A different perspective

by mrhhome 5 Replies latest jw friends

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  mrhhome

  Not much new to report on the JW front. Happily, I and my family have been able to avoid them for the most part. My ex-JW wife appears to be patching things up with her JW mother, and I am beginning to think that my non-JW father-in-law actually enjoyed watching me put his JW relations in their place. Not that he would say it.

  I confess that I have enjoyed the theist vs atheist debates. They have been thought provoking. Given my eclectic background, I have a rather non-tradition perspective on the subject.

  When I was first out of graduate school, I conducted a substantial amount of performance modeling with a team that was arguably the best in the country. On one project, I worked with a researcher who wanted to make sure that his component in the system was modeled correctly. As I dove into this legacy model, I discovered an ugly batchwork of curve fits based on empirical data loosely correlated to physical parameters that was possibly decades old with layer after layer of corrections built on top of it. Suddenly, I realized that I too was forced to add corrections on top of this. I had a model that worked and generally speaking accurately represented the system. If I rewrote everything from scratch, it would be an absolute bear to validate the new model and very likely screw everything up.

  I have encountered this several times through out my career. You have a model that accurate represents the system within its limits. If you push it to one extreme or another, it starts acting flaky; but then again, the mark of experience was knowing not to push the model to an extreme.

  My view of Christianity is similar. Let's face it. Most of the Bible was written over two millenia ago. Like these models, it may not be the highest fidelity. However generally speaking, it works well if you do not push it to an absurd extreme. The JW are a walking example of what happens when you push it to an absurd extreme. There is millenia of collective wisdom that accurately captures the complexities of humanity. When this collective wisdom is in action in society, it has its own unique aggragate behavior and can be considered an entity. I give this entity spiritual significance. Not because I believe in a God that exists outside nature, but because I believe that the collective wisdom only can be understood symbolically given its extremely complex nature.
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  Satanus

  Carl jung called it the collective unconscious. I call it the collective subconscious.

  Yes, christianity worked so poorly in the real world, that religion had to be separated from politics, schools, business, science. I find that paying attention to the collective subconscious is more practical.

  I think that we, you and me, see similar patterns emerging but we use different descriptors. I could be wrong, of course.

  S
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  mrhhome

  A few more perspectives:

  (1) There has been recent work on civil society. Generally speaking, the concept is that instituations like church and family mediate between extreme individualism and complete state control. They fill in the gap. With the demise of these institutions, we are seeing the rise of extreme individualism (anarchy) and extreme state control (tyranny).

  The church has been under constant attack in Western society. Yet no one has offered a better alternative. Despite the fact that science is worshiped as some sort of religion, it is not a moral code. It simply is a limited body of knowledge and a process of discovery. Both of which often become mangled in practice. Despite what anyone may say, Human secularism is just coffee shop philosophy that does not offer any meaningful answers.

  (2) The "I believe what I can measure" attitude puts severe limitations on our perception of "life, the universe, and everything." You need to be looking to find something. Atheist aren't looking.

  (3) Personally experiences / revelations do not lend themselves well to scienctific review. Quite often, they do not even lend themselves to articulation.
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  mrhhome

  Satanus. We agree on some fronts and disagree on others. I disagree that Christianity worked poorly. Quite the opposite, I think that it held society together.

  I will not deny that it can produce some questionable results when taken to the extreme. JW are an example, or for that matter, any power individual abusing it for their own benefit.
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  Satanus

  True, it held society together. It did stunt growth, generally - scientific, personal. Growing, moving forward in ones path seems to me to be the imperitive. Whatever encourages that growth is a good thing. Whatever hinders that growth is a bad thing.

  Thank you for your views. You have a wonderful ability to observe.

  S
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  mrhhome

  I agree that growing is a metric of "goodness." However, I object on two points.

  First, you cannot in modern society lump Christianity into one homogenius basket. At one extreme you have JW and fundamentalist. At the other, you have the Unitarian church. A full spectrum in between with various views on the Bible, science, and the value truths discovered through personal (non-scriptural) experiences.

  Second, Christianity like any system does some good and some bad. I believe that on the whole it does more good than bad.

  To continue with the physical analogies, I view it like a compressor. No compressor operates at 100% efficiency. Not all the energy goes into increasing the pressure. Some of it turns into wasted heat. Likewise, no faith is 100% efficient. It promotes some positive things and some negatives things.

  In the case of the JW, it is the gas turbine compressor in surge shooting flames out the front. Best just to keep your distance and stay safe.