Individualized Crest

My sister recently sent me an individualized crest based on some information I had given her some time ago. Each element of the crest is personally meaningful to me or my partner. I really like it. Thanks Marcia!

Check out her website.

René Descartes (A translation)

Quaecumque sub perceptionem nostram cadunt, vel tanquam res, rerumue affectiones quasdam, consideramus; vel tanquam aeternas ueritates, nullam existentiam extra cogitationem nostram habentes.

Cum autem agnoscimus fieri non posse, ut ex nihilo aliquid fiat, tunc propositio haec: Ex nihilo nihil fit, non tanquam res aliqua existens, neque etiam ut rei modus consideratur, sed ut veritas quaedam aeterna, quae in mente nostra sedem habet, vocaturque communis notio, siue axioma. Cuius generis sunt: Impossibile est idem simul esse et non esse: Quod factum est, infectum esse nequit: Is qui cogitat, non potest non existere dum cogitat: et alia innumera, quae quidem omnia recenseri facile non possunt...

Whatever things fall under our perception we consider as (1) things or the affections of things, or (2) as eternal truths, that have no existence outside our thoughts.

But when we recognize that something is not able to be made out of nothing, then the proposition: “Ex nihilo nihil fit” is not a thing that exists, nor even considered as a mode of something, but as a kind of eternal truth, having its seat in our mind, and is known as a common axiom or notion. Of this class are: “It is impossible simultaneously to be and not to be; What is done, cannot be undone; The man who thinks is not able to not exist when he thinks [He who thinks must exist when he thinks];” and innumerable others, all of which cannot be easily counted...

What is the meaning of Jesus? (To a comrade)

Don't mind at all.. feel free to post whatever you write me.

What or who is Jesus? Is this not the question you pose? He is neither angelic nor heroic. In fact, he is a failure. But let us not read this statement outside of its proper context. He is a failure precisely insofar as his life led to no real break in the situation. He came from nowhere, for a time was a someone, accrued those followers who glimpsed in him something higher than those animal interests so common in our species. But in the final hour all left him: his monument was little more than the tattered clothing of a common Jew, once a disciple "committed unto death" in this Nazarene cause, left behind when their owner fled for his life at the first sign of opposition. Pilate certainly never said the words "Ecce homo!" Perhaps only to ridicule this worm standing before him. Perhaps only appended to the gospel letter long after the fact. Here was no man, but something much less!

But you understand the radical break in history the death of this worm would wreak. Had the story ended with the crucifixion we would be left with any other self-deluded messianic fool, a lesson for other fools. History is replete with them. The life and death of this madman had zero consequences within the previous order. All those who were formerly willing to die with him (and declared so!), now returned to the sea whence they had been called with tail between legs. Zero consequences=zero Event. Ah but the world and ages this void would soon fill! No angels, no heroes present.. but grace was present.

We will not speak of "historicity." A truth is not of the historical order. We will speak of a break within a situation, a "creative novelty" if there ever was one. We will speak of maximal consequences, of the maximal existence of an inexistent. Why else is the Nazarene's "biography" so dispensable for St. Paul? It is clear that it is so because it is the biography of a madman and failure. It is a lesson for fools. But St. Paul is no fool! For him it is clear that the Resurrection retroactively reinstates this man from Nazareth: not his virgin birth, not his life among his disciples (Paul has no interest in biography), but his Death. This is so because the Death immanentizes the possibility of the Resurrection.

If we are to locate the meaning of Jesus in the regime of the given, it is here at this impossible moment, at this hole punched into the cosmos, a void circumscribed by being's appearance. That this void had such consequences is not a fantastic determination. This is merely its historical and political one. Fantasy is not a proper designate here. It belonged to the previous order of Messianic nationalism (an order Judas himself defended and grew disenchanted with). We are reminded of René Magritte's famous painting of a pipe with the inscription "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" beneath it. Here too might we not inscribe the field of the historical Nazarene with the words: "Ceci est un Immortel"?

Correlation

A man who catches birds with a net

Should have a long reach

Sky-windows make difficult spaces

For men with short arms.

More difficult still

For birds who know only liberty.

A jail to free you with, (to free the catcher)

A group of old men sitting quietly

Watching birds and other feathered things.

Glass and shiny excrement

A rock is more glorious

Crushing you with no regret

Its shape is elemental

A force of nature (a primary force)

But you are its disintegration

Up dear bird, fly...

silhouette - correlation

Trinity and Politics (Kathryn Tanner)

I attended a lecture last night entitled: "The Trinity & Politics: Is the Trinity Really the Best Guide to the Proper Way to Live Together?" given by Yale Divinity School professor Kathryn E. Tanner. In a nutshell her argument was that Trinitarian relational models are fraught with complications due not only to certain ambiguities concerning the relations of the Trinity, but the ability to interpret Trinitarian relations along similar lines of more monotheistic models, i.e. hierarchical, patriarchal, non-individualistic (in the sense that personal identities are often blurred), subordinationist, etc. She is certainly correct about this and I agree that Trinitarian models have been over-hyped.

