Final thoughts on the nature of religious experience…

This semester has been quite a journey.  At the beginning of class, the exposure to how religion may have begun and what it actually may be was an excellent exercise for placing on the table what I believe and have faith in and examining it parallel to many different theories.  I also had a chance to notice how my thought patterns work when it comes to “defending” my faith/practicing apologetics and the ordinary skill of listening.  I noticed when I would be reading James, Freud, Pals, or Philips and even in class listening, verses or concepts would enter into my mind to combat certain ideas and draw conclusions that some ideas were akin to each other; I was always comparing.  It was an exercise for me to put my faith or even supposed knowledge aside and absorb the teachings without firstly comparing.  I learned two things from this – 1) Perhaps there is an advantage for an outsider to analyze religions which can sometimes blind one from seeing the truth or a truth or even a falsehood they believe to be true, I know that may sound odd because the believer is supposed to have the truth, but sometimes religious practice results in the blind leading the blind, so when an outsider comes in he has nothing to defend, he is only a witness who attempts to put the puzzle together such as Frazer or Freud to share some insight and 2) As I read the theories of diverse philosophers and others in different fields it became inspiring that I can enter in on the quest of philosophy and noticed that I was always suspicious of the suspicious, recollecting on supposed knowledge and the practicing of a new facet of contemplating which allowed me to take a closer look at how religion really does play out in my life and others that I know– my mind was constantly philosophizing and mind you I was taking 5 philosophy courses this semester so it was mandatory to philosophize, but for me I felt all the exposure was healthy…

This class also displayed to me the advantage of understanding ones faith and other theories  in order to see a whole picture from many fields and also to be able to critique and meditate on what is being said–there were many basic questions that were put before the class that most in a religious faith would claim to believe in such as God exists, God created the world, the idea that miracles exist, the trinity, etc, and yet alot of these ideas were put on a shelf as invalid or reduced to something else or thought of as improbable and doubt was cast on the idea– some more convincing than others, but still one might subscribe to the idea and become one of those folks who “LOSE THEIR FAITH”, or jump ship, nevertheless the idea of questioning the knowledge that is out there that one accepts as absolute truth is not seen as the truth to many– and many look upon the religious as fanatics, this is not so, you can spot one by the remembering the following:

“A fanatic is someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” [Winston Churchill]

They come in all fields, so be on the look out.  To understand the other side of a story and accept it as truth is to be IN – FORM  -(ED) or fall  IN –FORMATION but to whose form are you succumbing to?  Question the question is what this class seemed to invite me to do, a dose of skepticism I appreciate. 

I also felt the deep inquiry that alot of these theorists endeavored in, opened up the door to what religion is to many — A science, a psychology, a discipline, a faith/beliefsystem, the last hope, a myth, or all of these things but that the search for what religion is being on the minds of many to me is beneficial for the civilization as a whole.  I believe spirituality supports reality, the unseen reality or order that we take for granted daily, so if many want to try to explain it in layman’s terms, be our guest, the ancients laid out a platform for us to build on. 

About twelve years ago upon reading the bible, I would come across verses that would refer to other books that were not in the bible, such as the book of Jasher, Enoch, Nathan the Prophet, and others that I would find people commenting on as non canonical.  Upon getting ahold of some of these books and reading them for myself, I witnessed the vastness of what we call religion and how it cannot and should not be constrained to the idea of what we know today as organized religion which seeks to IN FORM without question, a method of learning that I do not agree with.   Even Nicodemus questioned the Master in order to seek truth.  The quest /tion for me opened up the door to read the Pseudepigrapha of the Old and New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gnostic Scriptures, the Nag Hammadi texts, the Apocrypha, the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, the Gospel of Barnabas, and a host of other books and some from other faiths that have been very interesting to my stance on faith.  Many mental and spiritual doors swung open for me without feeling like I was compromising my faith but that I was actually learning as I have in this class.  

Thank you for the true nature of religious experience–learning in the spirit.

