<html> At 11:59 PM 10/3/01 -0700, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>What I had in mind was that ANE produced all three (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) and the Romans did their best to suppress or get rid of the first two for a few centuries, but caved in to the second and were too worn out and over extended to manage much against the last one, bummer. That is a bad omen, since neither Rome nor Byzantium were shy about their methods.</blockquote> On a side note, I came up with this hypothesis. Constantine converted. In order to enforce orthodoxy, a Christian civil service had to be greated, thus doubling the size of the current Roman bureaucracy, and also creating a need to increase taxes to pay this civil service. So, taxes were increased. The thing is, you can't enforce orthodoxy and collect taxes at the same time, it takes up too much energy, so the Romans collected taxes and orthodoxy was proclaimed but not exactly enforced with all due rigor. This not only created a demand for 'holy figures' (wise guys who 'negotiated' between local customs and the dictates of Rome) but also allowed a 'religious' pluralism to flourish. Thus, the orthodoxy that was so desired was never achieved; it defeated itself. Ironically, when Rome was invaded by the barbarians in the fifth century, the barbarians left the Roman judiciary and Christian civil service intact. Within 100-200 years, nearly all the pagan barbarians had been converted. And that's why we call them barbarians. Usually the conquerors get to set up their own ideology, the barbarians didn't, they ended up buying into the traditions of the provinces they took over. That's my 'history of ideas' hypothesis. <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>My interest in the architecture comes from the fact that all three are iconoclastic in varying degrees of intensity, and architecture is the only visual medium they have to embrace---and of course WTC and the Pentagon are after all architectural monuments as well as religious icons.</blockquote> Why do you call this buildings religious icons? I get the metonymy, I'm just curious anyway. In Juergenmeyers book, one of the people he interviewed talks about how 'at least if America was Christian, they would have morals.' The thing is, as much as capitalism and the 'american way of life' is  parallel to religious ritual, mythology, and etc., religious traditions (for the most part) to not embrance the ongoing transformation of their methods and means of reproduction... in a way, capitalism is 'more religious than religion' (to use a Hegelian mode of thought for a second) - it overtakes itself. Some religious forms mimic this, to remain hip or high to the times, but if we association commodification with conversion (the conversion of dead things into... dead things, a 'second death' to inference Sade, or was that Kant)... I'm not sure the analogy holds as valid, in a slightly more general and more technical sense. What's wrong with saying that these are icons of secularity? This doesn't mean that secularism is religious, nor that religion the better... perhaps we can say that secular icons are 'the worse' but we find no better icons? (I'm thinking Churchhill - 'democracy is the worse of all systems, but we will find no better' ...). If we trust Zizek, then Marxism ought to embrace is Pauline heritage... the muscular universalism of transformation, sin, and symbolic break.... I'm not anticipating that you're a big fan of the giant from Ljubljana though. <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite> Since mass consumer culture is entirely devoted to the creation of icons, it becomes a central focus of manifest evil. This reaction appertains to their shared aesthetic purity and warrior cults---some distant residue of the ancient Greeks and Persians.</blockquote> The creation and demolition of icons, 'all that is solid turns to shit.' Mass consumer culture mines and mimics the sacred architecture, but it really has no place, to be liquidated through the circuitry of capital. The destruction of buildings just means they have to be rebuilt, which is good for the economy isn't it? The entire ripple effect of a slump in consumer spending (if that is the case) is part of an archaic heritage... So, and I'm just toying here, it isn't that icons are a residue of the religious past, it is that the past itself that is a residue of capitalism, its remainder, an uncontrolled excess, the symbolic limitation of the logic of capital... perhaps we could talk about the 'religious effects of capitalism' - through its own failure, and revision, 'the past' is created, new nostalgic forms emerge out of its own internal limitations. Its strength is not hedged in a base religious sensibility, religious sensibility is its remainder, the very thing it seeks to eliminate - because people tied to the past, in one way or another, will mourn the loss of an object, and disrupt consumption (?). [all this by way of a thought experiment]. <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>All of this has to do with developing a kind of cultural logic out of religious fundamentalisms and the assaults they have conducted on the secular world. Socially the most important focus has been on the status of women and secular education. Politically of course there is the re-establishment of theocracies, the corruption of secular law or its outright substitution. With the exception of the mass media, they seem indifferent to the structure of the political economy up to a point. None of them seem to be against money.