Is it a fact that there are no facts, or is that just your interpretation?
jwfacts or jwinterpretations?
by slimboyfat 118 Replies latest jw friends
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slimboyfat
That's one way you could put it.
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Comatose
Wow. I actually thought for a few weeks that SBF was serious and well intentioned with all the Nietzsche stuff. Thanks for revealing your true attention whoring colors.
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slimboyfat
Why should one exclude the other? Not that I agree with either.
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BackseatDevil
I am saddened for the person who is still attempting to garner some congruity of intellect after five years of trying to argue the same subject on the same website with the same mentality void of growth or (assuption here) growth.
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bohm
The quiet one: sbf subscribe to a version of relativism according to which there are no facts, for instance it is not a fact the earth is not flat. The argument is made by repeatably asking people to define their words.
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jwfacts
I know for a fact that you were being facetious, since you said "the fact that "there are no facts". Anyway, Nietzsche was wrong.
Nietzsche infers from the phenomenon of multiple interpretations that 'facts are ... what there is not, only interpretations.' ( The Will to Power , section 481). But this is a mistake. That there are alternate interpretations of reality does not entail that we cannot grasp the truth about the world, only that we cannot grasp all of the truth. That a building is a house of worship as well as an architectural monument does not entail that it is not an architectural monument – the religious and aesthetic 'perspectives' can both reveal a truth about the world. It is this simple mistake which Nietzsche builds – quite unnecessarily – into the doctrine of perspectivism that is really fateful, for in it lie the relativism and nihilism that make post-modernism, as it seems to me, such an intellectually and spiritually destitute phenomenon. (Julian Young, Schopenhauer , p. 227)
Multiple interpretations do not mean there are no facts. I present facts, present other people's interpretations, occasionally mention my own interpretation, all of which then allows the reader to determine their own interpretation. For that reason, some JWs do read the facts presented and remain JWs, and email to advise me so.
SBF - "But are there not other ways of looking at the situation? Such as from the point of view of the JW who is happy in his beliefs, and finds them agreeable in shaping his life?"
I agree with what you are stating, and regularly state " The Watchtower Society has benefited the lives of many people. " However, how happy will your JW be on finding out in 40 years that not everything they read in the Watchtower was accurate. It is only fair for that person to know other points of view, in order to come to informed consent on how to live their lives and whether to be a JW.
If the url was jw-facts-and-the-only-correct-interpretation.com, then you could legitimately argue against it, but you are reading too much into the simple tag jwfacts.com.
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joe134cd
Slimboyfat=I used to have such a high opinion of you, a I will confess you have turned out some high quality essays. Now it seems you have just let our self down with such a rediculous comment. Very dissopointing. I get the feeling with comments like that you have been reading to many watchtowers.
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iCeltic
How far can you take the fact/non fact theory? I had a shower today, or did I...
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cedars
This thread reminds me of this Harry Enfield sketch.... or does it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU38XMxUY_8
Cedars