Hey..have you seen my faith, I swore I put it on the table, I can’t find it now and I’m late for work

The idea of losing ones faith is interesting…I once met an individual who over the course of  about 40 years, 10 of which I knew him, tried out every religion on the face of the earth and when he took a stance he damned those who contradicted him even if they held the beliefs he may have held a week ago.  I have seem him with a kippot on keeping the Shabbat, running to the Mosque on Friday declaring that everyone he knew in the neighborhood was an infidel, I witnessed him quoting Buddha at times of crisis with a serious face at that, I have had the honor of hearing him say a prayer in Jesus’  name at the supper table and doing what I thought was an attempt at the sign of the cross, he even delved into Wicca, Rosicrucianism, Mormonism, Scientology, the Kabbalah, and a host of other faiths, and to put the icing on the cake he one day told me that he doesn’t believe in God that he sided with Nietzsche when it came to religion.  Well, now the young man has settled down a bit and is a practitioner of Judaism fairly stable in his belief, although he does waiver from time to time, he unfortunately has an opportunity now to practice his faith at extreme odds and circumstances as he resides in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation with a life sentence for committing the ultimate act across any religion…murder, so not only did he supposedly lose his faith at a certain point he definitely lost his mind.

I reflect on this quite often.  It seems that all his attempts to reach out to all of these different faiths were in vain.  He would always say he didn’t “feel it”.   He reminded me of the adage if you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything.  He finally stood up for something, the street life, but it was poison.  I must say that when he did engage in a certain faith he would be able to break its tenets down with a precision that was intimidating.  The young man was pretty deep to say the least, and I admit I liked to hear his religious conspiracy theories, UFOs and New World Order hypes, and Masonic insight, but at times I felt that he was like the apostle Paul, who was told,  ”Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad”, (Acts 26:24).   To me he had head knowledge and that was it.

I am of the opinion that one can’t lose their faith, for it may seem to those on the outside that one has lost their faith but to me if they let go of what they confessed to have faith in, they never really had faith in it to begin with.  When my friend would say he could not “feel it”, to me it was a clue that he could not just believe, he needed proof, which is not faith.  No matter what you put in front of him he could never believe it.

“But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. ⁷ For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. ⁸ A double minded man is unstable in all his ways”, (James 1:6-8).

The obstacles of faith my friend faces in the future are to me foreseen with tremendous problems.  Who is too blame for his predicament, I see him pointing fingers already.  He is at a vulnerable stage in life and there is a possibility that he will never, ever taste freedom again due to never getting paroled, dying a natural death in prison or getting murdered in prison by a fellow inmate or guard.  If there was ever a time that faith was needed it would seem to me that it would benefit him now to forsake the pain, bitterness and mental anguish and tear down the mental strongholds. 

What does he have to look forward to?

“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. ¹² Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; ¹³ And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. ¹⁴ Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: ¹⁵ Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled,” (Hebrews 12:11-15).

In my opinion all there is faith…

Philosophers…one voice out of many at the table

Even though Rorty was not a friend of religion, this idea is still beneficial because there could be much to learn.  The use of a collective consciousness of people from many different fields can shed light on different perspectives–this does not mean to attempt to change ones perspective but rather to show that there are other ways to see…to keep the conversation going can be food for thought for many.

The challenges could be great for those rigid in their beliefs.

However, with so many people who are experts in their field and the only ones who have the truth, either the door to the hermeneutical conversation would have to be widened to allow the many big heads into the building or the National Guard would have to be present just in case, either way it could be messy….but in a good way I would hope.

 An egomaniacal philosopher never made it to the conversation table…couldn’t fit through the door–

  

or

Theists and the like getting ready just in case they don’t like how the conversation is going!!! 

 ”Now if they just even hint at mentioning that Mary wasn’t a virgin, you know what to do, right?”

or

 ”You say you did what on the third day, we want to hear that story again, this time a little bit slower…”

 With all jokes aside, the nature of religious experience is open for all, for even the atheist who declares that there is no God, still experiences life which is spiritual, for his beleif  is his religious/practical way of getting through life and navigating his spirit in the cosmos, so to be able to sit at a table and discuss how one gets through life with many learned men and women would be an honor to listen to wisdom flow like a waterfall from the minds of many.

