Triangulating Cain

January 13th, 2013   by   Andrew

This is a response to Sabio’s conversation on his post “Pre-Adamites“.

I thought this was too long to just leave on his site as a comment. Since it’s his conversation (and I’m not too active on this site these days), I’d prefer any further comments to be written on his site.

 

Re: The Mark of Cain

Interpretations abound. That’s literature. Genesis stories are particularly difficult because they are so tight and short. You can do anything you want with them. Here’s my fun with it (sorry this is long, but I hope it’s worth it to someone).

The last time you were so mad you yelled at someone, what did your face look like? Cain was so enraged, and so certain about being wronged, he killed his brother to prove he was right.

When you are deeply angry, do people want to look at you? People naturally don’t even want to be around angry people, let alone angry people that are always right. Some angry people feel so certain about how wrong the world is, they have to prove and argue and even willfully, violently demonstrate just how right they are.

Anger disfigures your face.

Let’s look at wikipedia – ” “mark” in Gen. 4:15 is ‘owth, which could mean a sign, an omen, a warning, or a remembrance. In the Torah, the same word is used to describe the stars as signs or omens.”

God (as a character in a story) marks Cain so that no one else will kill him, supposedly. It could also be a prediction – no one’s going to kill Cain, and maybe that’s because Cain is willing to quickly escalate his side of revenge to the point of taking life. He might even go further.

It could also be just a sign to others – don’t do what this guy did; it’ll get us nowhere. And don’t mess with him; it’s not worth it.

In Genesis it doesn’t explicitly say God was thinking about Cain’s best interests, or protecting Cain. He could very well have been thinking about everyone else that would have to deal with this dangerous individual.

When God finds what Cain has done, he first predicts Cain’s fate:

“When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.”

Cain immediately casts himself as the victim in all this. He blames everything else but himself, and fears his vulnerability:

“My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.”

God can’t believe his anthropomorphic ears. Are you kidding me? When you feel wronged, your wrath is not proportionate to what you think has been done against you. Anyone that kills you won’t just equally be killed, which is bad enough. Your line will want to destroy their whole family!

“Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.”

It does not say here the source of the vengeance. It does not say by My anthropomorphic hand. Let’s not put words into God’s anthropomorphic mouth.

Only after this does God “put a mark on Cain so that no one who came upon him would kill him.”

Cain’s anger and (self-)loathing made it almost impossible for anyone to be around him long enough to even want to talk to him, let alone kill him.

They would get the hell away from him as fast as possible. Haven’t you known people like this? Haven’t you avoided people like this?

One of Cain’s descendants is Tubal-Cain, a smith of bronze and iron. Tools. Weapons. Cain’s motivation to hurt others when he doesn’t get his way, and his descendant’s knack for war, create a dangerous cycle of willful and asymmetrical (unequal) revenge.  That leads to society-ending consequences. Even in a semi-nomadic society before legal systems and ‘governing authorities’.

One of Cain’s descendants is Lamech. Lamech tells his wives quite openly:

“I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-seven fold.”

It’s now out of control. Lamech is even more wilful, more vengeful and more dangerous than Cain. Someone slaps him and he wipes out their village!

Some might say God ‘marks’ Cain to stop the cycle of revenge immediately. The forgiveness angle, maybe. I think it’s better to look at this as a prediction. Cain’s attitude and motivation ‘mark’ him. No magic needed.

Cain, supposedly, becomes both city-builder and cast-out wanderer. He just can’t get relationships with work and with other people right. Why’s that?

Well, look back at his sacrifice to God (as a character in a story). Cain puts in a half-ass effort to collect some twigs and berries. And this is to his God, supposedly.

Abel gives the best he had, and he was glad to do it. When measured beside his brother, Cain blames his brother for his own half-ass efforts, and takes out his hurt on his brother. How’s that for a sacrifice, God?

Well, it’s still a pretty bad sacrifice and doesn’t get him anything he really wants.

The signs are in the stars for Cain, supposedly. But he hasn’t set his sights on them. He can only blame them for being so far out of reach. Surprising really, since it’s all written right in the expression on his face.

God, I suck.

 

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Sources:

Genesis 4 - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+4&version=NIV

Mark of Cain - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_and_mark_of_Cain

Some ideas from J. Peterson’s discussions of Genesis

- Redemption talk - http://ww3.tvo.org/video/185862/jordan-peterson-redemption-and-psychology-christianity

- the nature of evil – http://ww3.tvo.org/video/163167/big-ideas-jordan-peterson

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Disillusionment, Adjustment, and Fish

June 28th, 2012   by   Andrew

I want say that I’m sorry I haven’t been getting out to many other people’s sites lately.

I miss the conversations, and the influence others have on me.

