This episode is the first in what I hope will be a series in which I present and critique *Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology* by Jean-Paul Sartre, published in French in 1943. In writing these episodes, I hope to join a venerable tradition in philosophy in which a critique is not so much a negative review but rather a thoughtful interpretation which uses its source as a jumping-off point for a new philosophical position.
On February 25th of this year, Airman Aaron Bushnell of the United States Air Force lit himself on fire outside of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. Prior to his self-immolation, he posted a message on Facebook:
Many of us like to ask ourselves, "What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?" The answer is, you're doing it right now.
Today we'll be tracing the influence of dualistic cosmologies on the development of religious thought. In examining these historical narratives, we'll see how ancient beliefs influence modern religious thought. From there, we'll pivot to an examination of the concept of mind as it is understood in both historical and modern contexts. Challenging the Cartesian notion of isolated, atomic _egos_, we'll explore how the mind extends beyond the physical confines of the brain into the symbolic order of human interaction and language, mirroring the cosmic battles depicted in myths like the War in Heaven and positing a reevaluation of how ancient wisdom informs modern understanding.
Transcript available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
The word “sin” drips with centuries of religious baggage, conjuring images of fire and brimstone preachers and penitent souls begging for redemption. But what lies beneath the surface of this concept? In this episode, we’ll embark on a journey through the history and philosophy of sin, tracing its etymological origins, its central role in Christian thought, and its surprising resonances with ideas from Greek philosophy, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the religious traditions of India. We’ll explore sin’s paradoxical nature as both a stain on the human condition and a path to transformation and transcendence—the pharmacology of sin.
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Within some cleft of history emerged the fallenness of humanity.
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Transcript available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
Another episode of A Satanist Goes to the Movies. As I mentioned in the episode on Hitchcock's Rope, this is a project I've been wanting to do for a while, a look at the religious themes in the films of Martin Scorsese and in particular at a trilogy of films, The Last Temptation of Christ, Bringing Out the Dead, and Silence. This episode will focus on the first of these, The Last Temptation of Christ from 1988.
Transcript available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
In this episode I'll be delving into film criticism with an analysis of the 1948 film Rope, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring John Dall, Farley Granger, and James Stewart. Rope has fascinated me since I first saw it earlier this year; it's now one of my favorite films and, in my opinion, and although it enjoys considerably less fame than staples like Psycho and Vertigo, Hitchcock's best. Its central theme, as I'll be arguing here, is the relation between the life-world of human symbolic reality and the Real itself, and as such makes an excellent example for exploring some of the themes of metaphysical idealism from my recent episodes. At the same time, I thought it would make an excellent warmup for a larger film criticism project I'd like to attempt, a look at the religious themes in the films of Martin Scorsese.
For this one we’ll be focusing on the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as it appears in the second and third chapters of the Book of Genesis.
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
I thought it might be fun to revisit the topics and themes of my earliest episodes, starting with my first essay, "Six Days of Creation and the Sabbath." It's been almost five years now and both my knowledge and my writing skills have improved immensely, and my perspective and positions have shifted as well. The circumstances certainly warrant a second look at things. Transcript available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
A Satanist Reads the Bible continues today with our series on the rising threat of Christian fascism in America. Today we'll be looking at the thought of two Christians, one early 20th century German and one from our own day, respectively, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eric Metaxas. Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com
In this essay, we’ll see some striking and deeply troubling parallels to Germany in the 1920s, parallels which should be of grave concern to anyone who doesn’t want to see genocidal fascists take control of the most powerful economy and military in the history of the world.
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com.
Today I’ll be arguing that this progression is amplified by a dialectic within certain threads of modern Christianity, an internal contradiction that pushes those threads further and further in a fascist direction.
Transcript with citations available at asatanistreadsthebible.com