Remember?

"Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

       These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.
      Columbus wrote:

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

       The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? He had persuaded the king and queen of Spain to finance an expedition to the lands, the wealth, he expected would be on the other side of the Atlantic-the Indies and Asia, gold and spices. For, like other informed people of his time, he knew the world was round and he could sail west in order to get to the Far East.

Read more here


Top 10 Promises Federal Officials made at 2013 Tribal Nations Conference

Mark Sprevak: Do Group Minds Exist?

Paul Snowden: Philosophy and the Mind/Body Problem

Pope critiques Capitalism

Business Insider posted the key points from the Pope's critique of capitalism:

On the importance of remembering those who are less fortunate: "We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences."

On the seriousness of economic exclusion: "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills."

On the failure of traditional economic dogmas:  "... some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting." 

On exploding inequality: "While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few."

On the world's obsession with money: "We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose." 

On the dangerous mix of inequality and consumerism: "It is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric."

On the role of the state in providing for the common good and regulating the economy: "This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. "

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-pope-on-the-financial-system-inequality-money-2013-11#ixzz2lttOyn6a


This was part of his Evangelii Gaudium, full text here

Native Apostles

The review/taste of the book was interesting enough to make me want to read it. Thought I'd repost:

 

"On the eve of the American Revolution, an unlikely band of ministers and benefactors devised a plan to send John Quamine, a free black man, and Bristol Yamma, a slave, as missionaries to Africa. The project was conceived by the two would-be missionaries themselves, and supported by controversial Congregationalist minister Samuel Hopkins and his more moderate colleague Ezra Stiles. In 1774, Stiles and Hopkins arranged for the duo to be sent to the College of New Jersey, where Presbyterian minister (and president of the College) John Witherspoon would train them. Their proposed mission gained some notoriety, and a diverse lot of supporters championed their cause, including Quaker abolitionist Anthony Benezet, New Jersey lawyer and politician Elias Boudinot, Scottish theologian John Erskine the noted black poet Phyllis Wheatley, Eleazar Wheelock and his Mohegan pupil-turned-preacher Samson Occum, and black Anglican missionary to Africa Phillip Quaque (though his endorsement came with serious reservations). The outbreak of war in 1775 and the subsequent death of Quamine in 1779 ultimately thwarted the planned mission. In spite of its failure, though, it remains an important but oft-ignored episode in what Edward E. Andrews calls “the tangled history of cultural encounter between Europe, Africa, and the Americas” (188)."

Read more of the review here

The power of an idea

"it is a proven truth that an idea, no matter what form it assumes, has the power of making us come together, of making us modify our feelings and modes of behaviour and of exercising a constraint over us just as much as any external condition. It matters little if it appears irrational, dissentient, and even having undergone censorship."

-Serge Moscovici

'The Invention of Society'

p. 115

Zizek on the Ideology of Beethoven's Ode to joy

More here

Between Charybdis and Scylla (105)

"Thus it is in nature of that individuality, and not in that of its component elements, that we must search for the proximate and determining causes of the facts produced in it. The group thinks, feels and acts entirely differently from the way its members would if they were isolated. If therefore we begin by studying these members separately, we will understand nothing about what is taking place in the group. In a word, there is between psychology and sociology the same break in continuity as there is between biology and the physical and chemical sciences."

-Emile Durkheim
The Rules of Sociological Method, tr. W. D. Halls (Macmillan, London 1982)
p. 129

Durkheim, Freud, Geertz: Definitions of Religion

"[Religion is] a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say set apart and forbidden, beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community, called a church, all those who adhere to them."

-Emile Durkheim (1912)

"Religion is an attempt to master the sensory world in which we are situated by means of the wishful world which we have developed within us as a result of biological and psychological necessities" 

-Sigmund Freud (1933)

"Religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that these moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic"

-Clifford Geertz (1966)

Oldest(?) Buddhist Shrine uncovered in Nepal

"The big debate has been about when the Buddha lived and now we have a shrine structure pointing to the sixth century B.C.," Coningham says. The team used two kinds of scientific dating to find the age of the early shrine.

Outside scholars applauded the discovery but cautioned against too hastily accepting the site as the oldest discovered Buddhist shrine without more analysis."

source

Top 5 New Law and Religion papers

Most downloaded in the last 60 days:

1.In God’s Shadow: Unveiling the Hidden World of Domestic Violence Victims in Religious Communities by Michal Gilad (University of Pennsylvania Law School) [410 downloads]

2.‘Freedom of the Church’ and the Authority of the State by Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern University School of Law) [195 downloads]

3.Resisting the Grand Coalition in Favor of the Status Quo by Giving Full Scope to the Libertas Ecclesiae by Patrick McKinley Brennan (Villanova University School of Law) [157 downloads]

4.Corporate Religious Liberty by Caroline Mala Corbin (University of Miami School of Law) [122 downloads]

5.What’s So Damn Special About Religion, Anyway? (Review Essay of Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion?) by Kenneth Einar Himma (University of Washington-School of Law) [90 downloads]

source

Antonio Damasio - Human Decisions

"3/4 of American giving goes to religious organizations"

"Unlike previous data sets, the current study captures a wider swath of religious giving—not just that to churches, synagogues, mosques, and the like, but to religiously-affiliated organizations like Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army. When that larger group is included, 73%—almost three quarters—of American giving goes to religious organizations.

This point is significant for several reasons. First, it highlights the importance of religion in American philanthropic life. Religion is where American give, and a reason why they give. Along with the 73% statistic, the study revealed that 55% of Americans say that their religious orientation (a weird locution, but one the study chose) motivates their giving. 

...

Probably the most notable statistics, though, are those which compare religious and non-religious philanthropy. Religion is supposed to make us better people, which includes, I assume, being more generous. So, is it the case that religious people give more generously than the non-religious?

Well, yes and no. Remember that statistic, that 65% of religious people donate to charity? The non-religious figure is 56%. But according to the study, the entire 9% difference is attributed to religious giving to congregations and religious organizations. So, yes, religion causes people to give more—to religion itself."

source

Shinto in Japanese Politics

"Many of the nation’s top elected officials, including [Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Education Minister Shimomura] ... are members of ... Shinto Seiji Renmei (officially, the Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership...). A sister organization, the Shinto Political Alliance Diet Members’ Association boasts 240 lawmakers, including 16 out of the government’s 19-member Cabinet....

