From radical atheism to radical theology - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-28T22:27:51Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/from-radical-atheism-to?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A56363&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThere is a flavor of "success…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-29:5301756:Comment:566192014-05-29T19:23:17.672ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>There is a flavor of "successful green level" to some of Caputo's expressions but certainly enough emergence-oriented, trans-rational, splice-based, hierarchy/anarchy to mark him as an integrative thinker. Whether it is fair to categorize him (using my attachment to twin-variable approaches) as Chartreuse (yellow/teal thinking with green emotional attitudes & stylistics) is uncertain.</p>
<p>The inadequate integration of aggression, personally and politically, permeates a great deal of…</p>
<p>There is a flavor of "successful green level" to some of Caputo's expressions but certainly enough emergence-oriented, trans-rational, splice-based, hierarchy/anarchy to mark him as an integrative thinker. Whether it is fair to categorize him (using my attachment to twin-variable approaches) as Chartreuse (yellow/teal thinking with green emotional attitudes & stylistics) is uncertain.</p>
<p>The inadequate integration of aggression, personally and politically, permeates a great deal of our best exemplars and advocates. And that inadequacy has complementary forms (a) reluctance (b) excess, inappropriateness, outbursts. The fighting force of course varies from entity to entity but it must be found more broadly, embraced more surely, and seen into more keenly, in order to either harness it or transcend in a way that opens pathways to the practical embodiment of our wiser and better futures.</p> I read the beginning of this…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-29:5301756:Comment:563632014-05-29T17:32:06.520ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>I read the beginning of <a href="http://www.jcrt.org/archives/12.2/caputo.pdf" target="_blank">this</a> Caputo interview this morning discussing the secular and the religious in terms of education. He thinks education should remain secular when defined as the political prohibition on "supporting a particular confessional religion" (1). But he thinks the university should not be secular if that means removing the religious impulse (2). Though he differentiates the latter with confessional…</p>
<p>I read the beginning of <a href="http://www.jcrt.org/archives/12.2/caputo.pdf" target="_blank">this</a> Caputo interview this morning discussing the secular and the religious in terms of education. He thinks education should remain secular when defined as the political prohibition on "supporting a particular confessional religion" (1). But he thinks the university should not be secular if that means removing the religious impulse (2). Though he differentiates the latter with confessional religion and defines it as a religion of the "event," described as follows:</p>
<p>"I mean it in Derrida’s sense of the coming of something we cannot see coming, the coming of the unexpected, unprojected, unprogrammed, which of course we hope will make everything new but may make everything worse. With the coming of the event, things are reopened, reinvented, undergo a paradigm shift, a new being, and this happens everywhere, in history and everyday life, in philosophy, in art, in science. [...] Of course, we cannot make events happen—we cannot even see them coming. But we can prepare the conditions under which they happen by keeping things relatively unstable, in a state of optimal disequilibrium, not too much but enough, and this requires judgment and discernment" (2).</p> As a fighter, I'm much more i…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-27:5301756:Comment:563572014-05-27T01:17:32.882ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>As a fighter, I'm much more inclined to turn the other cheek only in doing a reverse back kick to the opponent's head. So I'd agree with the need to forgo the rationalized pacifism in both legislating and enforcing severe punishment for social and environmental crime, as well as fiercely fighting tooth and nail against regressive policy.</p>
<p>In Caputo's other writings the issue of sovereignty has more to do with a dysfunctional imbalance of individuality, much like we're seeing in…</p>
<p>As a fighter, I'm much more inclined to turn the other cheek only in doing a reverse back kick to the opponent's head. So I'd agree with the need to forgo the rationalized pacifism in both legislating and enforcing severe punishment for social and environmental crime, as well as fiercely fighting tooth and nail against regressive policy.</p>
<p>In Caputo's other writings the issue of sovereignty has more to do with a dysfunctional imbalance of individuality, much like we're seeing in Rifkin's and other's criticisms of capitalism. It seems Caputo's sentiments are more in alignment with the commons/p2p attitude here. It doesn't devolve into relativism but finds a more sustainable balance between individual and society. Thus this sort of religion helps the least among us who cannot help themselves, still allows individuals to achieve 'abundance' (as defined in <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/the-zero-marginal-cost-society-by-jeremy-rifkin?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A56605" target="_self">this</a> post), yet reducing or eliminating the down side of capitalistic individual sovereignty in terms of excessive greed, consumption and power indicative of its hierarchic socio-economic structures.</p>
