Even according to JW's doctrine?
Death: Friend or Foe?
by Narkissos 86 Replies latest jw friends
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Narkissos
Lol! NO, of course.
What I mean is that JW doctrine is not based on a particular Biblical text but on an idea ("God's purpose for the earth") which is then fleshed out and "backed up" by a patchwork of Biblical texts regardless of what they actually mean in context. Revelation provides the "millenium" notion but its function in the JW doctrine (resurrecting the dead and bringing mankind to perfection) has strictly nothing to do with its function in the context of Revelation.
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PSacramento
Ah, understood.
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Earnest
Narkissos,
Regarding Aubrey de Grey, his interest in JW theology isn't widely known but I personally know the brother who studied with him and he and I have discussed the relevance of his theories at length. As far as I know there has been no specific interest in his theories from those within the JW community who are at a level to shape policy.
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slimboyfat
That's interesting Earnest. When I get appointed to the Governing Body I'll make sure the ideas of Aubrey de Grey get a fair hearing. I think it's time Jehovah's Witnesses stopped waiting for "Jehovah" to bring the new system and start doing something. But maybe that is going on already on some levels. You only have to look at the Governing Body's recent comments and reaction to the Peak Oil crisis, abandoning the Book Study, as well as their representatives moving US bonds for the Japanese government, presumably before the dollar crisis starts in earnest, to see they are thinking seriously about issues currently facing humanity.
As I mentioned on another thread, the Chief Executive Officer of the Methuselah Foundation, David Gobel, is a Jehovah's Witness.
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choosing life
I understand your reasons to consider death of the physical body on this planet necessary for new life to continue to be born, live, learn and then pass away also. Eventually, everyone reaches the point where physical death becomes a friend.
What I wonder, though, is whether you consider the possibility of some part of a person to live on, the soul, the conscience part, into another realm. Do you believe that ANY part of a person lives on? Not through what they leave behind, but rather what they actually take with them into another "world".
I always thought that eternal life on earth or in a physical world is impossible. It goes against all the laws of nature that the physical world must operate under. I think having children brings this to the fore, as you know for others to continue to be born, some must also leave.
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paul from cleveland
"Imo it takes more than vanity or self-centeredness -- an incredible amount of ignorance, or lack of reflection about what they are, for individuals to (seriously!) assume they want to live forever."
Do we choose our desires... or just have them? Also, if my desires are not the same as yours, does that mean I'm vain, self-centered and ignorant?
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Narkissos
Thanks Earnest and slimboyfat for the info.
This reminds me that the WT has long tried to back up its religious belief of physical everlasting life with scientific arguments and quotes from biologists. E.g. Watchtower 6/1 1964 (but earlier examples might certainly be found):
It is interesting that scientists do not view aging and death as inevitable, but rather as a disease they hope to cure. "I can see no reason," said biochemist William Beck, "why death, in the nature of things, need be inevitable." World-famous medical scientist Hans Selye pointed out that "aging can be regarded as a disease," and that, "like any other disease, it is probably preventable or curable." According to Nobel Prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling: "Theoretically man is quite immortal. His bodily tissues replace themselves. He is a self-repairing machine." Yet, despite the potential of endless life, men continue to die. Why?
In a sense these arguments have contributed to make the related scientific fields JW-friendly; but the technical pursuit of everlasting life could also be viewed as the utmost blasphemy (just like the UN was the ultimate tool of Satan, for trying to do what only Jehovah's Kingdom would do).
choosing life,
What I wonder, though, is whether you consider the possibility of some part of a person to live on, the soul, the conscience part, into another realm. Do you believe that ANY part of a person lives on? Not through what they leave behind, but rather what they actually take with them into another "world".
I certainly consider the possibility, but I feel that to even discuss it we have to shift to a register of language (which I might term "mythological") where practically everything is possible and nothing is "falsifiable". That's the reason why I prefer to focus first on the visible, phenomenal aspects of life (including nature and culture): from this angle every individual is clearly the continuation of many things (a biological, genetic, cultural, social, familial history) which goes on after him. A provisional compound, a form emerging from other forms and morphing into still other forms like a wave on the sea. This may not tell all the story -- the waves are but the surface. Otoh, this part of the story shouldn't be overlooked (as generally happens when "another world" becomes the focus).