Seiji Renmei sees its mission as renewing the national emphasis on "Japanese spiritual values." In principle, this means pushing for constitutional revision and patriotic and moral education, and staunchly defending conservative values."

Source: here and here


interesting...

On thought

"Thought can live only on grounds which we adopt in the service of a reality to which we submit."

-Michael Polanyi

'Tacit Knowing' (2009 [1966])

Brian Leiter: 'The Truth is Terrible: Nietzsche's Idea of an Aesthetic Justification for Existence'

Prof. Brian Leiter: "The Truth is Terrible: Nietzsche's Idea of an Aesthetic Justification for Existence" from Davidson College on Vimeo.

Schrodinger's Cat

The Twin Paradox

Hilbert's Infinite Hotel

The Chinese Room

The Grandfather Paradox

Achilles and the Tortoise - Zeno's Paradox

Jane Gruber on 'The Scientific Study of Positive Emotion'

From Edge's HeadCon '13

transcript here

Girls

source


*In another area:
Gender and Career Progression in Theology and Religious Studies by Matthew Guest, Sonya Sharma and Robert Song


*update Nov. 27:  Beastie Boys issue a letter
"We strongly support empowering young girls, breaking down gender stereotypes and igniting a passion for technology and engineering.

As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads."
source


More commentary here at Feminist times

*The Gettysburg Address (1863) and the state of America today

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault Studio on Vimeo.
more info here

150 years later...give or take a few years...

U.S.A in the 21st Century

In the American Economic Review:
'Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?'
Abstract
We perform a field experiment to measure racial discrimination in the labor market. We respond with fictitious resumes to help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate perception of race, each resume is assigned either a very African American sounding name or a very White sounding name. The results show significant discrimination against African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but, interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries. Federal contractors and employers who list Equal Opportunity Employer' in their ad discriminate as much as other employers. We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring something other than race, such as social class, from the names. These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a prominent feature of the labor market.

Full paper here (pdf)


According to a report of a study by Johns Hopkins University: 
"John Hopkins University School of Medicine analyzed data from 181 trauma centers within the U.S. and shows a correlation between trauma centers that serve mainly minority patients and higher death rates than average of those patients they serve. Trauma centers that serve mainly white patients have newer and more efficient technology, better trained staff, and more access to specialists and services; these trauma centers have better outcomes and more of their patients are insured or are able to afford the healthcare costs. In contrast, due to socioeconomic reasons, minority patients are less likely to be able to afford the healthcare costs or pay for insurance in a traumatic situation. Trauma centers which serve mainly minority patients have less economic resources available to them for use in the improvement of equipment, quality of staff and maintenance; this discrepancy in funding among trauma centers in different neighborhoods leads to unnecessary deaths which would be easily avoided if the trauma centers were sufficiently funded." source

*Update: Implicit Bias


(I understand that this is a show and whether it is recording what it says it is recording may be questionable but its representation correlates with the above two findings. People will treat a white girl or boy differently from a black boy doing the same action)


According to the Huffington Post: "4 in every 10 Americans" think blackface is ok...


For many, not all, insulated "white privilege" is rampant: 17 examples 


White police are still planting drugs (yes, this is just one anecdotal piece of evidence - but who knows what else is happening):



The issue of police testimony vs. criminal/suspect/victim testimony is still problematic. 
*update (11/24): and even disconcerting still is the propensity/enculturated tendency to believe that women/girls reporting rape or sexual abuse are lying - this has been an issue on college campuses and in the military.

Hate groups and white supremacists seem to be increasing but it's difficult to gauge or measure.

Native Americans are still marginalized without proper respect or sovereignty.

In the U.S. and Britain, race is still about black and white - asians have been painted out of working class history and their contributions left largely unknown or brushed over with some mention about railroads.

Many workers in restaurants are working at a minimum wage of 2.13/hour and living off tips.
(*just as a sidenote: the 33 "whitest" jobs in America )

And one of the consequences, is the sheltered silver spoon perspective of neo-liberal and economic libertarians


While in part, I've been arguing about a strawman (shaped in part by the data, somewhat questionable surveys, anecdotes, a distasteful and arrogant young girl, the experiences and observations of others, as well as my own experiences; the composition is a construction "based on true stories"). And fully understanding that it is unfair to generalize on the grounds of skin color (and it is certainly not true that all "whites" are of the same ilk) but the pages of history have been creased and crumpled along those lines: The first European settlers and immigrants have been painted as "white". With the creation of "America" they lost their traditions and identities in their countries of origin. African-Americans and Carribean-Americans bought and sold under slavery have lost their countries of origin as well. They've been homogenized under the label "black". Native Americans have been called "red", "native" (despite the diversity and nuances amongst the tribes, we've lumped them all together), or "brown" (with other Latin-American, Polynesian-Americans, Indian-Americans, etc), the racial discourse and the legitimacy/sovereignty of Native-American sacred spaces have been largely ignored on callous utilitarian grounds. Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, and Korean-Americans (Taiwanese, Philipino, Thai, Cambodia etc) have all been lumped together as "Asian" or "Oriental" (a term they still use in Britain). The countries, cultural backgrounds, and traditions are a subtext to the "Asian-American" experience as well as other minorities with rich cultures.

This discourse has created deeper valleys and seemingly permanent creases in the way of "race". This is not only a socio-political dialogue but one that has deeper implications into the way economic structures and systems operate in the various services institutionalized to serve the people. What we seem to be seeing are the ripple effects of history . . . renewed and reappropriated in different ways.

*and yes, I've pointed out the glaring negativities of the U.S. and its tensions in juxtaposition to the Gettysburg address that happened over 150 years ago. This isn't to say that good things and good people don't exist. Or that "people of color" can't be racist or bigoted. There are socially conscious folk everywhere and idiotic assholes from every country. But perhaps injustice and the ugly side of things is an appropriate place to emphasize (like Cornel West starting with catastrophe or 'funk') as opposed to praising the good things we've done so far... I don't know... I like what Chris Rock says here (ignore the titles):



He expands a bit more in the clip below (it's a bad title but the commentary is worth listening)

Interview with Buddhist Scholar David McMahan

Tricycle did an interview with David McMahan.