<p>PS: Caputo is the creator of the term <em>hier(an)archy</em>, which I translated into a postmetaphysical sort of hier/heterarchy in various threads.</p> This is mixed material. I st…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-26:5301756:Comment:566042014-05-26T21:00:52.935ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>This is mixed material. I strongly agree with the need to adopt a regenerative and inclusive view of theology and even "God" -- one which takes those notions out of both traditional and anti-traditional hands. However the privately stimulating practice of trying to envision a political order extending from New Testament moral injunctions and spiritual vision is very ambiguous. Partly it is obviously desirable to envision a society in which the original Christian ethics of immanent…</p>
<p>This is mixed material. I strongly agree with the need to adopt a regenerative and inclusive view of theology and even "God" -- one which takes those notions out of both traditional and anti-traditional hands. However the privately stimulating practice of trying to envision a political order extending from New Testament moral injunctions and spiritual vision is very ambiguous. Partly it is obviously desirable to envision a society in which the original Christian ethics of immanent salvation and trans-sectarian embrace are standardized. Yet the simplified invisible-parental-love God, the hypervaluation of the "least among us", etc. are not necessarily as socially productive as the sentimentally first appear? And "loving one's enemies" is not, in the Gospel, an alternative to having enemies -- but rather a condition on the basis of which Christ "brings a sword". The policing and military security of civilization cannot be predicated upon such personally expansive feelings as non-retribution. </p>
<p>Though it is hard to imagine a politics worse than the one commonly associated with sociopathic individuals and toxic organizations who advertize themselves as being "conservative" and/or "pro-Jesus". </p>
<p>To think theology otherwise, to think God otherwise, is needed -- I claim. Yet this otherwise thinking is not necessarily to think it as weak, powerless, alternative to the omnipotence of sovereignty. Between those vision is a notion of uncontracted power, of benign intervention, of higher order repatterning accepting the moral risk of aggressive behavior rather than ceding it to its enemies. We must think "power" and "the good" otherwise as well...</p> You might then also appreciat…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-26:5301756:Comment:564482014-05-26T19:58:36.253ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>You might then also appreciate Caputo's comments in the first post of <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/religion-and-politics" target="_self">this</a> thread on religion and politics. He said, in part:</p>
<p>"A reformation of political thought would require not ridding ourselves of theology but rather reexamining our theological presuppositions and learning to think about theology differently, which means to think about God otherwise, to reimagine God. What would…</p>
<p>You might then also appreciate Caputo's comments in the first post of <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/religion-and-politics" target="_self">this</a> thread on religion and politics. He said, in part:</p>
<p>"A reformation of political thought would require not ridding ourselves of theology but rather reexamining our theological presuppositions and learning to think about theology differently, which means to think about God otherwise, to reimagine God. What would a political order look like, were the Kingdom able to be reinvented and transformed into a political structure?"</p>
<p>Read it to find out. The thread also brings in Panikkar, Rifkin, Keller, Edwards, Lerner, Loy etc.</p> My heart rejoices (even reJoy…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-26:5301756:Comment:565252014-05-26T19:10:33.183ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>My heart rejoices (even reJoyces) to read these Caputo-words. They are the arrows of Cupido and I am overflowing with love. The analyses of deconstruction have no particular allegiance to popular "anti-theistic materialism". In fact they are illuminating certain subtle intersections and dysjunctions between reality-responses which along can provide the cognitive and theological scaffolding for an authentic and progressive human religiousness. It matter little whether we call it "true…</p>
<p>My heart rejoices (even reJoyces) to read these Caputo-words. They are the arrows of Cupido and I am overflowing with love. The analyses of deconstruction have no particular allegiance to popular "anti-theistic materialism". In fact they are illuminating certain subtle intersections and dysjunctions between reality-responses which along can provide the cognitive and theological scaffolding for an authentic and progressive human religiousness. It matter little whether we call it "true religion" or "religion without religion". It is not the assertion that an existing metaphysical unity exists beneath all the famous religious orthodoxies but rather the opening to the creative effort to produce cultural coherence which exceeds sectarianism of all kinds and edifyingly enfolds rationality, critique, spiritual practice and all interpretive possibilities into a uplifted social possibility for which we are ourselves "divinely" responsible.</p> This recent Caputo interview…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2014-05-26:5301756:Comment:566032014-05-26T06:16:38.165ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/deconstructing-god/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0" target="_blank">This</a> recent Caputo interview explores the distinctions between theism, atheism and agnosticism. Caputo doesn't think deconstruction fits into any of those categories. Following are some of his responses:</p>
<p>"After making a distinction in deconstruction, the first thing to do is to deconstruct it, to show that it leaks, that its terms are porous and…</p>
<p><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/deconstructing-god/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0" target="_blank">This</a> recent Caputo interview explores the distinctions between theism, atheism and agnosticism. Caputo doesn't think deconstruction fits into any of those categories. Following are some of his responses:</p>
