Patrick -
Hola Todos:
With no disparagement intended to Jochen, I will point out that the
sacred texts of Judeo-Christianity are riddled with commandments of
intolerance as well as love. God is on the record as demanding murder
and worse for trivial acts or for simply living in the wrong valley.
I am possibly the *least* religious person on this list (despite all my
mad psuedospiritual ravings) and I agree with you that there are hugely
*offensive* (by today's standards) statements made in the name of or on
behalf of the (Old Testament/Quranic/Talmudic/???) judgemental,
punishing, paternalistic god. But that is just a reflection of how
cultures of those times and places worked.
I suppose your point is made, however... that does not provide a
promising basis for a "kinder, gentler" way... but then that is what I
suppose Christ was interested into the mix for, throw in some more
peace, love and forgiveness!
So I will also support Jochen's statement that "true Christians"
(WeverTF those are, or if I ever met one) are "really good people"...
insomuch as they actually *follow* the new testament message and allow
it to supercede the old testament.
*I* suspect that there could be some work to do some formal
"deprecation" of the worst of the Old Testament? Lose the Smiting and
Spiting? And yet all (?) contemporary cultures are full of "punishing"
behaviour. MADD mothers and Greenpeace and PETA being examples of near
militaristic forms of "kindness".
Maybe there *is* no social "programme" without a stick *and* a carrot?
Continuar Amigos y Amigas,
- Steve
---- Pat
On Monday, January 20, 2014, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
It is not only a metaphor. It goes deeper, and it touches the core
of our civilization and what it means to be human. Religious
groups are adaptive units subject to evolution. They are based on
replicating entities shaped by group selection.
First I want to say that true Christians are wonderful people,
they are a blessing for everybody. Those who really read the bible
every day and practice it, not the ones who only pretend to be it.
Jesus must have been a wonderful person, too, someone who loved
everyone, men or women, old or young, rich or poor. And when he
died this horrible death at the cross his followers must have
thought this can't be true, such a wonderful person doesn't
deserved this. And some of his followers had the idea to write his
story down.
When human beings are really governed by love, you indeed get a
society worth living in. "thou shalt not" and "eye for an eye;
tooth for a tooth" is the Old Testament, the foundation of the
Jewish religion. The main commandment of the New Testament is love
(Matthew 22, 36-40): "Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind. And [..] love your
neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these
two commandments."
Christians live in bubble of politeness, but rich people, too. See
e.g. http://www.vice.com/read/filthy-lucre "If you have money, you
can pay to live in a bubble of politesse. Excellent wine choice,
sir. Here's your gift bag, madam. Often, you don't have to pay for
it [..] Soon, you think this treatment is earned." Rich people pay
much money to live in this bubble of politesse and politeness.
Living in such a bubble can indeed make you believe you are worth
it, and those with money usually think they deserve it. Although
they themselves behave quite contrary: arrogance is not uncommon
among the rich.
Christians have discovered much earlier a way to get along with
each other without money, and how to make this miserable place a
bit less miserable. Religions are not ancient nonense, they
contain ancient wisdom how to make a life worth living. They
consist of rules and instructions which are thousands of years old
and still work.
You know, the holy book which is read every saturday (in the
Jewish religion) or sunday (in the Christian one) is in fact
nothing else but a bundle of instructions how to create a group of
people which get along with each other. The preacher who preaches
a sermon is like someone who translate the genes of the holy
script. He reads the genetic information (the DNA) and creates a
message (the RNA) so that the believers can translate the
information into behavior. The behavior of the church members is
the protein which is generated. Church service is the expression
of cultural genes, and religious groups are adaptive units subject
to evolution and group selection.
There you have it, the mystery of religion. From a sociological
perspective it is quite obvious. All the basic religious terms are
related to group terms:
god: group
sin: breaking the rules of the group
blessing/curse: wish to be included in/excluded from the group
heaven/hell: being loved/hated by the group
prophet: founder of the group
priest: maintainer of the group
holy (profane): something which belongs to the group (or not)
holy book: history and blueprint of the group
prayer: conversation of individual and group
word of god, commandment: laws of the group
baptism: gain a new existence as a member of a group
This doesn't mean that we all have to eat only "kosher" things
now, though ;-)
See also
* Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 1912
* Randall Collins, "Sociological Insight", Oxford University
Press, 1992
* David Sloan Wilson, "Darwin's cathedral", University Of Chicago
Press, 2003
-Jochen
On 01/20/2014 10:40 PM, glen wrote:
On 01/20/2014 12:39 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
http://blog.cas-group.net/2013/07/fascism-and-cancer/
Great post! But, as usual, the metaphor prevents me from
thinking more
than it helps me to think.
It seems fairly obvious to me that cancers are failures at the
cellular
scale. (Am I wrong?) The coarser and finer constructs are all
useful
mechanisms that only go bad when the cell scale goes wonky.
In order to
make this metaphor between totalitarianism and cancer into a
useful
thinking tool, we have to identify the analog of the cellular
scale
within the totalitarian system. Does the cell map to the
individual?
... if not, then what?
If we push the metaphor, I would argue that the humans that
constitute
totalitarian regimes are _normal_ humans. The merged
sub-systems that
you're mapping to tumors aren't (to my mind) like tumors at all.
They're more like resonant frequencies than misgrown tissues.
This
brings us back to Arlo's concept of kindling homogenously
strapped to
the handle of an ax. It's a systemic pattern that, if broken,
could
snap back to a healthy regime. That's definitely not the case
with
cancer. Just breaking the resonant pattern so that the cells
can float
around amongst the their healthy brethren won't do much good
at all, and
would probably make things much worse.
But I suppose you could counter with the idea that the
individuals who
have been _trained_ by a resonant frequency like capitalism
are (over
time) broken/damaged by that coarser forcing structure. But I
think the
cause vs. effect is flipped for the two systems, making the
analogy fail
in an important way. In one the resonant structure causes the
broken
individual. In the other, the broken individual causes the
neoplasm.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
--
The information contained in this transmission may contain privileged
and confidential information. It is intended only for the use of the
person(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or
duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you are
not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email
and destroy all copies of the original message. To reply to our email
administrator directly, please send an email to
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
