Pop-Pantheist Blasphemy

One of the more prevalent modern blasphemies is that of a sort of pantheism or pandeism which holds that all religions partially and imperfectly apprehend the one true God. In the last few days I heard or overheard versions of this blasphemy at work and from Saul Williams on Twitter. Not long ago, I was in an argument with Immortal Technique on Twitter where he was ineptly defending the position (while not even really understanding that it was his position). And in the case of Saul Williams and Immortal Technique, they had legions of followers expressing general agreement with the stance.

Not many people necessarily consciously self-identify in this way, as those who hold to the position often believe that they have transcended the particularity of confession, doctrine, and -- certainly -- labels. Usually it's a disingenuous posture adopted by agnostics or nominal believers who want to affirm there is a space 'beyond' religion, where all religions are legitimate in their own general way, but where none of their specific confessional details or doctrinal content need be affirmed or denied. But this is obviously impossible: if God is a bland spiritual essence or power, beyond the particularities of religious confession, who is apprehended just as accurately by a Christian as he is by a Hindu, then this god is incompatible with the particular God of historical Christianity (for example), and the specifics of any religion must be denied in favor of this pantheist god who is the "true God".

Or, if God is somehow the immanent all-embracing 'One' of pantheism which all religions vaguely apprehend, then the holocaust, slavery, rape, intolerance, hatred et. al. all become necessary elements of "God's" being -- in fact become part of God him/itself. Once again making this god crucially incompatible with the gods of the Abrahamic religions, and many others besides.

While the incentive to adopt this stance is understandable -- desiring to overcome differences, to promote understanding, peace, and unity across religious divides, to see God as indiscriminately all-embracing etc. -- it is immediately self-defeating. Far from eliminating exclusivist religious claims, it merely introduces another exclusivist claim into the fray i.e. "none of your gods, as you understand them, is the true God, but in your errors of specific confession and practice you vaguely gesture in the true God's direction." Rather than subsuming all religions under the banner of the one true pantheist God, you introduce a new god who is just as in conflict with the historical faiths as any of the gods of those faiths is at odds with one another.

Perhaps this is the reason few people self-identify as pantheists of this sort. On close inspection, the position becomes untenable, evil, or pointless. But many people say and believe things without close inspection.

In the desire to affirm the legitimacy of all religions, you necessarily undermine and oppose them all. The God I believe in is not the god of Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism or Pop-Pantheism. This is not the resolution to the 'problem' of religious exclusivity that some naively believe it to be, rather it's proof of the inescapable, inherently exclusive nature of confessions of faith. 

Civil War

While I haven't had a chance to blog much recently, I've continued to wage war against the Occupy movement in discussions in real life and twitter. Most recently opposing the outcry from the left over Occupy Oakland being "attacked" by the police. In real time it was mostly reactions from rappers that I was responding to. In any case, the long and short of it is that I always give police the benefit of the doubt, and in this case there wasn't even much doubt to begin with. People were tweeting with straight faces at one moment about refusing to leave, ignoring police's orders, taunting them etc. and in the very next tweet complaining about police "brutality", which they had proudly, defiantly and knowingly brought upon themselves. And for what?

That's not the point of this post though. I give rappers (who are monolithically left in their worldviews) a hard time, but I still like some of their music. Most of the ones I disagree with the most are also ones whose music I do like, even though I disagree with the content when it's political or otherwise ideological. In the case of the new Immortal Technique, Chuck D, Killer Mike, and Brother Ali collaboration "Civil War" [be advised, the track contains vulgarity. Skip to 2:40 to avoid vulgarity and hear the part discussed below], I like the music and some of the content as well. The track is solid as a whole, but Brother Ali's verse is phenomenal. While I think the premise of his verse -- that America somehow restricted or abused the freedoms of Muslims in the wake of 9-11 -- is dubious and certainly not very timely (it would have been more apropos in 2002), still, the bottom line message about freedom is very true, and the technical aspects of the verse are stellar.

Listen
Our hearts were torn apart just like y'all was
Watching towers full of souls fall to sawdust
Every time we called your office you ignored us
Now you're holding hearings on us all inside of Congress
Microscopes on us, ask if we're Jihadists
My answer was in line with all of the founding fathers
I think Patrick said it best, give me liberty or death
I shall never accept anything less
You claim innocence, you play victimless
But you gave the kiss of death in the name of self-defense
Slavery and theft of other nations to the end
Of pacifying your citizenry with excess
We believe in freedom, justice.. security
But they're only pure when they're applied universally
So certainly if I rage against the machine my aim was only to clean the germs out of the circuitry
Urgently puttin fear inside your heart
Make you burn Qurans and tell me not to build a Mosque
Me, my wife and babies, we ain't never made Jihad
We just wanna touch our head to the floor and talk to God
Ask him to remove every blemish from our heart
The greatest threat of harm doesn't come from any bomb
The moment you refuse the human rights for just a few
What happens when that few includes you?
Civil war