Posts by DeusMauzzim

60

To ex-JW's who became real "Christians"

by startingover in

i have a question.. what is your belief now regarding hell?

a place of torment?

the grave?

DeusMauzzim

I will answer your question with literature but it is seriously what I believe: FAUSTUS. And what are you that live with Lucifer? MEPHIST. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer, Conspir'd against our God with Lucifer, And are for ever damn'd with Lucifer. FAUSTUS. Where are you damn'd? MEPHIST. In hell. FAUSTUS. How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell? MEPHIST. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: Think'st thou that I, that saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells, In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!

8

The tyranny of the proposition

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

[hi all, a few days free and wanted to check back.

moved out of the parents' house to live closer to university, now living in a nice appartment, preparing for a master in philosophy, lots of fun and study etc :).

for those who still remember me, please tell me how you're doing!

DeusMauzzim

Haha thanks for linking that :D

8

The tyranny of the proposition

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

[hi all, a few days free and wanted to check back.

moved out of the parents' house to live closer to university, now living in a nice appartment, preparing for a master in philosophy, lots of fun and study etc :).

for those who still remember me, please tell me how you're doing!

DeusMauzzim

Ok Mozilla is unable to format correctly and IE crashes on this comp, so I'll use dots instead :)................................. I meant top first of course, thanks for clearing that up..................I agree the problem is fundamentally one of language, which is like you said our principal cognitive/technical tool, so better to turn to that before the problem of propositions......... Language is a special tool indeed, because we cannot put it down, we live in it and it structures our world........ language provides one with an ontology from the start, the limits of the word (logos) are also the limits of discursive thinking (inter-legere)............................ You don't want to know how many hours I spent thinking about language, but here's what I've come up with until now.................... the principal differe/ance that language makes is that there suddenly are things AND words for things......... (I'm thinking right to the dawn of speech, even before distinctions like verbs, substantives etc).......... So how is this distinction made? What is the essence of naming? Various things are *taken together* (sunthesis) under one name........... the name therefore draws a definition (finis) or horizon (horismos) around various things, grounding them in reality, giving them substance, for the name is that what stands under (sub-stare) the various things.... by the process of naming the fleeting things become stable, because the name is always at hand and can be invoked at will................... So language grounds the world (wer-ald, the age of men), giving it its contours....... A name is always a universale, taking together some particularia of reality.... By this we can now understand how Plato got to his distinction (krisis) of essential being (idea) and existential becoming...... Plato just gave a real ontological status to the names, he hypostatized (hypostasis = substantia) them into a world of eternal ideas................. This has been the error of all metaphysics since then: hypostatizing universalia into real, existing things (which is onto-theology)................ Philosophy since Socrates/Plato has always asked about the *definition* of a name: what is beauty? what is friendship? What is the good? What is being? What is science? So philosophy really deals with the limits or horizons of our thinking, because it deals with the definitions/horizons of the words with which we think...................... The point of all this is that I suspect the horizons of words break up because of science, which is *practical* knowledge, linked to technology, control and ultimately survival, as Heidegger has shown.............. for example, in ancient philosophy man was defined as *animal rationale* or *zoon logon echoon*, then fast-forwarding some millenia this shrunk back to Descartes' *res cogitans* under influence of the scientific revolution, and finally in Darwinism the whole idea of rationality as belonging exclusively to man was destroyed...... (trees and flies are rational as well, they are rationally built machines used by their genes to replicate, just like man)................ but if in Darwinism the whole notion of a stable essence or *idea* (which was the hypostatized, metaphyiscal name being really 'out there') was destroyed, there is not much left for philosophy to do, now is there? :)........................................... Now picking up your notion of ambiguity of "lies", which I did not intend........ this is really the point of the linguistic turn, that far more than we using language as a tool language uses *us* - there is always an excess of meaning, for we cannot control the words (and now I move from Heidegger to Derrida)....... Does an opportunity for real philosophy *lie* here, or does it *lie*? Does not science, on the contrary, try to *disabiguate* as far as possible (mathematics being the best example, where we reach perfection through defining our own universe)?..........................Lol mind-boggling, Regards - DM

8

The tyranny of the proposition

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

[hi all, a few days free and wanted to check back.

moved out of the parents' house to live closer to university, now living in a nice appartment, preparing for a master in philosophy, lots of fun and study etc :).

for those who still remember me, please tell me how you're doing!

DeusMauzzim

Thanks Narkissos! Nice to talk to you again as well! :D

8

The tyranny of the proposition

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

[hi all, a few days free and wanted to check back.

moved out of the parents' house to live closer to university, now living in a nice appartment, preparing for a master in philosophy, lots of fun and study etc :).

for those who still remember me, please tell me how you're doing!

