Forgot to mention that this is all at base a matter of 'correct' aesthetic fabrication - as Plato rightly argued in the text we call The Republic (Ta Politeia), where he railed against representational art as potentially damaging to the 'souls' of citizens - unless properly guided by a good (aristocratic) ruler or philosopher-king in accord with the forces of the cosmos. The paradox of course was that the articulation of those cosmic laws was in the hands of those holding for desiring civic power.
'Religion' is always, everywhere, about social power; about the maintenance of a belief in unverifiable forces and 'proper' cosmic 'order'. Much contemporary media commentary about religion is misinformed, illiterate, ahistorical and ultimately terror-inducing. Dr Cole always seems to engender responsible commentary and discussion and is an oasis of sanity in terrible times.
'Religion' is a Western notion, the adaptation of an ancient Roman legal term for the 'binding' (ligature) of individuals to each other; a 'secular' concept. Its use for what is conventionally termed religious or spiritual(ist) practice is an adaptation of this for theist cultic behavior. Beneath the term is an epistemological claim: that there is a real 'causal) link between immaterial and material phenomena. That the palpable universe is the artifact or product of a divine (immaterial) artificer or creator, which elicits or demands acknowledgement or obedience, and which promises punishment or death by local hegemonic powers for non-literal acknowledgement of enforced superstition.
While I generally concur with Juan Cole's observations about the ME, I would have to admit that the continual use of the Western monotheist (Latin) term 'religion' in the media about the Levant is misleading, unless referring specifically to belief in a direct correspondence between the material and immaterial facets of existence. The hypothesis that is, that 'spiritual' forces affect material phenomena. The term religion originally referred to any form of strong legal 'binding' between individuals. It's the difference between 'equation' and 'adequation' (or approximation) in ancient philosophy, which marked the transition to early modernity in Europe and the gradual evolution away from theocracy in civic life. A development in which the ME (and its various warring 'religious' cults) is by and large about a millennium behind the West.
Forgot to mention that this is all at base a matter of 'correct' aesthetic fabrication - as Plato rightly argued in the text we call The Republic (Ta Politeia), where he railed against representational art as potentially damaging to the 'souls' of citizens - unless properly guided by a good (aristocratic) ruler or philosopher-king in accord with the forces of the cosmos. The paradox of course was that the articulation of those cosmic laws was in the hands of those holding for desiring civic power.
'Religion' is always, everywhere, about social power; about the maintenance of a belief in unverifiable forces and 'proper' cosmic 'order'. Much contemporary media commentary about religion is misinformed, illiterate, ahistorical and ultimately terror-inducing. Dr Cole always seems to engender responsible commentary and discussion and is an oasis of sanity in terrible times.
'Religion' is a Western notion, the adaptation of an ancient Roman legal term for the 'binding' (ligature) of individuals to each other; a 'secular' concept. Its use for what is conventionally termed religious or spiritual(ist) practice is an adaptation of this for theist cultic behavior. Beneath the term is an epistemological claim: that there is a real 'causal) link between immaterial and material phenomena. That the palpable universe is the artifact or product of a divine (immaterial) artificer or creator, which elicits or demands acknowledgement or obedience, and which promises punishment or death by local hegemonic powers for non-literal acknowledgement of enforced superstition.
While I generally concur with Juan Cole's observations about the ME, I would have to admit that the continual use of the Western monotheist (Latin) term 'religion' in the media about the Levant is misleading, unless referring specifically to belief in a direct correspondence between the material and immaterial facets of existence. The hypothesis that is, that 'spiritual' forces affect material phenomena. The term religion originally referred to any form of strong legal 'binding' between individuals. It's the difference between 'equation' and 'adequation' (or approximation) in ancient philosophy, which marked the transition to early modernity in Europe and the gradual evolution away from theocracy in civic life. A development in which the ME (and its various warring 'religious' cults) is by and large about a millennium behind the West.