This thread looks fascinating… when I find a good block of time, I’m gonna try and read the whole thing. 
Greetings … Dick
(hearty applause smiley ) Thanks for the link to Girard !
Although I am not in agreement with him or Alison but .. .but ...
one idea I got from reading Alison concerns the ---- death of Jesus
or more poignantly the death of the Son (God incarnated as human ) and the relationship with
the Father & Spirit at that time … or during that time …
all the best !Tell us more Jim –
I know that my favourite author who has been influenced by Girard is Mark Heim – and he’s absolutely clear that Girard has not said the last word on anything – but has had some important insights. And one thing I like about Girard is that rather than setting up a foundation to promote his ideas he set one up to discuss his ideas – and there has been a lot of cordial difference between the people who discuss these. So I’d be interested in a few pointers regarding what you disagree with him and James Alison about. I might well agree with you.
Blessings
Dick
me too!
i must say i like what i know of Girard’s ideas, but i agree, they are not the “last word”, but they to me have alot of important insight. i am not convinced ALL desire is mimetic, nor all conflict related to mimetic rivalry, but the scapegoat mechanism i think is casting the torchlight in the right general direction, at the very least.
and the fact there is cordial discussion rather than nasty disagreement seems a healthy fruit, and good fruit indicates a good tree, even if we don’t fully grasp everything about it (even the guy that found the tree and has been watering it, to stretch this metaphor quite a bit further than is wise! 
).
Regarding Girard – I don’t think that all desire is mimetic/rivalrous. I think we are also born with healthy and non-competitive desire – but a lot of our desires do get twisted into competitive desire; and we can see the scapegoating mechanism again and again today, where a community binds itself together in exclusive inward ‘love’ by hating together in expelling a scapegoat – even if the founding murder at the dawn of civilisation is not something we can prove beyond doubt.
Another criticism of Girard is that he views all ancient (and modern) myths as somehow negative. But James Alison’s use of Margaret Barker seems to suggest that this is not necessarily so; it’s just that ‘bad’ myths can cover up sacred violence an can be seen perversely as something positive just because they are myths – and this has often seemed a problem to me with some of the insights of Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. But as some Girardians argue – and I think rightly – but as well as twisted myths we also get real wisdom in most ancient cultures too that points, however shadowy, towards the truth of God as love and human beings as made in God’s image. We also get myths in travail – as the old sacrificial stories are questioned and modified to take account of a growing sense of justice and universality (for example this certainly happens in what the classical Greek tragedians do with the archaic Greek myths)
I love Girad’s his interpretation of the sacrifice of Christ as an unmasking of the scapegoating mechanism too – for this mechanism is behind all forms of unjust and arbitrary ‘sacred’ power. Ti seems to me to be an important insight that is compatible with both the moral and victory theories of atonement. Also, I love his emphasis no ‘wrath’ as being a human problem rather than an attribute of God.
But Girard is not the universal key – the universal key is the revelation of God’s love in Jesus
Blessings
Dick
hothorsegz at gmail com if interest to keep in contact since can’t send
greetings isp not sending but phone ok for now
if someone would like to help me
will appreciate very much thanks maybe this forum could have rss feed
sometimes Net is random haha
i think has to do with bandwidth
blessing to everyone
Hi Jeremy -
Very impressed by your knoweldge of and empathy for the mythic symbolism in Hebraic religion!
Here is an excerpt from a blog by David Marshall, an open evangelical Christian thinker in the mould of C.S. Lewis who is an expert in Chinese culture and religion, and respects Girard. It seems pertinent to our conversation (of course there is no need to agree with him on everything – I don’t; but I think he shows a good combination of holding fast to truth with open mindedness)
.
**Yesterday, a Christian philosopher named Jeff Cook posted an interesting article on Patheos called "They Don’t Believe Because Your God Isn’t Desirable…
Anyway, it was a pretty good article (also hike, see photo above), making the case that pure reason is not enough, that we must also show why faith in God is desirable, indeed why God is desirable. This should be no great shock to followers of one J. Christ, who defined the ethical tradition of his people in terms of “love God, and love your neighbour as yourself,” breaking the former down as follows:
With all your heart, mind, soul, and strength…
Anyway, a visitor calling himself (herself?) Rupaul challenged Cook on pluralistic grounds: not that “all religions are equally false,” but that they are, if not equally true, more-or-less equally useful. He (she?) expressed ideas one often meets in a thoughtful tone.
I responded briefly on that site, but would like to go into more detail, here.