However, religious beliefs about the afterlife (soul survival, reincarnation, metempsychosis, resurrection, even nirvana) can certainly be helpful to the individual consciousness (which is by definition at "wave" level) as they help "you" to relate to "beyond you" -- which only mythology can do. As I said before, when I construe myself as a provisional form between other forms in a way that allows "me" to relate to "beyond me" (by the wave illustration, for instance) I am also using mythological speech.
Again, what I think is important and valuable in traditional religious representations is that they do not deny death as a break in continuity. "You" do not access "beyond you" without a radical change (in Paul's terms, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God"). To an extent, this is even true of JW beliefs about physical everlasting life inasmuch as they depend on divine intervention: death (especially as non-existence) and resurrection (or should I say re-creation) is a break from here to there; even Armaggedon is inasmuch as your fate at this point escapes you, although the prospect of never dying physicallycomes closer to a denial of death. Granted, it is also the case in other forms of Christianity (e.g. John 11:24f) but only because your death has been symbolically or ritually anticipated (you will never 'die' because you have 'died' already). It is a displacement rather than a denial of death.
paul from cleveland
Do we choose our desires... or just have them?
I would suggest a third option: influence. Interro-negative questions like "would you not want to live forever?" (which WT and other types of propaganda are full of) are a strong temptation, especially in view of the psychological difficulty of the alternative, i.e. facing your death.
Also, if my desires are not the same as yours, does that mean I'm vain, self-centered and ignorant?
No, it just means we disagree and there is always an unpleasant aspect to that, no matter how we may pretend to agree on disagreeing for the sake of political correctness. People like DeGrey would characterise my views as shameful and criminal, on top of regressive and idiotic (there is more potential violence in such a judgement imo). Others saw them as evidence of a lack of empathy. C'est la vie.
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slimboyfat
For the avoidance of doubt, and since Wobble says he sometimes finds it hard to tell, my last post was an attempt at humour. I probably won't make it onto the Governing Body.
Anyway I have heard it said, and I can't remember the exact crisp quote, but it's something like: 'there is nothing quite like reading a really good book to make life seem so inadequately short'. There's just not enough time to read all the stuff I would like to. In one of his last interviews philosopher Richard Rorty commented that his few regrets were that he didn't have more close friendships during his life, and that he wished he had spent more time reading poetry and literature. I want to read The Blood Meridian for example, and James Joyce too, not to mention Heidegger and Nietzsche. But have I really got the time? They are on the shelf, and I have picked them up a few times, and put them back. Somehow I seem to feel the weight of death handling such hefty tomes. But hey if I was being consistent about it I suppose I would spend less time on the forum too! I could have read Ullysses a few times over by now, maybe even understand some of it.
I am a terribly slow reader.
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Narkissos
Imo, that's where extensiveness and intensity depart -- and the impossibility of the former may point you, even urge you to the latter if you haven't come across it by mere chance.
Cioran felt some musical experiences, for instance, were painful and almost shameful to survive. This was not random example btw, since music belongs to time, has a beginning and an end, and only exists while it is performed, played and/or listened to -- a fact which its permanent availability through recording obscures. But even such a comparatively static and intemporal work of art as a painting or a sculpture you only see when you look at it, with what you are at this particular moment and will never be again. Death in that sense overarches and permeates all living, and makes it worth living. Doesn't any ascription or creation of value (also in the moral or aesthetical senses which are, after all, metaphors of the economical) depend on finiteness?
One might say that whatever really happens is what will never exactly happen again (eternal recurrence in the Nietzschean sense is actually a way of stating this rather than negating it). The sense of history (Geschichte) in Heidegger is directly related to the "being-to-death" (Sein zum Tode), as a necessary though not sufficient condition of authentic existence.