hello

[traumaturgist]

I've already posted a few times here, so thought I'd give a real introduction:

I'm traumaturgist..an upper-year doctoral student in English at a Canadian university, compeltely disillusioned with coroporate university ideology, burned out, jaded, world-weary, growing more and more impatient with intellectual windowshoppers and pilot fish who think that thoughtful thinking requires no training whatsoever. Currently struggling to finish a dissertation in English (but which also involves quite a bit of philosophy and theory - Schelling, Deleuze, and Jung to be specific) so I can get out of the hellhole that is London, Ontario.

Now back to work, me...

[curses]

Welcome, traumaturgist!

[Crumb]

Welcome to the , traumaturgist!

[Ymir's blood]

[ZEZOZE]

London, Ontario...i don't know what you people did to piss off the gods, but they sure like to punish you with snow. My wife's family is from Sarnia and when we travel there we have to pass through London. That usually means going from sunshine and smooth sailing to "what the fuck is happening and where did the road go!?" until you break through to the other side. No wonder people drive so fast along your stretch of the 401- let's get through here as fast as we can!

anyhow...welcome.

[thedoc]

You think London Ontario is a hellhole? HA! Have you read the rest of the forums on this site?

[Vivisectus]

Originally Posted by ZEZOZE

London, Ontario...i don't know what you people did to piss off the gods, but they sure like to punish you with snow. My wife's family is from Sarnia and when we travel there we have to pass through London. That usually means going from sunshine and smooth sailing to "what the fuck is happening and where did the road go!?" until you break through to the other side. No wonder people drive so fast along your stretch of the 401- let's get through here as fast as we can!

anyhow...welcome.

for a minute I read that as "Narnia" and imagined your inlaws as happy little fauns and anthropomorphic animals.

[viscousmemories]

traumaturgist; disillusioned is my middle name.

[SR71]

I'm jaded, burned out, and world-weary too. Throw in cynical. Other than that, just some dumbass with a modem. Philosophy makes my eyes twitch. English makes me giggle. Have fun with your paper chase! (< sincere)

[traumaturgist]

Originally Posted by Vivisectus

for a minute I read that as "Narnia" and imagined your inlaws as happy little fauns and anthropomorphic animals.

Fauns and anthropomorphic animals we have...usually wearing a "Gimme My Timmy's and No One Gets Hurt" t-shirt...and yes, I feel vaguely dirty for referencing that.

[traumaturgist]

Originally Posted by SR71

I'm jaded, burned out, and world-weary too. Throw in cynical. Other than that, just some dumbass with a modem. Philosophy makes my eyes twitch. English makes me giggle. Have fun with your paper chase! (< sincere)

Thank you...and I sympathize completely with everything, including the twitching and giggling, which I do more and more of the closer I am to completion.

[Pan Narrans]

Welcome to traumaturgist!

[Stormlight]

Welcome aboard!

[livius drusus]

Wotcha!

[LadyShea]

Welcome I've enjoyed your posts so far.

In peacegirls thread, you have made several statements against atheists, and as an atheist myself I was wondering where that comes from.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Welcome I've enjoyed your posts so far.

In peacegirls thread, you have made several statements against atheists, and as an atheist myself I was wondering where that comes from.

Wow! This should get good, someone elses turn in the barrel.

[LadyShea]

I am merely curious. Would you like to fight about something thedoc? I can start a new thread

[traumaturgist]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Welcome I've enjoyed your posts so far.

In peacegirls thread, you have made several statements against atheists, and as an atheist myself I was wondering where that comes from.

Well, maybe this does deserve a new thread

However, to state my position briefly (which I've ranted about at length on my own website):

I'm actually not against the idea of atheism whatsoever. I am absolutely "religious," but I'm not an adherent of any religious denomination (Freudian slip: demonination? ) and I do not believe in a theistic god who, for example, will smite you with lightning for touching yourself at night, and I really don't care if people believe in such a god or not. My issue is with what I have seen as the incredibly flawed attempts by atheists to disprove "religion" when they fail to adequately define it as an object of inquiry.