I appreciated his answers to these questions:

What exactly do you mean by “context?” 
 First of all, there’s the explicit context of the dharma. Right now, for the first time ever, we have contemplative practices derived from the Buddhist tradition that are being practiced completely independently of any Buddhist context. Secularization has filtered out what we would call “religious elements.” It is those religious elements, those ethical elements, and those intentions that have always formed the context of meditation and that have made meditation make sense. Otherwise, what sense does it make to sit down for half an hour and watch your breath? Somebody has to explain to you why that matters, why it is a good idea, and what it is actually doing in the larger scheme of things. When meditation comes to the West completely independently of that, it is like a dry sponge; it just soaks up the cultural values that are immediately available. So it becomes about self-esteem. Or it might be about body acceptance or lowering your stress. It might be about performing lots of different tasks efficiently at work. It might be about developing compassion for your family. A whole variety of new elements now are beginning to form a novel context for this practice, which has not only jumped the monastery walls but has broken free from Buddhism altogether.

I know people who are not interested in being Buddhists or studying Buddhist philosophy who have really benefited from stripped-down mindfulness practice. So I’m not in a position to say, “Oh no, you shouldn’t be doing this unless you can read Nagarjuna!” [Laughs.] Every culture has its elite religion and its more popular folk religion; it’s almost like mindfulness is becoming a folk religion of the secular elite in Western culture. We’ll see whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

To expand the idea of context further, there is also cultural context, which obviously can be very different. And again, there are a lot of tacit understandings there: I feel myself in a world of atoms and molecules and bacteria and viruses and galaxies that are unimaginably far away. I think I’m literally incapable of feeling myself in a world in which there are cold hells and hot hells beneath my feet. So in that sense, just our ordinary being-in-the-world—our “life world,” to use a phenomenological term—is deeply conditioned by these cultural elements. And this cultural context provides novel goals and intentions to which meditation is put in service.

Does acknowledging the importance of context mean we have to be cultural relativists? 
 I’m not a complete cultural relativist. I’m not saying everything is cultural. There are things that obviously go across cultures. We’re all working with the same basic neurophysiology. But epistemologies and ways of seeing the world are deeply embedded in cultures. The basic categories we use to make sense of the world are culturally constructed. I think it’s interesting that the Buddhist tradition has seen something of this—not so much in terms of culture, but in terms of language and concepts. For instance, Nagarjuna, in my reading, says that there’s no set of categories that finally, simply, mirrors the world. All categories, ultimately, are empty of that self-authenticating representation of reality as it is. I think that insight is really an interesting one to take into the contemporary world, because now we can expand on that with this idea of culture.

You can see how that rubs up against the whole scientific enterprise. Even though good scientists are much more nuanced about it today than they would have been a hundred years ago, the ideal of the sciences is still “a view from nowhere.” The purpose is to get us out of those contexts, to get us out of those very particularistic ways of seeing things. And that’s going to be a tension between the humanities and social sciences on the one hand and the hard sciences on the other.

We want to have a kind of final understanding of the world. That’s natural. We don’t want to be told that the way we’re seeing the world is just a product of our upbringing and our language and our culture. And yet there are certain things that can only be seen through the lenses of particular traditions or particular categories. So I think rather than seeing the existence of various systems of knowledge or taxonomies and so on as devaluing, you can see them as different lenses. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same and they’re all equally valuable. Some may be much more valuable for certain purposes, and some may be valuable for other purposes.

read more here

Sendhil Mullainathan on 'What Big Data Means for Social Science'

From Edge's HeadCon '13

See transcript here

*"My Brain Made Me Do It"

So it seems that more and more discussion has been happening about the place of neuroscience in law:

This article does a good job of outlining how neuroscience has been utilized in criminal law to reduce the sentencing of those with "abnormal brain scans" and the expressions of aggression. It further points out the shortcomings of the relationship between neuroscience and concepts of responsibility.

The article provides the example of an Italian woman who committed murder and burned the corpse and the house in attempt to also kill her parents. Her brain showed abnormality in the anterior cingulate gyrus. It also notes another case about a man with a tumour in his orbitofrontal cortex and pedophillic behaviour. Once the tumour was removed, the behaviour stopped. Tumour comes back, behaviour returns. Similar cases have been well documented.

Along the same lines, this article pronounces the limitations and use of brain scans in courts. They use the example of adolescent brains and how they are not fully developed as an adult's brain. It has been noted that the adolescent brain does not fully develope until the latter half of one's 20s. The argument in U.S. courts is that because the adolescent brain is not fully developed they were not competent to make any decisions and that the evidence they provide are not admissable. The article states:

"When lawyers turn to neuroscience, often what's at issue is a defendant's competency, Farahany says. So a defense lawyer might argue that "you weren't competent to have pled guilty because of some sort of brain injury," she says, or that you weren't competent to have confessed to a police officer after being arrested.

"And it worked," Farahany says. "The prosecution had to basically start over in developing evidence against the juvenile because they couldn't use his own statements against him."

As I raised in a previous post, should neuroscientific evidence be utilized in this way to determine competence, give impunity or absolve responsibility?

Part of this question deals with the law's understanding of self, agency and responsibility, i.e. legal ontology of persons, as well as the underpinning framework of biology and human nature which qualifies that legal ontology. That is, how the self is understood and appropriated within ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind - particularly with respect to the mind-brain and mind-body relationship (or in theological terms issues about a "soul") - such that it has come to be operationalized in law.

Another dimension of this question is sociological and  relates to the social/societal inadequacies of the healthcare system and the criminal justice system. On one hand, the occurrence of such crimes and the retrospective evidence of neurological abnormality indicates an inadequate healthcare system. Most persons with abnormalities in the brain or a tumour will begin to express other behavioural indications prior to the commitment of the crime. If these persons went to doctors and these abnormalities were missed, that is one critique. The other critique lies in the tendency for persons to suffer the pain rather than incur the costs of seeing a physician. Many who do not have insurance and live paycheck to paycheck think about how much a visit to the doctor will cost and strain the family. In other words, money is a bigger concern than health.