What then should the model be? Well one potential model is Christ himself, who as the God-man, is the exemplar of human-Trinitarian relations, not just immanently, but economically, i.e. not just between the persons of the Trinity itself, but between God and humans. How should Christians relate to one another and the Other? Not by using the Trinity as a guide to living interpersonally, but by looking to Christ in his relations to the Father and the Spirit, and in his relations to other people.

Afterwards I had the privilege to speak with Dr. Tanner regarding her lecture. Let's move away from this Trinitarian morass in favour of another model, yes. But my claim is not that Jesus is the better option here, but a more radical one. Jesus as an exemplar is itself fraught with ambiguities and pitfalls. I asked Kathryn if her version of Christ isn’t in fact an idealized one. What of those scriptures where Jesus obviously discriminates against others (it is only the woman’s faith in him that surprises Jesus, whereas her initial appeal for help was ignored) Matt. 15?

Not only, I argue, is her Jesus idealized, it doesn't take into account the impossibility of using Jesus as a model. Jesus may be human, but he is also, as the 2^nd person of the Trinity, intrinsically different than other human beings. Yes he is fully human! But he is simultaneously something quite different. Wasn’t this Watt’s critique, that Jesus, as the unique son of God, is in a very different position than the rest of humanity and so had an advantage, even if this advantage was practically denied by Jesus? The difference is that while Jesus may have denied his divinity (kenotic movement etc) and became a wretched human (weak, mortal etc), unlike other humans he had the ability to divest himself of divinity in the first place. There will always be a minimal gap between Jesus and other humans no matter how much like the poorest of them he became (and this without taking the miracles into account).

The radical move would have been to leave aside not only the Trinity, but Jesus as well. What Christians need is not an already impossible model, an idealized God-man, but a model who can have no special claims to divinity, who is intrinsically like us, who models in his/her life a radical fidelity lived out in the field of social relations.

Techno-Digital Apocalypticism

Just reflecting tonight on the techno-digital-post-human future. Last year for example, Craig Venter and a team of twenty scientists publicly announced that after 10 years and $40 million dollars they were able to create the first reproductive synthetic life form.

Craig Venter and Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0.

The team manufactured over a million base-pairs of the genome without using any natural DNA. In addition, they engineered genetic "watermarks" out of genes and proteins so that future scientists could identify which cells were synthetic. These watermarks can be spelled out to make a variety of names, phrases, and even an email address to contact the creators. In the case of Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, one of my favourites would have to be Joyce's "To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life."

What else tonight? Well here's another one regarding human-tech interface. A quote from Ray Kurzweil:

“Today, we treat Parkinson’s with a pea-sized brain implant. Increase that device’s capability by a billion and decrease its size by a hundred thousand, and you get some idea of what will be feasible in 25 years. It won’t be, ‘OK, cyborgs on the left, humans on the right.’ The two will be all mixed up.” The Guardian, 2007.

There are many examples in the media lately about new human-tech interfaces that will boost human efficiency or health. The ethical war rages. I wonder what this will do to our definition of "life" and "human"?

Ian Sample, Guardian.

Niwuzzle

Photo Credit James Jackson Elmira Observer 2011.

Check out this article regarding a friend's adventures in puzzle development.

Courons à l'onde en rejaillir vivant!

O my soul, seek not after immortal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible. Pindar, Pythics, III

[We are these spaces]

The hidden dead are well off in the dirt;
Warming them, it keeps their mystery dry.
Noon up above, noon without movement
In self-absorbed creation of yourself...
Perfected head and perfect diadem,

I am what's changing secretly in you.

[We are these spaces]

The Logic of the Site -Tunisia-

Logic of the Site (With modifications). Badiou (2009), 374.

To use our example of Egypt: As a consequence of the sequence inaugurated in Tunisia it is the proof of the singularity of the Tunisian event. Time will tell if this sequence will reach maximal consequences, as people in country after country continue to call for reasonable living conditions and the overthrow of corrupt rulers. In this way the Evental potential of Tunisia is being realized day by day.

Inception -Excerpt from a letter-

"Those who dream of the banquet may weep the next morning, and those who dream of weeping may go out to hunt after dawn. When we dream we do not know that we are dreaming. In our dreams we may even interpret our dreams. Only after we are awake do we know that we have dreamed. But there comes a great awakening, and then we know that life is a great dream. But the stupid think they are awake all the time and believe they know it distinctly." Chuang-tze

And of course the question remains: What difference does it make whether we dream or wake? Both in Inception and our butterfly Philosopher one experiences the same sufferings, the same joys, the same frustrations and anxieties whether the subject sleeps or wakes. Once again the Whole of a given life is a chimera (whether dreamlike or wakeful). It is rather the worlds of a subject which contain truths, mediated through the subjectivity of a subject (asleep or awake).

