[MD] science, religion and culture

[gav]

hey all,
the BIG problem with religion in the west is that it
is divorced from the cultural landscape. well of
course it is: the west has no real culture to speak
of.

as has happened in the US, australia and most
everywhere else the God fearing white tosspots went,
the indigenous cultures were suppressed,
misunderstood, regarded as superstitious nonsense
(this view was and is SHARED by the scientific and the
theistic....my uncle is a catholic professor of
physics at oxford. science v religion is not the war
some think it is, most times they both reinforce SOM).

culture is misuderstood by most whites. culture is
rooted in place. culture is connection to place and to
memory and the memory is in the place. without this
there simply is no culture...no living culture.

most whites probably think culture is opera or ballet
or theatre etc when these are a *spectacular*
experience (very SOM). the passive consumption of such
stuff may still hold some vestigial mythopoetic power
but it leads nowhere. it is a tease, a taster of
something that once was our daily bread, wine and
song...our very belongingness. now all we might feel
is the poignancy of this loss, this absence... if we
are alive enough and the art is good enough.

if you have no connection to place, to the land, then
you have no connection to each other and you have no
culture. how to reconnect? face the shameful memories
of our 'cultural' imperialism (oymoron if ever there
was), atone and then learn from those we raped (in
every sense of the word). we have to look at the world
as it is, not as science or religion would have us
look
at it. we have to see with the heartmind not the head.

good science and religion can take you to the brink of
this departure point but they can do no more. leave
them where they belong, in the rear. heart first, head
second. who has fallen in love? really. such that
absolutely nothing else matters save the adored one,
the divine made flesh: the goddess incarnate. an
absolutely brave and foolish act that is rewarded with
the world: the living world. this love spills over as
it is limitless. it spills over and renews and creates
the world. 

science and religion are knock-offs; they are the
readers digest of spiritual knowledge, which is to say
 intellectual knowledge of the higest degree. i would
rather concentrate on the original version before me:
alive, terrible, beautiful, powerful, wise, loving and
often hilarious. the living world is the most profound
thing we can read. and if we don't then we lose, again
and again...we lose that connection, that belonging,
that matrix that holds us together in love and not
fear: culture. for in its absence a more nefarious
matrix is born: The Giant.......but that's a story for
another time.

best to you all
gav




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