Since I have been named in some of the earlier posts, I probably should add my few pence of wisdom. I cant say that I am not an atheist, because I came out of the closet in the introduction to my book. Being reduced to that identity is another thing. I dont think that the fact that I claim not to belong to any religion, says anything essential or even useful about me as a person. Seeing New Atheism as another religion is an understandable mistake, but still a mistake. Atheists should never make the mistake of religions (and nationalisms) in dividing the world into us and them. That only leads to the use of words such as moron and stupid and flatfooted. Atheism is the refusal to play the religious game and not just another game. These are general points. If there is a name Id call myself, it is Joycean, and as I tried to explain in a lecture at the recent Utrecht James Joyce Symposium it is certainly possible to read Joyces works in any which way you want, although these readings may not all be equally useful (or truthful) and the same goes for readings of the bible. As Father OLeary can certainly appreciate, there are thousands of different ways to interpret Christs message as given in the bible, from the way of the Catholic Church in Joyces own time to Father OLearys Heideggerian hermeneutics. As a result, it is as easy to preach on the basis of a verse from the bible as on a quote from Joyce. In this context it is ironic that Father OLeary seems to have missed the fact that my title is a quote from Ulysses, where it is Stephen who is quoting the bible. But like the bible, Joyces works are also historical documents and it as a Joyce scholar that I made certain claims about Ulysses and his other books, not as an atheist. These claims are critical and historical, in other words, I can be shown to be wrong, on the basis of critical and historical arguments. In the spirit of negative theology: James Joyce was not religious, he was not Catholic, he was not an Irish nationalist. In fact, I even doubt that he was a Joycean.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 08:07:08 +0000
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