Wisdom and folly

by Narkissos 22 Replies latest jw friends

ringo5

While you’re waiting for more ex-converts to post, I will share my thoughts, even though I was raised as a witness.
Perhaps for many people, the categorization of the world around them is an attraction. While I’m not familiar with all the examples you provided, it seems the common thread is a tendency for black and white thinking. This can create a comfort zone for people that includes:
1. An apparent goal or purpose in their life, structure
2. Decision-making guidelines for all aspects of life (or even decisions already made for you)
3. Community of like minded people for support
4. Easy way to identify threats to you and your family’s well being
Most likely, this would probably sound like wisdom to people whose lives felt crazy or folly to them, in a relative sense.
As regards your second question , it is interesting no one has thus far admitted to pursuing any kind of folly after giving up the “truth”, even though we know they are out there. I’ve tried looking for truth, and failing that, at least some reason in science. I am enjoying catching up on my missed education, but also trying to enjoy some folly on the side. i.e. bungee-jumping, paragliding, or more horizontal pleasures......
such as body surfing
Cheers, Ringo5
Edited to add,
I tended to consider as terribly shallow, long before I realised it was crap.
I enjoyed seeing you write a four letter word
Living by faith instead of rationally planning for the future.
I think this may have started me out, since I couldn't live by faith or rationally plan for the future, I became depressed and couldn't figure out why I was starting to feel "crazy".
They'd sooner leave for something crazier than for something more "sensible". Even if they are the minority it's still something to ponder.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what brand of crazy might appeal to this minority, anything that is less toxic? Would that approach work?
Frannie Banannie

(1) Do you think you were attracted to the JW teaching because "it seemed reasonable" (borrowing from a frequent and revealing WT phrase) or because it sounded (and ultimately was) crazy? (This question mostly addresses JW "converts" rather than "born-in")
(2) Since you left the "truth" (lol), have you been mostly pursuing some form of "reason" (which can include scientific knowledge, plain "common sense" or social "normalcy") or some form of "folly" (whether religious experience or personal fantasy/intuitions for instance)?
1. Neither. It seemed wonderful, even though I found some teachings questionable. It gave me hope for the future. I guess I needed that at the time.
2. I didn't leave the "truth," because the WTS doesn't have the truth and wouldn't recognize it if it jumped up and bit each one on the butt. However, I did discover the truth about them and religion as a whole (shameless plug for JWD>> and I have JWD and like-minded sites to thank for that) and I just pursue reasonability and common sense now....well.....when I'm not being silly (snicker/snort).
Frannie
Arthur

I was born and raised in the organization. I remained loyal due to my assurance that our beliefs were "rational". The Watchtower Society has an amazing ability to slice and dice one's reality into nice, neat, symmetrical categories of thought. They highlight the failures of human civilization, and therefore instill a cynical nihilism into the members thoughts. Every time I would turn on the news or read a newspaper, it confirmed what the "Faithful Slave" says. This world and it’s population is incorrigible; and therefore must be purged in order to usher in "our world".
This all makes sense and seems rational to someone who has been feeding on a steady diet of pseudo-Christian indoctrination that is based on sophistry and rhetoric. It all made sense to me for many years. (which is rather embarrassing to admit)
As far as my beliefs now, I definitely believe in God. However, I have radically changed my mind as far as evolution is concerned. I do not see why someone who believes in God must feel threatened by the evidence for evolution. Who am I to say that this was not the means in which divinity’s creation was unfurled?
As far as other spiritual beliefs are concerned, I still have deep respect for the teachings of Jesus Christ. I still consider myself a Christian in that I try my best to follow Jesus’ teachings, as well as living a good moral life. I still have many of the same moral feelings as JWs do. Personally, I just have not seen a good enough reason to discard many of my morals.
I enjoy reading and studying many spiritual subjects such as some of the Buddhist and Hindu teachings. I have done much reading into subjects such as karma, reincarnation, and the afterlife. I have not adopted any arbitrary belief systems from such studying, but I do try to keep and open mind and if nothing else; just try to enjoy the journey of new exploration.
Arthur

1. An apparent goal or purpose in their life, structure
2. Decision-making guidelines for all aspects of life (or even decisions already made for you)
3. Community of like minded people for support
4. Easy way to identify threats to you and your family’s well being
Yeah, I would like to add that Ringo5 very well articulated what I had tried to articulate. This is indeed the spell that I fell under. It was so much easier for me to allow others to sculpt my reality for me. For me, having to be responsible for formulating my own beliefs based upon ALL available information out there was too formidable of a task. I was unwilling to do it. My many years of intellectual laziness was just as destructive as my intellectual dishonesty.
Narkissos

