Posts by Narkissos

24

My first post

by Agnes in

jw
friends

this is my first post and i just wanted to say hi.

i have been a long time lurker (confession time) and decided to finally take the big step.. not much to say for now, but i would like to say thanks for all of your sharing.

i've learned so much.. please read my profile for more information.. .

now that we're starting to read the bible at the beginning again.........i was wondering if this subject has ever been discussed.. the length of the creative days........used to be considered 7000 years in length.......stated rather dogmatically up until around the mid 1980's.

(aid book says this......insight book does not) of course....this is quite rediculous.......... more recent publications don't stress this .........just periods of time.......... yet there was never anything published to indicate how wrong this old view was.........done very gradually.......i think some still think the creative days were still 7000 years long.. if this topic has come up before.....maybe someone could post a link to it..

Narkissos

If I take Genesis 1--2:4 at face value (why shouldn't I?) I see no reason whatsoever to interpret the term "day" as meaning anything but a solar day (see the other uses of the same word in v. 5, 14, 16, 18). Of course Genesis 1 is an old priestly cosmogenetic tale (culminating with the institution of the sabbath day) and I don't expect to find in it a modern scientific explanation for the origin of the world. IMO the author(s) and editor(s) were not as naive about it as we (fundies, concordists or critics) sometimes are, since this tale is immediately followed by a very different etiological story (2:4--3).

46

What is more important to understand...

by Siddhashunyata in

jw
friends

moral principles, doctrine , prophecy , ourselves ?

Narkissos

Siddhashunyata,

I guess we're not so far apart however.

Christian mysticism is certainly toying with the idea of reversibility as you describe: getting back upstream of symbolisation, so to say. The Johannine concept of new birth, which may be related to the Synoptic logion about becoming little children (cf. Latin infans, lit. "speechless") may point in that direction.

For the sake of argument , if the process were reversible how would the individual express what he is experiencing? Fundamentally , he would not. He would only point the way to someone else and to them the experience itself would communicate "understanding".

I'll try to sum it up this way: our logical-symbolical quest for real is asymptotic. We (as speaking beings) are sitting by the well of Real, but what we can draw from it and drink and offer to others will always be symbolic -- although the others too are sitting by the same well.

19

I love you - do I?

by donkey in

jw
friends

rather than participate in the thread asking if people really loved jehovah i have a different question to ask but it requires a contextual setting prior to being considered.

many posters here at one time loved jehovah and we know our concept of jehovah was that which was created as a result of wt teachings - only to find out that the teachings had no factual basis.

we can also observe people all over the world who worship idols or nature or other gods such as allah or vishnu etc and we know that these people are in love with a god who is not true - if their beliefs about who god is are untrue then they are logically in love with a concept as opposed to a real person or spirit being.

Narkissos

Curiously the end of my previous post has disappeared:

I feel a sort of atheistic thrill in this Johannine theology, as well as in most deepest NT theology. It implies an idea of divinity (perhaps only to be understood metaphorically) which is much more than "someone", or "God" according to any common definition of this term.

About love, I really wonder. I think we are definitely related to one another: there is no subjectivity without intersubjectivity. However, what we usually call "love" is just one side of this relationship. Hate may be another one. Christianity promotes the expression of love and represses the expression of hate, which I do not find very healthy because it leads to much hypocrisy. If "love" could be understood as meaning the whole relationship, the future in the command "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" might be taken as a kind of prophetic, or wisdom statement: want it or not, you are related to every other person and this implies some "love" which may become apparent someday. There may be much complicity, understanding and even sympathy between functional enemies.

Just thinking.

19

I love you - do I?

by donkey in

jw
friends

rather than participate in the thread asking if people really loved jehovah i have a different question to ask but it requires a contextual setting prior to being considered.

many posters here at one time loved jehovah and we know our concept of jehovah was that which was created as a result of wt teachings - only to find out that the teachings had no factual basis.

we can also observe people all over the world who worship idols or nature or other gods such as allah or vishnu etc and we know that these people are in love with a god who is not true - if their beliefs about who god is are untrue then they are logically in love with a concept as opposed to a real person or spirit being.

Narkissos

Interestingly, the author of the famous motto "God is love" seems to feel somewhat uneasy with the idea of "loving God" (1John 4:7ff):

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. (...) God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

6

When and Why did they give Jesus the chop?

by PopeOfEruke in

i enjoyed the thread on the district conventions and how none of them have a theme that mentions jesus, and it got me bloody well thinking.......... imagine!

the king of the kingdom, can't even get a crappy district convention theme!!

how lame is that?

