Excerpt from Tolstoy’s A Confession

 Literature, Quotations  No Responses »
Nov 252012
 

Tolstoy, A Confession, pp. 2-3:

Now, just as then, it is impossible to judge from a person’s life, or behaviour, whether or not he is a believer….Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straight-forwardness, good-naturedness and morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers. The Catechism is taught in schools and the pupils are sent to church; officials must be able to produce evidence of having received communion. But a person belonging to our circle, who is no longer at school and has not entered into public service, can still live for ten years or more without once remembering that he is living among Christians and is himself considered to be a practising member of the Orthodox Church. This was even more true in the past.

Thus today, as in earlier times, religious teaching, which is accepted on trust and sustained by external pressure, gradually weakens under the influence of knowledge and experience of life that stands in opposition to the religious doctrines; a person can go on living for a long time imagining that the body of religious instruction imparted to him when he was a child is still there, whereas it has in fact disappeared without leaving a trace.

Orthodoxies

 Culture, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Oct 052011
 

From an email I wrote to someone:

Regarding the Koran and terrorism, the whole subject is rife with polemics and disinformation campaigns (on both sides) and so is difficult to assess. I don’t have time or the desire to investigate it completely, but allow me to summarize my thoughts:

You stated that Muslim terrorists were orthodox.
(1) This implies that orthodoxy in Islam (or any other faith, for that matter) has been decided.
(2) If (1) is true, then there is one orthodox understanding and individual Muslims choose whether or not to submit to this understanding or to deviate from it.
(3) If (1) and (2) are true, and assuming that orthodoxy is codified and every person is able to understand the orthodox position, no two sects could claim orthodoxy with a straight face.

Yet we hear claims of orthodoxy from every sect, cult, priest, congregation, theologian, minister, imam, and denomination under the sun. And since the majority make claims of orthodoxy in good faith, it is apparent that not everybody recognizes or understands the orthodox faith-form. Besides, we have no way of knowing the particular credo subscribed to by an individual terrorist. But that is rather beside the point because we arrive at an impasse and a great irony: orthodoxy—prized for its perfect unity—is plural. Until Allah or Yahweh or Jesus or Brahma or Zeus or Ra makes it painfully clear for all involved, orthodoxy will be locked in a box, unable to be seen by any living being, and we will not know which state it/they is/are in: singular or plural.

I forgot to mention the relative peace (for subjects) during the Great Expansion, the Hadith, and all that other jazz.

Watch a Filmy

 Art, Culture, Film, Music  No Responses »
Jan 252011
 

Rock My Religion from Diogo Tirado on Vimeo.

Rock My Religion is a thesis on the relation between religion and rock music in contemporary culture. Graham formulates a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious community who practiced self-denial and ecstatic trance dances. With the “reeling and rocking” of religious revivals as his point of departure, Graham analyzes the emergence of rock music as religion with the teenage consumer in the isolated suburban milieu of the 1950s, locating rock’s sexual and ideological context in post-World War II America. The music and philosophies of Patti Smith, who made explicit the trope that rock is religion, are his focus. This complex collage of text, film footage and performance forms a compelling theoretical essay on the ideological codes and historical contexts that inform the cultural phenomenon of rock `n’ roll music.

Oh, Montana

 Religion  2 Responses »
Feb 232010
 

And here’s some news from the northern Texas:

a Montana state court rejected a claim by defendant Richard Turk that his rights under the U.S. and Montana constitutions were violated by the state’s requirement that he present a social security number in order to obtain a drivers’ license. Turk believes that his social security number is the Biblical mark of the beast, and that requiring him to use it violates the free exercise and establishment clauses. The court concluded that Turk had not shown that his belief is a central teaching of any religion.

American Religion & Sex Clubs & English & Conspiracy Theories & Portraits

 Art, Culture, Film, Language, Religion  No Responses »
Dec 172009
 

Metafilter post about the increasing wishy-washiness in American religion.

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British Sex Clubs from the olden days.

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What English sounds like to non-native speakers:

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Conspiracy theory with critical thinking.

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The Human Survey.