Another area of sociological concern is with the criminal justic system itself. While there are many issues to discuss, what is particularly relevant to this discussion is the relationship between prison and mental health as well as the issues surrounding the responsibility of the state. Simply throwing somebody with a neurological concerns, or someone with a tumour putting pressure on certain areas of the brain associated with impulsiveness, into the criminal justice system is inadequate and ignores health issues for the facade of justice. The criminal justice system is antiquated. Putting people in prison is not always the best way to remove societies of its "ills". Foucault's critique of marginalization, normality and society comes to mind. In many ways, prisons are societies' toilets. We flush and it disappears. Out of sight, out of mind. This is a failure of the criminal justice system with the knowledge we have today.

There appears to be two tasks: the philosophical project and the institutional project: The first is the discussion between philosophy, theology, science (both social and hard) and ethics on the subject of responsibility and the body. Neuroscience and biology is revealing more and more details about the underlying neurobiology of our embodiment and development of habitus.  These discussions need to be taken further with the range of cultural variance, particular views of ethics, and how this relationship needs to be navigated and reappropriated with the operations of law.

The second project is to reform healthcare and the criminal justice system. These two institutions and their methodologies in which we marginalize and trivialize persons is outdated and their limitations are beginning to manifest themselves in ways the courts and servants of law are unable to address. Everyday we hear more and more about the increased racism that pervades the law enforcement regimes - who are empowered by law and the vale of protecting the people. Western societies that boast democratic values continue to discriminate with additional veneers of language. Ironically, the video surveillence system has backfired and more and more injustices are being caught on tape. Before, the officer's word would have stood and given more value than the suspect or "criminal". Persons are guilty until proven innocent. It is too easy to make people criminals and the standard by which society places people in prison needs to be reconsidered and re-evaluated. Overloading the prison-industrial complex is not a comment on how well the police and the state are doing in keeping people "safe".

Setting aside the second task of reform in which serious discussions and considerations of activism should take place, including a discussion of how to inject more intelligent and sensible debate into the political sphere of persons - who got there based on "popularity" and capital as opposed to any kind of merit. The philosophical task is re-engaging the discussion of society, law, and the academic disciplines. Part of this task has been taken up by contemporary scholars, see previous post : 'would we be better off without blame?'

A far more basic engagement that needs to begin happening is to see an impact of the neurosciences and basic understandings of biology in making bridges. Brain structures and functions, as I did somewhat crudely in a prior post with regard to language, need to be understood and discussed in much more depth. There are many philosophers today actively engaged with neuroscience and the cognitive sciences. It is my contention that we need more of that.

Here, Owen Jones - director of MacArthur research network on Law and Neuroscience - gives an interview on the developments and future of this interface between law and (neuro)science. 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Full text here

Religion and Hip Hop

Dr. Monica Miller has written 'Religion and Hip Hop', in which she seeks to open up the dialogue further between the two:



The description of the book from Routledge:

Religion and Hip Hop brings together the category of religion, Hip Hop cultural modalities and the demographic of youth. Bringing postmodern theory and critical approaches in the study of religion to bear on Hip Hop cultural practices, this book examines how scholars in religious and theological studies have deployed and approached religion when analyzing Hip Hop data. Using existing empirical studies on youth and religion to the cultural criticism of the Humanities, Religion and Hip Hop argues that common among existing scholarship is a thin interrogation of the category of religion. As such, Miller calls for a redescription of religion in popular cultural analysis - a challenge she further explores and advances through various materialist engagements.

Going beyond the traditional and more common approach of analyzing rap lyrics, from film, dance, to virtual reality, Religion and Hip Hop takes a fresh approach to exploring the paranoid posture of the religious in popular cultural forms, by going beyond what "is" religious about Hip Hop culture. Rather, Miller explores what rhetorical uses of religion in Hip Hop culture accomplish for various and often competing social and cultural interests."

In a previous post I mentioned the work of Dr. Daniel Hodge in which he discusses Tupac's 'Black Jesus'  (and some recent commentary here @ political jesus on Tupac's 'Black Jesus')

Michael Eric Dyson talks about Tupac and God a bit further in an interview here

And for good measure, just because I am a fan of 2Pac:

'Ghetto Gospel' (released posthumously in 2004)


Lyrics:

[Intro]
Uhh, hit em with a little ghetto gospel

[Hook: Elton John]
Those who wish to follow me
(My ghetto gospel)
I welcome with my hands
And the red sun sinks at last
Into the hills of gold
And peace to this young warrior
Without the sound of guns

[Verse 1]
If I could recollect before my hood days
I sit and reminisce
Thinking of bliss and the good days
I stop and stare at the younger
My heart goes to em
They tested with stress that they under
And nowadays things change
Everyone's ashamed of the youth cause the truth look, strange
And for me it's reversed
We left em a world that's cursed
And it hurts
Cause any day they'll push the button
And all come in like Malcolm X or Bobby Hutton died for nothing
Don't it make you get teary
The world looks dreary
When you wipe your eyes see it clearly
There's no need for you to fear me
If you take your time and hear me
Maybe you can learn to cheer me
It ain't about black or white cause we human
I hope we see the light before it's ruined, my ghetto gospel

[Hook]

[Verse 2]
Tell me do you see that old lady
Ain't it sad
Living out of bags
Plus she's glad for the little things she has
And over there there's a lady
Crack got her crazy
Guess who's giving birth to a baby
I don't trip or let it fade me
From out of the fryin pan
We jump into another form of slavery
Even now I get discouraged
Wonder if they take it all back
Will I still keep the courage
I refuse to be a role model
I set goals, take control, drink out my own bottles
I make mistakes but learn from every one
And when it's said and done
I bet this brother be a better one
If I upset you don't stress never forget
That God isn't finished with me yet
I feel his hand on my brain
When I write rhymes I go blind and let the Lord do his thing
But am I less holy
Cause I chose to puff a blunt and drink a beer with my homies
Before we find world peace
We gotta find peace and end the war in the streets
My ghetto gospel

[Hook]

[Outro]
Lord can you hear me speak
To pay the price of being hellbound
source

Sapolsky on the biology of depression

" For Sapolsky, depression is deeply biological; it is rooted in biology, just like, say, diabetes. Here, you will see how depression changes the body. When depressed, our brains function differently while sleeping, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our biochemistry levels change, etc. Given the pervasiveness of depression, this video is well worth a watch."

source

Parents v. Children on the Future of the World

Could you tell the difference?