God…an empty word?

I agree that the word god in the English language has become or has been an empty word, but if one were to reflect back to the original word in the Hebraic scriptures one would find that the word God has meaning — In fact the word God was commanded not to be used in a mundane way with the effect of  taking on an empty meaning and to make it empty in speech and render the word God useless.  How did the word god enter into the bible anyway?  How do we get the word god from the actual Hebrew word for god which is Elohim, there is no similarity?   God in Greek is Theos, Latin is Deus connected with Zeus and dies meaning day (bright), can be traced back to the Sanskrit word Deva or dev which corresponds with the Latin deus which means bright.  An interesting thing to note is that Plato in the Crytalus 397  says the word theos (which is now used in the bible) comes from the word thein meaning to run, from the running (thein) nature of the sun, moon and stars.  Socrates says, “I suspect that the sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven, which are still the Gods of many barbarians, were the only Gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes. Seeing that they were always moving and running, from their running nature they were called Gods or runners (θεοὺς, θέοντας); and when men became acquainted with the other Gods, they proceeded to apply the same name to them all. Do you think that likely?” 

So it seems to imply that the word theos has to do with the worship of the heavenly bodies such as the sun, moon and stars.  We are seeing this take on Christianity today with the movie Zeitgeist which indicates that  all religion is actually the worship of the Sun – who gives life to all beings and is played out in different mythical forms in the stories of man from ancient times.   

The word god or gott  was used among the Teutonic tribes where the word Gott was surname for their god Odin, the name of their highest god and it is also used in Sanskrit as the word ghuta which means to invoke and is an epithet of Indra.  So we have gone from elohim to theos from theos to deus from deus to gott and from gott to god.

So what about the word elohim?  Doesn’t it have a meaning or is Hegel right there is no power in the name?

Actually, the word elohim is thought to derive from the idea of power or fear/reverence from the words alih or alah meaning to terrify or perplex –

Whatever and wherever the word comes from seems to make no difference to Hegel, he posits that only at the end of the proposition does the emptiness of the word become actual knowledge —  And?

We speak in tongues around here and gain some insight through speech that expresses words, how else are we supposed to get an idea of what something means without being told or to experience it for oneself that is the power of God – this is not to negate the idea that one cannot come to the knowledge of the true God without words in my opinion.

Feurbach…a new view

When cause is questioned, science, God and the self comes into question and the idea of skepticism results.  What ensues from scepticism is the idea of dualism because there seems to exist phenomena and noumena and alienationcomes forth because man can never really know the real world.  To remedy the division, God was thought to be nature and nature is everywhere, thuslyPantheism. From pantheism resulted determinism because everything was God and God follows determined set laws.  Hegel came along and said duality does not exist and it is not nature that seals the gap but rather geist/spirit.  He next posited that history is like a drama or a dialectical where God is coming to know himself and man comes to the knowledge that there is no split between himself and God and man becomes self actualized.  In Hegel’s philosophy of religion he says Christianity is a byproduct of a master slave relationship and the only way the slave can come into freedom is if he retreats into himself or into his mind called stoizism.  So with the slave withdrawn from the world in his mind, the master cannot get to him with the consequence of the slave not being able to connect with the world and skepticism results because the next move is to abandon the self.  The next thing to take place is that the slave’s mind becomes reified to become God the Father which is unchanging within the self and God the Son is the particular which is always changing and the Holy Spirit bridges the gap between the Father and the Son.  With this foundation in place we can proceed to see Feurbach’s view.  Feurbach as a student of Hegel, takes Hegel’s ideas of religion and transforms them into the idea that any predication we say about ourselves we actually say about God is a reification about ourselves, thusly that God is man and man is God.  Feurbach then says that the secret of religion itself  is atheism specifically Christianity.  He says that in trying to understand religion we are actually trying to understand man not God and this is understood by just looking at religion. 

