigrates the faith, reduces it to mere human affairs, and fails to see the action of the Divine within this faith.  For example, a historian might make the argument that the alienation and social changes felt by the populace during the early days of the Roman Empire were a large factor in the rise and rapid spread of Christianity.  A Christian might object to such a characterization on the grounds that it does not make allowance for God’s providence and action in revealing Himself and in ensuring the spread of His word according to His will.

On the other hand, a skeptic might balk at religious motivations in explaining the actions of people and the shape of cultures across the ages.  He might insist that religion is just a mask of the things that really motivate people; that is to say, greed, power, economics, politics, and so on.  Thus, such a skeptic might insist that the “real” reason for the missionary impulse in the Age of Exploration wasn’t to save souls but to gain control over the inhabitants of newly discovered areas that harbored vast riches which the  European powers wished to exploit.

Quote for the Week

All states in the world, large or small, are cities of Heaven, and all people, young or old, honourable or humble, are its subjects; for they all graze oxen and sheep, feed dogs and pigs, and prepare clean wine and cakes to sacrifice to Heaven. Does this not mean that Heaven claims all and accepts offerings from all? Since Heaven does claim all and accepts offerings from all, what then can make us say that it does not desire men to love and benefit one another? Hence those who love and benefit others Heaven will bless. Those who hate and harm others Heaven will curse, for it is said that he who murders the innocent will be visited by misfortune. How else can we explain the fact that men, murdering each other, will be cursed by Heaven? Thus we are certain that Heaven desires to have men love and benefit one another and abominates to have them hate and harm one another

–Mozi, from his eponymous work, Book 1; On the necessity of standards; courtesy of Wikiquote.

Two Quotes for Presidents’ Day

 

For the sake of humanity, it is devoutly to be wished that the manly employment of agriculture, and the humanizing benefit of commerce, would supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; that the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and, as the Scriptures express it, “the nations learn war no more.”

–George Washington, as quoted in Maxims of Washington : Political, Social, Moral and Religious (1854) John Frederick Schroeder, p. 131.  Courtesy Wikiquote.

 

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, “I see no probability of the British invading us” but he will say to you, “Be silent; I see it, if you don’t.”  The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

–Abraham Lincoln, letter, while US Congressman, to his friend and law-partner William H. Herndon, opposing the Mexican-American War (15 February 1848).  Courtesy of Wikiquote.

Quote for the Week

Dopóki nie skorzystałem z Internetu, nie wiedziałem, że na świecie jest tylu idiotów.  

“I hadn’t known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet.”

–Stanisław Lem, unsourced; courtesy of Wikiquote

In general, I dislike using unsourced quotes–there are way too many of them (usually bogus) out there in cyberspace.  However, this one is too good to pass up.  If anyone knows the actual source, please let me know; or if it is indeed bogus, I’d appreciate it if you let me know the true source.  Whether it’s true Lem or not, it certainly sounds like him, and is, alas, all too true….

Movie Night: The Stepford Wives

 

One of the most infamous science fiction cult movies of all time!

Quote of the Week

 

 

Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man’s environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest — if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this — that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor.

–G. K. Chesterton, The Eternal Revolution, courtesy of Wikiquote

DAFOTV V: Reality TV

In the last installment, I discussed how excessive bandwidth leads to what I called “junk genres”; that is, genres of TV show that require as little overhead, planning, writing, etc. as possible.  This is necessary because the amount of quality TV—or quality anything—is relatively fixed, whereas the 24/7 structure of availability that is now the norm has increased the amount of time to be filled.   I enumerated some examples of these genres, to be expanded on later.  This is what I want to do now, regarding what I consider one of the worst TV-related phenomena of the last decade or so:  reality television.

Certainly, plenty has been said about this seemingly ubiquitous genre.  Some very recent articles of interest are here, here, and here.  I want to speak a little more generally.

To clarify what I mean in this discussion by the term “reality TV”, I refer (briefly) to my previous DAFOTV post:

I include things like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Biggest Loser, the recent shows Jamie Oliver has been doing, and the various shows about hoarders, home makeovers, bridesmaids, etc. on TLC, Discovery, and such under the rubric of “reality TV”. I even include Dick Clark’s old Bloopers shows and America’s Funniest Home Videos.  They may not all purport to be documentaries (as An American Family did) or have an explicit game-show aspect (as Survivor does), but the basic principle of just letting the camera roll before “real people” is essentially the same. Also, I realize that it’s not all “real”–there’s jimmying and manipulating—but it’s still easier and cheaper than writing an actual drama or researching a documentary.

So what’s the problem with reality TV?

Quote for the Week

LAND, n. A part of the earth’s surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

–Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary.  Courtesy of Wikiquote

Nonconformists, Parameters, the Constitution, and Heretics

So far we’ve discussed heresy as a general concept, looked at the definition of it from a Catholic perspective, and looked at the history of the concept.  Here I want to consider some of the sociological aspects of heresy.

Back here I had the following to say (editing a bit):

In all societies and cultures…beyond a certain level of complexity, you have various attitudes toward belief….  These are as follows:  1.  Sheep; or more politely conformists.

The vast majority of people–I’d say 70%, at least–are basically conformist.  Perhaps I should use that term–”conformist”–as it’s a bit more polite.  Conformists go along to get along.  They’re not extremely reflective and they tend accept whatever the prevailing religion, political ideology, or societal Zeitgeist happens to be.

This is most likely a survival trait, for obvious reasons.  In a hunter-gatherer tribe, there has to be a certain amount of social cohesion, which means everyone has to be on the same page about major things.  If this isn’t the case, it could spell doom for the group and the individuals.

Such a trait doesn’t imply ignorance or stupidity or lack of integrity, either.  Most of us have family members, co-workers, bosses, and such with whom we know not to bring up certain topics, or around whom to tread warily, or whatever, as a way of preserving family harmony, one’s own job, etc.  Most of us know that there is an expected pattern of behavior in church, at work, etc.  Almost all of us are conformist at least in some contexts.  Those who are unwilling or unable to “go along to get along” are the eccentrics, the bohemians, the misfits, and such, and are perceived as being either crazy or assholes.  Often they actually are.

Infrastructure: Index

 

This is an ongoing concern of mine.  My training is in mathematics and physics, and I’ve always been around engineers and techie types.  Given that, it truly appalls me how little most people understand and appreciate the issues involved with infrastructure.  This is especially so in light of our aging infrastructure, which is much more fragile than most people think.  I had a couple of infrastructure-related posts here, and I just posted a couple of other infrastructure essays from a few years ago.  I figured there are enough to deserve a category index, especially since I may return to the topic now and then.

The Mysterious World of Infrastructure

Internet Make Big Magic!

The Matrix of Infrastructure

IT’S THE INFRASTRUCTURE, STUPID!!!