I don’t have a crystal ball either. But people are aware there are lots of world religions with rich traditions, and it’s not clear that one particular religion has the answers. Metaphysically, they can’t all be right, of course. But most people, not the least Christians, aren’t looking for metaphysics, they are looking for ways to live their life, or to make sense of the suffering in their life.
Notice, first, the words “people are aware there are lots of world religions.” This comment may reflect the common pluralist notion, popularized by philososopher John Hick, that world religions are a new challenge to Christian theology. The metaphor Hick uses is the Copernican Revolution. Once upon a time, everyone thought the sun and planets circled the Earth. But then Copernicus discovered that Earth is nothing special, and all the planets really circle the sun. In the same way, Voyages of Discovery showed the West that our tradition is nothing special, that there is a world “out there” of profound truths and deep insight, the world of “pagan” religions. One religion is no better than another, Hick (and other pluralists) conclude: all are reflections of The Real, of whom the Christian God is just one image.
To a large extent, Hick’s Copernican Revolution is falsified by one simple fact: early Christians of the Alexandria School were aware, not only of Greco-Roman polytheism, and all the cults that jostled for attention in late Antiquity, of Egyptian or Mesopotamian gods, or even of the theistic schools of Greek philosophy. They also refer to Hindus and Buddhist beliefs. Augustine also responds in City of God to a vast sweep of human thought. He defends the Gospel as the true revelation of God, but also fits truths from other schools into the Christian system, dialoguing with Plato, Epicurus, Varro, Plotinus and Porphyry.
I would agree with Rupaul that there is a lot in other religions about “how to live one’s life” that is worth adopting. Clearly, early Christians thought so, too, because they adopted quite a bit of Platonic and Stoic ethics. Mateo Ricci wrote a book called On Friendship that went through many editions in China 400 years ago. The book was mostly composed of quotations from ancient Greek and Roman pagan philosophers. Great modern Christian apologists like GK Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and the Chinese evangelist Yuan Zhiming, also gladly accept moral truth from non-Christian sources – often fruitfully. “All truth is God’s truth,” or as Augustine put it, “[a] true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found . . . ”
I think most people ARE looking for truth (whether or not you want to reduce that to "metaphysics), or should be looking for truth, however inchoatly we may seek it. For example, one reads the Gospels and recognize the “power” of Jesus words – which means one recognizes that they not only fit the reality of what we are as humans, and explain it more deeply, but help us lead our lives in light of what we now recognize as truth. As CS Lewis put it (I paraphrase), “I believe the sun has risen, not because I see it, but because by it I see all things.”
*Christianity does have answers for that (multiple answers, since the pluralism outside Christianity is matched by the diversity inside Christianity). *
Matched, perhaps, in number of denominations. as the number of branches on a large spreading western maple may match the number of bushes on the hillside around it. But churches that are truly Christian, like the branches on that tree, take nourishment from the same source, and are founded on the same (“genetic”) truth, and therefore share more in common than flora growing from other roots.
*But the argument from diversity is more like arguing about which the “best” language. The one you grow up in is going to seem natural and obvious, but as you grow up and learn about others you realize that they all seem that way to people who grow up speaking them. This is really the challenge for orthodox Christianity; people “learn to speak” other religious forms. This started in the US with the transcendentalist movement, after Indian scriptures began to be translated into English. *
I’ve read some Indian Scriptures, both Hindu and Buddhist, and find them not so much speaking a different language, as often saying different things. But the funny thing is, when we read the Indian Scripture from a Christian point of view, I believe we can make better sense of them, and even “save” more of them, than we can from either a Hindu or an atheist perspective.
For instance, the most ancient Indian Scriptures talk incessantly about sacrifice. Mohandas Gandhi was repulsed by this, and vehemently rejected blood sacrifice. (Even while feeling that he, himself, might act as a sacrifice for the butchered animals, and also for India.)
The complex set of traditions called “Hinduism” seems too often be in conflict with itself, over sacrifice, and other things.
The Gospel makes sense of both sacrifice, which Jesus fulfilled on the cross, and the disgust over sacrifice, which it helped end in much of the world. That is because Jesus was seen as the fulfilment of sacrifice. The perfect having come, the reality that sacrifice symbolized, it was no longer necessary to sacrifice animals, and those customs were discontinued.
I could give other examples from Indian tradition, and have. Indian tradition as a whole, seems for some to make best sense in light of the Gospel of Jesus, which both critiques and fulfils, challenging error and injustice, and bringing to consummation. This is why J. N. Farquhar called Jesus the “Crown of Hinduism.” This is how Clement of Alexandria came to understand the multi-cultural “Greco-Roman” world, which as he pointed out, was really constituted from the contributions of dozens of different cultures. Christ, he believed, lent the various schools of the philosophers new unity.