Ultimately Feurbach seems to be pointing at the idea of the divinity of human nature, not a new idea even in his time, but his twist is that he takes God out of the picture.  So he says that men on earth can be Sons of God in order to establish a divine relationship in the same sense as man is the son of man in which he finds the truth and essence of religion, however, the idea of the Son of God being contradictory to nature and different in manner is actually absurd and actually has to do with theology acting as anthropology and not religion.  My question is in the first sense how can man establish a divine relationship with the title Son of God when there isn’t any God, and was Feurbach familiar with what a Son of God meant in the Christian tradition? 

If God is man and man is God, then the only relation that exists is the relationship between man, since God does not exist and would mean there would be no divine relationship, so where would we receive our divinity from or divine nature or divine pattern?  Was it not Christ who according to the Christian tradition was thought to be God. The idea of Son of God was used specifically for Jesus in the New Testament and is used in the singular form, and is used as a title of one who is an anointed king or the messiah.  Evil spirits bowed down to Christ and confessed that he was the Son of God, the devil himself tempted Christ and asked Him if he actually was the Son of God he should perform certain miracles in order to receive confirmation that Christ was in fact the “Son of God”.  But in order for regular men to become Sons of God they had to believe in Christ and be led by the spirit of God and be born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, which will not happen to everyone, so everyone is not a Son of God, but God is necessary for those that have been anointed as Christ was to become the Sons of God or chosen among many.  What takes place is understood to be that  receiving of the the Spirit of adoption, where  one understands the relationship of God as being Abba, or the Father because The Holy Spirit itself bears witness with mans spirit, that one is indeed a child of God.  So some internal revelation is taking place and it is not the revelation that one says “WOW I am God”, or that “I am related to the next man due to a divine nature we both have and this is how I am a son of God” or even that “I am a Son of God, even though God does not exist because I like the title of the identity because it establishes a pseudo relationship with a divine being that everyone knows does not exist and this makes me a Son of God in word only”.  I think that is even more absurd than saying that God exists and is separate from man. 

The only point that refers to what I believe Feurbach is pointing at in reference to a divine nature or one could have the possibility of being thought of as a god and not being the God himself is in the Old and New Testament and Jesus himself comments on it as such, “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? ³⁵ If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; ³⁶Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” (John 10:34-36 )  The verse Jesus refers to in the law is, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. ⁷ But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes,” (Psalm 82:6-7).  It indeed establishes a relationship to the most High and considers certain individuals to be gods or in the actual language elohim, but also refers to the elohim destined to die like men in the plural sense.  Even this passage could not give one the ability in my opinion to say that God is man and man is God, because the idea one holds as God is distinct from the way it is being used in this passage– there would have to be many gods and these gods would have to all die–but what this verse does do is actually establish the difference between God and man and places them as his children, a son, and never as God Himself, who awaits the same fate as any other mortal being who has entered the universe and that is death.  It is as if God in this passage is speaking strictly to Feurbach in that maybe those who were told the they were gods erroneously unuderstood them to be on the same level as God and God made it a point to say, “No you will understand that you are not God when you die and fall like one of the princes, hmm..I wonder who that prince or fallen one was?”

Do you understand…TTWNGCBC

The subtleties of the logic TTWNGCBC residing in the understanding seems to imply the idea of potentiality where something can exist but yet not be known or expressed at a certain time.  How is it possible that something is in the understanding yet it cannot be understood, specifically the idea that God exists?  Anselm says that even the fool would agree that he can understand TTWNGCBC so it must be in his understanding because it is understood.  If the idea that there cannot exist something greater than God  is imagined than it can also be imagined to be in reality too which is said by Anselm to be greater than imagining, and because of this, a leap is made to conclude that there must exist in the understanding and also in reality a greatest conception which is thought to be God.  However, a problem arises in that the greater thing does not have to be God and in my opinion does not have to exist in reality.  I can conceive of many things by compounding my ideas in the imagination, but these things do not have to exist in reality too, just because I can imagine it, understand it and conceive it.  Anselm also plays on the idea that reality is greater than the imagination so if the idea of God is pulled from the imagination to reality somehow, the idea is given more validity, but this is not possible says the fool, but I ask who is fooling who?

