How did they dare? (page 2)

jwfacts

Narkissos
I am reading Aldous Huxleys book The Perenial Philosophy at the moment. (Very slowly along with many other books.) When I get to the end I will start a thread about it and would love your concept about it as it seems to be linked to what your comment that "God speaks all the time to living believers". An amazing book considering I thought he was an athiestic evolutionist.

jgnat

My twentysomething daughter reflected the other day, "Why do we always put a positive spin on our circumstances? It's denial in a way" (Both of us, in our own way, are dealing with some fairly heavy issues in our marriage)

We both answered at once, "Survival."

Boy, she is getting so smart.

It's the way I've managed to stay on top of things, raising my two children on my own, facing my son's mental illness, all the BIG HORRIBLE things that could have knocked me down, but didn't. Now my daughter shows signs of the same spunk, though sometimes for her own mental health I wish she would just throw in the towel.

Narkissos, my reply was kind of tongue-in-cheek, I am most impressed that you incorporated the thought seriously.

Whatever the strategies, it seems to me that the human mind always manages to believe in its own constructions, but never solidifies them to the point where they would actually become unchangeable. Creative faith appears to work between those limits, always finding its way between the obsessional efforts to "close the canon".

Funny, I have a theory about living languages along the same theme. Living languages resist codification. They absorb, incorporate, break the rules, are USED. I've heard said that Latin is a near-perfect language, and that scolars love it for it's beautiful structure. But it's dead. The French, forgive me, are strangling their own language in their attempts to maintain it's purity. English, that ugly monster, that ABSCONDS any useful word and refuses to make perfect sense, thrives.

Narkissos

Narkissos, my reply was kind of tongue-in-cheek, I am most impressed that you incorporated the thought seriously.

LOL... seriousness has to be my deadly sin. Einmal würde ich das Lachen lernen -- "Sometime I would learn to laugh" -- the concluding words of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf always resound in the back of my mind.

Seriously (see!), I am most sorry that the connection of psychological "disorders" and religious/mystical creativity is essentially used by anti-religious polemics and that "believers" only approach it reluctantly, from a defensive standpoint. Dostoevsky is a great exception.

French, forgive me, are strangling their own language in their attempts to maintain it's purity.

Slightly off-topic, but I think this mostly applies to Canadian French which stands in a defensive position (sometimes straining the gnat and swallowing the camel, e.g. rejecting lexical anglicisms and adopting syntactical ones which can prove much more harmful to the language structure). In France where French is not (yet) threatened, we are probably more welcoming to foreign influences (in spite of official recommendations which rarely work). Anyway, I agree with you: the drift of linguistic usage and the drift of religious beliefs and experiences are very similar, and equally uncontrollable.

LittleToe

Am I wrong in expecting Ross here?

Actually I only read it because you authored it

My opinion would be such that it is mainly a bunch of spiritual diaries, a grimoire of sorts. On that level it resonates with those on a similar path.

As for the other opinions expressed in this thread, they are all possible influences. I think the key is appreciating that it is a compendium of books, rather than one seamless tale. I titilate myself by delving into theology and seeing whether some kind of consensus can be reached between the various writings. In many cases it only distorts the picture, however, as dichotomies abound.

For that reason I decided to give more weight to one particular influence, and so my "angle" would be the Gospel of John. Everything else just supplements and enhances that perspective

Narkissos

Ross,

Thanks for coming finally!

Yes I had your idea of "spiritual diary" in mind -- although I don't think it equally applies to all parts of the Bible: perhaps the best example of a "spiritual diary" is offered by Jeremiah's so-called "confessions" (11:18--12.6; 15:10,15-21; 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-18) which constitute a pretty rare literary genre in the Bible -- some Psalms come close, but the collective liturgical setting makes them a bit different.

What I tried to point out is that the very writing of Bible texts implies, on the writers' part, a religious attitude which is essentially different from a passive (or conservative) "fear of God" -- insisting on the "authority" of extant texts and historical events which "really happened". They dared to have their g/God speak and act, in a lot of ways which can range from the quasi-mediumnic trance of the older "prophets" to poetical or tale creation. Which I think is not qualitatively different from earlier religious writings, nor from what believers today do when they say "God told me so and so"...

Cf. Fernando Pessoa's poem Ulysses: O mito é o nada que é tudo. O mesmo sol que abre os céus É um mytho brilhante e mudo - O corpo morto de Deus, Vivo e desnudo.

Este, que aqui aportou, Foi por não ser existindo. Sem existir nos bastou. Por não ter vindo foi vindo E nos creou.

Assim a lenda se escorre A entrar na realidade, E a fecundal-a decorre. Em baixo, a vida, metade De nada, morre. --- Myth is the nought that means all. The very sun that opens up the sky Is a bright and silent myth- The dead embodiment of God Alive and naked.

This one who called here at port, Found existence in not being. Without being he sufficed us. Because he did not come, he came about And created us. And so does legend flow Across the threshold of reality And enriching it, runs forth. Down below, life, half Of nothing, dies away.

googlemagoogle

that question is not only about the bible. lots of ancient texts have their god's talking and giving orders. dagon talked as much as jehovah. the popol vuh has dialogs of mayan gods. greek mythology got lots of godly words.

but it doesn't even stop at religion. just take flavius josephus. he's written down lengthy discourses of long gone people he never had contact with. there's no way he could have known what the jews in massada talked about before their suicide for example. nevertheless he recorded detailed discussions of how they might have taken place before the event.

it's all more of an authors view of things. writing style. by letting someone speak, the story gets more life.

but it doesn't even stop at religion. just take flavius josephus. he's written down lengthy discourses of long gone people he never had contact with. there's no way he could have known what the jews in massada talked about before their suicide for example. nevertheless he recorded detailed discussions of how they might have taken place before the event.

From the History channel... I gather there was one survivor to account for what happened on Masada.

TopHat

just do it...

BUT they didn't...WHY?

How did they dare?

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