Note : parts of another conversation, along with some commentary, are linked to, here. The reader is welcome to look, but cautioned that he'll be going off on a major tangent.
Leah
(veteran poster)
04/09/01 10:08 PM
Religion and empowerment
Hotep!
Does participating in religion empower the participants and improve their lives? (1) This question arises out of another conversation (2) where it was suggested that it (is) not the "job" of (a) religion or religious congregation to empower its members. (3)
So then what is the job (4) and how does it relate to personal empowerment and well being? (5) I realize we may well be using the word in different ways. (6)
Senebty!
Leah
Click here to return to "Setting the tone"
(1) Note how casually she equates the two, as if one naturally implied the other.
(2) In this conversation, Renee argues in favor of thinking of the netjeru as forces, instead of as persons. Her argument is vague throughout, which seems to reflect a deliberate choice on her part, but she leaves no doubt that she is arguing in favor of a "New Age" perspective, though she isn't about to be straightforward enough to admit the blindingly obvious. She also clearly hints at an opposition to the concept of piety, and a positive view of the art of personal manipulation. It's quite a post.
(3) In that post, Rev.Schaefer seems to be objecting to the New Age (and Occultist) tendency to reduce religion to being a sort of technology.
(4) In 30 words or less, Leah? Religion concerns a relationship between man and deity. What is the "job" of the relationship between two friends? A question that broad defies any attempt at a full answer, as the relationship finds new purposes for itself in each moment of its existence. Some things, however, are not fitting purposes for a friendship, and the satisfaction of a desire to use one's friends for one's own advantage would fall under that category.
To those desiring a more positive answer, though, one answer is that religion more properly concerns man's desire to grow into one worthy to wield power, than his desire to be the one who wields it.
(5) Again, clearly hinting that there should be such a connection, without fully opening the door to rebuttal by saying so directly. Power is rightly a means to an end, not an end in itself. In the wrong hands, it benefits few in the beginning and nobody in the end, because it damages the very society whose existence makes it possible for power to be profitable in the first place.
(6) This could well be, but whose fault is that?
Leah seems to be asking for a clear answer to a vague question as, while she hints at much, she seldom makes her meanings explicit. When presented with a rebuttal to a point, then, she needn't even back down should the rebuttal be an unshakable one. She need only deny that she ever made the point in the first place. In this manner, she can transmute the reality of her point having been refuted into the illusion of her argument having transcended her opponent's understanding, in the mind of the unwary reader. Perversely, the less sense she is making, the more effective this rhetorical dodge will prove. This is why the defense "I know what I mean" can't be accepted, when common usage makes the interpretation of an otherwise vague passage clear.
Question :"Aren't you being a little hard on Leah?"Answer :No more so than she would be used to, were she actually a college instructor, as she claims to be, and no more so than she deserves. Here's why.