Genealogy of deicide

The Heretic

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An abstract from my upcoming book on Theothanatology:

Why deicide precedes posthumanism

The significance of the death of God has many aspects, but the most important one is the painful realization that metaphysical foundations have become empty, irrelevant, and consequently, romantic. But it is human weaknesses that keeps those foundations circulating under the pretense of necessity, due to shame, cowardice masquerading as arrogance, and self-indulgent nostalgia.

Even though absolute values have lost their credibility today, we still haven't come to grips with our murder of God. Moreover, the shift to secularism has eroded away the inertia of metaphysical foundations, yet the bloated and rotting divine corpse remains unacknowledged, the proverbial pink elephant nobody "sees."

Despite the obvious assassination of the divine, we refuse to admit the guilt of deicide. Thus our disavowal, in turn, serves as an artificial respirator that keeps a comatose, brain-dead God alive. It is possible that sooner or later, we will come clean, collectively, and see past Feuerbach's insight that man's psychological illusions are behind the self-projection of his highest attributes.

More importantly, we must go further than the all-too-easy replacement of God with Man, which jettisoned the philosophy of theism by introducing humanism in its place, for that is merely another attempt to forget the demise of the Divine.

Nothiing profitable will come from the substitute idolatry of humanism, for both humanism and religion are co-dependent. Man is the avatar of God on earth, but Jacques Lacan would say this is replacing Master Signifier with an excremental remainder.

Consequently, the death of God in turn is also the death of Man. Both "deaths" of abstractions are best understood as metaphors that signifies the collapse of humanism under the infection of nihilism in modernity.

The "death of God" is a mutation of Christianity, where the crucifixion of Christ signaled the end of the idea of God as a vengeful patriarch. The death of God, in turn, signals the end of man as a created being with a special status in all of Creation and a hotline to the Creator.

Our ineradicable need for metaphysics predispose a teleology for existence - which means the alternative, a meaningless universe and a lack of ultimate reason for the existence of the human race, is far too difficult to even conceive, much less cope with. If man has no preexisting purpose, no divine guarantee, then nor will its disappearance amount to anything either. The invention of God, perhaps, has to do with our hopes of being remembered in an absurdly empty universe. But the death of God is a necessary transition for the maturation of human culture, and the death of Man is absolutely essential for the continued evolution of the species....
 
I sent this to someone I know who could understand
what the hell your saying and this is the response I got


In a nutshell, he is saying he doesn't believe in God. That Man invented God to suit Man's needs.. And now Man has outgrown God so God is no longer needed. Thus Man has "killed off God".
He says the cruxifiction of Christ is proof that divinity exisits only in man's head.


Uses poor English and tosses in a lot of innacurate words.
 
I don’t understand a word of it either. :confused: It appears to be semantically null gibberish.
 
Interesting read, although complete understanding of your vocabulary alludes me.
 
Something's rotten in Denmark, and it sure ain't as hell the gouda cheese!

BBNT

Is this your way of passing off your own comments as someone else in order to avoid from being called on them? ;-)

Regarding your "quoted" friend, that's sad. That overly simplistic summary captures only a fraction of what I wrote. I was trying to show why the end of God is also the end of Man (pace Humanism) and we need to get beyond both.

Well, I bet you my bottom dollar that the MS Word at its highest technical settings on the grammar/spellcheck will approve of my wording/punctuation/writing style, aside from a comma here and there, so instead of actual examples, this pathetic handwave is little more than a superficial scoff.

No soup for you. Next!
 
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Heretic, maybe one feels threatened by your advanced comprehension, would it be appros for you to adapt to those who can share your interests for debate/discussion? Just a thought.
 
Cookie Monster said:
Heretic, maybe one feels threatened by your advanced comprehension, would it be appros for you to adapt to those who can share your interests for debate/discussion? Just a thought.

I agree with Cookie Monster....I felt like I was reading an advanced textbook with all of those comprehension words. LOL
 
Have you shared this with D? Well I am sure you did. Actually I am more interested in how AF (or rather any other Christian), will react to your excerpt. :) I can think so many people that will fulminate if I suggest that we are pumping in blood and air in the concept of Divine Being because we feel guilty for having blood on our hands. "Out, damn'd spot!"

I have to say that I never thought that a religion was spun off from human's attempts to maintain the concept of a Divine Being as if it is their security blanket. It does make sense-- it is like Trekkies clinging on the concept of Star Treks... and they got a taste of rationality when William Shatner bluntly answered: "Get a LIFE!" Prehaps a similar incident is necessary at a religious convention??

