MDMD(3)--Just a thought

[David Casseres]

Steve Maas, unbeliever, sez
>I'm still curious about this.  It seems that generally a major purpose of
>religion is to encourage the behavior thought proper by the group in
>question.  How does this "double predestination" accomplish this? 

OK, first I'll document my bias: I ain't just a natheist, I'm a 
third-generation Latin American anticlerical.  I get into a ranting mood 
(see below) about these questions because I feel in my heart that sober 
and scholarly discussion of the philosophy associated with predestinarian 
Christianity is a lot like careful intellectual analysis of the finer 
subtleties of Rassenwissenschaft.  So there.

So in my highly biased opinion, the contradiction you point out is right 
at the heart of the behavior (as opposed to belief) of all too many 
Christians.  To begin with, we have the teaching (often disavowed by the 
churches but much taught by the clergy anyway) that the flesh is evil.  
Well, little Christian realizes at an early age that he IS flesh.  So 
when they tell him about predestination, and the Elect and the preterite, 
he knows without any doubt that he's preterite, and fucked from the 
beginning for all eternity no matter what he does.

Now he has a choice, the exploding-cigar version of that Free Will they 
teach him about.  He can admit to being damned, and do anything he likes, 
but then everyone will treat him as preterite and his life will be a 
drag.  Or he can *act like he's Elect*, which according to all the 
sermons is how you can tell who's Elect.  And people will treat him like 
Elect, and his life will be much nicer except he can't do hardly 
*anything* he really wants to do.

A few take the first choice, get a tattoo that sez Born To Raise Hell, 
and lead short but interesting lives.  Most take the second choice, and 
the less imaginative of them come to feel with half their brains that 
they must really BE Elect after all, 'cause here they are acting that 
way, even though the other half of the brains keep howling for some 
action, some blood, some ass, some kicks, whatever.  That unruly half is 
kept under control and the Elect -- for yes, they really are the Elect -- 
get rich and run a society that externalizes the whole doctrine in its 
economics and politics, so that eventually it is also clear to believers 
that Election and preterition are *hereditary,* and any attempt to raise 
the preterite is not only doomed but Satanic.

And quite a few of those who take the Elect road and can't deceive 
themselves enough just go stark staring bugfuck nuts from the sheer 
impossibility of doing anything else.  That's why certain strains of 
Christianity, the ones that emphasize predestination, have required 
large, uncontrolled frontiers like the American West or Southern Africa, 
preferably inhabited by some essentially defenseless people who can be 
enslaved and abused, so that the foaming fugitive can discover them and 
know at last that he isn't the *real* preterite after all, these other 
guys are.  And run wild and drop his pants and finally take a big shit, 
and all.  Which is one of the phenomena Pynchon is always wanting to show 
us in his historical modes.

Anyway, that's how I think predestination -- double, single, or whatever 
-- does its holy work.  There is lots of theological cant about how it 
connects with Free Will, but what it really accomplishes is to reduce 
Free Will to whether you're willing to play the game or not, and thus 
make it impossible for people to take real control over their own lives.  
Selah.


Cheers,
David