Narkissos

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Posts by Narkissos

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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

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  Narkissos

  DD: at least Paul's view of salvation was not a negation of death, nor the endless conservation of the same (contrary to the JW view which, ironically, blames Christendom for perpetuating the "serpent's lie," you will not die: they actually say you will not die more than anybody else!).

  Not only his view of resurrection in 1 Corinthians implied a radical change from the earthly to the spiritual; but even more importantly, his theology of salvation in Romans depends on death symbolism and identity substitution throughout. Actually, you are not saved. You die with Christ and share in his life, within his body. Or, in the words of Philippians: you are dead, he lives in you. Big difference. Paul's theology instrumentalises death and the end of "self" it implies instead of suppressing it.
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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

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  Narkissos

  I often wonder that, IF god is a cruel and uncaring as some say he is (RE: the OT) that perhaps his immortality could be the reason.

  I had the "strict monotheistic" version of "God" (the God that neither dies, as in incarnation, nor identifies with that which dies, as in pantheism or panentheism) in the back of my mind when I described the "immortal monster"...

  Also, against snowbird's quotation of 1 Corinthians 15 which the title of this thread alluded to, I'm reminded of St. Francis of Assisi thanking God for "our sister natural death"...
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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

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  Narkissos

  Is that merely an expression that the ot jews/writers used? Or, did they actually mean that?

  That's always difficult to tell, due to the problematic cognitive status of mythology in general (cf. Paul Veyne's Did the Greek Believe their Myths?). As far as mythology goes (and taking in account the fact that most Biblical texts tend to tone down existing popular mythological references rather than create them ex nihilo for the sake of "poetry" as a modern writer might), I would say they did. The "shades" recognise and address each other in she'ol (cf. Isaiah 14), and the (later repressed) practice of necromancy indicates that people believed in communicating with the dead (cf. 1 Samuel 28 -- without quotation marks ;).
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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

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  Narkissos

  Exactly how old would a person have to be to achieve "monster" status?

  It depends I guess. Observing the wealthy aging societies with extended lifespans and their ubiquitous obsession of safety it seems people might be getting there earlier and earlier, paradoxically.

  One of the ugliest pictures I have in mind (from real life) is that of my old JW folks discussing their everlasting future in paradise, while not caring a bit about the present or future of their own (non-JW) children, not to mention that of other children and future generations. In spite of all the medical and aesthetical care I'm afraid a deathless society would not be pretty.
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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

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  Narkissos

  Not having any children, some might say I've missed out on life.
  
  

  Do you think this affects how one sees death?

  I'm sure it does. It's remarkable that in the OT the perspective of peaceful death (being reunited with one's ancestors, in old age, surrounded by one's children and grandchildren who are, in effect, the dying person's future), disappears once the notion of personal salvation (resurrection etc.) comes to the fore.

  But it may be not so much the matter of having children than the ability to relate to others, who will survive you and keep something from you when you are no longer there. Children in particular, not necessarily yours.
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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

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  Narkissos

  slimboyfat,

  Maybe in the end I would not want to live forever Narkissos, but I would sure appreciate more time to think about it. ;-)

  How much more would be enough? What age would we ever accept as the "right age" for us to die?

  "No one is older than a dead child" (Chuang Tzu).

  I think it's a good thing that death just happens when it does (so far!) because if we had to pick the day it would never be today for most of us, no matter how convinced we may be of its objective and even subjective necessity. I include myself here, but not everyone, as obviously a number of people did pick the day.

  Heaven, if it existed, would be "a place where nothing ever happens", yet when this party's over it will start over again, the eternal return.

  Liked the song, but strangely I didn't perceive the "yet" part. As I heard it, it's the heaven non-party that starts over again, not the real life of difference (that would be the Nietzschean "eternal recurrence").

  Enjoyed the poem too. If you can read French you may like Baudelaire's last piece in Les fleurs du mal.

  Don't be so quick to judgement in calling people selfish who have not come to terms with death as you have, or who are still struggling with the implications. Hell you may even be wrong about the whole thing.

  First, I don't think anybody really comes to terms with death until s/he dies; and what I characterised as selfish was the hypothetical attitude of people who would never get tired of themselves (I doubt they exist, but they would have to in the hypothesis of everlasting life); self-centeredness, or egocentrism, otoh, helps a lot in never learning about oneself. One lesson I learnt from Nietzsche (too late in part) is the difference between contempt and disgust. What you haven't had the courage to despise in time you're bound to be disgusted of later. And that may include much of your "self".
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  86

  Death: Friend or Foe?

  by Narkissos in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jw and the (pseudo?

  )scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.. as amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that i don't know even where to start.

  of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Narkissos

  The JW and the (pseudo?)scientific "hopes" of individual "everlasting life" (which have been connected on a couple of recent threads) have at least something in common: they all seem to take for granted that death is a bad thing.

  As amazing as it may be to you, this amazes me so much that I don't know even where to start. Of course death hurts in reality when you lose people you love, or in imagination when you anticipate your own extinction. Untimely death -- death of children or very young people in particular -- is a tragedy. But tragedy is an ambiguous word.