Ah, my apologies for the analogical Star Trek story. :)


[EDITED:
I had a question but I was worried to ask you since I know you in RL and that you will judge me but I will go ahead and spit it out--
When do you think Man did kill their Divine Being?]
 
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Levonian

I could say the same for your response, but that wouldn't be getting us anywhere. Perhaps if you put in some effort in making a question rather than pooh-poohing, such as "what did you mean by X?"

I'd be happy to explain myself. But if you prefer to pull the ostrich routine, then have a nice day.

Ccookie Monster

I'd be more than happy to explain anything specific that confused you, and meet you halfway. But like I said before, I will never dumb down the material for the sake of people's insecurities.
 
The Heretic said:
Ccookie Monster

I'd be more than happy to explain anything specific that confused you, and meet you halfway. But like I said before, I will never dumb down the material for the sake of people's insecurities.

I'm glad you will be more than happy to explain anything specific that confused anyone however I didn't ask you to "dumb down" your materials because that would sacrifice your integrity.
 
The Heretic said:
...The significance of the death of God...
...but if God never existed, how could He die?

...has many aspects, but the most important one is the painful realization that metaphysical foundations have become empty, irrelevant, and consequently, romantic.
What is "romantic" about emptiness and irrelevance?

Of course, life without God is empty.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-3
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
["vanity" means "emptiness"]

But it is human weaknesses that keeps those foundations circulating under the pretense of necessity, due to shame, cowardice masquerading as arrogance, and self-indulgent nostalgia.
2 Timothy 2:14 Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. 15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.


Even though absolute values have lost their credibility today...
That is nothing new. There have always been some people without "absolute values."
Judges 21:25
...every man did that which was right in his own eyes.


...we still haven't come to grips with our murder of God...
More like the "attempted" murder of God.


... But the death of God is a necessary transition for the maturation of human culture, and the death of Man is absolutely essential for the continued evolution of the species....
Of course, that is presuming that Man as a species evolved in the first place.
 
At last!

Gnarly Dorkette, you hold the distinguished honor of posting the first - and quite possibly, the last - intelligent response. :smoking:

gnarlydorkette said:
Have you shared this with D? Well I am sure you did.
Actually, i haven't told our mutual friend about this, and i know he would ask if i was channelling the spirit of both Foucault and Nietzsche in order to come up with my own thoughts, and whether i did come up strong in the end at all.

gnarlydorkette said:
Actually I am more interested in how AF (or rather any other Christian), will react to your excerpt. :)
AF? Is this another one of our "mutual" friends? Well, if it is who i think it is, she would laugh and talk about something totally irrelevant. :dance2:

I have to say that I never thought that a religion was spun off from human's attempts to maintain the concept of a Divine Being as if it is their security blanket. It does make sense-- it is like Trekkies clinging on the concept of Star Treks... and they got a taste of rationality when William Shatner bluntly answered: "Get a LIFE!" Prehaps a similar incident is necessary at a religious convention?? Ah, my apologies for the analogical Star Trek story. :)
Ouch! That there is a parallel between the devotees of a cult and the general behavior of the religious is duly noted.

[EDITED: I had a question but I was worried to ask you since I know you in RL and that you will judge me but I will go ahead and spit it out--
When do you think Man did kill their Divine Being?]

I see no need to judge you, GD, for i know you yourself will be a more harsh judge. :twisted:

This is a very good question and one i don't have a definite answer on. Well, right now i am looking at the shift in the many historical conceptions of God, starting with the theology of William of Occam, who lived during the apocalyptic times of the late Middle Ages: people perceived a future where God would rule directly, totally independent from the church or nature. This picture of an omnipotent God who could call good evil and evil good became known as nominalism. Since man is made in the image of God, the chief attribute of man became, in this future, his will. This focus on the will is considered in contemporary culture to be grounded in the insistence that if only the culture had enough desire, any difficulty could be overcome, according to the scholar Michael Allen Gillespie in his book, Nihilism before Nietzsche.

Another possibility is Gunther Cunningham's book, Genealogy of Nihilism, where the radical theologian finds the same roots in William of Occam, but with a different interpretation, he comes up with very different conclusions.
 
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Cookie Monster said:
I'm glad you will be more than happy to explain anything specific that confused anyone however I didn't ask you to "dumb down" your materials because that would sacrifice your integrity.

Great! Do you have anything to ask me, something i need to clarify?

Reba, crippled by her Christian Goggles, is incapable of reading my metaphors as anything but metaphors.

God, if he was alive, then he was immortal. He couldn't have "died." Hence, i must be talking about something else. The "death of God" refers to the end of the God as he was for European culture, the shared cultural belief in God which had once been its defining and uniting characteristic.