The jealous lover…ideas of remoter facts

Upon reading James’ chapter The Reality of the Unseen, he made a statement that a memory of an insult may make one angrier than when it was received and also that such thoughts may elicit stronger reactions than that of the senses, I feel gives some insight as to how one can be so passionate about something they cannot see or sense but rather think, such as a jealous lover who is sure that their partner is cheating and carries out acts of rage not based on evidence or proof but only due to the thought.  The jealous lover is following something he thinks he “knows” but in fact he does not, but only believes and has faith that his belief is right and causes him to act upon his faith.  It seems that James’ point is that what has been considered knowledge thus far such as Plato’s forms is like the knowledge the jealous lover has, it is actually not knowledge and really not knowable but only a matter of faith such as Kant who posited that knowledge be denied to make room for faith in order to maneuver throughout the world on a daily basis in practical acts.  What we know is the appearances of things such as the appearance of the jealous lover’s idea of infidelity, but we really can’t know, because we do not understand the idea behind the cause and effect of our so called knowledge or faith but only the appearances we receive from the senses or thoughts.

Wittgensteinian Fideism…Let me speak please

It seems that Wittgensteinian Fideism had a point that I agreed with.  The second thesis that religious belief can only be understood by religious believers rings true to me.   Philips argues this point, yet his reasons such as a person praying from problems that arise in relationships with other people would be understood by a person that is nonreligious as a counter example is not sufficientto prove that the nonbelieverver understands the religious belief but may in fact be that he understands that they both have relationship problems and have different manners in which they address those issues.  Philips also uses the idea of one rejecting atheism or a religious belief after seeing the kind of thing it is, because they did not live according to certain or such beliefs.  This also does not say the atheist understands religious belief but in fact be that each one differs to why they believe because they are different in nature.  The believer can say he understands the atheist because at one point he was without God but the atheist could not say I understand what you believe because I was once a believer, this is contradictory!!  Did the atheist misplace his belief?  If you say that you once believed then you subsequently say you don’t, there is subsequent doubt as to your belief in the first place and also that you understood what you believed in the first place, in my opinion.  Lastly he says that true believers say that obedience to God is a form of understanding and so one can conclude that if one does not obey God, he must lack that understanding.  But, Philips says a philosopher can comprehend the difference between religious understanding and its implication on obedience to God and how it differs to other forms of obedience, without the philosopher being a believer or obedient to God himself.  This point is significant due to the fact that Philips uses the words true believers.  It is important to understand that what lies in the mind of a true believer is thought to be in effect the mind of Christ or the mind of Buddha, the starting point of two major religious schools of thought.  If a true believer can be understood so easily as Philips contests why are Christ’s or Buddhas’ words so often misunderstood, misrepresented or even not even revealed to the minds of the masses to this day?  Is it not true that many do not actually understand and it is proven by their actions of disobedience.  I think  Jesus emphasized this point when he said, “W ho hath ears to hear, let him hear. ¹⁰And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? ¹¹ He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. ¹² For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. ¹³ Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. ¹⁴And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: ¹⁵ For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. ¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear,” (Matthew 13:9-16)

Some light at the end of the tunnel…

09-04-08 — Contrary to what Freud believed, his disciple disagreed with him about religion.  Jung believed religion was needed for the fulfillment of individuation and a healthy use of religion was proper to understand ones place in the universe and ultimately a way to prepare for death.  James was of the pragmatic school of thought that true is whatever is expedient in the way of ones thinking, and if it works for the individual then it is considered useful.  Durkheim explained that religion is social and it is the glue that holds a society together. 

