In his 2008 book, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, philosopher Mark Johnson makes a strong argument that "meaning is grounded in the body" (p. 274). That assertion, however, invites the question: "What is a human "body"? Johnson implores us to not slip into mind/body dualism. He…
Gods with anuses? This post concerns some of the elaborate ways humans seem to compensate for their anxiety about death. A 2008 Harris poll shows that 61% of Americans believe that Jesus was born to a woman who was a virgin. Thus, by a landslide margin, Americans believe that a woman named Mary got pregnant without any of that icky sperm/penis/vagina stuff (whether a human ovum was involved is keeping theologians busy ). To keep the Savior pure and holy, I can only assume that Jesus emerged into the world through some sort of Divine Cesarean rather than out of the vagina, but the Bible is not clear on the actual method of delivery. Ever since the alleged birth of Jesus, Mary (who was “without sin”) has been referred to as “Virgin Mary,” despite her long marriage to Joseph, suggesting that she kept Joseph sexually frustrated for the rest of his life. All of this uneasiness our animal nature is typical of many religions. In order to keep people focused on the other-world, religions work hard to convince people that human animal existence is vulgar and vile. According to many religions, our earliest “ancestors” were taught that human bodies were shameful even as they were being unceremoniously booted out of the Garden of Eden. Rather than considering our bodies to be exquisite machines that constitute and sustain us, many religions portray human bodies as ungainly, oozing, disgust-inducing earth-bound vessels from which we will eventually escape, thanks be to God! We are to God as slugs are to us. Rather than embracing the marvelous functioning of human bodies, many religions disparage them though, paradoxically, they attribute the “design” of our sordid bodies solely to God, not to natural selection. Thus, there is one notable exception to the general rule: only when Believers are trying to fight off Darwin do they consciously strive to appreciate the exquisite function of human bodies. Oh, such a tangled web religions weave . . .
I've previously posted on the work of Mark Johnson and George Lakoff, who have argued that human thought is often metaphorical. Johnson and Lakoff have used numerous examples of our use of language to demonstrate that human cognition is often a metaphorical extension of sensorimotor experience. I've been collecting experimental…
We can label our attempts to stop politically motivated violence in a variety of ways. We could use the law enforcement metaphor or we could use the social epidemic metaphor. The Bush administration, however, has consciously chosen to invoke the metaphor of "war." An article in the current edition of…
Imagine that a neighbor walks up today and tells you that he really cares about you. In fact, he loves you like a daughter/son and he wants to show his love. You might be delighted to hear such an expression of affection.
Then imagine that he tells you that he wants to prove to you that he cares for you. He wants to prove it in a way that you will never doubt the depth of his caring.
You would probably be thinking that he’s going to do something nice. Maybe he will give a big donation to charity in your name. Or maybe he will go buy you something nice, or take you to dinner at a good restaurant. But then he surprises you.
He reminds you that he has an adult son named Bill (which you knew, because you know Bill). He then tells you that he is going to let a mob of goons torture and murder Bill in a bloody spectacle, for you!
You are aghast, but he continues on.
He tells you that he is going to let that mob drive large nails through Bill’s hands and feet, for you, to prove that he cares about you. For a grand finale, he is going to allow this sadistic crowd to jab a spear through Bill’s side, to make sure that every drop of blood has been drained from Bill’s body.
It would be patently obvious to you that decent people don’t “show their love” by …