My only point maybe is that most people “outside” traditional religion, at least in North America, are likely to find debates about philosophy irrelevant, but that they would find messages about Christ’s love inspiring. So far I would agree with you about that, I just wouldn’t expect that to lead them to traditional Christian “belief”.
Yet one of the most insistent messages of the New Atheists, and one with which I and most other Christians fully agree, is that “truth matters.” God gave us minds because He wants us to think, and the desire to rationally understand the world is, in fact, a noble and inescapable human need. We may suppress this desire, but it is with us from childhood, which is why we ask our parents so many questions, and why some of us become scientists and scholars. But the thirst for truth is in not limited to those few, nor is it even always strongest among them.
“Love God and love your neighbor” is all God wants anyway, does it matter if a person also believes in, say, reincarnation? (Sikhs are monotheists but believe in reincarnation, and their tradition/metaphysics is every bit as sophisticated as Christian beliefs. They feed the poor, also.)
But Jesus said “love God with all your mind” as well as “all your strength, soul, and spirit.” So even looking just at this verse, “kindness” in the general sense is not ALL God wants of us. He also wants us to seek truth.
And I have argued that the Gospel has uniquely blessed the world, as God promised to Abraham at Mount Moriah.
Truth matters, not only in the sense that God gave us minds, and wants us to use them. It also matters, in the sense that what we believe, affects how we live. For instance, the Aztecs were wonderful polytheists. Only they believed that the gods required human blood to renew the universe, which is why they built pyramids and captured tens of thousands of enemy soldiers. (War was convenient for both, since their enemies and neighbors shared similiar ideas, from the Andes to St. Louis.)
So I do care that reincarnation is false. I also care that after the idea arose in Indian civilization, so did the idea of karma, and with it, caste and gender discrimination as horrendous as anywhere in the world. And it is an objective historical fact that those practices were first challenged by Christian missionaries, like William Carey, and quasi-Hindu followers of Jesus, like Ram Mohan Roy.
“Love” means, among other things, seeking and then teaching the truth. There is much truth in all the world’s great traditions, I admit gladly. But I believe Jesus is the incarnation of the divine Logos, and the redeeming, often challenging truth, who calls on us to “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” not just to trot off to the right building on Sunday and sing orthodox praise hymns. He wants to remake us, and to remake our world, into something better.
One of the things I believe we can learn from other religions, or rather relearn, is the Taoist concept of wuwei, “lacking force,” “without striving.”
Ancient Christianity fused with the Emperor Cult of Rome, then borrowed liberally (too liberally) from Greco-Roman and Germanic warrior traditions. As a result, we often tried to force people to believe correctly. Charlemagne forced the Saxons to convert, Inquisitors forced Jews to believe in orthodoxy, Conquistadors imported the idea of holy war to the New World. (Not that the mesoAmericans didn’t have their own ideas on the subject.)
Much of this was a terrible perversion of the Gospel. Already Augustine justified abuse of the Donatists, who themselves seemed to have overlooked what Jesus said about forgiveness.
The Chinese evangelist and philosopher, Yuan Zhiming, argues that God raised up Lao Zi as a prophet to the Chinese people, to bring them to Christ. He also believes the concept of wuwei, as exemplified by Jesus, is exactly what China now needs, in seeking reform.
Over the past several hundred years, thanks to Christian thinkers like Las Casas, Milton, William Penn, John Locke, and others – and yes, some Enlightenment thinkers have contributed – we have begun I think to understand politics with more of the respect for free choice that Jesus himself exemplified. It does Truth no dishonour to admit pagans sometimes see it more quickly than we Christians. After all, the hero in the story Jesus told after telling us to “love God, and love people” was a Samaritan, who “loved his neighbour as himself,” while the Pharisee and the Levite passed by on the other side. **
Its interesting about Ghandi hating sacrifices. I unfortunately know almost nothing about him. Im assuming he was a hindu? The reason I say that is that the buddha and zoroaster both came out of polytheism and created a monotheism. Both of them were then co-opted by the deva worshippers after their deaths. Jesus came and revealed the light and look how quickly it was co-opted by the TOKOGAE eaters.
The story is always the same. Come out of her my people. So quickly after the embers fade and the camp is left cold. The new wine is then codified, doctrinized, petrified. Why because people choose what they can reason touch and understand. They say no Moses you go before us. Tell me what God says. I cant go there. Why? Fear of death…for adam.
