Singularities (03): Javier Rivera
Learning how to flirt with the Absolute as an open question
Singularities is a podcast series that aims to explore religious and theological themes through personal narrative/story. This podcast series is primarily motivated by two tensions:
Our culture seems to be attempting to re-process its relationship to spirituality and religion, and specifically Christianity, in the context of both the breakdown of modernist secular narratives which attempted to replace pre-modern theological narratives, and the un-live-ability of postmodern deconstructive positionality which disenchants the world and leads to a breakdown of meaning structures
I feel that the biggest problem with this re-processing involves the conflict between abstract general universality and personal concrete singularity, with many difficult issues of economics/monetary systems, political power/governance systems, and sexual/libidinal social dynamics being obfuscated by an abstract general religious identification disconnected from the totality of personal narrative/story
Singularities aims to host a discussion about religious/theological themes that may reach universality, but only insofar as they pass through the sieve of the personal story.
The third episode in this experiment was with
, a philosopher and writer currently studying and focused on religious studies and sociology.Throughout the video we discuss:
Early experiences being raised Christian (Seven Day Adventist) with a familial focus on daily/weekly ritual as opposed to theological argumentation
Religious prohibitions on daily life in childhood/growing up led to a break and separation with religion/desire to be non-religious/non-Christian
Reconciling with the fear/terror of the idea that there might be an afterlife but that I may not be good enough to get in
Even harder problem: there is an afterlife and everyone will get in (no one is on the outside), leads to feeling of disgust (desire for scapegoating)
The power of charisma or “rizz” as being a more central influence and impact on people’s conception of theology/religiosity than logical arguments
Charisma is very powerful now in part because our culture struggles with authority, the gap of authority is filled by charismatic people
Inspired by recent readings of Julia Kristeva: confronting the fear of the other’s belief, that we should not be afraid of what the other believes
Contemporary polarisation around belief of sex; specifically: far-right prohibitions and far-left liberation; reflects meaning vs. freedom
Becoming fascinated with other religions in the loss of belief in Christianity, specifically: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, eventually Islam
Experimenting with the inside of Buddhism, discovering that the belief system works perfectly fine/not having words for what is missing in it
Experimenting with the inside of Islam, weird experience of being inside a different but similar story to Christianity
Key difference between Islam/Christianity: the role of the father and the role of Christ (in Islam: invisible father (pure oneness), and no Christ)
The attraction of Christianity is that there is a personal and sentimental dimension: Jesus dies for our sins, lots of love/self-sacrifice
The nature of religious community requires a perfect belief in an All, but the truth is that all beliefs are imperfect and perfection is impossible (non-All)
Shifting to religion as a question beyond mystification of the perfect religious community; religion = life gave me a question and I don’t know how to answer it
Religion as an unanswerable question = flirting with the absolute; becoming intrigued/attracted with not-knowing/not-answering
Trying to establish a different type of community, a community willing to not be perfect, a community that is not afraid of dying/passing away
To find out more about Javier’s work, you can find his links below:
Substack: Javier Rivera
YouTube: Javier Rivera
Patreon: Javier Rivera