A couple of things have come up.

A new job.
A new house.

I was hoping to wrap up the series God: From Magic to Motivation. There are still a few posts I am hoping to get to, but I don’t know when I will get to them. I have very little skill when it comes to seeing into the future. Things like ‘personal writing time’ look terribly bleak.

Priorities invade.

Life invades.

I’m going to post a conclusion to the series I drafted up early on. It contains two short ‘stories’ that I think reveal how to deal with:

The disillusionment of religious beliefs, experienced by more and more people, and
The adjustments in motivations being experienced in workplaces, communities, hierarchies

We seem to be moving to a more connected and more inter-dependent, trusting world-community. How will that work?

This title sounded important to me:

The Last Idols of God

 

Maybe in a month’s time I will find my way back, finish the series, get to some other posts. Here are some titles I was working on:

WLC Confirms My God – It’s not what you think…

Is Being Rational a Virtue? – Looking at Rationalism as an Emotional-Aesthetic Commitment

Ultimate Complexity, Cultural Regeneration – is there such a thing as Ultimate Complexity? Can we survive a fragile world-culture?

Improvisation’s Lesson for Religionists and Overly-Materialistic Rational Academics

A New Ataraxia – Redefining what ‘Authority’ is, how it is treated, how it is used, Building Trust and Responsibility Despite Living in Uncertainty

 

I’d also like to work on a new series about how to actually read literature (and sacred texts), evaluate what’s being said without getting bogged down into too literal or too authoritative of a mindset.

I haven’t got all the workings figured out. I’m thinking a little about Northrop Frye, science fiction’s role in the new mythos, creativity as a team-driven exercise vs. an individualistic process,  and how we react towards new information.

My head’s a mess. Maybe one of these days I’ll organize my thoughts into something coherent…

Salut, mes amis, et merci pour tous les poissons!

À bientôt!

 

 

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Is the Secret to Happiness Anticipation?

June 16th, 2012   by   Andrew

The Optimism Bias - a self-serving bias where a person believes they are at less risk than someone else of having to go through a bad experience.

Or, in other words, we all think we are above the average in almost everything… which could be a statistical problem.

Tali Sharot has done some research and found about 80% of us suffer from the optimism bias. And here’s a tricky thing – You can’t just eliminate or neutralize the optimism bias. Sharot thinks we can learn something from it, and learn something about ourselves too.

Some Notes:

Is the secret to happiness low expectations?

Well, not really. According to Sharot, people with higher expectations tend to feel better regardless of outcomes.

Is Anticipation the key to happiness?

If you think you want something, and if you think you’ll get it three days from now, those three days will be happier than if you get it immediately or wait a long time for it.

The Weekend Effect

People look forward to Friday, even though it is often a workday. But, with Friday comes the anticipation of the weekend. A lot of people like Friday over Sunday. Go figure.

Feelings Affect Subjective Reality, But Also Influence Objective Reality

Stress and anxiety have a direct effect on your health, for example. You change your physical world, your physical body, by what you think about and what you do.

We need to be able to imagine a different reality, and believe we can create that reality.

Otherwise we don’t change things. But at the same time, if we simply leap at things too much, probabilities will very likely catch up to us quickly.

 

This TED talk put a lot of things into perspective for me. Teen angst, for example, is much more understandable now. If a person is upset about something, but feels there is no way to change it at all, then this can create a horrible, all-consuming trap of emotions.

I think this has something to say about religion and religious belief too. Faith, as in belief in magical beings with supernatural influence, isn’t so aesthetically pleasing anymore. The word “faith” itself can cause an almost allergic reaction in people. However, faith as in the motivation to be optimistic, and to be persistent in pursuing what you want, or the belief that what you want is worth pursuing with all your effort, could have some advantages in this game of life.

This means we have to be all the more responsible for our personal motivations, I think, and to that end, more responsible for our personal gods. (Faith gives power to act rather than faith gives justification for getting your way. And with any power comes responsibility, according to Uncle Ben from Spiderman…)

What do you think?

Do you see some advantages to the optimism bias?

Do you see some dangers?

Do you enjoy (or suffer from) the optimism bias?

 

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Hierarchy in the City – Continued

June 10th, 2012   by   Andrew

Part of the series God: From Magic to Motivation

A local minister I know called me a “religious sniper” some time ago. He was referring to my style of picking off religious topics from the vantage point of my website  - never really know where I am or where the fire is coming from, or what the target may be.

His comment was meant in light-hearted jest, I believe. Although I appreciate it and take it as a compliment, I don’t think I have the accuracy or precision to be a sniper. Snipers do tend to play a part in urban warfare, but that’s not how I see things right now. War is not a solution. It’s a marketing strategy.

