Reading Mitch's 'father's day' post reminds me of 19th c. folks such as Matthew Arnold's attempts to substitute national literature (the british tradition in this case, hence the development of/perceived need for 'great books' as the franchise expanded to the working class etc, and hence the heightened role of education, particularly the humanities, in preserving the knowledge of/appreciation for a common past, a shared culture, national values and of course, particular formulations of truth and reality) for religion, which was in the process of dissipating thanks to the advances of Enlightenment reason, science, technology, etc.--i.e., secular dominance of culture.

I'm wondering if the resurgence of religion today, particularly the various fundamentalisms (zionism, right-wing christianity, suicide-bombing islam) is a response to the 'globalization' of science/technology/capital, a 21st c. effort to 'reclaim' some sense of shared values and culture as nations and people increasingly atomize yet are increasingly dependent and interconnected.

i.e. : the all-embracing, all-encompassing 'father in the sky' as a last-ditch (in my mind misguided and dangerous) attempt to prove (by any means necessary, it seems) that religion, despite the past two centuries of secular dominance, is still what provides that sense of common culture/value/truth/reality. Still all about power (and still patriarchal power, at that-- really, i'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy).

Hollow be thy name.

When did the meek ever really inherit anything but meekness?

Perhaps this is a little ill-informed, but that very multifarious process of substitution-- trading the earth for the abstract-- isn't that the essential fallacy of metaphysics? It's not just God, by any means-- it's also science, philosophy; medicine; Truth. The main thrusts of predominantly enlightenment-based thinking that so dominates the west always seem to make some claim to something intangible. And even the majority of non-christians who yet make a claim to some ecclectic manner of spirituality still insist they have souls.... another substitution for a much simpler truth, at least on the surface of things. For attempting to explain, exactly, the space taken by the soul-substitution problem is something we haven't yet spoken of much. I'd like to hear much more on the problems which atheism poses to conventional notions of identity and persona in this age which still clings so tenaciously to it's inflated sense of individualism. And something, perhaps, that didn't include a plethora of jabs at corporate culture... ha ha ha!

When did the meek ever really inherit anything but meekness?

Perhaps this is a little ill-informed, but that very multifarious process of substitution-- trading the earth for the abstract-- isn't that the essential fallacy of metaphysics? It's not just God, by any means-- it's also science, philosophy; medicine; Truth. The main thrusts of predominantly enlightenment-based thinking that so dominates the west always seem to make some claim to something intangible. And even the majority of non-christians who yet make a claim to some ecclectic manner of spirituality still insist they have souls.... another substitution for a much simpler truth, at least on the surface of things. For attempting to explain, exactly, the space taken by the soul-substitution problem is something we haven't yet spoken of much. I'd like to hear much more on the problems which atheism poses to conventional notions of identity and persona in this age which still clings so tenaciously to it's inflated sense of individualism. And something, perhaps, that didn't include a plethora of jabs at corporate culture... ha ha ha!

yes, it's important to acknowledge that substitutions are imposed by other forms of thought, not just religion...even if it does weaken my point.

Not sure the 'father in the sky' can really be described as "last-ditch," since it seems as if humankind has been in this rut for a couple of millennia, at least. However, it was interesting for me to learn (belatedly) that God seems much less the daddy-of-us-all in the Old Testament than the New. Hadn't realized that He, like the rest of us, may have needed to have a Kid to gain that view of Himself.

'last-ditch' in the sense that my unclear thoughts were trying to focus on contemporary extremist forms of 'father in the sky'...that these particular versions could be signaling the exhaustion of the millenia-old fatherly rut.

If, e.g., in the OT fear and violence were used to obtain/maintain 'here&now' loyalty of the chosen, in the NT fear and violence seem to be invoked to guarantee commitment to the 'eternalbeyond'... in contemporary fundamentalisms fear and violence seem bent on non-differentiation of the metaphysical with the present, inverting previous configurations of fatherly manifestation. e.g., proof of obedience to/faith in the father demonstrated now by the violent demonization of difference; martyrdom gained by means of mass murder; exceptionalism achieved by pre-emptive war... My point only that the predominant role of fear and violence in these contemporary forms may be signalling a kind of desperation, an exhaustion of the fatherly paradigm -- Kid or no Kid -- that has a lot to do with globalization of secular thinking (Barthelme's _the dead father_ comes to mind as a herald of this idea)

I always thought "turn the other cheek" was a crock, until I learned what it meant in its original context. Sorry I don't have a cite, but apparently the idea was that in the Roman empire, you couldn't slap a slave with your right hand, because you could only strike an equal with that hand. (The left hand was considered unclean.) So if a master slapped his slave with the left hand (on the slave's right cheek) and the slave turned the other cheek, the master had two choices: slap the slave with his right hand, thus declaring him an equal, or back down and lose face. Hence turning the other cheek was actually a pretty subversive act.