References for Theme: Theory of Religion
- Bataille, Georges
- Theory of Religion (1989)
(p.101) Here is my table, my chair, my bed. They are here as a result of labor. In order to make them and install them in my room it was necessary to forgo the interest of the moment. As a matter of fact I myself had to work to pay for them. that is, in theory, I had to compensate for the labor of the workers who made them or transported them, with a piece of labor just as useful as theirs. These products of labor allow. me to work and I will be able to pay for the work of the butcher, the baker, and the , farmer who will ensure my surivival and the continuation of my work.
- Theory of Religion (1989)
(p.41) The Worker and the TooI:Generally speaking, the world of things is perceived as a fallen world. It entails the alienation of the one who created it. This is the basic principle: to subordinate is not only to alter the subordinated element but to be altered oneself. The tool changes nature and man at the same time: it subjugates nature to man, who makes and uses it, but it ties man to subjugated nature. Nature becomes man's property but it ceases to be immanent to him. It is his on condition that it is closed to him. If he places the...
- Theory of Religion (1989)
(p.49) This is the meaning of "sacrificing to the deity," whose sacred essence is comparable to a fire. To sacrifice is to give as one gives coal to the furnace. But the furnace ordinarily has an undeniable utility, to which the coal is subordinated, whereas in sacrifice the offering is rescued from all utility. This is so clearly the precise meaning of sacrifice, that one sacrifices what is useful; one does not sacrifice luxurious objects. There could be no sacrifice if the offering were destroyed beforehand. Now, depriving the labor of The Consummation of Sacrifice The power that death generally has...
- Theory of Religion (1989)
(p.51) Paradoxically, intimacy is violence, and it is destruction, because it is not compatible with the positing of the separate individual. If one describes the individua] in the operation of sacrifice, he is defined by anguish. But if sacrifice is distressing, the reason is that the individual takes part in it. The individual identifies with the victim in the sudden movement that restores it to immanence (to intimacy), but the assimilation that is linked to the return to immanence is nonetheless based on the fact that the victim is the thing, just as the sacrificer is the individual. The separate individual...
- Theory of Religion (1989)
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