Hi Jeremy -
I’m no great authority on Ghandi - but he was a Hindu Reformer and was morally influenced by other traditions. He was inspired by Jainism in his practice of harmlessness and non-violent protest against British Imperialism. And he hugely inspired by the example of Jesus – especially the Sermon on the Mount. Here is something I have found concerning his views on sacrifice:
gandhitopia.org/profiles/blo … ess-kali-1
There is a famous Goddess Kali temple in Kolkata. It was then the practice to sacrifice goats there to propitiate the goddess.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Navajivan on dated 7 November 1920 that there were many who felt satisfied at having saved one of the goats which were to be slaughtered in sacrifice to Mother Kali. Had the goat been saved in the right manner, I would have felt very happy, but in saving the goat they hurt many human beings. For saving the goat, force was used against these. This is not Hinduism. The nonviolence it teaches does not enjoin the saving of a goat by beating up or threatening human beings. The multitude of lions, tigers and wolves swallow up innumerable goats and other animals; we do not kill them to stop them doing so. A good many snakes sting and kill animals and human beings, but the Hindus not only abstain from killing them, they actually consider it a sin to kill them. On what grounds, then, can we use violence to save a goat?
Shimla is named after Mother Shimla, as Mumbai Bombay is named after Mumbadevi and Calcutta after Kali. All the three goddesses have proved faithless or, maybe, the devotees have forgotten them. The mere thought of the Kali temple fills me with horror. How can the place be called a temple at all? In literal truth, rivers of blood flow there every day. Who knows what the thousands of goats slaughtered there in the name of religion say in the court of God? How infinite is Mother Kali’s patience? Does she really demand cruel sacrifice? People who offer them tarnish her sacred name.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Young India on dated 6 October 1921 that that being my conception of Hinduism, I have never been able to reconcile myself to untouchability. I have always regarded it as an excrescence. It is true that it has been handed down to us from generations, but so are many evil practices even to this day. I should be ashamed to think that dedication of girls to virtual prostitution was a part of Hinduism. Yet it is practiced by Hindus in many parts of India. I consider it positive irreligion to sacrifice goats to Kali and do not consider it a part of Hinduism. Hinduism is a growth of ages. The very name, Hinduism, was given to the religion of the people of Hindustan by foreigners.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Navajivan on dated 9 October 1921 that Mother Kali demands no animal sacrifices. If anything, she wants us to sacrifice ourselves. It is only by slaying our Sins, our evil that we can make ourselves fit to stand before her. To those Hindus who desire to offer a sacrifice on the eighth day, I suggest that they should, dressed in hand-spun khadi, take a pledge to follow truth, practice non-violence and strive to subjugate the body. Anyone who does so will certainly be offering the purest sacrifice and such a person will also have become fit for swaraj. I, therefore, hope that, should the priest be obstinate and stick to his intention to kill a goat, no Hindu will visit the temple and be a party to the sin of offering the sacrifice and thus blaspheme against God.
Mahatma Gandhi spoke on 11 April 1926 that As we have the word yajna in our language and the practice is enjoined in our dharma, so the Bible and the holy books of the Jews too have each a corresponding word, and an idea similar to that of yajna. We find three things in the Koran: (1) animal sacrifices, on the Bakr-i-Id day; (2) it refers to a practice which also obtained among the Jews, a father sacrificing his son—Ibrahim does this; and (3) Ramadan, which is a form of sacrifice, that is, parting with or giving up something which is dear to us. In the same way, we see in the Bible the meaning of the term sacrifice expanding after Jesus. He told the people that they could not realize their aim by this sacrifice of animals, that for performing a sacrifice in the right sense of the term they would have to do much more than kill animals. He told them that it was not a sacrifice to destroy other lives, that one should give one’s own life as sacrifice. With that idea, he sacrificed his own life for the eternal welfare of the world, for its spiritual welfare, for washing away its sins and not merely for feeding the people. Among the Hindus, too, the practice of human sacrifice was prevalent at one time. Then followed animal sacrifice. Even today, thousands of goats are sacrificed to Mother Kali.
