The Murder of God

[Peguy]

How ironic, I was reading through Voegelin's book on Gnosticism today and the chapter was literally titled "The Murder of God".

Namely the notion of murdering God is basically the greatest self-deception of those who seek to become God themselves - which stems from a complicated disgust with the cosmos and being as it is.

One can certainly deceive oneself into thinking they've murdered God, but the reality is quite the contrary. If anything, they've murdered themselves.

[Nocap]

What the hell are you talking about Peguy?

[JocktheMotie]

He may be referring to the fact that those who try to destabilize the god-figure are merely trying to take that figure's place in return.

For example, the scientist who seeks to prove God does not exist does so because he secretly [and maybe it is hidden from him as well] believe science to be god, irrefutable, and the absolute truth.

[Peguy]

Well I tried to explain it in 50 words or less; so here's the long version:

The aim of parousiatic gnosticism is to destroy the order of being, which is experienced as defective and unjust, and through man's creative power to replace it with a perfect and just order. Now, however the order of being may be understood - as a world dominated by cosmic-divine powers in the civilizations of the Near and Far East, or as a creation of a world-transcendent God in Judaeo-Christian symbolism, or as an essential order of being in philosophical contemplation - it remains something that is given, that is not under man's control. In order, therefore, that the attempt to create a new world may seem to make sense, the givenness of the order of being must be obliterated; the order of being must be interpreted, rather, as essentially under man's control. And taking control of being further requires that the the transcendent origin of being be obliterated: it requires the decapitation of being - the muder of God.

The murder of God is committed speculatively by explaining divine being as the work of man...Man should stop creating gods because this sets absurd limits to his will and action; and he should realize that the gods he has already created have in fact been created by him...There may be no being or image of being that might make human will and thought appear finite..In order to appear the unlimited master of being, man must so delimit being that limitations are no longer evident. And why must this magic act be performed? The answer is: "If there were gods, how could I endure not being a god! Therefore, there are no gods."

It does not suffice, therefore, to replace the old world of God with a new world of man: the world of God itself must have been a world of man, and God a work of man which can therefore be destroyed if it prevents man from reigning over the order of being. The murder of God must be made retroactive speculatively...The murder of God, then, is of the very essence of the gnostic re-creation of the order of being.

Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism pg. 35-36;37

[Nocap]

I asked "what the hell are you talking about?"
Not "could you rephrase that?"

[Gabe]

Or you could just be openly selective about the stuff in the bible, since it obviously has some really crappy recomendations. The only problem I have about the people who are religiously anti-gay is they act as if they are the true followers of what's written in the bible, as if that would be a good thing if it were a credible claim (it's not, obviously). And the bible (both testements) is a morality tale, not a historical record. I laugh my head off every time someone finds a piece of wood on the bottom of a lake bed and claims that they've found historical evidence of noah's ark.

Originally Posted by Eric B

Oneof the big problem in the debates is the reduction of options to the two common ones: take Genesis literally, and reject all science that says anything to the contrary, OR, take whatever science says as infallible fact, and just realize that the Bible was mistaken in science fact, yet we can still glean good, moral principles out of it. And yes, the bible is a morality tale, not a historical record.

The problem is, to people who take it seriously, if it was wrong about science and history, then its credibility is questionable for everything else.
Of course, this is the view on the far "scientific" extreme: that it was just an ancient fairytale book, whose purpose was at best to fabricate a basis for morality, and at worse, just a tool to control others through fear with unprovable claims.
Then there is a more moderate view that says the Bible was not in error, just allegoric. But then again, much of it, which was written in absolute terms, would lose real meaning, and anyone could interpret it in any way (Which is what goes on in the religious world anyway!) If it is just something to glean moral principles out of, then people will be selective about it, and it will again lose any real significance.

(I believe it was somewhere on this board that someone posted a link to the Youtube video of Bill Maher doing a sketch of Jesus siding with the Prop 8 opponents on the basis that the proponents were being selective in that they no longer obeyed several Old Testament rules such as the kosher laws. However, those were officially declared to be nailed to the Cross; while homosexuality was still spoken negatively of in the New Testament. Though there was a great point that the fervor with which people oppose and condemn other people's morality is based on the OT concept of a theocratic nation, which also ended with the OT, yet they try to hold on to).

I myself have always struggled with how Genesis could be true, or how much could be symbolic, or based on the limited perspective of the writer and original readers. The same thing actually happens on the other end of the book, with Revelation. Right there, I have recently found that most of the prophecies evangelical Christians claim are future were actually fulfilled with the destruction of the Temple in AD70. We were all thrown off by statements such as "the whole earth" being evangelized, (which has not happened yet), but then ignored or bent/stretched much clearer "time indicators", such as the end coming "shortly", and even before "some of you standing here...taste death", as Christ told his audience. But a close study of OT language will show that "earth" was used to represent the local area, or Israel. "World" was actually "age". This changes everything. So we got hung up on "space", which was actually more relative in definition, but ignored time, which was more absolute, as man can only live but so long.

So likewise, Genesis would probably also be better explained through this grammatical lense. Now, we would have a better justification for a local flood. Either that, or the fundamentalists need to conclude that the laws of the universe were vastly different back then, if they want their rigid literalism. There's actually a clause in string theory that says that the laws of the universe can change instantly (though the results would generally be cataclysmic as matter breaks apart of reforms. But that would be an idea).
But they instead insist the laws were the same; God was just interfering with them, even though he no longer seems to do this (and many of these old-liners are sternly against modern charismaticism which claims God is always intervening supernaturally today).

So that would give us a biblical framework for less than literal interpretations. But too often, the approach of non literalness is just to slap a generic "allegoric interpretation" label on the issue, without any such framework, and it just looks like a cheap attempt to get around the passages that don't make sense to us. so the literalists reject this and keep insisting the literal approach is the only "safe" one. I had fallen into this for years.

Makes sense, as the religious conservatives ironically sided with a social-Darwinistic approach to politics (like in their defenses of laissez-faire capitalism).

[Jack Flak]

Originally Posted by Gabe

Or you could just be openly selective about the stuff in the bible, since it obviously has some really crappy recomendations.

Once you start doing that, you might as well throw it away, because you've put your conscience in charge. As it should be, usually.

[Eldanen]

Christianity isn't dead. Just the more dogmatic forms of it that require highly literal interpretations.

[Victor]

Originally Posted by Geoff

No, he did not quite say that. You are misquoting him through paraphrasing.

He [Charles Darwin] said that keeping his discovery secret, and then sharing it with the world "was like confessing to a murder".

I stand corrected.

I have altered my original post at your suggestion and it is all the better.

And not only do we have a murder, but we have a confession as well.

[Beat]