  If we step back only a little, death is an integral part of the system we call life. The cycle of sex and death determines the living sphere as that of constant renewal. New genes combinations, always unique and diferent. This cycle is what made us, not only biologically but also culturally. Signs, symbols, rituals, language, representations, which gradually made up the "world" on which our individual and collective self-understandings depend have been constructed over generations upon and against this specific biological (mammal) reality. Because of this experience we as a species have learnt to cry, laugh, smile, love and play, relate to each other as well as to past and future generations. Culture gets its structures from the necessity of getting around inevitable death and individual, social limitations through a potentially infinite number of strategies. Our specific representation of time which makes death a "problem" to some is itself dependent on death. Tragedy is the cornerstone of culture -- even though comedy comes right on its footsteps.

  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. Can one really want his or her combination of genes and family, educational and cultural circumstances to remain forever, rather than the continuation of life through other combinations? And yes it is either/or. Even the WT cheats with this problem by portraying children in its Paradise pictures, obscuring the fact that a deathless mankind would also be a birthless and childless mankind sooner or later. Nothing like mankind actually.

  I'm not discussing whether human individuals can or will (technically, for instance) reach the point where they are able to live forever (God forbid!). Rather, whether they would really want that given the possibility. And who, or rather what they would be -- or become -- if they did. What monsters of selfish mediocrity would never get tired or bored with themselves and never desire to disappear for the sake of the other...
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  31

  Rev. 14.4

  by is there help out there in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was cleaning out my wallet and i came across this that i showed to a young jw at work and she freeked out.. rev.

  14.4 states, however states that the 144000 are not the total number of believers in jesus who will enter heaven.

  the first of a much larger number to follow..

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  Narkissos

  That's an interesting point, although it raises the question of how much interweaving of Daniel and Ezekiel traditions already occurred upstream of the extant Revelation, both in its immediate "sources" and its own redactional stages of composition, before the insertion within the final "envelope" (introduction / conclusion). There are quite a lot of "Ezekielic" reminiscences in 11--19 as well (11:1ff // Ez 40:3,5; 11:8 // Ez 11:6; 16:46ff; 11:11 // Ez 37:5,10; 11:13 // Ez 38:19f; 12:3 // Ez 29:3; 12:14 // Ez 17:3,7; 14:8ff // Ez 23:32ff; 14:10 // Ez 38:22; 15:8 // Ez 44:4; 16:1 // Ez 14:19; 23:31; 17 // Ez 16:15ff; 17:4 // Ez 28:13; 17:16 // Ez 16:39ff; 23:29; 26:19; 18:1 // Ez 43:2; 18:3 // Ez 27:12,18,33; 18:9// Ez 26:16f; 27:30ff; 18:11 // Ez 27:36; 18:12ff // Ez 27:12-24; 18:15 // Ez 27:31; 18:17f // Ez 27:27ff; 19:17 // Ez 39:4,17-20).

  Anyway my last comment was rather from the perspective of the latest redactor (which happens to be also the reader's). To him the extant sequence of "events" (including the two "final" wars) must have made some narrative sense, regardless of where they ultimately came from. Imo there are good reasons to think that his "world" did not limit itself to the empire (cf. the probable allusions to the Parthians and their expected contribution to the fall of the empire, their possible echo in the description of the warrior king and his armies in chapter 19, and the remote location of the nations in chapter 20 before the devil "gathers" them around the camp of the saints and the holy city). The kings who are gathered to Armaggedon in 16:14, otoh, are those of the oikoumenè (which very often means the empire, obviously so in Luke 2:1 but very likely in many places).
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  31

  Rev. 14.4

  by is there help out there in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was cleaning out my wallet and i came across this that i showed to a young jw at work and she freeked out.. rev.

  14.4 states, however states that the 144000 are not the total number of believers in jesus who will enter heaven.

  the first of a much larger number to follow..

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  Narkissos

  This is perhaps the major narrative gap in the extant text of Revelation (strongly suggesting the conflation of different source texts): at the end of chapter 19 nobody seems to be left alive and yet in chapter 20 there are nations around (v. 3,8). On the one hand, this is somewhat consistent with the structural organisation of the previous visions which gives the impressions that the end is always delayed: the seventh seal opens on the seven trumpets, the seventh trumpet on the seven plagues, the seventh plague on Babylon's judgement; but here the slaughter of 19:11-21 doesn't seem to spare anyone and the transition is not so smooth. Unless perhaps the redactor understood it as limited to the Roman empire (the Beast, cf. chapter 13) and not the outside (barbarian) nations (which the description of 20:8, "the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog" could suit). Otoh, the scenario of chapter 20 consistently places the general resurrection after the millenium and the last war (20:7-10, which may have been originally a doublet of 19:11-21 but now looks like a later stage) -- the only resurrected people during the millenium are those who reign with Christ (first resurrection).
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  44

  A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. From the Nov 1 WT

  by life is to short in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the november 1st public wt has an article on "do you need to learn hebrew and greek?

  " funny is it not that they feel we do not need too.

  anywho on page 21 of said wt.

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  Narkissos

  Nice illustration :)

  i'm studying greek and i have to tell you that agape does not exsist!

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/182360/1/agape-love

  On the thread topic: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/182081/1/Do-You-Need-to-Learn-Hebrew-and-Greek-WT-11-01-09