SLSL: mortality & mercy in vienna/: eddins

[vze422fs at verizon.net]

on 3/26/03 9:54 AM, Abdiel OAbdiel at abdieloabdiel at yahoo.com wrote:

> 
> --- lorentzen-nicklaus
> <lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de> wrote:
>> 
>> of course, eddins' voegelinesque notion of
>> 'gnosticism' is not in touch with   the actual
> ancient sources (see, if you're interested, James M.
> Robinson, ed.,   The Nag Hammadi Library) and also
> leaves the gnostic elements in christianity
>> itself - "my kingdom is not of this world" (the
>> gospel of john) - completely   out.
> 
> Thanks for tyoing it up and sending it to us.
> 
> I must disagree with your reading of it.
> 
> Eddins provides several definitions of exactly what
> he means and what he does not mean when he applies
> "Voegelinesque" and several other definitions of
> (G)(g)nosticism.   So the point you make here doesn't
> make sense to me.
> 
> 
> furthermore, the rather schematic distinction
>> of 'gnostic' vs. 'orphic' is
>> highly problematic when seen in the late rilke's
>> light. 
> 
> I think the orphic/gnostic reading is the most
> brilliant reading of of Pynchon,  GR, Blicero,  to
> date. 
> 
> 
> 
> dwight eddins, however,
>> comes with his approach to presentable results, and
>> he is among the very few
>> who seriously address the spiritual dimension in
>> pynchon's work. 
>> 
>> apropos voegelin: the foreign policy of the current
>> us-government, with its
>> quasi-ontological distinction between 'good' &
>> 'evil', has a certain 'gnostic'
>> smell, nicht wahr?!
> 
> While I don't support the war or the current
> government, I can't agree with this. Intersting that
> the NY Times Magazine this past Sunday ran an article
> on Al Qaeda's Philosopher, Qutb. Anyway, according to
> Voegelin, the Judaeo-Christian (Bush's Moralist
> politics) is based on the idea that God created a good
> world, a world that was ordered and Man can act to
> bring the dealings of men into alignment with God's
> good order. Gnostic man rejects this intrinsic order.
> For him, and this is clearly the case for many of
> Pynchon powerful characters, the world has become a
> prison. The wretched soul of gnostic man strays into a
> labyrinth of torment and wanders about, but... there
> is no way out. So, gnostic man asks, why has this
> world been created and why were the tribes ordered
> here? "Gnosis is the knowledge of who the tribes were
> and what they became, or where they were and wherein
> they have been flung (Heidegger's Geworfenheit) , of
> whereinto they are hastening and wherefrom they shall
> be redeemed, of what birth into this prison is and
> what rebirth will be." (Clement of Alexandria)
> 
> W Bush is a born again American Texas style Christian
> and is therefore not a Modern Gnostic in the Voegelin
> sense at all.  In fact, Qutb  is the Modern Gnostic as
> Voegelin defines it. Bush's religion is rooted in
> ancient gnosticism.  In the ontology of Ancient
> Gnosticism faith in a God, who comes to man's aid,
> sends him his message, shows him the way to the good,
> liberates man from the prison of evil. In Modern
> political Gnosticism this same objective is
> accomplished through the assumption of a
> dialectical-material process of nature that in its
> course leads from the alienation resulting from
> private property and belief in God to the freedom of a
> fully human existence; or through the assumption of a
> will of nature that transforms man into superman.
> Within the ontic possibility, however, gnostic man
> must carry on the work of salvation himself. The labor
> of salvation entails dissolution of the worldly
> constitution of the psyche and it involves the
> destruction of the ordered world.
> 
> Now matter how evil you may think this war, this
> government, this man in the white house, Gnostic
> political religion, (akin to that of the Nazis and the
> Fascists) is not in the American deck of cards. But it
> is the trump card most Minddle Eastern nations.
> 
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
> http://platinum.yahoo.com


Ya know, I was just sittin' here with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the
Tooth Fairy. The TF suggested that maybe bombing the living shit out of
people might not be a mature way of dealing with potential conflict.
Thankfully, the EB kicked her (him? it?) in the face a few times and Santa
shit on her chest.

One must keep these mythological beings in line, or they'll take over your
government.

Bombing the Shit Out of Baghdad For Christ
Joe