</blockquote> Again, the 'liberal fraternity' is not patriarchal, but it mines and mimics the patriarchal images. It does so precisely so that it can secure the hegemony of masculinity, but without having to shoulder the responsibility of being a father, "I'm just a brother, one among equals, I'm not responsible here!" and yeah, not indifferent to money, indifferent to the political economy. But isn't this the perfect ideological matrix: the depoliticization of the economy... at the same time, there is the inverse. The fundamentalist position, it seems to me, ought be first in line railing against the economy. Following my reading above, it would seem to me that if religion is an effect of economy, a by-product, then to 'be religious' in the sense of an 'authentic Christian' (for example) on would have to strike at that very causal mechanism, and make a 'free choice' rather than have it caused/effected. This hasn't happened because religion is already secular, 'the secular economy' 'positing its [religious] presuppositions' (Hegel). <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>One thought occurred to me was that all these fundamentalism derive from at least secondary and tertiary derivations of the originary trunk of the OT. You mentioned a book on the spread of Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries. Because I was attracted to Alexandria, I fiddled around with histories near the same period where most of the variants of the OT were composed and where Jewish scholars thrown out of Jerusalem after the destruction of the third temple ended up trying to resuscitate and continue rabbinic studies there as well. It is in the eastern roman cities like Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, that all these traditions converge, and where Mecca and Medina are at the dusty horizons of empire.</blockquote> Side note. I was at the Ontario Art Gallery yesterday. I saw this huge painting of Mary and the infant Jesus... Jesus was holding a cross. The inverted time loop was not lost on me. There is another painting of the crucifixion, I forget the painter, but it has Jesus on the cross and one of the two thieves holding a biblical text, complete with gospels. Is this not the truth of Christianity? <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I am sitting here reading the Qur'an (2.31-60) which deals with Adam getting tossed out of the garden and the children of Israel wondering around loose with Musa (Moses), then some sections on Hadhar isa(?), or JC. It is interesting because while the Qur'an follows along broadly similar story lines, it is clearly a different recitation. You probably didn't notice, but I have just stepped into apostasy. It seems a whole world of textural terrorism lurks everywhere in these musty studies.</blockquote> I did notice (it wasn't that subtle). However, as a religionist, esp. a comparative religionist, I'm afraid I've turned out to be a massive disappointment. If you are interested, one of my colleagues now teaches in California, an Islamicist who could probably direct you to place that I've yet to imagine. He was actually on Politically Incorrect last week... <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>>From Method Against Truth: Orientalism and Qur'anic Studies, S. Parvez Manzoor (sounding a tad strident): ``The Orientalist enterprise of Qur'anic studies, whatever its other merits and services, was a project born of spite, bred in frustration and nourished by vengeance...</blockquote> In 1958 Huston Smith introduced his well known book, The Religions of Man, with a curious statement about the motives that impel us towards understanding �world religions.� The first motive that Smith cites is taken from a recollection of his visit to the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base outside Montgomery, Alabama, where he lectured several hundred officers. Smith notes, �I have never had students more eager to learn. What was their motivation?� He goes further on to observe �as a unit they were concerned because someday they were likely to be dealing with the peoples they were studying as allies, antagonists, or subjects of military occupation. Under such circumstances it would be crucial for them to predict their behaviour, conquer them if worse came to worst, and control them during the aftermath of reconstruction.� The second reason for their willingness to learn: for peace. In both instances we try to understand so that we might exert technical control over our environment and in our relations... in the revised edition(s) this passage was deleted. This might be the only part of my diss where I talk about religion and the study of religion.... <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Ken you gotta move into comparative theology---this is more fun than a car wreck. Doing some completely random web surfing/comparisons of these redactions and commentaries of christian, jewish and islamic works is a fascinating way to see what Chip Berlet wants to call clerical fascism. Oh, thank the historical materialism of Venetian capitalists in the eleventh century for saving me---making their competition offers they couldn't refuse... Chuck Grimes</blockquote> Yes. When I get hired my first priority will be to learn something about history, and hopefully a bit about religion, thus living up to my disciplinary boundaries and impetus. Until then I'm just going to be inspired by other people who have found fascination where I long to be. It is weird though, I've always wanted to be a history of religion kind of scholar, but all the methods and theories ended up being quack, so I have to get a grasp on the abstract theory part because I felt that I lacked the tools to do the materialistic part of that historicity. With Lacan and Habermas, now, finally, I think I can begin to think... about some/thing. ken </html>