Religion Without Unity: 6 The Human as Intersection

Up to this point, the analysis has been directed outward.

Religion has been cut apart.

Belief dissolved.

Myth and ritual separated.

Their coupling exposed as contingent and unstable.

And throughout, one assumption has remained largely intact:

that there is a subject in whom all this takes place.

A human who:

• believes
• interprets
• participates
• commits

A point of unity beneath the fractured systems.

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This assumption now has to go.

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1. The last refuge of unity

Even after dismantling religion as a unified system,

unity quietly retreats inward.

If meaning and value do not belong together “out there,”

perhaps they are joined in here:

• in consciousness
• in intention
• in belief (now quietly reintroduced)
• in the subject as integrating centre

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But this is the same move, displaced.

The illicit unity has not been removed.

It has been internalised.

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2. The subject as explanatory shortcut

The human subject is typically invoked as that which:

• holds meanings
• adopts values
• aligns belief and practice

It is the presumed site where:

construal and coordination finally come together.

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But notice what this does.

It avoids the problem of relation

by positing a container in which the relation is already resolved.

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Instead of asking how meaning and value are coupled,

we say: the person believes and acts.

And the question disappears.

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3. Re-cutting the human

If we take the prior analysis seriously, this position is untenable.

There is no reason to assume that:

• semiotic construal
• value coordination

suddenly become unified

simply because we are now speaking of a human.

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So we cut again.

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The human is not a unified subject.

It is an intersection of heterogeneous systems.

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Not a container.

Not a ground.

Not an origin.

An intersection.

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4. Meaning does not reside “inside”

From the perspective of meaning:

• the human does not contain meanings
• it participates in semiotic processes of construal

What appears as “having a belief” is:

• the activation of certain construals
• within a broader semiotic potential
• under specific conditions

There is no internal repository of meanings.

Only participation in their actualisation.

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5. Value does not originate “inside”

From the perspective of value:

• the human does not generate norms or commitments
• it is positioned within systems of coordination

What appears as “choosing to act” is:

• alignment with patterns of expectation
• shaped by repetition, sanction, and role

There is no internal source of obligation.

Only participation in coordinated structures.

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6. No point of convergence

Crucially, these do not meet.

Not in the brain.

Not in consciousness.

Not in intention.

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There is no privileged site where meaning and value are unified.

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What we call “a person” is simply where:

• semiotic processes
• and value coordinations

intersect in practice.

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7. The production of interiority

So why does unity feel so immediate?

Why does it seem obvious that:

• I believe this
• I choose that
• I act because I think

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Because the intersection is retrospectively reconstrued as an interior.

• coordination is redescribed as intention
• construal is redescribed as representation
• their coupling is redescribed as belief

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The subject is the narrative we tell about the intersection.

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Not its ground.

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8. Cracks in the subject

Once seen, familiar phenomena take on a different shape:

• saying one thing, doing another
• acting without understanding
• holding incompatible “beliefs”
• shifting identities across contexts

These are not failures of a unified subject.

They are normal effects of intersecting systems that do not converge.

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9. Responsibility without unity?

At this point, an objection presses in:

If the subject dissolves, what happens to:

• responsibility
• agency
• accountability

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The answer is not to restore unity.

But to recognise that these, too, belong to value systems.

They are:

• modes of coordination
• ways of stabilising expectation
• mechanisms for regulating behaviour

Not properties of an underlying subject.

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10. The analytic consequence

The human is no longer the starting point.

It becomes an effect of relation.

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We do not begin with:

• individuals who believe and act

We begin with:

• systems of meaning
• systems of value

And examine how their intersection produces

what is retrospectively named the person.

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11. The final displacement

With this, the last refuge of unity collapses.

• not in religion
• not in belief
• not in myth or ritual
• not even in the human

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What remains is more austere:

a field of heterogeneous systems,

intersecting without ground,

coupled without unity,

stabilised through repetition and misrecognition.

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And religion?

It was never the centre of this analysis.

Only the most visible case.

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Next: Post 7 — After Religion

Where the category itself falls away,

and what remains is traced across domains that no longer call themselves religious.

Religion Without Unity: 5 Schism, Heresy, and the Dynamics of Misalignment

If religion were a unified system, conflict within it would be straightforward:

a disagreement in belief,

a divergence in doctrine,

an error to be corrected.