In other words, the movie ends at an appropriate moment (the top continues to spin and we do not find out whether it topples or not) not because it "keeps us guessing whether we're dreaming or not" (as the website suggests). The point is precisely that it no longer matters. The subjective truths conveyed by the main character finally meeting his children subsumes all other concerns. This is the ultimate truth of the scene. The top represents the Whole of the situation (the possibility of Wakefulness or Fantasy) which is abruptly cut off (cinematographically) because it no longer represents the Real of the situation (the -subjective- localization of the truth of the power of Love). We could say that ultimately we are indifferent to the top. It's being (and representative function) cease to exist from the point of view of the subject, hence, its banishment from sight without further consideration. Whether it stands or falls, it is no longer considered a site of truth for the subject.

The Political Subject -Egypt-

Recent events in Egypt provide the opportunity to elucidate the example of a Badiouan political subject, reactive subject, and obscure subject. The Evental trace, to be named in the statement by Egyptian youth: “Bread, Freedom, Human Dignity,” comparable to revolutionary slogans the world over, indicates the activation of an Evental subjectivity, a subjectivity in which identarian predicates do not play a role: “I don’t belong to any particular political party, I’m one of the people.” At every point the newly subjectivated body must choose to be faithful to the Evental trace or to betray it, to defy curfews which deny it both freedom and dignity, or submit to the wishes of the errant superpower etc.

The reactionary subject is known by the dismissal of the Evental trace as Event. The “demonstrators” will eventually “drift away.” They do not represent the will of the people: “For all the west, starting with the United States, [Mubarak] has always been considered a wisest man and a point of reference. Compared to a population of 80 million, the number of people on the streets is really low" (Berlusconi). Or Sarah Palin’s statements: “...so we need to find out who was behind all of the turmoil and the revolt and the protests so that good decisions can be made in terms of who we will stand by and support" ( This comment further reveals the conservative reactionist’s denial that the body of a truth can be the true source of a creative novelty. Why, for example, must Palin look for a ghostly spectre behind the uprising, rather than recognize a legitimate movement of the people?). It further denies the ability of the activated body to carry out the consequences of its statements without a compromise of its original position, or it undermines its role in the unfolding of the process. For example, Hilary Clinton’s statement: “... our assessment is that the Egyptian Government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.”

The obscure subject wills the destruction of the politically subjectivated body. The baltagea, pro-Mubarak “thugs,” activate a fascist political component with the use of “clubs, machetes, swords and straight razors on Wednesday to try to crush Egypt’s democracy movement.” Evidence of this obscure subjectivity can also be found in its naming of an “atemporal fetish,” in this case the designation “War Hero.” Mubarak himself precisely designates the obscurantist’s formulation of “the incorruptible and indivisible over-body” in a televised address during the protests: “The nation remains. Visitors come and go but ancient Egypt will remain eternal, its banner and safekeeping will pass from one generation to the next. It is up to us to ensure this in pride and dignity.”

Your being over there

Your being over there tonight.

I fetched you back with words, here you are,
all things are true and a waiting
for trueness.

The beanstalk climbs
at our window: think
who's growing up near us and
watches it.

God, so we've read, is
one part and a second, dispersed:
in the death
of all who've been reaped
he grows whole.

Our gaze
leads us there,
it's this
half
we deal with.

John Felstiner trans.

The Origin of God Part I Response

Thank you for your comments. You obviously did some digging. I’d like to honour your study with a reasonable response.

First I should point out that the books of the Torah (Pentateuch) are not written in chronological order, though their contents may seem to flow this way. One cannot assume, therefore, that the first mention of God’s name in the Torah is the earliest. For example, “Yahweh” is used as a name of God in Genesis 2, and yet we’re told in Exodus 6 that God was not known as Yahweh until the time of Moses. This is further evidence that the books of the Torah were written at a later date than the events narrated in them. It also provides evidence of alterations to the narrative: since God wasn’t known as Yahweh until the time of Moses, the identification of the two has been enacted retroactively. All this is further supported by the archaeological record. I’ve tried to keep my comments within the scope of the Biblical literature in order to provide a text that is easily accessible, but at some point a stubborn refusal to examine all the evidence reduces one’s position to a circular argument (at that point I would argue it’s no longer a reasonable approach, but superstitious, and has little to do with truth).