DeusMauzzim

[Hi all, a few days free and wanted to check back. Everything is ok here! Moved out of the parents' house to live closer to university, now living in a nice appartment, preparing for a master in philosophy, lots of fun and study etc :). For those who still remember me, please tell me how you're doing!] For your amusement, I'm also having a little philosophical problem here. I know what to do with a proposition like "the earh is round" - Kant would say it is synthetic a posteriori. I simply think of an experiment that could falsify the proposition (Popper). For example, on a round earth a ship should become larger when it is approaching me while I am standing on the shore. If this indeed happens, the proposition is not falsified and remains standing. This is the basic structure of science: bold conjectures and refutations (it is incidentally also the basic structure of evolution) I can also think of philosophical statements which I very much suspect to be true, yet cannot be falsified in the way described above. Examples - The philosophical implication of Darwinism is the destruction of the Platonic idea or stable essence of things (for now species are changeable in themselves, i.e we can talk about an "origin" of species) - In Darwinism, the four causes of Aristotle are reduced to the material cause (i.e there is no teleological, formal or efficient cause needed to explain origin and evolution of species) - At the heart of science (somehow) "lies" the concept of control through technology - At the heart of all replicating entities (organisms, organisations, nations, the Junta) "lies" the avoidance of death. This is somehow related to authenticity as autos hentes 'being oneself'. As a concrete example, the Watchtower is constantly trying to sur-vive (Lat sur-vivere), thereby inauthentically denying what it really is: a radically finite entity. - Fear is always fear of something, while Angst somehow has to do with non-being (Heidegger). IF we concede that real a priori propositions do not exist (Quine) and a posteriori propositions can be addressed by science through falsification, what domain is left for Philosophy? How can the above examples be verified/falsified? Kind Regards, Deus Mauzzim P.S CAN SOMEONE PLEASE FORMAT THIS? :S LOL

14

Ex 32 - The Golden Calf: sources, intertexts, ideology

by DeusMauzzim in

first of all: the feeling i have while typing this, the feeling of coming 'home' to jwd after months of study, bears witness to the greatness of this board.

and you are the board, my friends!

and i brought something back from my journey:.

DeusMauzzim

Hmm.. I read an article (Hayes, "Golden Calf Stories: The Relationship of Exodus 32 and Deuteronomy 9-10", 2004) which makes the following plausible:

Ex 32 as a unity of original J material, Levite-good-guys, 'these are your gods' and all

Deut 9,10 as D mining Ex 32 for 'what the Israelites did wrong' in an argumentative context

1 Kings 12 as using Ex 32 and Deut 9,10 for lampooning Jerobeam by putting Aaron's words in his mouth

This is getting tricky...

- Deus Mauzzim

P.S Thanks Leoleia, very interesting to read, esp. the growing-up allegory... I did some research on bovine imagery in the bible in connection with my Ugaritic studies but I'm not that acquainted with Akkadian and Sumerian material as I do not read those languages (yet:). Still there is the connection Asherah / Atirat (the consort of El in Ugarit). Seems like YHWH, as a son of El, was the first Oedipus, and Adam imitated him :)

1

USSR - WT organizational similarities

by TheOldHippie in

two organizational similarities between the former soviet union (ussr) and the wt:.

up until the organizational changes that took place a few years ago (directors resigning), there was no us branch.

the ussr cp also covered the area of the russian republic.

DeusMauzzim

You might be interested in reading Hannah Arendt - The origins of totalitarianism - part III.

I'm sure you will find many more very interesting parallels in there.

Kind Regards,

Deus Mauzzim

14

Ex 32 - The Golden Calf: sources, intertexts, ideology

by DeusMauzzim in

first of all: the feeling i have while typing this, the feeling of coming 'home' to jwd after months of study, bears witness to the greatness of this board.

and you are the board, my friends!

and i brought something back from my journey:.

DeusMauzzim

Good morning! Thanks for the reactions and good to see/hear you all again (and there we go with the word-image problem :).

@AlphaOmega:

Contrary to how some read this passage, I see it that the Golden Calf was crafted to represent God, not to replace him :

I agree, and this has been pointed out by several scholars (eg Brichto, "The Worship of the Golden Calf: A Literary Analysis of a Fable on Idolatry"; Adams, "Idolatry and the Invisibility of God"). Aaron explicitly identifies the calf with YHWH and announces a festival for Him (32:4,5). This is not a violation of the first commandment, dealing with "other gods", but of the second, dealing with "idols". I read this second commandment as especially forbidding idol-representations of YHWH himself, because everything having to do with "other gods" is already covered in the first commandment. So I share your conclusion that the problem lies in the representation of YHWH.

