The simple things you see are all complicated.

— 

Substitute, The Who, 1966 

Michael Bracewell on Peter Fraser 

Peter Fraser @ Tate St Ives: 26 January - 6 May 2013 

(via quarterlyvisuallistings)

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I think modern atheists have a really difficult time swallowing the thesis that religion has little to do with belief (despite what believers themselves say). If you go to a church you’ll find that the congregants or lay share very few beliefs in common. One believes in astrology, another that vile movie “What the Bleep?”, yet another karma, etc. Religious people are often themselves creeped out by “true believers”. This is why theologians are so often irrelevant to discussions of living religion. Religion requires belief to function as little as language requires belief or capitalism requires belief. It is largely an *anonymous* social structure, not a set of beliefs. Just as many people drink coke not because they *chose* to, but because their family did, so too with religion. Religion lies in the *practices* or *doings*, the activities and holidays, not the believing. This is also why atheistic debunkings are so often irrelevant. They are premised on the idea that religion is a set of beliefs, rather than a set of *social relations*. We see something similar in politics. Why do people vote as they do? Common sense says “because they endorse the party platform and vote accordingly.” Yet study after study shows that people *overwhelmingly* support liberal policy. Why, then, does half the population vote conservative? Because that’s just what people in their social network *do*. The beliefs are secondary. It’s more about a basic identification, not a belief. Or alternatively, the identification precedes the belief, not the reverse.

— Some Theses on Religion, But Not Really: A-Theology | Larval Subjects | Paul Levy Bryant (via neonkhanate)

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