And war is getting really old and making things really fragile. City life depends on trust, enormous amounts of trust. Our entire foundation can still be upturned by a few confident authorities with silver tongues, or individuals motivated by the merest whims.

I think of myself more as waving a shotgun around, hoping I might hit the broad side of some ancient barn. I’m worried about those mischievous, ephemeral spirits of the night, and I’m intent on, metaphorically, keeping them away from my daughter’s bedroom.

However, I’ve come to realize that either choice of weaponry, sniper rifle or shotgun, is actually pretty poor. I have my criticisms of religion but I have to realize that whatever its faults, it’s part of the world’s inheritance right now. It is a part of the house we live in. It may not be the foundation of the house that’s the problem. The problem is (almost always) people’s motivations, or the things that people think should be worshipped.

My intention was never to bring down the pyramid anyway, and any kind of personal firearm would only jeopardize the safety of the people within the building. Regardless of what you shoot at it, a pyramid continues. A pyramid isn’t that fragile and not so easy to deconstruct. Time fears the pyramids more than any god.

Here’s the lesson I’ve been thinking about when it comes to pyramids. It comes in part from Uxmal in Mexico. The lesson is about constructive persistence.

Uxmal is a city of the ancient Maya. The name can be translated as “Built-three-times”. The most dominant architectural part of the city is The House of the Magician, a temple at the top of a pyramid, the newest built on top of the old. The leader of the city built on what he had inherited, just as the last leader did. The leaders come and go. The pyramid lingers.

One intriguing feature of many of the Mayan pyramids is that even though each generation of builders wanted to add something, the older temples often enough remained visible and accessible. The builders rarely destroyed the old pyramid; they built around them and on top of them to make the structure bigger, often with a wider base and higher top.

When we reach new heights, we don’t destroy the old pyramids we’re standing on. We build bigger ones on top.

It doesn’t mean the new temple has to look like the old one, or that it even does the same job as the old one. But the past won’t go away just because someone finds a flaw in the engineering. Those old pyramids of power made it through the past despite being inconsistent, fragile, downright wrong in some places, or in bad need of repair.

We can borrow from all the cultures and aesthetics of the world now, but by doing so we are confirming the pyramids of the past and building on old foundations, making the whole thing more complicated. Whatever steps it takes to build the new and better pyramids, we’ll need to take into account all the new information that is available too.

New pyramids can’t be built from magic, but they can’t be built by firing bullets at them either.

If our future is to remain in the city, then our personal motivations have to be laid bare all the more.  The things that have implications for our behaviour will make such strange bedfellows. We can’t let the ancient motivations rule us with authority anymore. The view from those old temples is too low, too limited. Our motivations demand an even higher point of view.

One thing that does help me sleep easier at night is the thought that pyramids were often enough built as tombs. Pyramids, like cities, are places where gods go to die.

If the whole world is to embrace one big culture, and if everyone is adding to one big pyramid, it might be big enough to lay to rest the most sanctified of our motivations.

[I'll let you have fun with what that might be.]

What do you think?

 

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Some Sources:

Uxmal – Wikipedia

Pyramid of the Magician – Wikipedia. A short retelling of the myth on how the pyramid was built (coincidentally, it has some striking similarities to the myth of Horus, and other hero tales)

Some great photos of Uxmal Ruins

History of Religious Criticism – from rationalevolution.net, a thorough, sometimes thick, outline that starts with the Protestant Reformation and ending with a neat graphic of the 50 most non-religious countries in the world today.

 

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Hierarchy in the City – Sunday Vid

June 3rd, 2012   by   Andrew

Part of the series God: From Magic to Motivation

One of the themes of this series has been (or was meant to be) mathematics. Mathematics is a kind of aesthetic. People appreciate it and trust it. In the time he’s given, Joseph Campbell paints a very simple picture of the birth of city culture and the importance of mathematics. Cities seem to be the children of agriculture and trade. It may be debated whether those two are the legitimate parents. The silver-tongued devil of written language may have snuck into the tent when opportunity struck.

Whatever may be the genealogy, when the city priests had time to look up and map the order of the stars, as Campbell suggests, they eventually sorted out predictable and numerical patterns. This was the equivalent of a revolution in mythological consciousness. As Campbell explains, myths changed from being about how to act in exceptional situations to the universal order of things. Instead of overcoming a dragon of chaos, heroes and gods start to construct reality out of the pieces that remained of the vanquished dragon. The story of Marduk is an example of this. One of the first things the hero does as victor is to create a calendar.

Agriculture needs calendars, and calendars need some general understanding of counting and mathematics. Mathematics and numbers also became important in managing large-scale work projects. Cities need walls and roads and monuments. Citizens are attracted to predictable, meaningful structure.

