Our world is built by communities. A community is defined as any group of individuals that have come together for one reason or another. The community is naturally organized as an individual necessity. As the social community evolves, societal needs change and must be fulfilled in new ways. For example, the basic physiological needs that drove hunter gatherers changed when the tribes experienced an excess of food; they began building more permanent structures and thus settled down. As farming and communal living developed, a division in labor emerged. Community members would specialize in the fulfilment of a specific societal need (blacksmiths, farmers, cooks, childbearers, governors, etc.). As the community grew, authority emerged in order to fulfil the societal need for efficient social function (conflict resolution, judgement, fulfilment of broad social needs). Social authority takes many different forms.
Authority may also be more violently established as a colonial presence over a foreign people or individual. The Americas experienced such an establishment of authority rather than its emergence. As per the definition of community, religious authority has also been historically (and continues to be) established and reestablished. From Martin Luther to Karl Marx, religious laws and authority have been questioned, interpreted, and reestablished. The 10 Commandments that were carried down by Moses from Sinai emerged as an established authority. Now the reader is confused. At first, I outlined the violent establishment of authority as a binary to its peaceful emergence. In a religious context, authority takes on both meanings. It is both that which controls an individual’s actions and that which fulfills a basic human desire. The 10 Commandments controlled the Jewish people in the same way that Hammurabi's code controlled Babylon; the establishment brought peace and security to its people. Jewish law and Babylonian law are different in their fulfilment of a deconstructed inclination.
The most basic desire is the emergence of meaning; a meaning which will totalize all of the individual's experience into a law. The law from which everything can be understood. There are many people out there that are quick to judge. They have a meaning that may have emerged through the facilitation of organized religion or through a certain self-awareness/enlightenment. Personal meaning has another common name: Faith.
Sometimes faith and religion are confounded. Organized religion emerges from a community of those with aligned faiths; in contrast, faith may be established through a religious community. Faith is the resulting interpretation of the individual upon his external circumstances. Invariably, external circumstances are contextualized through an individual's community; thus they are established, not emerged. Everyone takes on the same struggles of life and death, love and acceptance, future and past; but they are interpreted differently due to social contextualization.
The science of faith is based upon a faith in science. The establishment of scientific laws are still interpretations of an external world. The laws that govern nature are in fact set (if, in fact, you believe in fact). As time progress, a collection of observations upon the world and its laws has developed. From those observations emerges the authority of scientific laws. It is the same as any other authority, established through social contextualization. Although, it is an objective pursuit from which natural laws can be interpreted.
Objective and subjective take on two different meanings. For example, you aren’t a Christian just because you attend church. The same is conversely true: You are not necessarily not Christian because you don’t attend church. Consequently this becomes a question of the subjective meaning of Christian. In fact, it does not matter. The social categorization of Christian is the same as the application and organization of the scientific laws that "bind nature." Insomuch that these laws truly bind nature, does the categorization of Christian bind the true meaning.
True meaning is impossible to attain. Meaning is constantly created, interpreted, created, and interpreted. It is a never ending process that has materialized into a system of communication. Understanding true meaning is like spotting a star in the thick of a hurricane. The swirling winds of subjective language/rhetoric deny mankind a true view of what it means to be Christian.
In building this thin line of logical critique, the critique itself has been broken down. The argument itself is subjective to the meaning that is placed upon it. It is easily said that the logic of science and religion is subjective and therefore illogical. It can inversely applied to the meaning that I am trying to communicate. Thus we discover the logic that infects logic. A law that emerges as authoritative where no authority can be established. It is called deconstruction.
