God Is Dead. So Is the Office. These People Want to Save Both

[GenesisNemesis]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/busin...ogin=email

In the beginning there was Covid-19, and the tribe of the white collars rent their garments, for their workdays were a formless void, and all their rituals were gone. New routines came to replace the old, but the routines were scattered, and there was chaos around how best to exit a Zoom, onboard an intern, end a workweek.

The adrift may yet find purpose, for a new corporate clergy has arisen to formalize the remote work life. They go by different names: ritual consultants, sacred designers, soul-centered advertisers. They have degrees from divinity schools. Their business is borrowing from religious tradition to bring spiritual richness to corporate America.

In simpler times, divinity schools sent their graduates out to lead congregations or conduct academic research. Now there is a more office-bound calling: the spiritual consultant. Those who have chosen this path have founded agencies — some for-profit, some not — with similar-sounding names: Sacred Design Lab, Ritual Design Lab, Ritualist. They blend the obscure language of the sacred with the also obscure language of management consulting to provide clients with a range of spiritually inflected services, from architecture to employee training to ritual design.

Their larger goal is to soften cruel capitalism, making space for the soul, and to encourage employees to ask if what they are doing is good in a higher sense. Having watched social justice get readily absorbed into corporate culture, they want to see if more American businesses are ready for faith.

Sounds really really really really really really really really really really really really really really stupid to me. Also makes it easier for QAnon bullshit to enter the workplace.

@Aliza is this post spam because I said "really" so many times?

[M.Linoge]

Degrees from divinity school? isn't that what you get when you flunk basic reality?

Corporate greed and religious zealots. Surely only good can come from this...

[Minimalist]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

[mordant]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

Theology is a faux discipline whose only rigor, such as it is, is the study of itself. It basically makes stuff up about how one makes stuff up. It is really just an attempt to put a cosmetic sheen on logical holes you can drive a truck through.

As an unwilling participant in the corporate world since August 1, I can tell you ... the LAST thing they need is a shaman. They are already preoccupied with bad solutions to manufactured problems.

[no one]

Minimalist:
Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

You're forgetting rap.

[GenesisNemesis]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

Theology is a faux discipline whose only rigor, such as it is, is the study of itself. It basically makes stuff up about how one makes stuff up. It is really just an attempt to put a cosmetic sheen on logical holes you can drive a truck through.

As an unwilling participant in the corporate world since August 1, I can tell you ... the LAST thing they need is a shaman. They are already preoccupied with bad solutions to manufactured problems.

I can only imagine how much more unstable the economy could become if even more bad solutions became more widespread.

[mordant]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

Theology is a faux discipline whose only rigor, such as it is, is the study of itself. It basically makes stuff up about how one makes stuff up. It is really just an attempt to put a cosmetic sheen on logical holes you can drive a truck through.

As an unwilling participant in the corporate world since August 1, I can tell you ... the LAST thing they need is a shaman. They are already preoccupied with bad solutions to manufactured problems.

I can only imagine how much more unstable the economy could become if even more bad solutions became more widespread.

Yeah. These fuckers bought the old company for $14 million. It is (was) profitable and market-leading. Now the first thing they do is pearl-clutch because some of our data arrives via FTP (unencrypted data channel! cleartext passwords!). The new mothership offers to fix this terrible security exposure using proprietary IBM technology and only charge us $2.5 million to do it.

We pointed out that they are applying consumer-to-business concerns to business-to-business transactions. You can't steal anyone's identity with this data. You can't even sell it for much, if anything. Aside from us, it is of interest only to the transmitter's direct competitors, and then only of transient and light interest. When you put that over against the cost of securing it and the loss of business because data contributors won't put up with such BS, it's a bad move.

On this basis their security people signed off on it but our own executive VP would not. Corporate ass-covering at its finest.

Now as a first step we have gone to an IP whitelisting system which means up to 80% of our FTP data contributions won't transmit this month. We'll practically have to hire another manager just to deal with it all.

Just wait until they find out most of the data comes via email!

By the time they are done they will have sucked 90% of the value of the company they just bought, right out of it.

All this without the help of "rituals". What could they do WITH it?!

[SYZ]

The linked NYT article is a massive load of bovine excrement.

The most meaningful part?

"Correction: Aug. 28, 2020
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name
of a participant in a Sacred Design Lab event in a photo
caption. He is Maceo Paisley, not Maceo Paisely."

Phew, thank fuck they picked that up!     

