Mailer’s strange God

[Synnical]

This article reminds me of a conversation I just had last week with someone who works for me. She kept insisting that our accounting software “will not do that”. I told her it would, I just needed to show her how. She kept insisting that the software would not and stated, “Cindy, you need to listen to me.” I listened and in the end, I showed her how the software worked just fine. 20 minutes of my time dealing with this shit. Dare I mention that she might be fundie? She's also a 20 year Army Vet, thus my respect for her is enormous.

I don't know what my comment has to do with being Jewish, but this item just made me think of the conversation I had with my employee. "Cindy, you need to listen to me."


http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m12s39&SecId=39&AId=58646&ATypeId=1

Mailer’s strange God
07/03/2008
By Julia Neuberger
In his final — infuriating — book, Norman Mailer claimed to have been wrestling with the question of the existence and nature of God for 50 years. He was hardly original in that. Claiming pride, in On God, in being 30 years an atheist, he fails to see atheism as a form of absolute certainty, or that it is harder to wrestle with doubt, arguing through what theologians have said, and reaching one’s own conclusions.

To cap all this, Mailer tells us (as if it were not obvious) that he has no formal training in theology, and makes no reference to anything Jewish other than that he was born a Jew.

Given his views about God and the Devil, this is especially annoying. Somewhere in all this mush, Mailer appears to have picked up, without recognising or acknowledging it, something of the Jewish view about the two inclinations within human beings, the yetzer tov, the good inclination, and the yetzer ha-ra, the evil inclination.

In his view, God and the Devil are external, paying more attention to people at the top of the pile — Hitler comes in for particular attention, in the wake of The Castle in the Forest, Mailer’s last substantial work. But the point of the tension between the two, that people are tempted both ways, that there are ways of influencing the direction of travel, is something he may have picked up from his Jewish family.

It is hard to tell, since his attention is largely given to attacking Roman Catholicism (he seems to know no other theology) rather as Richard Dawkins attacks a particular model of Church of England thinking in his work.

But it gets worse. Michael Lennon’s questions make intelligent points that have some kind of theological or philosophical basis. Yet Mailer’s replies seem to have no relevance to them. Indeed, the eventual image of God that one gleans from this turgid volume is something akin to Mailer’s view of himself. God is not all-powerful, all-knowing, or all-seeing. He is not the thinker, the originator, the intervener. Instead, God is an artist.

God is the intelligent designer, but when asked why people suffer in natural disasters, volcano eruptions or floods, Mailer’s banal reply is: “because God is not a perfect engineer…” No response, then, to human suffering, nor to the human need to believe in something. Instead, a series of flat platitudes, a ramble, which Michael Lennon, president of the Norman Mailer Society and an academic who has made his name in Mailer studies, does little to alleviate.

Presumably this was written, and published, to coincide with the rash of “God books” — mostly negative — that have been pouring off the presses in the last couple of years. Mailer claims here to be a believer, with nodding references to “the beauty of Christ” and to reincarnation. What a shame, then, that the book leaves his readers none the wiser as to why his atheism ceased, his belief started, or, really, what it was he believed in.



Baroness Neuberger is president of

Liberal Judaism

edit for verbiage and comments

[John Gauger]

1. Banal platitudes....

Unlike what we get from the believers....

I always love when they say "he has no training in theology," as if that means something. This time it is deliciously ironic because she is saying, "If he knew any theology he would have the right idea about god, that is, our idea." They think because they know theology they're right. I have no formal training in exo-politics, but that does not disqualify me from forming opinions about alien visitation. That's because it's a totally made-up, bullshit field of study.

[skepticscott]

3. It's a frequent criticism of anti-religionists like Dawkins

that they have no formal training in theology and can't possible comprehend the intellectual depths that great theologians of the past have plumbed. What this overlooks is that, unless you can get over the hurdle of proving that your god exists in the first place, all of theology is just an exercise in hubris, just a steaming pile of intellectual horse shit.

[John Gauger]

4. I had an argument about theology today.

I told my friend that theology is bullshit. From what conceivable source could they be getting their ideas about god? She said, "the bible?" Yeah, like I said, it's all made up.

[skepticscott]

5. "Reason" is supposed to be the source

But what theologians use can hardly be called reason when it is simply used to direct them to a pre-determined conclusion. Was there any chance at all that reason would have led St. Augustine to proofs that god doesn't exist? Not bloody likely.

In the end, theology is about nothing except finding tortured and convoluted ways of trying to convince people that something monumentally silly is actually reasonable.

[enlightenment]

2. Judaism invented the concept of good and evil?

Who knew? And the flip side of her comment suggests that non-believers don't possess either "yetzer tov" and "yetzer ha-ra." I'm not a big fan of the word "evil" (too many religious connotations) but I like to think I possess some sense of decency, which the Baroness seems to want to take away from me. Shame on her. ;) Shoot, if that's the end of it, I think I'll go out and pull the wings off some butterflies . . .

"Given his views about God and the Devil, this is especially annoying. Somewhere in all this mush, Mailer appears to have picked up, without recognising or acknowledging it, something of the Jewish view about the two inclinations within human beings, the yetzer tov, the good inclination, and the yetzer ha-ra, the evil inclination."