tough tuesdays

tough tuesdays

because it is tuesday, and not the day after, or a few days after... i decided to beat olson to the punch. so in showing you this, i need you to realize that it was especially difficult. also know that it's due tomorrow afternoon, so i feel good about finishing it early. :)

as a little background information, i'm taking a sociology of religion course. it's challenging in a lot of ways, but not in any of the ways i would have thought, i'm actually enjoying learning a lot of the theories and ideas that sociologists place on religion, but i'm realizing that "small r religion" that defines the purpose of religion, and brackets the religious beliefs and practices to push them aside, really doesn't get at anything thought provoking. it just is.

*edit* nearing the end of the semester now... i realize how thought provoking it actually has been, and how life giving to my faith it has been. incredible what God can use to draw me nearer to him.

so, without further delay, my assignment was to decide if the phrase "shit happens" expresses an essentially religious disposition toward the world or not, and to develop an argument that supported my decision. so, here it is:

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Theodicy’s purpose is to defend the goodness of the reality that is above, behind, and within the humanly constructed normal world. It is a guardian against disarray and confusion because it serves to explain that the confusion has a greater purpose. It gives meaning for the abnormal, un-expectable or “shattering events”* within the normal. “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice”[King] is a theodicy. The epigram, “shit happens,” is a theodicy as well. Theodicy is innately religious.

Of course questions of the true purpose of the statement, “shit happens,” may arise. On the surface it is a crass statement with a casual attitude, bordering carefree. Digging deeper, an argument must be presented to its implicit meaning: things happen outside of society’s control, consequentially, business as usual. Theodicy begins its work with the statement, ‘things happen outside of society’s control,’ and guarantees its effectiveness with the word, ‘consequentially,’ which afterward, shows the outcome of theodicy successfully carried out. The main aim of theodicy is not to offer consolation, but explanation. Consolation will naturally follow as long as theodicy is successful. Behold, the full package of theodicy carried out: [r]eligion.

[r]eligion in supplying its purpose, “provides comfort in the face of shattering events.” One must keep in mind both that this comfort is not ‘being comfortable,’ and that these shattering events have ‘symbolic power.’ Comfort maintains that people feel safe and secure, a sense that things really can and will go back to normal, which can also be described synonymously, as “comfort in the face of threats to meaningful ongoingness.” Using symbolic power instills events with representative meaning or characterizes something abstract with something concrete. Put simply: symbols are metaphors, while power gives them significance.

Shattering events must always have metaphors and explanation, otherwise the precarious humanly constructed normal world, nomos, shifts into an abnormal state which humans cannot control, anomy. If religion is world maintenance, then anomy is world destruction, the great enemy of religion. Anomy is the threat to meaning, theodicy is the saviour of that meaning. Theodicy operates as a guardian against anomy, drawing its power directly from the cosmos: the reality that is above, behind, and within the nomos. When theodicy does its job, it ensures meaning to the nomos.

But, “shit happens,” and a descent to anomy begins. Just as society created the nomos, it created the meaning within reality, the cosmos, as well. Berger postulates, “Religion implies the farthest reach of man’s self-externalization, of his infusion of reality with his own meanings … Put differently, religion is the audacious attempt to conceive of the entire universe as being humanly significant.”[28]

When “shit happens”, society as a whole does not say, “we created the norm, and the cosmos, so we are doomed, because there is actually no nonhuman way of explaining this.” Instead, something entirely different happens. People forget. They forget they created the cosmos and start to rely on it for support, theodicy is put into action, and world maintenance can continue. The nomos can be restored.

Alienation allows the cosmos to repair the nomos. When society forgets it has made the cosmos, the nomos can be repaired. The nomos and the cosmos are bound together by a relationship between them called legitimation, or shared meaning. The cosmos gives meaning to the nomos, and the nomos gives meaning to the cosmos. Society is alienated from the nomos, “because that is just the way things are,” and so things continue as normal.

The epigram is religious. “Shit happens”, shows alienation of both the cosmos and nomos, because “that is just the way things are.” Because of alienation it becomes a theodicy, to offer solution to the cosmos, serving as a guardian against anomy, and promoting world maintenance, allowing things to progress normally.

Works Cited
* concepts discussed in class as part of lecture notes will receive only quotation marks as their indication to an outside source.
Berger, Peter L. The Sacred Canopy : Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. New York: Anchor Canada, 1988.