Narkissos

One obvious reason is the inner, sectarian, logic of the movement. The name "Jehovah" was seldom used, so it could (and did) become a label. The name "Jesus" was everywhere, with a rich imaginary content. It was more difficult to fashion a specific "WT Jesus" (even picturing him on a stake instead of a cross doesn't make it). The Jesus story has great emotional power and points to the common good of Christianity, instead of the WT specifics, so it is potentially threatening.

I still remember quoting 1 John 2:23 to the elders in the Judicial Committee hearing: "No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also." They had never noticed that verse.

40

Disassociated

by Euphemism in

jw
friends

i just found out that the elders announced meia's and my disassociation at the service meeting this week.

they'd called me on monday and told me that they were going to; i fired off an appeal letter the next day, and hadn't heard anything, so i thought they might have postopned the announcement.

i just found out, however, that the meeting was held on monday this week because the other congregation had the co's visit.

Narkissos

(((Dan & Meia)))

Thinking of you. It brings me back nearly 18 years ago. I was df'd, appealed and the appeal hearing turned out to be a real mockery. Thinking back, I think it was good to me, since it spared me losing more time and energy within when it had become meaningless. But on the moment it was quite painful.

Please keep us informed.

Take care,

Narkissos

46

What is more important to understand...

by Siddhashunyata in

jw
friends

moral principles, doctrine , prophecy , ourselves ?

Narkissos

Narkissos , before I disagree I want to be sure that I "understand" what you are saying. So if you will bear with me I will ask some questions. (1) Are you saying that language and self occur simultaneously ( symbolized by " I " )? (This would be the 3rd circle according to the scheme you submitted) (2) Are you saying that once that happens (above) it cannot be reversed and therefor the person is permanently "locked" into the morass of the 3 circles (Reality, Imagination, Symbolism) with language (Symbolism) as the only assuaging vehicle to approximate understanding Reality.

Wow, I finally found how to make a quote!

I think you perfectly got my point, so I'm afraid we really disagree (no problem though).

After I left the JWs, I was very much attracted to negative, or apophatic, theology, such as Meister Eckhart's in the Western world, and its many Eastern equivalents. But then I had to cope with the epistemological problems arising from such a view.

Our Western epistemology is tied in with the awareness of language: In the beginning was the Word. The Johannine prologue equates the Word (Greek logos, which something more and less than latin ratio) with light. As Jacques Derrida wrote, (Western) philosophy is always a photology, explaining what comes to light and leaving darkness in the dark. Admittedly, the logos cannot explain everything, but everything we can grasp as speaking subjects is within the sphere of logos. Knowing this built-in limitation of our understanding is the greatness and weakness of Western thought, which makes us very suspicious of every discourse (!) about the "unspeakable". I accept this inheritance which is a part of myself, although trying to keep an open eye on other traditions.

Hope this sheds some light (!!) upon the corner where I'm speaking from.

16

Bethel is Cannanite god

by peacefulpete in

the choice to name the headquarters "bethel" is a reflection of the shallow scholarship that plagues the religion as a whole.

while insisting the name choice is because of the story of jacob resting his head on a sacred stone and having visions of a "ladder" (ziggurat) and thereafter piling stones for el (cannanite chief deity) to reside in, hence the name "bet-el", it seemed they were unaware that the same word "bethel" is the name of a deity possibly equated with chemosh.

of all the names to call the wt headquarters they chose a pagan deity's name.

Narkissos

El, "father of the gods", is the supreme god of the Canaanite pantheon; which is not quite the same as "God" with capital (meaning "the one and only God"). Think of the Greek Zeus, whose name is also etymologically related to the generic idea of "god", or "divinity", but nonetheless is the proper name of one (supreme) god among others.

There is no evidence for monotheistic belief in Israel before the 6th century BC. Most of the Bible "historical" texts reconstruct history from the standpoint of the new, postexilic, monotheistic belief ("Yhwh = God"), still the old polytheistic views ("Yhwh = one god among others") show at many places.

46

What is more important to understand...

by Siddhashunyata in

jw
friends

moral principles, doctrine , prophecy , ourselves ?

Narkissos

What am I?

1) I am a sensitive body in a constant flow of immediate sensations (Real).

2) I am "me", a tiny spot in the world or universe as represented in my mind's map (Imaginary).

3) I am the first grammatical person (subject) in the structure of language (Symbolic). Without speaking in first person, I wouldn't know (1) nor figure out (2).

Wo es war, soll ICH werden (Freud).

As soon as such thing as a symbolical order appears (involving meaning), there's no escape out of it. Silence is not anymore an alternative to language, but a part of it (we even have a word for it). Mysticism explores one limit of language, but it is not beyond language. What I can't say I can't experience either. Or tell me I can without using words...