Put differently: atheists tend to trash "religion" by assuming that all "religion" can be is, say, the Christian theist model. My main beef, in so many words, is that "religion" cannot be reduced to this one representation of it. This is why I have a special intellectual hate-on for Christopher Hitchens, who in my mind exemplifies the most ignorant kind of atheism imaginable - namely, a (religious!) belief in Enlightenment progress, combined with a fundamentalist scientific materialism/rationalism that pathologically excludes any idea that the world is more than what we simply apprehend with our senses.

That said, I don't reduce atheism to that sort of ham-handed faith in science but have yet to read more thoughtful arguments for atheism. I'm perfectly open to reading them.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I am merely curious. Would you like to fight about something thedoc? I can start a new thread

You may certainly start a new thread, and a fight, just don't expect me to join in unless you say something really interesting. Let me know how it turns out.

[LadyShea]

I am not an evangelist for atheism or anything like that, so no fights from me!

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by traumaturgist

Well, maybe this does deserve a new thread

However, to state my position briefly (which I've ranted about at length on my own website):

I'm actually not against the idea of atheism whatsoever. I am absolutely "religious," but I'm not an adherent of any religious denomination (Freudian slip: demonination? ) and I do not believe in a theistic god who, for example, will smite you with lightning for touching yourself at night, and I really don't care if people believe in such a god or not. My issue is with what I have seen as the incredibly flawed attempts by atheists to disprove "religion" when they fail to adequately define it as an object of inquiry.

Put differently: atheists tend to trash "religion" by assuming that all "religion" can be is, say, the Christian theist model. My main beef, in so many words, is that "religion" cannot be reduced to this one representation of it. This is why I have a special intellectual hate-on for Christopher Hitchens, who in my mind exemplifies the most ignorant kind of atheism imaginable - namely, a (religious!) belief in Enlightenment progress, combined with a fundamentalist scientific materialism/rationalism that pathologically excludes any idea that the world is more than what we simply apprehend with our senses.

That said, I don't reduce atheism to that sort of ham-handed faith in science but have yet to read more thoughtful arguments for atheism. I'm perfectly open to reading them.

Have you read any of Joseph Campbells work? For years I have been working on my own ideas on God and Religion/Mythology, and then I pick up one of his books, and there in print are the ideas I have been trying to put into words. I do attend a church, but I don't express too many of these ideas out loud. I also have no problem reconciling science and evolution with religion, I just don't see where there is a problem.

[thedoc]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I am not an evangelist for atheism or anything like that, so no fights from me!

Well I'm no evangelist for religion, but I am interested in what you believe, and why, I just don't need the hostility. However I do sometimes "reply in kind".

[traumaturgist]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I am not an evangelist for atheism or anything like that, so no fights from me!

Like thedoc, I'd be interested in what you have to say and what your particular atheist views might be. Although I'm passionate about what I believe, to use thedoc's words I "respond in kind" mostly when I read arrogant atheists who try to dismiss an entire area of human experience out of hand (the "we don't need God because we have math" arguments).

That said, you get a pretty good sense of who the sensible and thoughtful people are, irrespective of whether or not you agree with them. So I envision less of a fight and more of an exchange of viewpoint.

[traumaturgist]

Originally Posted by thedoc

Have you read any of Joseph Campbells work? For years I have been working on my own ideas on God and Religion/Mythology, and then I pick up one of his books, and there in print are the ideas I have been trying to put into words. I do attend a church, but I don't express too many of these ideas out loud. I also have no problem reconciling science and evolution with religion, I just don't see where there is a problem.

I quite agree with you re: reconciling science/evolution and religion. And yes, I've read Joe Campbell, albeit a long time ago. I will say, however, that I think you might get a lot out of reading Carl Jung (if you haven't already read him). I am somewhat of a becoming-scholar in contemporary Jungian studies (not to be confused with the old-guard Jungians of several decades ago or the rather tragic New Age appropriations of Jungian theory), and Joseph Campbell was fundamentally a Jungian (although he really just took Jungian ideas and ran with them as I recall; Jung was much more of a theorist), so I think there's a lot in there for you.

Among other things, Jung gives religion (in its broadest sense) much more credit than Freud ever did. Moreover, Jungian ideas have apparently held their own with contemporary science much more than many psychoanalytic assumptions, which have been disproved by contemporary biology and evolutionary thought.