{"id":2461,"date":"2011-03-19T12:26:46","date_gmt":"2011-03-19T18:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2011-03-19T12:28:03","modified_gmt":"2011-03-19T18:28:03","slug":"2461","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2461","title":{"rendered":"Were the Gods Angry with Japan?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adrian Ivakhiv blogs on <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/16\/religion-the-japanese-tragedy\/\">religious responses to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>All of this resonates with an immanence-based process-relational  perspective: nature does what it does, it includes the \u201cgood\u201d and the  \u201cbad\u201d (which are relative to their perceivers), we are part of it and  sometimes we get struck down in it. (Careful readers will know that when  I say that good and bad are \u201crelative to their perceivers,\u201d this  doesn\u2019t mean that \u201ceverything is relative, anything goes, and whatever  you think or do is as good as anything else.\u201d The world is layered and  folded: perceivers share their perceptual situations with other  perceivers, so my \u201cgood\u201d is closer to your \u201cgood\u201d than it is to the good  of an amoeba, a viral bacteria or cancer cell, or an <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/26\/when-bad-things-happen-karma-running-over-dogma\/\">asteroid whipping through<\/a> the solar system. Hitler\u2019s actions may have seemed \u201cright\u201d to him, but  in a human context they come off as psychotic and grotesque. And as for  \u201cnature,\u201d if it includes everything, becoming a fairly meaningless term,  so be it. It corresponds to what, in an East Asian context, is thought  of as \u201cthe way,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ziran\"><em>ziran<\/em><\/a>, an active and unfolding \u201csuchness,\u201d or what Gregory Bateson called \u201cthe pattern that connects.\u201d)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/16\/religion-the-japanese-tragedy\/\">There is lots more with interesting links<\/a>. Apparently even the mayor of Toyko took a &#8220;the gods are angry with us&#8221; line, although he later backed away from it.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, the nonhuman world is not All About Us Humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adrian Ivakhiv blogs on religious responses to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. All of this resonates with an immanence-based process-relational perspective: nature does what it does, it includes the \u201cgood\u201d and the \u201cbad\u201d (which are relative to their perceivers), we are part of it and sometimes we get struck down in it. (Careful readers will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104,139,18,48,60],"class_list":["post-2461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-buddhism","tag-japan","tag-nature","tag-nature-religion","tag-shinto"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-2461","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1546,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1546","url_meta":{"origin":2461,"position":0},"title":"The Horse Boy: See it for the Shamanism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"When a psychology professor and a human-rights activist\/journalist have an autistic son, their lives become incredibly difficult. Among other things, little Rowan never learns bowel control, and like many autistic children, he is prone to screaming, inconsolable tantrums. But his parents live in rural Texas, and they discover when Rupert\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Mongolia\"","block_context":{"text":"Mongolia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=mongolia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5433,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5433","url_meta":{"origin":2461,"position":1},"title":"Nature Religion as She Is Conceptualized in 2013","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I am off Thursday to Cherry Hill Seminary's \"Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes\" symposium. Although not one of the marquee speakers, I have a small part to play as a respondent for one panel. What does a respondent do? First, you read all papers in advance. Of course, there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3317","url_meta":{"origin":2461,"position":2},"title":"Does Halloween Fill a &#8220;Spiritual Vacuum&#8221;?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Halloween season\" keeps starting sooner, and its economic impact increases. Not everyone is pleased. Bloomberg News columnist Amity Shlaes reacts against its \"paganism.\" She is pleased to see the violence of \"Mischief Night\" fading but continues, \" Unmask Halloween, however, and you\u2019ll also find some disconcerting features. Christmas and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7390,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7390","url_meta":{"origin":2461,"position":3},"title":"Vikings, Monks, and Cultural Biases","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I bailed on Game of Thrones. I watched the first episode, liked parts of it (Jon Snow, obviously), but decided not to devote the necessary hours. Ditto the books. Generally, when I open a book and read something like . . . \"My lord!\" blurted the messenger. \"The Zardakar have\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7390#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"vikings_lagertha_3-AB","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/vikings_lagertha_3-AB.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":581,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=581","url_meta":{"origin":2461,"position":4},"title":"Wars over ChristmasBlame the Emperor\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Wars over ChristmasBlame the Emperor Constantine, as this blogger rightly points out.That's the same Constantine who would make Tony Soprano look like the Dalai Lama.A post on a Pagan mailing list had this gem: But I just got done watching (thankfully, I wasn't at the center but hubby was) a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1159,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1159","url_meta":{"origin":2461,"position":5},"title":"What Happened to Ecopsychology?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Lupa posts on bioregionalism, animism, and ecopsychology.When M. was in grad school in psychology in the 1990s, she hoped that ecopsychology would be the Next Big Thing. Articles on the psychological affects of interacting (or not) with the non-human world were popping up in places like McCall's magazine. Addressing \"nature-deficit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"nature\"","block_context":{"text":"nature","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=nature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0226011461","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2461"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions\/2464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}