babyfinland posted:

FROM PAGE 3 OF EPIC LONG HARD TO READ THING UNGHGHH

In what follows I want to examine the ways in which the thcoretical search for an essencc of religion invites us to separatc it conceptually from the domain of power. I shall do this by exploring a universalist definition of religion offered by an eminent anthropologist: Clifford Geertz's "Religion as a Cultural System" Ireprinted in his widely acclaimed The Inter/JretatiOll of Cultures (1973)). I stress that this is not primarily a critical review of Geertz's ideas on religion - if that had been m}" aim I would have addresscd myself to thc entire corpus of his writings on religion in Indonesia and 1,.,lorocco. My intention in this chaptcr is to try to identify some of the historical shifts that have produccd our concept of religion as the concept of a rranshistorical essence - and Gecrtz's articlc is merely my starting point.

It is part of my basic argument that socially identifiablc forms, prcconditions, and effects of what \vas regarded as religion in the medieval Christian epoch were quitc different from (hose so considered in modern society. I want to get at this well-known fact while trying to avoid a simple nominalism. What we call religious powcr was differcntly distributed and had a different thrust. Therc were different ways in which it created and worked through legal institutions, differcnt selvcs that it shaped and responded to, and different categories of know- Icdge which it authorized and made available. Ne\'crrheless, what thc anthropolo· gist is confronted with, as a consequence, is not merely an arbitrary collection of elements and processes that we happen [0 call "religion." For thc entire phcnom- enon is to be seen in large measure in the context of Christian attcmpts to achieve a coherence in doctrincs and practices, rules and regulations, even if that was a state never fully arr.lined. My argument is that thcre cannot be a universal definition of rcligion, not only because its constituent elements and relationships arc historically specific, but because that definition is itself the historical product of discursivc processes.

A universal (i.e., anthropological) definition is, however, precisely what Geenz aims at: A religion, hc proposes, is "( I) a system of symbols which act to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in mcn hy (3) fomm· lating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic" (90). In what follows I shall cxamine this definition, not only in order to test its interlinked assertions, but also to flesh out thc counterclaim that a transhis· torical definition of religion is nO( viable:.

http://www.iupui.edu/~womrel/Rel433%20Readings/01_SearchableTextFiles/Asad_ConstructionOfReligionAnthroCategory.pdf

please note that the spelling here is not OCR errors or typos. this is actually how you talk after spending an entire career pickling your brain in caustic pomo sludge

Lessons posted:

hipsters in redneck legislature pass ironic anti-abortion bill as rider inside anti-sharia law legislation:

http://www.wral.com/senate-tacks-sweeping-abortion-legislation-onto-sharia-law-bill/12621503/

Lessons posted:

i read foucaults pendulum

same

tpaine posted:

i sometimes forget it's fashionable to tolerate religion among whatever irrelevant and hopeless sect constitutes the modern left and it's one of the main reasons we'll never get anything done

I got that on a tshirt somewhere