[Bucky Ball]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

I actually have one of those degrees from an Ivy League institution.   The degree was "jointly" awarded from two departments, one being Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.  
It was a great experience, and I had classes from some of the best-known scholars in their fields. 
When I was there, we were aware that many of the faculty were non-believers, but even 5-8 years ago, was long enough ago, that "atheist" was still a dirty word. 
(We should maybe discuss that change in a separate thread.) That's changed a lot, in a short time, (something I hadn't thought about), and there are a number of "humanists" (including a humanist chaplain) in the school, and on campus in those classes. I didn't take much "theology" (partly because I had already read a lot of it, out of curiosity, partly because, knowing it's historical origins ... it's all pretty ridiculous). I used to have a sign on my dorm door, that said "If theology and philosophy are the 'sacred sciences', what is their null hypothesis ?" (I think inspired by Chas possibly, and other TTA people.) As Bart Ehrman once said, "If the public actually knew what was being taught in these places, they would be shocked". If you're not a non-believer already, take an Old Testament class in the Ivy League, and you soon will be. 

My degree there, was never intended to be a path to employment, (and I was at the same time, doing my science degree in California). 
But I learned a lot about the origins and cultures from which various religions originated, which I was interested in, ... those origins are really not taught in even moderately conservative schools. 
I had a blast during those summers rowing on the James River, met tons of friends, in religion and out. 

Sounds like what these "sacred design" people are doing is "fung shui". If people are willing to pay for it, why not. There's a sucker born every minute.

[mordant]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

I actually have one of those degrees from an Ivy League institution.   The degree was "jointly" awarded from two departments, one being Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.  
It was a great experience, and I had classes from some of the best-known scholars in their fields.

When I say the things I said about theological studies I had in mind the likes of Dallas Theological Cemetery ... er, Seminary ... places where theology is taken seriously as a path to knowledge about god (and, in fact, is seen as a superior / best path).

Liberal education in the Ivy League has been far from this for a long time, and is more about understanding how religion appeals to and influences humanity, culture, and society in the present and past. That DOES have value and if I had more time and money than I do I might well occupy myself with such studies.

[Minimalist]

I'm glad you had fun rowing, Buck.  And probably drinking, too.

But smart move on the science stuff.  It pays a lot better than this god shit.

[c172]

The linked NYT article is a massive load of bovine excrement.

The most meaningful part?

"Correction: Aug. 28, 2020
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name
of a participant in a Sacred Design Lab event in a photo
caption. He is Maceo Paisley, not Maceo Paisely."

Phew, thank fuck they picked that up!     

Yeah, that kind of bugged me.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Minimalist:
Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

You're forgetting rap.

Rap has influenced other musical styles to some degree of good. Religion, as the late, great, Christopher Hitches pointed out, poisons everything.

[SYZ]

...Rap has influenced other musical styles to some degree of good. Religion, as the late, great, Christopher Hitchens pointed out, poisons everything.

I'd have to disagree with Hitchens—as I do on many points he makes about atheism/atheists/theists.

Religion does not "poison everything".   That's a massively wild generalisation.   Our little town has
three well-attended churches, and I know only 3 or 4 other atheists here personally.   And yet our
town is one of the most well serviced, cleanest, graffiti-free, lowest crime rate, friendliest places
I've ever lived in over a 70-year period.  Infrequent vehicle thefts, very few burglaries, no crimes of
violence against the person, and only minor drug use or alcohol abuse.  Also, no cases of coronavirus.

And one of our two elderly care homes is run by a Christian organisation with great long-term success.

We also have an Anglican op-shop that recycles unwanted goods and clothing that otherwise would end
up in landfill.  

Can you suggest anything—at ground level—that's "poisoned" something specifically?

[mordant]

...Rap has influenced other musical styles to some degree of good. Religion, as the late, great, Christopher Hitchens pointed out, poisons everything.

I'd have to disagree with Hitchens—as I do on many points he makes about atheism/atheists/theists.

Religion does not "poison everything".   That's a massively wild generalisation.   Our little town has
three well-attended churches, and I know only 3 or 4 other atheists here personally.   And yet our
town is one of the most well serviced, cleanest, graffiti-free, lowest crime rate, friendliest places
I've ever lived in over a 70-year period.  Infrequent vehicle thefts, very few burglaries, no crimes of
violence against the person, and only minor drug use or alcohol abuse.  Also, no cases of coronavirus.