In attempts to revise a paper on neuroscience and religious experience, which also entails (for me) doing additional research and following leads, I've come across a very interesting study:


Philosopher Huston Smith (1964) devised an exercise in which he asked the following question:

Can you identify which of the following experiences was drug-induced and which was the experience of a famous religious mystic? 

1. 
Suddenly I burst into a vast, new indescribably wonderful universe. Although I am writing this over a year later, the thrill of the surprise and amazement, the awesomeness of the revelation, the engulfment in an overwhelming feeling wave of gratitude and blessed wonderment, are as fresh, and the memory of the experience is as vivid, as if it had happened five minutes ago. And yet to concoct anything by way of description that would hint at the magnitude, the sense of ultimate reality . . . this seems such an impossible task. The knowledge which has infused and affected every aspect of my life came instantaneously and with such complete force of certainty that it was impossible, then or since, to doubt its validity. 

2. 
All at once, without warning of any kind, I found myself wrapped in a flame-colored cloud. For an instant I thought of fire . . . the next, I knew that the fire was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe. Among other things, I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. . . . I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any preadventure all things work together for the good of each and alll that the foundation principle of the world . . . is what we call love, and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain.






















Out of a sample of sixty-nine students from Princeton University, one-third were able to correctly identify the first as drug-induced.

Reunion

"Many people from India or Pakistan know someone with a story of how the partition of British India in 1947 changed families' lives.

 

A Google commercial focusing on one of those memories has struck a nerve for many from both countries. Nearly two million users have watched the story of two childhood friends reuniting, thanks to Google, after being separated for more than 50 years."

source

4 Pieces of Information (and it doesn't trickle)

source

Michael Burke:

"The uninvested portion of firms’ surplus essentially has only two destinations, either as a return to the holders of capital (both bondholders and shareholders), or is hoarded in the form of financial assets. In the case of the U.S. and other leading capitalist economies both phenomena have been observed. The nominal returns to capital have risen (even while the investment ratio has fallen) and financial assets including cash balances have also risen." 

source; (emphasis added)

*A (Hard?) Question: Anthropology and Morality

Part of the anthropological project of the discipline has been to deconstruct particular social constructions of sex, gender, race, religion, market, and many other things. In this sense, Anthropology has been a beacon of providing alternative accounts to preconceived notions of human nature and social organization. In doing so, much annthropological work takes a particular moral stance of creating further understanding about gender, race, and many issues on morality. And because many of these topics are so intricately intertwined, the topic of morality has been difficult to segment as its own sphere of investigation (although we are seeing some of this happening as prominent anthropologists like Joel Robbins and Jarett Zigon - both with different approaches but nonetheless attempt to investigate some thing similar).

With this view of human science and creaing further understanding, many anthropologists try to take a morally open stance and a non-judgmental perspective on the culture they are studying. And, consequently, there have been debates about the role of the anthropologist and what they should or ought to do in the face of morally controversial practices as well as debates about the effect anthropologists have on the community they are studying. But in the name of understanding, observation, and documenting/investigating the science of variable human expression in its myriad of ways, anthropologists (most, at least) have maintained their integrity and remained morally neutral by aiming to describe and understand the communities they are studying.

What has been a perennial issue for anthropologists is the politics of representation. Do they represent a culture appropriately and adequately? One classic series of debates aournd this has been with the Yanomami. This is in a way, a very important issue and has been textbook for quite some time (I think). The debates are well presented in the documentary: 'Secrets of the Tribe', if you can find the full documentary, I highly recommend it. The discussion revolves around how the Yanomami are represented - Chagnon, at one point, referred to them as "The Fierce People". This has also been an issue with Native Americans as well - and needless to say this politics runs throughout all ethnographies. The politics of representation has well been discussed in anthropological accounts trying to discuss 'belief' as well.

So with this background, anthropology has sought to dispell misconstrued notions about human nature - about gender, about race, and so on. And in turn, anthropologists will critique racist accounts or androcentric accounts of what it means to be human. In other words, a moral stance has been to create further understanding and combat certain stances of bigotry.

My question is simple, yet complex in its layers: What happens to the anthropologists who conducts fieldwork with the re-emerging KKK? or a Neo-Nazi group? or some kind of Neo-Fascist community? Can the anthropologist in these cases, maintain an open outlook on what these groups are about and observe? Does the anthropologist continue to take the insider's perspective? Indeed, some of the groups take the position that many anthropologists are trying to combat or clarify.

I know Scott Atran has done some work on Jihadi groups. And a very interesting, at times ugly, debate has stirred between Atran and Sam Harris. Here is Harris' position on Islam (which is well noted elsewhere). And here is Atran's response.

In this instance, Atran is clarifying/dispelling imbedded constructions of Jihadists and creating further understanding of their position while Harris (as he is infamously known for) considers Islam and religion in general as a "virus", a poison, or in Marxist terms an "opium of the masses". I've mentioned this before, if you asked me 10-15 years ago I would have agreed. But this is an antiquated view and one that I no longer think is correct.

But the question remains. If an anthropologist did research and fieldwork on a KKK group, how does the anthropologist frame the ethnography? On one hand the anthropologist should, as training dictates, clarify misconceptions and misconstructions of the group. In addition, such an investigation should also make comment on the investigation of human nature via ethnography. On the other hand, how does this fit into the moral landscape anthropology paints? One that is based on creating further understanding. Should we sympathize with racially motivated hate groups? How does the anthropologist approach or frame his writings? Is it framed as a problem? As a social phenomena without taking a moral position? It would seem there should be more discussion about the 'Ethics of Anthropology' - that is, to take the concerns and ethnographic accounts of anthropology in discussion with philosophers and ethicists. While I'm sure anthropology may be a bit reluctant because Ethics talks about the 'shoulds' and 'oughts' with a particular view of human nature and ontological status, but the discussion needs to happen to keep the dialogue going.

   

Interview with Laurel Kendall

Anthropologist Laurel Kendall on how she got into Anthropology and her interests in doing fieldwork on Korean Shamans, which tend to be women, and her project on Anthropology in Vietnam. 