Not every citizen, however, seems to appreciate math in the raw, or math as an aesthetic. They aren’t convinced by it, or compelled by it.

People are inspired by exceptional things. People are inspired by art and story. People are also inspired by really really big and impressive things. People are also inspired by what’s predictable and what’s taken for granted. We have an addiction to the predictable.

Enter the pyramids.

The pyramid is an exceptional shape. If a piece is removed, the shape remains. If part of the structure suffers a collapse, it will fall in the shape of a pyramid. If you deconstruct it, the pyramid remains.

I am reading  “Hierarchy in the Forest”, a book by Christopher Boehm, suggested to me by one of my readers. Early in the book, Boehm writes:

For more than five millennia now, the human trend has been toward hierarchy rather than equality.

I’m still finding out what Boehm thinks this means, but I think hierarchies motivate us in ways that equality can’t. Pyramids and hierarchies have implications in their structure. For example, by rising even one more step, it’s implied that you are better off. The view is better. And the next step is the next goal.

Pyramids pervade our urban lifestyles. The shelves of your grocery store are organized in structured, hierarchical patterns. An ex-employee of mine once gave me the book “The E-Myth”. It simplifies the business world into three kinds of people – technicians, managers and entrepreneurs. The lesson of the book is to adopt a hierarchical framework of responsibilities, so that things are done predictably and done to a set of policies or standards.

Know your role. Measure up. Perform. Step up.

I think we are motivated by predictability and growth more than we ever could be by equality.

The simple brick hasn’t changed much over the last five thousand years. Architecture, however, has changed. We now have things like elevators. Practically anyone can go up to enjoy the city’s skyline.

But you still have to be motivated by the view up there. Someone still has to be motivated to build the tower.

Our calendar today, even after many changes, shows hints of old hierarchies. After Julius Caesar became Emperor of Rome, he named the month of the summer solstice, when the sun becomes most dominant, after himself. Following him, Caesar Augustus revised the calendar and named the next summer month after himself.

These two men became gods regardless of their very mortal natures. Without being conscious of it, we worship them as much as we worship any of our gods (and non-gods) today. Their stories are hidden underneath layers and layers of bricks upon bricks.

Like the calendars and the not-quite-conscious hierarchies that govern our shopping, they are part of our present-day, civilized, urban environment.

- – -

My thoughts are scattered right now. This is to be continued with another post on the middle class, different shapes of pyramids, and trying to dismantle pyramids after they have been erected and institutionalized.

 

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Sunday Vid – Nontheistic Gods

May 6th, 2012   by   Andrew

Part of the series God: From Magic to Motivation

Evid3nc3 has documented a deeply personal spiritual journey on youtube. He also has a blog site where the conversation can get pretty intense.

If you haven’t yet take the time, I would urge you to explore his videos.  He has put so much effort and time into his series hoping to connect in particular with Christians. Although he is no longer religious, he wanted to demonstrate his sincerity through the videos, and express just how deep his beliefs once were. His journey could be useful for others, too.

Since my main interest is in nontheistic gods, I thought I would use the chapter from Evid3nce’s story entitled Nontheistic Gods. 

Some Points:

On reading the story Jonathan Livingston Seagull (I particularly like some of his wording in his narration):

“… My mind mapped my own experiences and the entities in my own life to the stories’ symbols…”

“… The church [at the time] was still the only organization through which I felt I could dependably further my philosophical identity and the philosophical identities of other people, despite being an atheist…”

After examining Pantheism, Panentheism, Panpsychism and Deism:

“… I’d learned my lesson with Theism, and I did not cling to any of these hypotheses too strongly…”

 

(This particular video doesn’t directly address my personal interest in nontheistic gods – the psychological process of embodying personal (or social) motivations, then granting them authority or agency, and then wrestling with them. But, that’s the story I’m working on, and it isn’t Evid3nc3′s story.)

 

Inspired by the three quotes above, I have three questions for you readers. You don’t have to answer all three, but please play with them.

1. Have you ever read a story that you felt ‘mapped out’ your own personal experiences or situations symbolically in the way that Evid3nc3 describes? What was the story? Do you still feel the same way?

2. At the time, Evid3nc3 felt his personal identity was wrapped up in the group he was a part of. In a sense, they defined who he was, and he didn’t have any alternatives to go to. Is this still the case for de-converting members? Are there other places to go, groups to be a part of?

3. Evid3nc3 was able to explore ideas without adopting them as his truth. It sounds like he wants to sing, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Once the spell of a defining story is broken, do you think such a level of trust could ever be adopted again? And could the act of breaking the spell ever be a part of the stories we live by? (yes, I’m trying to link ideas to a past post)

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