And one of our two elderly care homes is run by a Christian organisation with great long-term success.

We also have an Anglican op-shop that recycles unwanted goods and clothing that otherwise would end
up in landfill.  

Can you suggest anything—at ground level—that's "poisoned" something specifically?

What Hitchens says is true on a certain level, but not literally.

Since morality is a work product of society -- in which theists also participate -- and since theists vary in their degree of fascistic behaviors -- I think it fairer to say that religion tends in the main to dilute the goodness in the world. We don't see this overall effect, not having had any experience of a world without religion.

Since there's a need in every community for recycling goods and clothing that would otherwise end up in a landfill, for example, that theists happen to have taken up that effort in your community does not make them necessary for that to happen. If there's an actual need, in the absence of theists, someone would fill it anyway. To argue for theism on the basis of thrift shops is a form of confirmation bias. It also feeds the conceit of theists that they uniquely are the representatives of Goodness in the world and that everything would turn to shit without them.

What religion is particularly effective at is providing a sense of community and refuge for its adherents, and (outside of fundamentalism anyway) at getting them off their butts to extend that to others. That humans can be motivated to charitable group endeavors using ritual and tradition and the lionization of selflessness is not lost on groups that are not religious or explicitly theistic, either. The military uses similar techniques and some of the same rhetoric as religion to motivate young people to risk death and dismemberment in the defense of country. Secret societies / lodges borrow these techniques. Some charitable groups as well. God is not a necessary explanation for (or of) any of this.

[Paleophyte]

Minimalist:
Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

You're forgetting rap.

Do you remember "Christian Rock"? Now imagine that evolved into Christian Rap.

You're welcome.

[skyking]

...Rap has influenced other musical styles to some degree of good. Religion, as the late, great, Christopher Hitchens pointed out, poisons everything.

I'd have to disagree with Hitchens—as I do on many points he makes about atheism/atheists/theists.

Religion does not "poison everything".   That's a massively wild generalisation.   Our little town has
three well-attended churches, and I know only 3 or 4 other atheists here personally.   And yet our
town is one of the most well serviced, cleanest, graffiti-free, lowest crime rate, friendliest places
I've ever lived in over a 70-year period.  Infrequent vehicle thefts, very few burglaries, no crimes of
violence against the person, and only minor drug use or alcohol abuse.  Also, no cases of coronavirus.

And one of our two elderly care homes is run by a Christian organisation with great long-term success.

We also have an Anglican op-shop that recycles unwanted goods and clothing that otherwise would end
up in landfill.  

Can you suggest anything—at ground level—that's "poisoned" something specifically?

I sure hope you're not crediting your prosperity to the three churches.

[Disprove_God_please_]

Can you prove that God is dead please? Cause in order for you to do that you have to prove that God is in the Flesh of a mortal being?

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Can you prove that God is dead please? Cause in order for you to do that you have to prove that God is in the Flesh of a mortal being?

Did you actually read the OP, or are you simply responding to the thread title?!?

[Dancefortwo]

Can you prove that God is dead please? Cause in order for you to do that you have to prove that God is in the Flesh of a mortal being?

Ummmmm, who the hell are you?  

Also, can you prove Zeus is dead please? Cause in order for you to do that you have to prove that Zeus is in the Flesh* of a mortal being? 







*Notice how I capitalized the word "Flesh" so as to make it super-duper important and real woo-hooey.   

[Bucky Ball]

Humanity has produced nothing more worthless than a "Divinity school."

They could convert them to fudge plants, and not have to change the signs.

[TonyAnkle]

Can you prove that God is dead please?

Can you prove that he's alive?

Cause in order for you to do that you have to prove that God is in the Flesh of a mortal being?

Don't you mean because?

[SYZ]

Can you prove that God is dead please? Cause in order for you to do that you have to prove that God is in the Flesh of a mortal being?

G'day mate.

It's always a good idea to give people a bit of your background whenever you
join a new forum. Just popping in out of the blue, with a fairly thought provoking
single comment makes you look disturbingly like a spammer or troll.

At any rate, you pose an absurd question; it's similar to me asking you to prove
that leprechauns don't exist, and never have.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Beginning to look like a drive-by, one-and-done, shit-poster.

Why do so many theists use this tactic?

[TonyAnkle]

Beginning to look like a drive-by, one-and-done, shit-poster.

Why do so many theists use this tactic?

I reckon it's a case of them going onto the internet behind their parents backs, and then deleting their history.