Tuesday, September 2, 2008

random thoughts from caputo

Taken from "After the Death of God"

One important thing we mean by the death of God is the death of the absolute center, of inhabiting an absolute point of view.
p. 117


A statement for radical relativism, something not even he can live up to. If there were no 'absolute center', he would have no basis on which to say the things he says.

I want to reference this quote first...

I reached a point where I could not stand this "essential thinking" anymore. When it comes to politics, essential thinking is essentially stupidity.
p. 121


Before pointing out this one...

As for myself, I would be perfectly happy if the far left politicians in the United States were able to reform the system by providing universal health care, effectively redistributing wealth more equitably with a revised IRS code, effectively restricting campaign financing, enfranchising voters, treating migrant workers humanely, and effecting a multicultural foreign policy that would integrate American power within the international community, etc., i.e. intervene upon capitalism by means of serious and far-reaching reforms
p. 125


Because I want to do something that, frankly, he cannot stand, and say that what he is advocating here is essentially socialism. Universal (read: badly done) health care, redistribution of wealth through taxation (socialism to the core), and trying to weaken US sovereign.

Thus ends my political screed.

What I want everyone to believe is that there is no one thing for everyone to believe.
p. 128


Outside of being self-contradictory (like saying that the only absolute is that there are no absolues), it's another thing that he cannot live up to nor accept in himself.

In the end, for me, I speak of the death of God in a restricted sense, in the sense of a critique of ontotheology, of the God of metaphysics, and, in particular, the God of sovereignty and power and omnipotence
p. 147


Plainly put, if nothing else.

But when reading (of the Bible) becomes literalism and when literalism ecomes a politics, it becomes dangerous.
p. 155


Like a non-literal reading would be less dangerous. If anything, a non-literal reading opens the door to all manner of mischief, because then anything goes.

What is so much more compelling about Jesus than about institutional, ecclesiastical Christianity, Catholic or Protesant, is the figure of someone who was crucified not as part of a grand divine design but unjustly and against his will, and if he returns we would crucify him again for meddling in the affairs of the Church.
p. 160


Plainly overlooking the biblical passages where Jesus says not one takes His life from Him, but that He lays it down. Probably some of those passages we shouldn't take literally, Caputo may say.

Caputo is probably right about one thing, though. He would likely be one to crucify Him. Jesus would probably not be happy with someone de-Godifying His Father, saying He's weak and powerless and isn't someone we should pray to. Such a radical fundamentalist as Jesus would eventually have to be silenced by those who think they know better.

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