09-23-08 — Here are a group of thinkers that seemed to look at religion in a different manner and examined its uses.   The question for today is how is Durkheim wrong?  It is difficult to say that religion is not social.  It makes sense to say that religion functions as a social item yet it is meant to instruct individuals to reach a different state of being here on earth or a different place of existing in the future for the resurrected soul so the idea of the social does not really apply to the state of being of the mind like nirvana or heaven in the hereafter because the idea of the social is negated in the ultimate goal of religion.  If the idea of reincarnation is true where some souls have been migrating to different forms of life for thousands of years in different societies and only to try to overcome the weights of the world and forsake the society and transcend this life it seems thatthe social is actually negated and ultimately the idea is not to be born anymore in this society — it is likewise for Christianity where on is born again, not in society but in the kingdom of heaven only to become a citizen of heaven.  Durkeheim takes God out of the picture which is also a mistake because that is part of the supposed societal tradition, can’t have your cake and eat it too!!

In the beginning…

8-28-08 — From the start of this class I enjoyed the exposure to the religious ideologies that mankind was thought to have and the diverse philosophies that accrued over the years as to what the different branches of religious thought  actually meant.  The substantivist looks at the phenomena and find that the beliefs and ideas that people commit to are most important, while the functionalist focuses solely on the how the religion operates in human life, psychologically or socially.  It seems that what is taking place is that we have some outsiders explaining what those who are religious in practice  are really doing in order to posit a theoryof religion without looking at it holistically.   We also come to find that all functionalists are reductionists which take the religion and reduce it to something else, such as Sigmund Freud who says that religion is actually a neurosis.    This is the supposed scientific approach to religion. 

10-02-08 — Tylor explains that earliest religions held a belief in spiritual beings which were animistic in nature.  This is the idea that objects can contain a spiritual principle, so when the ancients were worshipping they were not worshipping objects but the spirit of the object.  Frazer said the ancients actually believed in personalities not principles, in which religion became anthropomorphic and resulted in a belief in supernatural beings such as gods or goddesses that have personalities.  Freud believed that the insecurities of life in ancient times drew men together to form a society where rest was to be found from the fear of life’s threats, especially murder, where it became prohibited under totemism, due to an actual account of murder of the sacred father figure, which eventually led to the father god sort of religion where man pleaded for safety.  Freud felt religion was a neurosis that sprung from this insecurity. 

Up until this point the ideas of religion have been interesting to say the least.  Religion has been likened to a crime scene with many witness accounts of what happened, take note that I didn’t say eye witnesses because I don’t believe that any of these theorists were present at the time of Christ or Buddha or even further back to the totemic spirits of the ancients but yet they have given an account and a testimony as to what is really going on.  With that having been said, I feel that many an innocent being has been locked up and sentenced to death based on false testimony!!!  This I believe is what is going on with religious belief systems.  I find that a real scientific approach would have involved the act of studying the languages, hieroglyphs, rituals and sacred texts of the civilizations and attempted to receive testimony through archaeological evidence to piece the religion together. They should of at least made an attempt to stop in with the Akashic Record, especially Freud!!!  Maybe this would be asking to much.  But to reduce religious thought as Freud did to a neurosis or a sickness,  or give it another account of reality when these theorists seemed to think they knew these religious systems of thought, was in truth a cheap shot because they either couldn’t know due to lack of records or evidence or they were lazy in their research and did not bother to dig into what each religion (due to staying in their local libraries and read books about religion) meant from the accounts of the texts in their original tongue. Freud’s  concern was of the situation of his day dealing with European Christian civilization or their perspective on Christianity and can in no way whatsoever represent all religions of the world, or the true Christian thought for that matter, which should have been included or even weighed against these new theories.  The last thought I have was that many of the theorists were not believers themselves, so to trample on the sacred would not have been problematic for them.

              Matthew 7:6 – ”Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you”.

 

A side note from class time blog:  It seems that Freud’s case in reference to mans wicked condition that ended up necessitating man to form a society was not his idea but yet a biblical one, that all men are wicked and need to turn from their sins and ask the Father for forgiveness is an evident theme that runs throughout the bible.  In The Future of an Illusion Freud seems to make use of biblical jargon and turns it on its face as his invention.