*Note: I think English is a much more difficult language to learn than Korean. 

Bloggingheads: Knobe v. Bloom

Paul Bloom (Yale University) and Joshua Knobe (Yale University)
Is morality hardwired into us? 11:41
Could we learn truly arbitrary moral rules? 5:04
The big booming voice inside you that says God exists 12:12
The mind-body dualism of children 10:07
Do you need to have a body to get pissed off? 9:01
The morality of killing gods and robots 6:46

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/what-our-minds-do-when-we-see-someones-body/

*Christian missionaries in N. Korea

The news that Christian missionaries (mostly Korean-American and Korean but some from other nationalities as well) have been going into North Korea with the agenda of evangelizing (i.e. spreading the gospel) is nothing new. I, however, did not know that much of this was happening under the guise of a company - either some kind of trade or tourism. And just to clarify: I bear no relation to the man in the article despite sharing the same last name. 

Korean-American and Korean missionaries continue to push these boundaries. Many, at one point or another, have been caught distributing Bibles, jailed, then cried for help either from the Korean government or the US government. The man is still in jail in North Korea and surprisingly the North Korean government has allowed his mother to come visit him. This extraordinarily "compassionate", relatively speaking, from the perspective of the North Korean regime. My hunch is that this would never have occurred under the previous rule of Kim Jong Il. The fact that Americans are allowed to even go in to North Korea as tourists is also, in my opinion, a remarkable change and - in pure speculation - an indication that North Korea (DPRK) wants to interact with other countries. This is also, in part, due to the annoyance China has had with DPRK. But I digress. The DPRK seems to be softening a little bit was the point of that. Which is also to say: Kenneth Bae will probably (almost certainly) not be receiving the, much harsher, treatment that North Koreans get when they are jailed. The punishment for a foreigner caught distributing a Bible, trying to evangelize, expressing dissent or discontent about the state, attempting to coordinate North Korean defection, is much less benign than a North Korean caught with a Bible, expressing discontent, humming a Korean pop song, or attempting to defect. The punishment for North Koreans is much much harsher and some will result in the death penalty, which brings me to my first point and my initial reaction to this article:

These missionaries are being selfish.

Attempting to evangelize, or respond to their "calling" by spreading the gospel to North Koreans, is not for North Koreans but themselves. First, let me state: I am pro 'Freedom of Conscience'. Think what you think. And under that freedom of conscience is the freedom of religion and culture. Do your thing. So I am not necessarily against any conspicuous evangelism, though I don't really prefer it. I'll talk to the Mormon missionaries, I'll talk to the Jehovah's witnesses, I'll take their pamphlet but when it gets too zealous and you're taking an imperialist attitude of moral superiority then I take issue. Having said that, in the western context these missionaries are fully within their rights and capabilities to speak and spread the gospel if they feel so inclined. But taking this position of religious righteousness and uncontainable desire to show everybody 'God's Love' to North Korea is in many respects irresponsible. North Korea is, arguably, the most repressed state in the world right now. The degrees of punishment and the severity in which they are carried out reminds one of Mrs. Agatha Crunchbull from Roald Dahl's Matilda. The punishment is so extreme that they are difficult to believe. One example is the practice of  "three generations of punishment" and their concentration camps (not only do you go to the concentration camp but your whole family and then the subsequent two generations afterwards are born in the camp). North Korea is a state in which people are killed and sent to one of the many concentration camps way too easily. Given this knowledge, which missionaries interested in North Korea are well aware, one raises the question of why anyone would go to North Korea and subliminally preach the gospel, clandestinely pass out or transcribe passages, to North Koreans - where possessing a Bible is potentially punishable by death? Why would you put them in that position? The worst that will happen to a missionary is jail, like Kenneth Bae, or kicked out of the country like Sobkowicz. The worst that will happen to a North Korean is death. Just ten days ago on Nov. 3, there were news reports about 80 people being put to death for watching a South Korean drama. So my reaction to this article about Christian missionaries going to North Korea under the auspice of some company, was that they were being selfish by putting others in danger for their own spiritual fulfillment.

Upon second reflection, there is a broader project - while I'm personally skeptical, for reasons I give later on - of this kind of evangelism and it kind of relates to Korea's history of independence.

The broader purpose for North Korea activists, those who are indeed doing something about it which many happen to be zealous evangelical Christians, is ultimately to see the collapse of the North Korean state. In the meantime, many go into North Korea or to China arrange escapes and defections. Hide them in China for a while and then off to another country. Most North Koreans who get to South Korea pass through three, four, or five countries before they arrive. All the while, evangelizing is also happening and most that defect are underground Christians. And yes, like the article says, Christianity had existed in Korea prior to the wars and prior to the division. So the existence of underground Christians is very plausible just as it is plausible that there are underground Buddhist as well. But without going into Korea's history with Christianity, Christianity was a strong force for maintaining social solidarity of Koreans outside of Korea during Japanese imperialism. By outside of Korea, I'm primarily referring to Hawaii, the Korean Independence Movement and the exiled Korean government in Manchuria did have Christians (Methodists and Presbyterians *and, I'm pretty sure, Catholics too) participating as well but no explicit religious overtone in their mission to regain soverignty and independence.

The first president, or dictator whichever is your perspective, Rhee during his incarceration, prior to becoming president, also converted many others to Christianity. Many Koreans who were imported into Hawaii, as cheap labour (indentured servitude), to work on sugar plantations in horrid conditions were also Christians. Ironically, the man who persuaded the Koreans to come for their "new life" in America was also Christian. White Christian man goes to a Korean Christian man to persuade other Korean Christians and friends to board a ship and work on sugar plantations for piss wages and horrid living conditions. Go figure. Subsequently, on this ship to Hawaii many who were not Christian "converted" to Christianity. I put converted in quotation marks because this could mean various things as it is not uncommon for people to convert for solidarity/social reasons. And Koreans are a proud and loyal bunch.

So Christianity can be considered to have been, at least partially, a force in the independence movement. To what extent is another question. Koreans have much pride in their ethnicity so there's some question about its impact on identity early on (today this is a different story). Anyway, considering that Christianity was a force, it could be argued that spreading the gospel and clandestinely disseminating the Bible can motivate a populist upheaval of the North Korean state. And this may be the logic in which these missionaries are operating.

