The Language of the Gods

09/06/2010

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"I fear that we will never rid ourselves of God so long as we still believe in grammar."
Nietzsche

Human language is the justification of the gods. What can be stated orally or written down can obfuscate reason and reality. The Religions that dominate most of the world have a book. It is  written down and thus it must be true! IF it can be spoken it is so. This is the power of human language...it can override reality by just a sound and a symbol. No matter the tyranny of the actual the sound and the symbol drive deep in human psyche. No matter how much suffering, death, natural explanations, diversity of opinion, scientific progress and critical thought the religious apologist can say "God is..." who can resist the sound and the symbol? The problem of evil is solved with a simple sound and symbol. "God has his reasons...it is the best of all possible worlds." Ah what justification! Without human language the gods would not exist. The gods are mortal. When the human species goes extinct what symbol or sound will justify the gods? Who shall defend the faith with no human voice? Humans that justify Gods do so because the Gods justify them. I hear and see the sound and symbol "God created man" and in that Man created God.  The creation of the Gods is the hubris of humanity.
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Hiding From Humanity

06/11/2010

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The analysis of disgust and shame...shows us that human beings typically have a problematic relationship to their mortality and animality, and that this problematic relationship causes not just inner tension, but also aggression toward others. If ideals of respect and reciprocity are to have a chance of prevailing, they must contend against the forces of narcissism and misanthropy that these emotions so frequently involve.
 Martha Nussbaum

Kierkegaard's torment was the direct result of seeing the world as it really is in relation to his situation as a creature. The prison of one's character is painstakingly built to deny one thing and one thing alone: one's creatureliness. The creatureliness is the terror. Once you admit that you are a defecating creature and you invite the primeval ocean of creature anxiety to flood over you. But it is more than creature anxiety, it is also man's anxiety, the anxiety that re­sults from the human paradox that man is an animal who is con­scious of his animal limitation. Anxiety is the result of the percep­tion of the truth of one's condition. What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-­expression—and with all this yet to die.
Ernest Becker


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