26 April 2005
an open question?
At this point, I really have just one question: what could k-punk's 'modern naturalistic religion' be? If we examine the following claim:
The only way to destroy theism is to reject all forms of transcendence, personalism, and dualism. Thus Theism might always be about meaning, but what religion would look like if monism were asserted AGAINST theism is an open question.
What seems to be proposed is a form of Pantheism (though what makes it particularly 'modern' is not clear) - the denial of transcendence, supernaturalism, the refusal of the notions of persons as free self-conscious moral agents. Also a refusal of any Cartesian physical body/non-physical object separation. So far, so Spinoza. It's not clear why one would need Lacan, Badiou or Zizek to bolster this classical, if perennially subversive, naturalistic determinism (especially as k-p further objects to what he considers to be 'Badiou's voluntarism and crypto-phenomenology').
So, the final statement, that 'what religion would look like if monism were asserted AGAINST theism is an open question.' But is it really an 'open question' as to what this religion would look like? Monism has been asserted 'against' theism many times, not only by Spinoza (but also e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism), and not always in, er, 'progressive' ways (and if you object strongly to 'crypto-idealism', consider that one could perfectly well be a idealistic monist). Why monism? And what kind of monism? substance? attributive? What relation does this monism have to the kind of religion that would believe in or depend upon it?
The second part of my question concerns the use of the term religion. In time-(dis) honoured-academic style, here are the OED definitions:
1. the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods >a particular system of faith or worship.
2. A pursuit or interest followed with devotion.
Obviously we can set aside the first definition, as it's quite clear you don't mean that, but what of the second? Apart from it sounding like someone's dedication to building model airplanes, we could understand it in Spinozist or even existential terms as a commitment to a certain set of axioms/principles/beliefs and the life lived in accordance with these. Spinoza's determinism permits, of course, room for an increase in the level of knowledge reached: 'The highest conatus of the mind and its highest virtue is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge.' (Ethics, Book 5, Proposition 25). Whilst everyone knows that the historical reception of Spinoza oscillates between deeming him the 'God-intoxicated man' sive the most profound atheist, it's not clear at all the retaining the term 'religion' is going to add much to a Spinozist naturalist monism.
So, from a Spinozist, or k-punkian (!) standpoint, where lies the real difference (ontologically, existentially, politically) in having commitment to religion or having no commitment to religion, if one is already convinced of Spinoza's framework? Without immense etymological knowledge, I can't be sure, but one definition of religion appears to derive from the Latin "religio" used by the Romans, before Jesus Christ, to indicate the worship of demons. Do we really need to perpetuate such a black metal mode of existence? (stop nodding, effay - and cheers for the Venom! favourite line so far: 'do you believe in God/he's chained up like a dog/and every hour he screams'...!!!!!).
Something on Badiou's piece on Spinoza coming up next.