However, I am skeptical not only about this approach but its efficacy as well. First, any corporation like the ones mentioned above that allows missionaries to go into North Korea to evangelize is limited to a very limited area where those most loyal and useful to the state are kept in relative prosperity compared to the rest of the poor and hungry population of North Korea. In other words, these missionaries may only have touched a fraction of a percent. You might say that even a small number of persons could spread the message. But like I mentioned, this is a very small percentage of those who are actually living in relatively "decent" conditions of the capital of N. Korea. This is the group that wailed and cried when Kim Jong Il died. Maybe 10% of the population. The ones who look presentable for media. This group is not likely to create an uprising of significant impact to shake the government. The North Korean military is not afraid to massacre its own people. Somebody told me that Kim Jong Il once said that as long as 10% of the population is surviving it is a sucessful state. Don't know if this is true but I would not be surprised if it were. In a country where people are executed everyday, I don't think a Christian mobilization is going to happen. In this regard, I find this kind of spiritual awakening/conversion to Christianity to prompt revolution a romantic notion at best. In sum, I find the political aim of Christian missionaries dubious because 1) they are evangelising the portion of the population that benefits the most from the N. Korean state. And 2) a populist uprising is not plausible because of the mundane fear of death, punishment, and ruthless nature of the North Korean military that is not afraid to turn on its people when ordered to do so. (I mean, South Korea turned its military on a student/populist uprising in Gwangju in 1980 - 5.18 - for almost ten days and killed over a hundred and injured thousands).  
    
*Update (Nov. 15): I understand that my post is somewhat pessmistic about the Christian evangelical approach to dismantling the N. Korean state. Howard Zinn, a man who's thoughts I turn to often in random spurts, would say: "Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act." And while Zinn is talking about the US, a place in which action and defiance is - relatively - possible, turning this thought to the North Korea and the love of Korea as a holistic country changes the surrounding discussion of this statement. Is my critique to "pessimistic" such that it cripples a willingness to act? Should we encourage these actions by Christian missionaries going into North Korea on the grounds that the willingness to act and maintain the view that it will help motivate the people? In other words, is bull-headed action better than critical thought? I'm not sure that it is... chess is an intense game of thinking your actions before you move, anticipating the opponents reaction, and thinking about the next move in response. Chess masters can think and anticipate moves much further down the line. I don't know how many but it's ridiculous the extent they can anticipate how the game will play out. And any chess player will know that a bad move can be costly down the road. Rash action is not always desirable. And my own position is that careful thought, consideration, and timing is equally as important. That is, knowing when and where to strike are critical to reflection and thought.

There is a saying in Korea: 지피지기 백전백승 (ji-pee-ji-gee  baek-juhn-baek-seung), which translates into, "know yourself and know your opponent and in a hundred battles a hundred wins"

So to this end, it is important to be reflexive as well as investigative of an opponent or object of study. Over-estimating one's own capabilities and undermining an opponent is a sure recipe for devastation.

So with respect to North Korea, we need to think carefully about what the actual aim is: to topple the regime? to stop human rights violations? to understand the country and the culture? South Korea must be respected in this area as well. The two countries are tied together with the same umbilical cord. There's much to think about on this...

Churchland: What Neuroscience Tells Us About Morality

Paul Thagard comments on Churchland's book, Touching a Nerve

Would we be better off in a world without blame?

Barbara H. Fried opens the debate

Christine Korsgaard, Erin Kelly, Adriaan Lanni, Mike Konczal, Paul Bloom, Gideon Rosen, Brian Leiter, George Sher, TM Scanlon Respond

and Barbara Fried Replies
 
@ the Boston Review

The Birds

"I think we're in real trouble. I don't know how this started or why, but I know it's here and we'd be crazy to ignore it..."

-Alfred Hitchcock

 

Cornel West and Simon Critchley discuss religion, politics and violence

source

Rowan Williams on Representing Reality

(*thanks to Josh Furnal for the find)

Photo

by Robert Mapplethorpe (Nov. 4, 1946 – 1989)

source

Dangerous idea

"That ultimately is what is dangerous to people like Mitch Daniels," Arnove said. "The idea of people thinking for themselves, the idea of people learning that history is contested, the idea of people learning examples of people coming together, organizing and advocating for change that in their own moment seemed impossible but actually offset and overturned systems of power, systems that seemed immovable. That's a very dangerous lesson."

source

Reappropriating 'Self'

To play on Charles Taylor's "Buffered Self"

sonder

What's new in social science

Edge asked the participants:

"What's new in your field of social science in the last year or two, and why should I care? Why do I want or need to know about it?  How does it change my view of human nature?"

I asked them to focus broadly and address the major developments in their field (including but not limited to their own research agenda). My goal was to get new, fresh, and original up-to-date field reports on different areas of social science.

The participants include eminent and established scholars in philosophy, psychology, economics, cognitive science. (Participants: Nicholas Christakis, Fiery Cushman, Daniel Dennett, Joshua Greene, June Gruber, Jennifer Jacquet, Daniel Kahneman, Joshua Knobe, Rob Kurzban, Sendhil Mullainathan, David Pizarro, Laurie Santos, Anne Treisman.)

Personally, I am excited to see the new material that comes out of this conference/seminar. But I'm also struck by the lack of representation from anthropology or sociology. The two disciplines are important contributors to these discussions. 


 

Camus' Nobel Prize Acceptance speech

In French but with English caption



"Just as Camus could not place party over people, he would not elevate art to a special status above the political. Says Camus in his Nobel speech above: “I cannot live without my art. But I have never placed it above everything. If, on the other hand, I need it, it is because it cannot be separated from my fellow men… it obliges the artist not to keep himself apart; it subjects him to the most humble and the most universal truth.” Believing strongly in the social duty of the artist, Camus describes his writing as a “commitment” to bear witness to “an insane history.” After outlining the special mission of writing, the “nobility of the writer’s craft,” Camus returns near the end of his speech to modesty and puts the writer “in his proper place” among “his comrades in arms.” For a writer who identified himself solely with his “limits and debts,” Camus left a singularly rich body of work that stands outside of party politics while actively engaging with the political in its most radical form—the duties of people to each other in spite of, or because of, the absurdity of human existence."
 source


Full Transcript of speech in English: here

Faith Debate: 'Religion in Public Life'

Suicide Rates UK

In Wales suicide rate up 30% in 2 years (2013 BBC)

"The male suicide rate in 2011 was the highest since 2002, and among 45-59-year-old men the highest since 1986, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In all, 6,045 suicides were recorded in the UK among people aged 15 and over. The suicide rate was 11.8 deaths per 100,000 people, the highest since 2004.

