Mysteries of modern life

[Joseph Tracy]

On Mar 5, 2012, at 10:29 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:

> On 3/4/2012 11:24 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>>>  they(the Santorums) found themselves joined up with the Ubers, a group Gary Will says are not Catholics but Papists, who
>>>> seemingly get their marching orders direct from Rome.
>> In 2010 the pope after meeting with vatican scientists said that Anthropogenic global warming is real and poses a threat to life on earth and called on all catholics to act to reduce carbon.  I found this info out of curiosity after Santorum essentially said Obama promoted phony theology through his assent to global warming. How does that add up. Is Santorum really so sincere in his reverence for the role of his faith? Pope preaches phony theology? And how deep can the theological pull of the religion most widely known in the last 3 decades for child molesting be?  And weren't a lot of church leaders fairly committed Hitler fans? Prolly had to say dozens of Hail Marys and Our Fathers after that.
>> 
> Yes, and I apologize for maligning the Vatican by implying their and Santorum's views on moral issues are the same.  They're only the same in that one area--SEX. The Vatican can be quite reasonable and up to date otherwise. Yes, as Joe A. says, Santorum seems to be a true believer. But what, I imploringly ask, explains the phenomenon of true believer?
> 
> P
Several things probably join to create your Rick Santorum type phenom. One that extreme rationalist skeptics may overlook is the commonness of some kind of mystical transcendent experience. People encounter a kind of large scale otherness, an overwhelming sense of being loved, a powerful deliverance from self centeredness and from self- destructive habits, etc. ( the forms are many as touched on in James' Varieties of Religious Experience or other similar books)and they either interpret it as a confirmation of their fears and cultural picture of divinity, or they find religious' leaders' around ready to own and interpret their experience; other,  harmless individuated responses are possible too.  This initial experience can be reinforced in the act of worship  or prayer which for a few moments abandons the ego life to praise and thank something larger than the self. When all of this connects to an us-them good evil narrative, especially  a text based narrative  with a powerful established religious organization  with deep roots in a civilization then you get a lot of Santorums, Bin Ladens, Bushes, and even Obamas. They all have stories they invoke that are much more an appeal to a narrow narrative of good guys beating bad guys and of the chosen being blessed than to say a sense of the possibility of peaceful coexistence through dialog, compromise and genuine respect. 


In my recent reading of GR  I felt Pynchon was using the goings on of the White Visitation/PISCES to point out among other things the difficulty of either dismissing outright paranormal stuff or of testing it using the scientific method. This difficulty tends to break down into quibbling.  Is that quibbling just another manifestation of our tendency to want an absolute truth about how stuff works? We know how a lot of stuff works but the full picture runs from us like a clear explanation of what is an electron sought by Einstein. But the hunger is not restricted to fundamentalists.
I personally think the big leap that broke all ties to the core morality or spirituality  which seems to be indicated in the  gospels  as the teachings of a mystic pacifist communalist occurred when Constantine made Christianity the religion of a warlike empire.  Since then the dominant expressions of all Abrahamic faiths is  cultural and colonial warfare blending with nationalism and capitalism, The Jews had a long run of being mystic minority  survivors and there are similar minority strains in Christianty and Islam.  All of this seems incredibly obvious to the historically informed but  when you have a personal experience and root yourself in a particular version of these  highly loaded and frequently apocalyptic stories, ya get disturbingly weird. 

It does seem important to grapple with this shit and ask what makes these religious warlords so popular. One of the other big things is one-way communication systems where the reasoning of creeps is never fully  questioned publicly. They spew their shit into public discourse constantly and with only a cursory he said she said response,  while measured and thoughtful  debates about the issues that should concern an educated self-governing people take up less and less of our public media.  
> 
>> 
>> 
>>  If I was President
>> And the Congress call my name
>> I'd say "who do ...
>> Who do you think you're fooling?"
>> I've got the Presidential Seal
>> I'm up on the Presidential Podium
>> My mama loves me
>> She loves me
>> She gets down on her knees and hugs me
>> And she loves me like a rock
>> She rocks me like the rock of ages
>> And she loves me
>> She loves me, loves me, loves me, loves me
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mar 4, 2012, at 8:17 PM, Joe Allonby wrote:
>> 
>>> I think Santorum is a rarity in that he is a true believer. Bachmann
>>> too. Most of right wing guys are disingenuous. They know that their
>>> rhetoric is tautology. Lower taxes don't produce prosperity.
>>> Government spending actually creates jobs. Reaganomics was a disaster.
>>> This country wasn't founded by Christian zealots. There is no danger
>>> of Sharia law.  Obama wasn't born in Kenya. They just play the
>>> Straussian game.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>  wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The p-list isn't big on electoral politics but one thing I'm always
>>>> wondering about is where extreme right wing Republican would-be-candidates
>>>> can possibly be coming from.
>>>> 
>>>> One answer came in a fascinating front page story in this morning's Times.
>>>> How many times do you run across a woman who (in later life) had a seven
>>>> year affair with the obstetrician who delivered her, that doctor also being
>>>> a prominent Pittsburgh abortion provider. Well, Karen Santorum did, and only
>>>> gave up that love after meeting Rick Santorum--the rest being history.
>>>> Rather miraculously she returned to her estranged family and their ancestral
>>>> Catholic faith, and Rick experienced a big bolster to his lukewarm faith as
>>>> well. And after not too much soul searching they found themselves joined up
>>>> with the Ubers, a group Gary Will says are not Catholics but Papists, who
>>>> seemingly get their marching orders direct from Rome. There's no shortage of
>>>> such types around Washington, most famously an enclave of them in the
>>>> upscale suburb of Great Falls, Virginia. They attend St. Catherine of Sienna
>>>> Catholic Church where they can hear Mass in Latin. They send their kids to
>>>> Opus Dei Schools, etc. etc. Justice Scalia is prominent among them.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Strange and seemingly true. but can it possibly explain anything?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/us/politics/from-nominal-catholic-to-clarion-of-faith.html?pagewanted=2&hp
>>>> 
>>>> P
>> 
>>