<p>"After making a distinction in deconstruction, the first thing to do is to deconstruct it, to show that it leaks, that its terms are porous and intersecting, one side bleeding into the other, these leaks being the most interesting thing of all about the distinction."</p>
<p>"I am not resurrecting the old comparative-religion thesis that there is an underlying transcendental form or essence or universal that we can cull from differing empirical religious beliefs. [...] Nothing says that underneath they are all the same."</p>
<p>"Derrida is not launching a secularist attack on religion. Deconstruction has nothing to do with the violence of the 'new atheists' like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Derrida approaches the mystics, the Scriptures, Augustine with respect — they are always ahead of him, he says — and he always has something to learn from them. He is not trying to knock down one position ('theism') with the opposing position ('atheism'). He does not participate in these wars."</p>
<p>"He is interested in <i>all</i> the things found in the Scriptures and revelation, the narratives, the images, the angels — not in order to mine them for their 'rational content,' to distill them into proofs and propositions, but to allow them to be heard and reopened by philosophy."</p>
<p>"Derrida calls this a 'religion <i>without</i> religion.' Other people speak of the 'post-secular,' or of a theology 'after the death of God,' which requires first passing through this death. In Derrida’s delicate logic of 'without,' a trope also found in the mystics, a thing is crossed out without becoming illegible; we can still see it through the cross marks. So this religion comes without the religion you just described — it is not nearly as safe, reassuring, heartwarming, triumphant over death, sure about justice, so absolutely fabulous at soothing hearts, as Jacques Lacan says, with an explanation for everything. His religion is risky business, no guarantees."</p>
<p>"Deconstruction is a life-giving force, forcing them to reinvent what has been inherited and to give it a future. But religion for Derrida is not a way to link up with saving supernatural powers; it is a mode of being-in-the-world, of being faithful to the promise of the world."</p>
<p>"Deconstruction is a plea to rethink what we mean by religion and to locate a more unnerving religion going on <i>in</i> our more comforting religion. [...] Deconstruction dares to think 'religion' in a new way."</p> Busted.tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2011-08-28:5301756:Comment:270042011-08-28T13:47:39.608ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
Busted.
Busted. The perils of using Babel Fis…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2011-08-28:5301756:Comment:269172011-08-28T13:40:34.885ZNicolehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/Nicole
The perils of using Babel Fish or the like to attempt to translate slang...<br></br>
<br></br>
<cite>theurj said:</cite><br />
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/from-radical-atheism-to#5301756Comment23601"><div><span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><span class="hps" title="Click for alternate translations">Ce que l'enfer</span> <span class="hps" title="Click for alternate translations">que tu racontes…</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
The perils of using Babel Fish or the like to attempt to translate slang...<br/>
<br/>
<cite>theurj said:</cite><br />
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/from-radical-atheism-to#5301756Comment23601"><div><span id="result_box" class="short_text" xml:lang="fr" lang="fr"><span title="Click for alternate translations" class="hps">Ce que l'enfer</span> <span title="Click for alternate translations" class="hps">que tu racontes</span> <span title="Click for alternate translations" class="hps">maintenant?</span></span></div>
</blockquote> After reading Hagglund's resp…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2011-08-14:5301756:Comment:253072011-08-14T12:27:36.102ZEdward theurj Bergehttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/theurj
<p>After reading Hagglund's response to Caputo I realized he articulated something nagging at me with Caputo, much as I appreciate him: God. I can go along with Caputo on a lot, even <em>faith</em>, but I just cannot stomach God, even postmetaphysical varieties. Like one of the excerpts about, that Caputo ties faith to the "unscathed" absolute good, reminding me of my critique of "spirituality" as something metaphysically set apart from the mundane. I'm interested in this idea of faith without…</p>
<p>After reading Hagglund's response to Caputo I realized he articulated something nagging at me with Caputo, much as I appreciate him: God. I can go along with Caputo on a lot, even <em>faith</em>, but I just cannot stomach God, even postmetaphysical varieties. Like one of the excerpts about, that Caputo ties faith to the "unscathed" absolute good, reminding me of my critique of "spirituality" as something metaphysically set apart from the mundane. I'm interested in this idea of faith without God so Haggland might have something to offer me in his interpretation of Derrida in this regard.</p>
<p>The second excerpt above, while distinguishing between the conditional and unconditional, does not turn the latter into a sacred a-part-ness. Like when he says that the latter is not something like unconditional love but more like an amorphous call or mystery, not defined to be something as specific as that. It doesn't have to be The Good (or the true or the beautiful). It's just openness to the unknown which allows for the only constant, change.</p>
<p>Kind of like the impossible in the 3rd excerpt. It is "not something above and beyond the possible" but something possible in the here and now if we but remain open with blind faith, for to condition the unconditional with any"thing" is antithetical to its unknowable, yet felt (intuited?) and present, mystery. And there really is no comfort in that at all. So what "good" is it then? No good whatsoever (if we define it as Hagglund suggests Caputo does).</p>