For men, the suicide rate was 18.2 per 100,000 population. The rate was highest among males aged 30 to 44, at 23.5 per 100,000. Among 45-59-year-old men the figure was 22.2 per 100,000.
Female suicides rose to 1,493, or 5.6 per 100,000. Suicides among 15- to 29-year-old females rose from 2.9 per 100,000 in 2007 to 4.2 per 100,000."

Source: Rise in UK suicide rates (Guardian)

Frazer Lecture: Godfrey Lienhardt - 'Science and Sensibility'

On the legacy of James Frazer



http://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1124777

transcript: here

(*thanks to Jordan Haug for finding this)

*On Zizek's "The Only Way To Be An Atheist is Through Christianity"

"For some time now, Slavoj Žižek has been showing up as an author and editor of theology texts alongside orthodox thinkers whose ideas he thoroughly naturalizes and reads through his Marxist lens. Take, for example, an essay titled, after the Catholic G.K. Chesterton, “The ‘Thrilling Romance of Orthodoxy’” in the 2005 volume, partly edited by Žižek, Theology and the Political: The New Debate. In Chesterton’s defense of Christian orthodoxy, Žižek sees “the elementary matrix of the Hegelian dialectical process.” While “the pseudo-revolutionary critics of religion” eventually sacrifice their very freedom for “the atheist radical universe, deprived of religious reference… the gray universe of egalitarian terror and tyranny,” the same paradox holds for the fundamentalists. Those “fanatical defenders of religion started with ferociously attacking the contemporary secular culture and ended up forsaking religion itself (losing any meaningful religious experience).”

For Žižek, a middle way between these two extremes emerges, but it is not Chesterton’s way. Through his method of teasing paradox and allegory from the cultural artifacts produced by Western religious and secular ideologies—supplementing dry Marxist analysis with the juicy voyeurism of psychoanalysis—Žižek finds that Christianity subverts the very theology its interpreters espouse. He draws a conclusion that is very Chestertonian in its ironical reversal: “The only way to be an atheist is through Christianity.”

Read more here

Zizek is fun. The atheism he discusses here is, of course fashioned from the framework of Christianity. Given Zizek's background I'm sure there is much more Hegel and trademark Lacanian analysis that informs his understanding into theology, all of which go well beyond my competence: just nod and say 'ok' like the dumbstruck foreigner that I am - I could not possibly engage the argument on those levels let alone any meaningful discussion on theological merit. Instead I'll simply start with the premise: atheism is the negation of Christian theism. Or some form thereof. And using the clip above, and that alone, fully acknowledging that I may be totally wrong, take a stab at what Zizek is getting at and try to make an argument.

It seems like Zizek is arguing that because Christianity denies other forms of meaning - naturalism, evolution, "if you don't hate your father your mother, then you are not my follower" etc. etc. - the only way to be an atheist is to go through Christianity. It isolates everything into the "community of believers" no more no less. Just you and the holy ghost. And the negation of God leaves you with "true" atheism?

If my understanding is correct (and it may well not be), I find this talk about a real atheism interesting. It's like saying what a "true (un)believer" is or what a true atheist is as opposed to a false atheist. Orthodox atheism v. Heterodox atheism. In this sense, it seems that Zizek is arguing that true atheism is only possible with the negation of the last standing and sole source of meaning i.e. Christianity; just you and the holy ghost but then get rid of the holy ghost, effectively equating this approach to atheism with nihilism. Get rid of the "big other" through Christianity and then get rid of Christianity such that all that remains is atheism, just you. Of course, my initial point still remains. This is a discourse predicated on the premise of God via Christianity. If you do not accept this premise then this discourse of "true atheism" doesn't exist either. It seems like Zizek would interpret other forms of "big other" as forms of 'God', in almost a Durkheimian sense but instead of using 'society' as its representative we have 'science', 'evolution', or whatever suits your fancy of rationality. And this becomes the representative metaphor to worship. Perhaps this is justified for Zizek.

I wonder, however, within this context of obtaining a "real atheism" if it also negates the set of values that come with them. It is fully possible to reject Christianity while maintaining the values of compassion, empathy, charity, etc. etc. while rejecting the cosmological axioms and sacred postulates of the trinity or whatever theological formulation. If Zizek allows this, then it seems that a type of "big other" returns to the picture which resets the discussion whether forms of the "big other" are variations of theism. In other words, the negation of God via rejecting Christianity does not necessarily strip all values when negating certain axioms. One is not required to believe in Jesus as the son of God to have compassion. One is not required to believe in the Holy Ghost to have love. In this sense, is the rejection of Christianity as the path to "real atheism" negate the, for lack of a better term, divination of values? If it does not, then my inclination is to think that there is no such thing as "real atheism". That is, as long as there are values there is recourse to forms of "big other". I can easily place empathy and compassion within the context of evolution, or any other religious tradition, or philosophy without appealing to God in the Christian sense. We can talk about 'God' in a Durkheimian sense but that would be a different discussion. In this way, atheism becomes other forms of theism associated with the "big other" - whether one chooses an alternative philosophy, religious tradition, science and evolution, whatever one's gods may be. Different metaphorical frameworks, methods of discourse, and conceptual fashions for different folks. Depending on the perspective, it's real or not real; true or false; ethnocentric; anthrocentric; whatever.

So my random exercise here to playfully engage with Zizek, would have to conclude that there is no such thing as a "real atheism" and that all atheisms are valid Or 'God' is possibe in alternative forms outside of Christinaity and in those contexts 'God' may not be not called 'God'.

All of which, of course, will vary depending on what you mean by 'God'.

*I suppose it might help to watch what other renown scholars have said about 'God' as well - not sure if I have time for all 150 of them though...