But the unity has already been withdrawn.

And with it, the explanatory comfort of “difference in belief.”

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1. The misdescription of conflict

Religious conflict is almost always narrated in semiotic terms:

• competing interpretations
• doctrinal disputes
• heretical propositions

From this perspective, schism appears as a failure of agreement in meaning.

But this misdescribes the phenomenon.

Because meaning systems, as we have seen, tolerate variation.

They proliferate.

They contradict.

They coexist.

Left to themselves, they do not require resolution into a single, stable form.

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Meaning does not generate schism.

It generates variation.

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2. Where conflict actually bites

Conflict becomes acute only when variation intersects with value coordination.

• when different construals demand incompatible practices
• when authority is redistributed
• when participation is restructured
• when boundaries of inclusion and exclusion shift

At this point, the issue is no longer what is true.

It is what must be done, and who must do it.

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Schism is not the breakdown of shared belief.

It is the destabilisation of a coordinated order.

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3. Heresy as a relational category

“Heresy” is typically treated as a property of propositions:

• a false doctrine
• a deviation from truth

But this treats meaning as primary.

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Re-cut through the distinction, heresy looks different:

Heresy is a designation applied to meanings that disrupt an existing value coordination.

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The same construal, in a different configuration of value, may not be heretical at all.

It may be:

• tolerated
• ignored
• or even central

Heresy is not located in meaning itself.

It is produced at the point where meaning threatens coordination.

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4. Authority and alignment

At the centre of this dynamic lies authority.

Not as an abstract principle,

but as a mechanism for stabilising the coupling.

• who can interpret
• who can prescribe
• who can sanction deviation

Authority operates across both systems:

• constraining meaning (acceptable interpretations)
• enforcing value (acceptable practices)

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When authority is contested, the coupling loosens.

And what appears as doctrinal disagreement intensifies into structural conflict.

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5. The inevitability of divergence

Because the coupling has no ground, it cannot be perfectly stabilised.

Over time:

• meanings drift
• practices shift
• new articulations emerge
• old alignments weaken

This produces divergence.

Not as anomaly, but as condition.

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Schism, then, is not an exceptional rupture.

It is a reconfiguration of the relation between systems.

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6. Forms of reconfiguration

When misalignment becomes unsustainable, several trajectories appear:

(a) Suppression

Deviation is contained:

• meanings are policed
• practices are enforced
• authority is centralised

The existing coupling is preserved—at a cost.

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(b) Reform

One side is adjusted:

• reinterpretation to align meaning with practice
• modification of practice to accommodate meaning

The coupling is repaired.

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(c) Schism

The coupling splits:

• divergent articulations stabilise independently
• separate value systems emerge
• distinct meaning systems consolidate around them

Unity is not restored.

It is replicated in parallel.

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7. The illusion persists

Even after schism, the fiction of unity reasserts itself.

Each resulting formation presents itself as:

• coherent
• grounded
• internally consistent

The underlying structure is forgotten.

Again.

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8. Reading conflict differently

Once the mechanism is understood, religious conflict can be re-read:

Not as:

• clashes of belief
• failures of understanding

But as:

• instabilities in coordination
• contests over authority
• divergences in how meaning and value are coupled

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The analytic object shifts.

From propositions

to relations.

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9. Beyond pathology

This reframing removes the sense that schism is a failure to be explained away.

Instead, it becomes:

an expected outcome of coupling without ground.

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Wherever meaning varies and value must stabilise,

misalignment will emerge.

Where misalignment emerges,

reconfiguration follows.

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10. The broader implication

And once again, religion proves diagnostic.

Because the same dynamics can be observed wherever:

• symbolic systems proliferate
• coordinated action must be maintained

Political movements fracture.

Ideologies split.

Institutions divide.

Not because “beliefs differ,”

but because relations cannot hold.

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11. The final turn

Which leaves us with a final question.

If religion is not unified,

if belief is a fiction,

if myth does not bind,

if ritual does not require meaning,

if coupling is contingent and unstable—

Then what, exactly, is the human in all this?

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Next: Post 6 — The Human as Intersection

Where the illusion of a unified subject is brought into the same field of analysis,

and begins to dissolve under the same cut.