In forgiveness, I allow the other to distance himself from his nature, from the way he is. In the moment of forgiveness, the other ceases to be a liar, so to speak. But it takes permission from outside of himself. This, I think, is the essence of forgiveness. When people say they can’t forgive themselves for something, that is nonsense. A person cannot forgive himself at all, for anything. That is arrogance. To be dependent on forgiveness—that is what is decisive. And in Christianity it is the alpha and omega. Forgiveness is at the very beginning. Much is forgiven because Jesus has loved  much. The Gospel of John effects a reversal of sorts and places forgiveness at the beginning. 

--Robert Spaemann.

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Religion comes in all shapes and sizes (and colours). It's amazing to think of that, of how the spirit takes on different forms over time. You wonder what the old paleolithic religion might have been (without symbols, rituals, texts). Ecstasy and sobriety. The old song of sorrow and joy with us from the beginning? 

James C. Scott's Against the Grain really is quite fascinating (if read with Zerzan). Domestication of: crops, animals, women and, in the process, men themselves become domesticated (slaves of their desires?). Surplus. Therefore: war, violence, property, hierarchy, religious rituals to shore up order, administration and management, texts to stabilize the wandering spirit (is that why poetry is banned?)..the fist stirrings of the bio-political, the techno-social management of life..the social machine, the Great Beast (Weil?).