and yet, i am way more with yoshie here than with joanna, i'm afraid.
and i fear i have completely failed to make myself understood to anyone. so, back to the drawing board.
peace
j
On 6/13/05, snitsnat <snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
>
> bellah et al., not at all adverse to religion and the religious, mind you,
> criticized this stuff as "sheilaism" (it's been around for about 60 years
> now) and show how it can be traced to the tradition of expressive
> individualism in the u.s. (Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman (connected to
> romaniticism in Am. Lit.) etc. etc.) It's basically a joke to think of it
> as somehow opposed to "organized" religion, in the same way it is to
> imagine that an individual is uniquely unique and is so regardless as to
> the social worlds through which he/she lives. the paradox is that, the more
> complex our social worlds, the more it gives _rise to_ the very sense that
> we are special and unique. The feeling that we are unique depends entirely
> on a society that forms those experiences through which we come to feel unique.
>
> ditto "un" organized religion. i forget where I read it, but people call
> themselves spiritual and opposed to "organized religion" more frequently
> than anything else -- in the u.s.
>
> maybe it was ken on the pulp culture list?
>
>
> k
>
>
>
> At 04:13 PM 6/13/2005, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >I don't believe that the sort of experience that you describe is "the very
> >opposite" of "organized religion" -- mystical, meditative, and/or monastic
> >practices in a number of faith traditions (such as Hinduism, Buddhism,
> >Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and so on) promote attainment of such
> >experiences. If you find such experiences valuable, and if you approach
> >various mystic, mediative, and/or monastic orders with an open mind, you
> >may even find what looks (to outsiders) like senseless dogmas and rituals
> >are actually time-tested ways to discipline bodies and minds in such a way
> >that you would be able to achieve an experience "beyond labels, language,
> >images, anticipations, attachments" as you put it.
> >
> >For a majority of the religious (whether or not they favor the kind of
> >"religious experience" that appeals to you, whether they are politically
> >on the right, the left, or the center) today, what they find most valuable
> >in religion is precisely the fact that it's organized, i.e., voluntarily
> >organized by communities of people who seek to share more or less the same
> >belief system (even as they argue about it and change it -- sometimes only
> >a little, other times drastically), confront social problems together in
> >light of its ethical ideals and principles, and care for one another in
> >the spirit of mutual aid. For a majority of the irreligious today, too,
> >religion that matters in society (especially to the point of affecting
> >their relation to the religious), for better or worse, is such enduring
> >collective practices rather than fleeting private experiences of
> >transcendence of "labels, language, images, anticipations, attachments"
> >(which do not affect others one way or another).
> >--
> >Yoshie
> >
> >* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> >* Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/>
> >* Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/>
> >* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/>
> >* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
> ><http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>,
> ><http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/>
> >* Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/>
> >* Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/>
> >* Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio>
> >* Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
> >___________________________________
> >http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
> "Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
>
> -- rwmartin
>
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>
-- Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments.
- Alfred North Whitehead