 
                         20051117.00

     The issue of atheism is not so simple as it seems.
Theology is not a debate whose participants make pronounce-
ments to the effect that god does or does not exist.  It
is a matter not of what is publicly announced, but of what
is individually experienced. Arguably the prohibition
against the use of god's name is the definitive act of
atheism.  Arguably, it was Moses who was the ultimate atheist
when he deprived god of his very name, a name which is
not so much the label of an object as it is the emblem of
social existence. It is by his name, that god becomes the
recipient of public prayers and sacrifices and worship.
Deprived of his name, god is deprived of his social existence
and of his force in society. To prohibit the vocal and logical
expression of the name of god, literally, is to require
the society to function without god: a-theistically.

     Thus a conventional Judaism that everywhere praises and
thanks and implores god, may be interpreted as making a
mockery of Moses' teaching.  If only the Jews would pay
attention to Moses and stop talking about god: I mean really
stop talking, not just pretend to stop by playing childish
little word games.  The true Jew, the true follower of Moses,
refuses to talk about god, refuses to pray to him at the dinner
table, refuses to take god seriously in a social context.  And
I say this with a straight face.  For purposes of poetry and
philosophy, of course, I reserve the right to discuss god as
a fictional character; and when you evaluate this statement,
this allusion to god as a fictional character, in the context
of my other claim that only fiction is truth, you find you have
been led, perhaps even by the nose, to the point of beginning. 
So better not take me seriously, or hit the DELETE key without
delay.

     I find it remarkable, and the reason I cannot ignore god
entirely because god or gods or the fantasy of god or of gods
has dominated human thought, to the extent that I can get an
historical glimpse of it, at least until the 18th century of
our civilization.  And keeps coming back. Obviously.  One day
it is proclaimed that god is dead, and the next day he pops
up again like Jack in the Box.  For the historian and the
psychologist this contamination of experience with the
supernatural, this intoxication of the mind, this fantasy of
a "supreme being", this preoccupation with god is
inescapable.  It just can't be denied.  And therefore it
requires to be understood, it demands explanation, so here is
mine:

     I understand god as the projection into the objective,
social world, into the interminable chat chat chat, twitter
twitter twitter, with which human beings, like birds with
their singing and chirping, fill the air.  I understand god
as the projection into the social world, of the residue of
thought and feeling, the subjectivity, the inwardness, which
by its nature is unique to each individual, which does not
permit (or lend itself) to expression, and cannot be shared,
cannot be spoken, named, pictured or in any way delimited
(defined).

     The (logical) positivist will argue that there is
nothing which is real, that cannot be expressed or defined,
argues that what cannot be expressed or defined has no
substance, does not exist, that there is no subjectivity, no
soul, no god, that subjectivity, soul, god, have no meaning;
that _everything_ that is real can be expressed in logical
protocol sentences or in mathematical formulas, and that what
cannot be so expressed is not real and should be ignored.
The modern mystic, the existentialist, will argue that
_nothing_ that is real can be expressed in logical protocol
sentences or in mathematical formulas. That what can be so
expressed is not real and should be ignored, and that truth
can be approached only dialectically by indirection, by
pointers, through music, poetry and art.

     In any case, this notion of god, this illusion, this
fantasy, refer to it however you will, is an essential
parameter for the explanation of human behavior. It is
indispensable for explaining how individuals treat one
another.  I refer of course to the Isaiah text.  Note that
Isaiah claims the messenger of god to be that character who
is most despised by his fellow men, e.g. a derelict, a bum, a
murderer, a rapist, a traitor.  If such is the characteristic
of god's messenger, how is the messenger of the god to be
reconciled with the god?

     The description of the messenger is an implicit denial
of god's power and glory, and as such, it is an eminently
Mosaic denial; being another dimension of the denial of god's
objective existence.  The god has been fantasized as being a
great ruler, kyros, Lord, etc.  Now to reduce his messenger
to social nothingness, criminal, outcast, is to deprive god
of his royal divinity, of his substance, of his being.

     Christianity is amenable to a similar interpretation.
When god becomes man, becomes in fact a man who is crucified,
who is subjected to the most painful and degrading death,
then god is no longer god; when god is no longer god, the
divinity of god is effectively dissolved: god no longer
exists.  The rest is just quibbling, about the trinity, the
paternity of god, the virgin birth, are all of them, in
effect a repudiation of god.  Implicit in the appearance of a
human being in god's place is the abolition of god.

     I use the term "murderer" as short-hand for Isaiah's
description of the Messiah as being despised and rejected.
You don't accuse a lion or a bear of being a murderer,
because you can't imagine yourself as a lion or a bear.  But
you do accuse a human being of being a murderer because you
can imagine yourself being like him, because in some respects
he is like you, and to see yourself in the murderer is to see
the subjective phase of yourself in the murderer, is to see
your god in the murderer, because your god is the projection
of your own subjectivity (or soul) into the objective world.
The only way you can talk about your (subjective) self is to
talk about god, and that, according to Moses, you should
never do, When you punish the murderer, the bad, the evil
person, you punish the fantasy of yourself projected onto or
into him.  That is why Isaiah says the murderer carries the
inquity of us all. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
paideia irenes hemon ep auton.

     If you don't want your letter shared, it is because that
letter has not become literature yet.  Literature is meant to
be shared, wants to be shared.  If you write a memoir, you
write it because you want it to be read.  The suffering that
will not be "shared" is the suffering which has not yet
become poetry.  That, if I understand you correctly, is why
you want to write your memoirs, and when you instruct me:
don't share this, you are signaling that you haven't quite
succeeded yet.  I think I understand that also.  But if you
ever get to that point, I will help you "edit" your memoir so
that it can be "published", in the sense that it will absorb
the suffering, (actually Rilke used the word Schicksal, fate,
moira,) so that it will having lost its edge, and look down
on you like the ancestor in his frame who seems sometimes to
resemble you, and sometimes not.

                          * * * * *
Copyright 2005, Ernst Jochen Meyer