@Narkissos

The illogical pl. 'elleh' (in Neh 9:18 replaced by m.sg. 'zeh') and the whole 'plurality' of the single calf that you pointed out (cf LXX and Vg) seems to me a Levite attempt to discredit Jerobeam by putting his words in 1Kings 12:28 "Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." into Aaron's mouth. the ideological functioning of the story would then be the Levites explaining why they alone have the right to the priesthood (which Jerobeam denied cf 1Kings 12:31 and 2Chron 13:9)

@Narkissos and Leoleia

I agree that chiastic structures are dangerous hermeneutic tools. However, this particular analysis by Hendrix (linked in previous post) is solidly grounded in the text itself. The intercessions by Moses and the wayedabber / wayyomer structures clearly form some kind of parallelism, and the heart of the text (Hendrix: 32:26a, I would say 32:26 as a whole):

'So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.

would perfectly fit the ideological function I described above. Of course this is not to deny the various sources and redactions in the text, only that the Levite-sided redactor made a chiastic pattern out of the whole, like Leoleia pointed out. Commentary and criticism on this specific point would be more than welcome because I thought of using Hendrix' analysis in the paper I'm writing on the subject.

Which brings us to the problem: What was the Redaktionsgeschichte of this particular text? I will be reading an article on that today so I hope we can discuss this later!

- Deus Mauzzim

P.S Leoleia

BTW, I am interested in ideological criticism too, having indulged a little of it in the past (such as my suggestion that there is an anti-Asherah polemic in the Yahwist Eden narrative).

That's interesting! I will definitely look this up!

14

Ex 32 - The Golden Calf: sources, intertexts, ideology

by DeusMauzzim in

first of all: the feeling i have while typing this, the feeling of coming 'home' to jwd after months of study, bears witness to the greatness of this board.

and you are the board, my friends!

and i brought something back from my journey:.

DeusMauzzim

First of all: The feeling I have while typing this, the feeling of coming 'home' to JWD after months of study, bears witness to the greatness of this board. And you are the board, my friends! I'm glad to be back, even if it is only for a while!

And I brought something back from my journey:

My explorations have now taken me to Ex 32-33:6 - The story of the golden calf. I'm doing research on the tension between word and image within the text: YHWH's word vs Israel's idolatry. The goal is a deeper insight in the nature of idolatry (or: 'what's all the fuzz with YHWH and His problem with graven images?')

[difficult and probably boring part]

The abstract theoretical framework is that of W.J.T Mitchell's Word and Image (R. Nelson & R. Shiff (red.), Critical Terms for Art History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Mitchell conceptualizes the pair word-image not as an analytic category, but rather as a "dialectical trope", a relay through which power relations in texts are constantly shifting, giving rise to specific instances of "word" and "image" - like characters in a drama, joining and seperating in an endless dance of ideology and interests.

[/difficult and probably boring part]

That's the theory, in the practice of Ex 32:33-6 I'm interested in:

- Diachronic: Intertextual links and redaction history of the text (Ex 32-34, Dt 9-10, 1Kings 12, the Ugaritic parallels of ritual god-killing with the destruction of the calf)

- Synchronic: The text as a literary whole, the chiastic structure of the text (http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/02-Exodus/Text/Articles/Hendrix-Ex33Calf-AUSS.pdf)

- Ideological criticism: The golden calf story as a Levite protest against Jerobeams calf worship and non-Levite priesthood.

- All of the above: The ways 'word' and 'image' are transformed into players in a power struggle (eg YHWH can be heard, not seen cf Moses' request after the drama)

If any of this strikes a bell with you bible scholars.. I would love to discuss!

- Deus Mauzzim

(of the glad-to-be-back-and-hopes-on-discussion-class )

18

"hacking" the wt lib and results

by DeusMauzzim in

i just remembered i found a way to map the citation of bible chapters in the watchtower library (representing 30 years of wt literature).

the results are quite interesting.. higher number means more citations of that chapter in the wt literature of the last 30 years.

as you can see there are a few favorites .

DeusMauzzim

Lol seems this thread was resurrected..

Welcome to the board BiteMe! Glad we could help you with your question!

I have not been able to narrow the graph to individual verses because, for example, if you search for [Mat 24:14], the wt lib also lists citations like [Mat 23:6 - Mat 24:18]

Still this might give an impression.. When this thread was new someone made the very interesting observation that the top-5 chapters all have to with legitimizing and consolidating the power of the governing body.

Enjoy your time here!

- Deus Mauzzim