Part 24 (1/2)

In a different vein, the sanctity of life celebrated in Taoism, as well as in Judaism and Christianity, ends at the doors of the shi+ny palace of cheap, replaceable values of planned obsolescence, eventually of the huive their lives, probably not understanding that they close the cycle of potential practical experiences just as drug addicts, suicidals, and murderers do, obviously in different contexts and with different , but it is no more extreme than the extremes of existence and faith, or lack thereof

Friends and foes of religion will agree that, for better or worse, it has played an important role in the history of hureement is less clear: We cannot define what replaced, or could replace, religion The neorld order brought about by the downfall of communism in the Soviet Union and East Europe raises even ion: Are the extreion that replace official atheisuised forms of ethnic or cultural identification? To which extent do they reflect praglobal econoious nature were all affected by a change in their details: different ways of preserving religious doctrine, a different attitude towards authority, a change froence, but not in the fundaions are still in flux For instance, religious events embedded in various cultures take on atheery, interactive multimedia, and networks

Believers as well as casual spectators have access to religious cere is the appropriation of social, political, and ion ascertains itself in our tiuardian of per its active role outside its traditional territory

This ascertainion operates, and not by the memetic replication of its na our discussion to variation and replication, no ht appear

But who ions corresponds to the variety of pragardless of such differences, each tiht that God made the world, the oceans, the sun, stars, andcreatures, they ask: But who ht sound offensive to soood entry point to the broader issue of religion's roots in the pragions, to which comparative studies (especially those of Mircea Eliade) point, are significant at the structural level We have, on the one hand, all the li many, mortal, subject to illness and defeat, object of passion and seduction, deceitful, li one's projection as part of nature, and as part of the human species On the other hand, there is the uniqueness of the immortal, untouchable, impervious, omniscient, entity (or entities) able to understand and unleash forces far more powerful than those of nature or of men, an entity (or entities) upon which depends the destiny of all that exists

Through belief, all the li are erased It is quite instructive, as well as i, objective and subjective, is counteracted and given a life of its own in the language housing the progression from man to Gods or to God, on one side, and to the practice of religion, on the other

The various Gods constituted in the world's religious texts also recount what people do in their respective environree They tell about what can go wrong in their life and work, and what comatic context The value of rain in the Middle East, the fine- tuning of work to seasonal changes in the Far East, the significance of hope and submission in the Indian subcontinent, the increased role of animal doation in other parts of the world are precisely encoded in the various religions and in their books These books are bodies of explanations, expectations, and norms pertinent to practical experiences, written in very expressive language, ah to accommodate a variety of similar situations, but precise in their identification of who is part of the shared religious experience, and who is outside, as foreign and undesirable, or foreign and subject to enticeious experiences

What ion necessary is a subject on which it would be foolish to expect any degree of consensus What makes it possible, at least in the forms experienced and docue, and soon after language, writing-although japanese shi+ntois, or ions, as well as for Islam, the Book is the sufficient condition for their developrew into books, it actually becaious praxis This is reflected in the nature of religious rituals, an extension ofThey were all meant to disseminate the Book, and make its rules and prescriptions part of the life of the members of the respective community

The tiious hunificant coions The way the notion of God was constituted is only one of these coious expression (such as animism) is the medium in which each is articulated The subject is relatively constant

Acknowledg and desire to overco difficult and inexplicable aspects of life and death go hand in hand A perceived need to pursue avenues of survival which promise to be successful because of the i in the unknoould be, if not directly supportive, at least not actively opposed, is also discernible

But when rationalizing the coion, one autoion

Is it given to humans by some perceived superior force? Does it result from our involvement with the environment of our existence and froan to differentiate,prag and ani Communities started to compete for resources (manpower included) Efficiency of hue and leading to accu people within couments, attributed to forces outside direct practical experiences, were necessary to instill and maintain order The process was ical, and rituals All three-still retraceable in soressively for a coherent system of explanations and prescriptions meant to optimize human activity The sequence is known: Practical experiences conveyed by example from one individual to another, or orally from one to several

