Monday, February 11, 2008

Week 5 - Cobb, Chapter 5

According to Cobb, the image people have of God is one either of a weak, lonely, maybe depressed, and limited entity, creating the universe out of boredom or to find significance and that cannot deal with what it has become; or one of a God that basically doesn't care about humanity at all.
The general philosophy regarding a superior being seems to be agnosticism, but there is a sense that “something is out there”. Postmodern thinkers have all been confronted to what Cobb calls “the holy”, or the ultimate concern.

There is a brief development about polytheism in this chapter which stroke me. It seems that humankind is naturally drawn to polytheism. We find this today in subtler ways than the most renown religions of the antiquity.
It particularly stroke me as I was in Disneyland this week end. Disney has its own pantheon of divinities or characters, it spreads specific moral values, and has its list of icons, symbols, myths and even rituals. This is all pulled together by a Disney “mythology” with its own social, moral and even supernatural (dreams can come true, etc...) discourse.

Going to Disneyland after having read Cobb is a disturbing experience.

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