ETHOS HERESY AND MODERN RELIGIOUS TRAJECTORY by Preston
Copeland
One glance at contemporary events makes it clear as crystal
that there is a modern problem with religious perversions. From right-wing
Christian mutterings to the horrors of Islamic extremism, religious trajectory
has stopped and its movements paralyzed. It’s not the gods fault. They too bear
witness to the distortions carried out in their name. The problem isn’t even
modern – if we can even call ourselves that. In reality, this religious sickness
has festered and metastasized since ancient Egypt and even before that. The problem
is embedded in religion itself and
came to light when mankind realized that power to control can be perpetuated
religiously.
Divine interaction and cosmology creation is a beautiful
thing. But when ethos was thrown into the cauldron, mankind made a mockery of
the relationships formed with the Other. The gods fled man and even now much of
our interactions bear little or no resemblance to the bond of before. When
Moses shattered the sapphire tablets that supposedly bore the Ten Commandments,
he should have destroyed the stone versions as well. Not as an iconoclastic
gesture but because that particular interaction may have been a trap. Similar to
the warnings attached to Via Negativa or traversing into religious wilderness,
sometimes deity contact isn’t beneficial to religious trajectory. And not
because we aren’t ready for spiritual
evolving-although ufologists would understand these kind of utterances. No,
Judaic mysticism provides a clue as to why the Ten Commandments narrative may
have been designed to steer man away from
god.
Think on the sequence of events that characterizes the Ten
Commandments. Moses is contacted by an otherworldy entity that then relays the
message on sapphire tablets. After the interaction culminates, Moses then
shatters the sapphire and inscribes the message on stone. But we’ve heard this
narrative before in Judaic mysticism. Specifically, in the creation of the
Kelipot husks that characterize evil
in Jewish tradition.[1]
According to legend, the emanations of
god or Sephiroth were filled with the love and light of god but began to
overfill due to the sheer enormity of the divine. As they ran over and spilled
those emanations or states of
consciousness ‘shattered’ and became personifications of evil. This is the
problem of evil in Jewish mysticism. Does that not sound eerily similar to the
Moses narrative on Mount Sinai? As any folklorist will tell you, these slight
variances usually hold some correspondence or connection. Is it so farfetched
to suggest that these nearly identical events were deliberately conceived? That the message is meant to
be the same? No, I’m no anarchist. I firmly believe in a set of secular rules
and regulations. But it’s repugnant to attach what should be purely secular
laws to gods and goddesses that probably could care less whether they are
adhered to or not. In fact, it is evil
to do so.
And I only used Judaism as a quick example of this very
human process of propagating greed and control onto fellow humans through deity
manipulation. A cursory glance at Christian history, ancient Egypt, and even
the concept of karma all use some sort of divine retribution as a means to
control the herd. This is why many atheists despise the concept of religion in
its entirety. What they don’t understand is that the pantheons despise it as
well. The gods are also disgusted with how man makes the Other both
in-determinate i.e. archetypal and self-determining i.e. autonomous then has
the vile nerve to ascribe secular restrictions in their name. It’s an offensive gesture meted out for human property
and wealth.
But as you can surmise, this has been the problem for
thousands and thousands of years. And although it seems organized religion must
also project an aspect of human values or ethos to be successful-It really doesn’t.
Who made that rule? I would even suggest
that the reason religious method and more importantly, religious ideas have become stagnant is due to our
own perversions of religious interaction. I can’t be the only one to recognize
that ideas concerning religious form and philosophy are not just few and
far-between but nearly indiscernible in the modern world. Oh sure, there are a
few exceptions but they are either marginalized or content to be small
movements. This point is: Why does control of the populace always involve
divine threat and where are the religious thinkers that offer new avenues of
faith and form? Probably being stoned to death by perpetrators of the ethos
heresy.
Now I won’t just spout my mouth off without offering some
sort of alternative to the status quo. One possible option can be found in
ontological certainty. This method negates that gods can get into our heads
through an understanding of our own thoughts and desires. Instead, god is as
surprised as we are about our lunacy. Also irrelevant is suggesting that god’s ‘Being’
is proven by the properties of his creation such as the universe or that the
Other exists to right humanity’s wrongs. Perhaps we can take a page out of Claude
Bruaire’s (1932-86) book of ideas and suggest ontology as a gift. For Bruaire,
gift is a substance (being), (absolute) freedom, and donation. We gift the
Other within the awe and wonder of an encounter with the Other. He once
remarked that, “Accepting both the Other and one’s own otherness translates
into the intellectual inquisitiveness set in motion by the encounter with the
Other and the humble receptivity of the Other as what it is, in its
insuppressible Otherness.”[2]
How refreshing is it to regard the Other in its pure and utter numinousness? To
gift being onto the gods through our encounters with them. In our ‘surprise’ of
the interaction, we give the gods a gift and in turn receive one ourselves. Our
astonishment is its own alterity. Bruaire once stated that “eternity” should be
translated as “victory”. Doesn't this seem like a viable alternative to the ethos
heresy? I think the gods would be much more receptive to interacting with us if
we came bringing gifts.
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