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It's not about G-d
Mar. 27th, 2006 10:12 pm"It's not about god, it's about social control."
I can't remember who said this to me but they were right about religion.
Social control is just one form of self control.
Given that this country/humanity/me is, as always, in a bit of a fix.
And, given that we could use some sort of motivator to get out of this trouble.
It occurs to me that we need a religion of some sort. We need a code, a system, a way.
I'm a (insert identity here)
Faith needn't necessitate god though. Many religions get along fine without god: Buddhism, Taoism, some branches of Hinduism, many political movements, many Jews, most Catholics.
Not that a faith (the faiths?) would need to be atheist: one's belief in God could be like one's belief in loop quantum gravity: interesting, but not going to get you laid. Nor would the faith(s) need to have firm guideline on everything. There could be the general guideline of "don't be a fucker," with several branches of belief: you could interpret The Holy Hypertext (the holy comic book?) as saying that this means "be polite" under school A, "don't torture your food" under school B, "volunteer," whatever.
Part of my motivation is to be able to slap labels on things and call them "of the faith." I got kosher meals when I went to Europe, because I heard they were better. This is not true on Lufthansa where the food is generall good, but most airlines have policies in this regard. Think about it. One can say "I'd really rather be able to get this or that kind of food or clothes" and then there's "it's my faith, bitch: I don't buy or eat anything else." People respect (and market to) the latter for whatever reason.
It's not about god. It's about organization, identity, rules. Snappy clothes. Ideas. Ideals. Priciples. Foundations. Caregiving. Potluck dinners and old buildings that need constant fundrasing. God's just there to give it some oomph. Oomph could be made up for with enough cool shit. I see tapdancing.
An unrelated link: a date movie for sure.
I can't remember who said this to me but they were right about religion.
Social control is just one form of self control.
Given that this country/humanity/me is, as always, in a bit of a fix.
And, given that we could use some sort of motivator to get out of this trouble.
It occurs to me that we need a religion of some sort. We need a code, a system, a way.
I'm a (insert identity here)
Faith needn't necessitate god though. Many religions get along fine without god: Buddhism, Taoism, some branches of Hinduism, many political movements, many Jews, most Catholics.
Not that a faith (the faiths?) would need to be atheist: one's belief in God could be like one's belief in loop quantum gravity: interesting, but not going to get you laid. Nor would the faith(s) need to have firm guideline on everything. There could be the general guideline of "don't be a fucker," with several branches of belief: you could interpret The Holy Hypertext (the holy comic book?) as saying that this means "be polite" under school A, "don't torture your food" under school B, "volunteer," whatever.
Part of my motivation is to be able to slap labels on things and call them "of the faith." I got kosher meals when I went to Europe, because I heard they were better. This is not true on Lufthansa where the food is generall good, but most airlines have policies in this regard. Think about it. One can say "I'd really rather be able to get this or that kind of food or clothes" and then there's "it's my faith, bitch: I don't buy or eat anything else." People respect (and market to) the latter for whatever reason.
It's not about god. It's about organization, identity, rules. Snappy clothes. Ideas. Ideals. Priciples. Foundations. Caregiving. Potluck dinners and old buildings that need constant fundrasing. God's just there to give it some oomph. Oomph could be made up for with enough cool shit. I see tapdancing.
An unrelated link: a date movie for sure.