Where the unknown forces were ritually conjured in new forms of human practical self-constitution, these practical experiences were progressively unified and encoded in forms apt to further support the new scale achieved in the insular communities around the world Abraham, accepted almost equally by Jews, Christians, and Moslems, lived at around 2,000 BCE and proclaimed the existence of one supreme God; Moses in the 13th century BCE; the six sacred texts of the Hindus were compiled between the 17th and 5th centuries BCE; Taoision and philosophy of the path-cas on virtue, human perfectibility, obedience to Providence, and the role of the sage ruler shortly afterwards; Buddhis the Four noble truths, which teach how to exist in a world of suffering and find the path to inner peace leading to Nirvana This listing is ht the context in which the practical experience of religious self-constitution was expressed in response to circumstances of life and work that necessitated a coherent fra the five books of Moses dedicated to the basic laws of Judaism, ritten around 1,000 BCE It was followed by the other books (Prophets and Writings) and for to all seven books (the Septuagint), called the entire work ta biblia (books) This collection of books is dedicated to the thement, exodus, exile, and restoration, and introduced prescriptions for conduct, diet, justice, and religious rites The theround in which laws pertinent to work, property, , relations between the sexes, individuals, tribes, and other practical knowledge (eg, symptoms of diseases, avoidance of contah in poetic language

The pragmatic framework explains the physics of the prescriptions: What to do or not do in order to becoiven context, or at least not to be harmful It also explains the metaphysics: why prescriptions should be followed, short of stating that failure to do so affects the functioning of the entire co from the broader oral elaborations that constituted the covenant (testa was done in consonantal Hebreriting syste, on parchment scrolls, and thus subject to the limitations of the medium: How much text could be written on such scrolls in a size that facilitated reading and portability

Between these books and what ) ca's invention, there is a difference not only in size, but also in sequence and in substance Over time, texts were subject to repeated transcriptions, translations, annotation, revision, and coiven once and for all kept changing, and became subject to interpretations and scrutiny ever so often Still, there is a fundamental element of the continuity of its expressed doctrine: life and work, in order to be successful, must follow the prescribed patterns Hence the implicit expectation: read the book, ih religious services meant to extol the word

But since alternate explanatory systeressively developed-science not the last-parallel to relative fixed pragion, a certain separation of religion froion consecutively constituted its own domain of human praxis, with its own division of labor, and its own frame of reference Christianity, Islam, the Protestant Reformation, and various sectarian movements in China, japan, the Indian subcontinent (neo- Confucianisious movement) are such developments

We have heard about such expatiations and hear as well about conflicts triggered around them, but fail to put these conflicts in the perspective that explains theers reactions Mean in the 19th century) are subjected to the repression of Musliions, not subordination of some to others The expectation of universal education, or active proed, and for that ious Society of Friends, ie, the Quaker movement, was a reaction to the corruption of the church as an institution It spells out a progra consensus in ram of education and non-violence It was also subjected to repression, as each schism was, by the powers that were in place

These and , as yet unfinished, process of transition froy and church, and even to business, as well as the process of perion to secular culture and market The Book became not only many different books, but also varied experiences eion Alternative perspectives were subion

And the word becaion

In the circular structure of survival in nature, there was no room for metaphysical self-constitution, ie, no practical need to wonder about as beyond the immediate and proximate, never mind life and death When the practical experience of self-constitution estures, objects, sounds) possible, a sense of time-as sequences of durations-developed, and thus a new direw as awareness of oneself in relation to others increased in a context of diversified practical experiences Acknowledging others, not just as prey, or as object of sexual drive, but as associates (in hunting, foraging,shelter), and even the very act of association, resulted in awareness of the power of coordination Thus the awareness, as diffuse as it still was, of ti ventured a description of the process: ”In the beginning there was no moral or social order

People knew only their ry, they searched for their food Once full, they threw the rest away

They ate their food with skin and hair on it, drank blood and covered themselves in fur and reeds” He described a world in its ani and celebrating repetition