El is the singular form of Elohim. Elohim is a variant of the name usually used in the Ancient Near East (ANR) for one god among many. Among the Hittites and in the Ugaritic texts it was “El”. Among the Assyrians and Babylonians it was “Ilu”. The Southern Arabians referred to “Il or Ilum”. One of the texts found at Ugarit makes a similar connection between El and Yahweh as Deut. 32 (see my first post):

Fragment KTU 1.1 IV 14: "The name of the son of god, Yahweh."

At Ugarit Yahweh was viewed as one of El’s sons. El was the head of a pantheon of gods and was usually represented as a bull. In the Ugaritic poems for example, El is referred to as “Bull El”. As you recall, Israel set up a golden calf at Sinai (Ex. 32). This wasn’t some random representation or idolatrous whimsy. The Hebrew text is clear that this was a male (bull) calf:

He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf [‛êgel], fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods [elohim], Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Note the text says: “these are your gods, Israel...” The translators (NIV) note that the translation can be either singular or plural. The point is clear: this wasn’t a random usage of the term “elohim” as some Biblical commentators have tried to suggest, as if in this instance “elohim” refers to a generic “gods”. The connection between the bull-calf and the Bull god El is quite clear, and would have been clear to Israel. This was the reason for constructing the calf in the first place.

Please see the comment section of my previous post for the response to the rest of your questions.

The Origin of God Part I addendum

Development of Israelite Religion

Polytheism I

El (the chief god of the Canaanite Pantheon) and Yahweh (the god of Midian) are two separate gods.

Polytheism II

El and Yahweh have been assimilated. Traces of the earlier distinctions between the two gods are still present in some texts (Deut. 32:8-9: see initial post on this topic). However, because the two have been assimilated, El is not seen as a threat to Yahweh.

Polytheism III

A movement to assimilate the other gods into the being of Yahweh. The battle with Ba’al at Carmel (1 Kings 18) is an example of how some gods are being discredited and Yahweh is taking on the characteristics usually associated with them (e.g. the storm god). However, other gods, such as Asherah, are still being worshipped.

Monolatry

While other gods exist, the only one worthy of worship is Yahweh. This is reflected in the final edition of the Book of Kings.

Monotheism

There are no gods other than Yahweh. The first explicit literary expression of this can be found in Second Isaiah (Isa. 43:1-11; 44:6-9; 45:5-6; 21-22).

My thanks to Prof. Ellen White at Assumption College for this brief summary.

Origin of God Part I

The Origin of God Part I

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when he divided all mankind,
he set up boundaries for the peoples
according to the number of the sons of Israel.
For the LORD’s portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted inheritance. Deuteronomy 32: 8-9.

Originally the Old Testament gods “Yahweh” and “El” were two separate entities. The passage quoted above is a Biblical remnant of this distinction. In it the warrior god Yahweh (translated “LORD”) has been initiated into a larger pantheon of gods headed by the Canaanite god El. The Hebrew word translated “Most High” is `el-yôn, an ancient title for the high god El. The passage relates that El apportioned “Jacob” to the god Yahweh as the latter's nation. It was quite common for each nation to have its own god or gods and this story merely plays a part in the mythic tale of how this apportioning came about. Though El divided all mankind, and gave the “nations” their inheritance, it was only the particular nation "Jacob" which was given to the particular god Yahweh as his portion (chêleq). To further support this, there is textual evidence for the variant reading of “the sons of Israel” as: “sons of God” or “divine beings” (which the NIV translators have honestly noted). The passage reads thus: “he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of divine beings (or “divine sons).

There are a number of places in scripture that also point to the original separation of the two deities. Judges 9:46 speaks of a local Canaanite temple of the god “El-Berith” or “El of the covenant”:

“On hearing this, the citizens in the tower of Shechem went into the stronghold of the temple of El-Berith.”

Earlier we learn that the Israelites had worshipped this false god: (Judges 8:33-34)

“No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.”

Once again notice the distinction made between “Yahweh” (LORD) and the local god. That we are not speaking of two separate gods is evident from Judges 9:3-4 where Baal-Berith is indeed identified with the temple of El-Berith in Shechem.

As is often the case, over time gods tend to be conflated with one another, forming a kind of hybrid. One can see this taking place in the passage quoted above, between Baal and El. This was also the case with El and Yahweh. There are many examples in Scripture of this conflation. Psalm 18:13 contains one:

The LORD (Yahweh) thundered from heaven;
the voice of the Most High (`el-yôn) resounded.

An interesting passage may be found in Exodus 6:2-3:

"God also said to Moses, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty (El Shadday), but by my name the LORD (Yahweh) I did not make myself fully known to them."

It also supports the evidence that the patriarchs were not aware of a god by the name Yahweh and worshipped rather the Canaanite god El. It further supports the evidence of a later attempt to smooth over the distinction between El and Yahweh (for the most part successfully).