Since the middle to the end of the 19th century, science, art and politics have moved beyond the domination of religion, and out from under the shadow of God.

If anyone is interested, i can discuss more about the "death of man," or at least the poststructuralists' version.
 
The proof is in the pudding.

readability.JPG
 
Heretic.......does that feature tell you if your writing is post 12th grade level?
What's the average reading level of a typical American anyway?
I could understand it, but I can see where a lot of folks might not be able to do so. Especially as we're a Deaf forum where literacy levels have been historically low.
 
Well, OK—after reading it very carefully several times, I figured out what you’re talking about. It’s not semantically null, but it is the most cumbersome piece of prose I’ve come across in a long time. Bottom line—don’t give up your day job. It kind of reminds me of this:

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past, the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that, by their periodical return, put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity -- the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed. And why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.

I assume you recognize it. I retract the remark about ‘gibberish’, but I really wonder how much of an audience you expect to appeal to here. You do realize that half of all Gallaudet graduates read at or below the fourth grade level, don’t you?
 
The Heretic said:
BBNT

Is this your way of passing off your own comments as someone else in order to avoid from being called on them? ;-)

Regarding your "quoted" friend, that's sad. That overly simplistic summary captures only a fraction of what I wrote. I was trying to show why the end of God is also the end of Man (pace Humanism) and we need to get beyond both.

Well, I bet you my bottom dollar that the MS Word at its highest technical settings on the grammar/spellcheck will approve of my wording/punctuation/writing style, aside from a comma here and there, so instead of actual examples, this pathetic handwave is little more than a superficial scoff.

No soup for you. Next!




hahahahaha "my comments" I didn't even understand any
of it enough to comment on anything
 
deafdyke said:
Heretic.......does that feature tell you if your writing is post 12th grade level?
Yes,the Fleisch Grade level rates it at the 12h grade (multiplying the numberof words by the average syllables of each then divided by the number of sentences per paragraph or some other formula)

But I think this formula is rather artificial and abstract, to be frank.

What's the average reading level of a typical American anyway?
Hell if I know, and honestly, I couldn't care less.
I could understand it, but I can see where a lot of folks might not be able to do so. Especially as we're a Deaf forum where literacy levels have been historically low.

Indeed, and I know this all-too-well from personal experience. But if I water down my material for the sake of the audience, I would be only enabling their general illiteracy, rather than challenging it.

Most writers subconsciously write what they want to read.
 
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most do.

Levonian said:
It’s not semantically null, but it is the most cumbersome piece of prose I’ve come across in a long time. Bottom line—don’t give up your day job.

Indeed, a fine ipse dixit, yet wildly inaccurate.

Reading a lot of pop culture books like Sheldon or Danielle Steele or Dan Brown will limit your tolerance for the more difficult writers like Bataille, Foucault, Deleuze or Derrida.

Nonetheless, an English professor and a journalist, among others, hold the direct opposite opinion - that I have some writing ability that distinguished me from my peers. They must've been on coke or something. Right? My younger sister, who is getting her master's in Linguistic Anthropology, actually submits her rough drafts for my review in order to get better grades. She thinks I have better writing skills than drawing ones, and my day job is penciling comic books! So, you'll pardon my skepticism of your ability to judge prose, never mind how purple it is. ;)

The interesting thing is, the OP is actually an abstract, a summarized version of the actual chapter - meaning it is already a stripped down version of the Real McCoy.

I assume you recognize it. I retract the remark about ‘gibberish’, but I really wonder how much of an audience you expect to appeal to here. You do realize that half of all Gallaudet graduates read at or below the fourth grade level, don’t you?

A couple of things:

One, I think you've confused the entrance requirements of potential Gallaudet students with the graduating ones. I would like to see an actual study that indicates such, rather than taking your word for it.

Two, I don't write for the Gallaudet graduating class, for I have a greater audience in mind: the philosophers, theologians, historians, sociologists, the other intellectuals. So, you have nothing to add, besides your intolerance of higher writing.

Well, there's always Harry Potter!
 
This is interesting. :thumb: Before, I didn't think of humanism in the way you discussed it. It seems that the type of humanism you mentioned replaces gods with humanity as something to think highly of. I read of multiple types of humanism, including religious humanism. Which kind of humanism are you referring to? I guess it's secular humanism. I don't really consider myself a humanist, just a secular person, because humanity is not a homogeneous collection of people to think highly of as such. The entirely of humanity may have common characteristics, but I consider different cultures too important to ignore, at least in this era. We're not like the aliens on Star Trek with monolithic worldwide, interplanetary or interstellar cultures. :mrgreen:
I appreciate you posting this here. There's nothing wrong with showing people what higher writing looks like. :ty:
 
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