Yajnas are also performed for securing the fulfillment of many worldly desires. The root word in the English term “sacrifice” had a good meaning; it meant “to sanctify”. In Sanskrit, yaj means “to worship”. In the Old Testament, the word for yajna means “to renounce”. But the underlying idea, that all actions performed for the good or service of others are forms of yajna, will be accepted by everyone. Maybe our motive in sacrificing an animal is that of public good, for instance, securing rainfall. The motive in this may be that of public good, but it is not a true sacrifice in which we kill other creatures. We may tell ourselves that we have made a sacrifice in paying for the goat, but the crores of other Hindus are not likely to share that belief.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote an article in Young India on dated 8 December 1927 that did he not know that the animals were sacrificed to be ultimately eaten? Why do they sacrifice thousands of sheep and goats to the Goddess Kali in Calcutta be it said to their discredit and the discredit of Hinduism in spite of having received this message from the Hindu of Hindus Gautama? Do they throw the carcasses away in the Hooghly? No, they eat every bit of the meat with the greatest delight, thinking that it has been sanctified because of the presentation to Kali. So the Buddha said, if you want to do any sacrifice, sacrifice yourself, your lust, all your material ambition, all worldly ambition. That will be an ennobling sacrifice. May the spirit of the Buddha brood over this meeting and enable you to measure and assimilate the meaning of the words that I have spoken to you.
Mahatma Gandhi discussed before 20 December 1928 that He next turns to a khadi worker who is also accompanying him. He must agree to go to Calcutta2 where he is wanted in spite of his disinclination. If we could transform Calcutta we should transform the whole of India, he argues. He himself would go there and make it the center of his activity, but . . . And he then gives out this sorrowful secret that he has harbored in his bosom all these years of his life. It is the Kali temple.
There lies my difficulty. I cannot bear the sight of it. My soul rises in rebellion against the cold-blooded inhumanity that goes on there in the name of religion. If I had the strength I would plant myself before the gate of the temple and tell those in charge of it that before they sacrificed a single innocent animal they should have to cut my throat. But I know that for me to do so would be an unreal, a mechanical thing today because I have not yet completely overcome the will to live. And till I can do that I must bear the cross of my imperfect existence.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote in CWMG, Vol. 44 on pages 266 that Kalicharan Benerji had spoken to me about the Kali temple, which I was eager to see, especially as I had read about it in the books. So I went there one day. Justice Mitter’s house was in the some locality, and I therefore went to the temple on the same day that I visited him. On the way I saw a stream of sheep going to be sacrificed to Kali. Rows of beggars lined the lane leading to the temple. There were religious mendicants too, and even in those days I was sternly opposed to giving alms to sturdy beggars. A crowd of them pursued me. One of such men was found seated on a verandah. He stopped me, and accosted me: ‘whither are you going, my boy?’ I replied to him. The terrible sacrifice offered to Kali in the name of religion enhanced my desire to know Bengali life. I had read and heard a good deal about the Brahmo Samaj. I knew something about the life of Pratap Chandra Mazmudar. I had attended some of the meetings addressed by him. I secured his Life of Keshav Chandra Sen, read it with great interest, and understood the distinction between Sadharan Brahmo Samaji and Adi Brahmo Samji. I met Pandit Shivanath Shastri and in company with Prof. Kathavate went to see Maharshi Devendranath Tagore, but as no interviews with him were allowed then, we could not see him. We were, however, invited to a celebration of the Brahmo Samaj held at his place, and there we had the privilege of listening to fine Bengali music. Ever since I have been a lover of Bengali music.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Hindu on dated 7 February 1934 that I understand that here you offer as sacrifice to your God buffaloes or other animals in order to appease Kali. You must not, for one moment, imagine that God can ever be pleased by sacrifice of animals. There are savarna Hindus, so called, who also resort to this barbarous practice. But, the entire world over, it is now recognized that there can be no religion in sacrificing animals. I should like you; therefore, to think that there can be no virtue in offering animals as sacrifices to appease Kali, or any other goddess or god. After all, there is but one God, whether you worship Him as Kali or whether you worship Him as Vishnu or Shiva or Brahma, no matter by what name, but, there is only one God, and that God is the God of Truth and Love, not of vengeance. Therefore, I hope that, henceforth, there will be no two parties amongst you, but that you will all unite in order to stop this animal sacrifice in the name of God.
Mahatma Gandhi spoke on 30 September 1941 that One who serves the cow must take cow’s milk only and not goat’s milk. I take goat’s milk out of my helplessness. But the members of the Cow-protection Society must take only cow’s milk and ghee and use only leather made from dead cows and buffaloes. Where even cows and buffaloes are being slaughtered, how can one get leather made from dead goats? Mankind has till this day taken it for granted that the goat is born only to be butchered. Today being Dussehra, in Calcutta thousands of goats must have been sacrificed to Goddess Kali.