>>7286379Alright, stay with me here, I'm not talking about things, but positions and I'll make it into a little analogy.
God is not a thing, but a place. To this place we are subservent, we knee to this place because this place makes life meaningful, there is flag on it that says "in here you put what guides your life", it is defined by this relation.
It's not what people tell you what it is though, it is only precisely what guides people's life. They can say "God guides my life", but in reality they can put money before it, for example. In the same way, you can say "that place is absolutely empty!", but have your life guided by something else. The imaginary is what you put in that place, but the symbolic is the role of the place itself.
That's why it is related to the father position and no wonder God takes the form of a paternal figure. Because when we are kids we obey our parents (or fight their commands, but nevertheless deal with them), we follow their footsteps, the world is only that which our parents give us. That's also why I can connect it to language, because you didn't invent any of the words you use, language comes before you and it is a web of interconnected words referring to each other, thus you have that which limits the way you think the world around you (what gives its meaning). It's all in that place.
Now if I come to you and say "what are you going to do with your life?", you then go check on that place and return with an answer. From there you'll come up with all the excuses, with all your thoughts of right and wrong, with a secure meaningful answer. It's your responsibility, ultimately, but you feel you're just following orders. In this place people will put "the natural", "the normal", "Reason", anything really, calling it God or not. If you ignore the place, you're just hiding it from me, but you take your answers from it. But what if you got there and met with a corpse, how are you going to answer me? Zizek points that this encounter is the most brutal way of dismantling the role of this place. It's harsh, so that's why I made the comparisson of coming to your father, who you trust to solve all your problems, and have him saying "son, I don't know what to do here...". It's the dying Christ asking why. It's violent responsibility being thrown at you.
If you are just an atheist because you never grew up with any idea of religion or something like that, that doesn't mean that place does not exist to you. Every idealism and morality stems from it, it makes things whole. But if you are a Christian and you realize this death of God, then you will know how it is to lose this source of answers and gain the knowledge that it was you all along.