jwfacts,
It seems to me the Watchtower shields a person from both the wisdom and the folly of religion, and has created a boring 19th century version of truth.
Excellent summary.
I remember how, just prior to the JC stage, the BoE of my last congregation blamed me for sounding both "too intellectual" and "too mystical" -- which was something of a formal contradiction, yet made much sense from the JW perspective.
why were you attracted to the folly of the NT in other Christian religions
I really don't know. As far as I can remember, as a little boy, I already used to question what others, children or adults, seemed to take for granted. Especially the relationship between words and things. And the social standards of "normalcy".
and where do you sit now?
As far as religion is concerned, nowhere. I went to church for some years, then dropped. I eventually dropped the notion of "God" too. But the sense of mystery remains.
ringo5,
it is interesting no one has thus far admitted to pursuing any kind of folly after giving up the “truth”, even though we know they are out there.
Good observation. I think it is the very nature of folly/insanity to go concealed, underground, or disguised (especially posturing as "wisdom"). Because it is socially repressed -- although it is necessary to society too, being perhaps the essential force for change. Behind any meaningful social change there is the subversive activity of people who sounded antisocial and crazy before they were saluted (generally posthumously) as heroes of social reform. And of course you can't even say that without sounding paranoid... lol.
I very rarely get positive feedback from religious folks when I try to point out the potentially "pathological" in religious belief, even though I mean it in a sympathetic and positive way. Dostoevsky painted his christlike character as an "idiot" (and an epileptic for good measure). Although this one "idiot" has gained literary respectability, I don't think many religious people are anymore inclined to see true "christs" or "prophets" in real-life "idiots"...
But I do think that "religious folly" can be expressed in non-religious ways (socially tolerated as "hobbies" etc.) as you and others mentioned.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what brand of crazy might appeal to this minority, anything that is less toxic? Would that approach work?
From my experience, reading the New Testament is the easiest start... but it is toxic. If it were not potentially harmful it wouldn't be helpful either -- every pharmakon is both a remedy and a poison. Folly and safety hardly go together.
Perhaps the true responsibility of religious leaders should be helping individuals to see what kind and what dose of "folly" is helpful to them -- but this is rare. Most actually behave as shameless or unconscious propagandists who assume, or pretend to, that their stuff is both harmless and helpful to all.
Thanks all for your replies. I still hope for some more.
Midget-Sasquatch

I'll chime in as one of those who grew up in the jws.
I agree that they stressed reasoning one's way to truths. For their less controversial doctrines, the structure of their argumentation, the layout of their lines of reasoning, weren't all that bad in form. When they simply couldn't defend their positions, is where we often saw the pleading, the twisting or streching of facts. But along with that surface "reasonableness", they only had people think that way on things up to a point, and with blatant suppression of damaging information. With faulty data and presuppositions one would think they're being rational, are acting that way as best they could, but still be completely off.
I have aways been uninclined in believing the supernatural, yet I have this unexplainable fascination with it. The way jws seem to demonize the ecstatic left me thinking that their way of interacting with God was rather distant. They talked a storm about drawing closer to Jehovah, always talking to him and praying, but it never really was a relationship I could feel. It seemed that others had this...I couldn't see it, and believe me I try to be open minded. I think that once a jw realizes there's no real relationship with the divine, only service to a company, they'll try to find experiential faiths. Mysticism intrigues me because it purportedly gives the kind of direct interaction I would love to have. But it appears that most of those experiences are owing to quirky neurochemical reactions, a sort of "insanity", with very prosaic causes.
Just call me cynical, but the WTS, IMHO, is adverse to any ecstatic element, or uncontrollable feelings of attachment to the divine for the very same reason that proto-orthodox christianity was against the montanists. They would lose their status as sole channel to God and then power would shift to the individual.
Narkissos

Hi MS,
Thank you for your input.
But it appears that most of those experiences are owing to quirky neurochemical reactions, a sort of "insanity", with very prosaic causes.
Short reply: so what?
Longer reply: I think the problem lies in the exclusivist approach to causality. In practice one "cause" doesn't rule out another. You can approach any "symptom" from a neurochemical angle and (sometimes) provide a chemical "solution". You can approach the same "symptom" from a symbolic angle (as psychonalysis and psychotherapy do) and it makes a lot of sense too, and (sometimes) opens other avenues for "cure". Fortunately many psychiatrists today (at least in Europe) tend to consider those approaches as complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Leaving aside the strictly "pathological" for a while: would understanding of the neurochimical processes of "love" prevent you from falling in love? Wouldn't that be a bit sad if it did?
This reminded me of the following passage in Dostoevsky's Idiot (chapter 21):
He remembered that during his epileptic fits, or rather immediately preceding them, he had always experienced a moment or two when his whole heart, and mind, and body seemed to wake up to vigour and light; when he became filled with joy and hope, and all his anxieties seemed to be swept away for ever; these moments were but presentiments, as it were, of the one final second (it was never more than a second) in which the fit came upon him. That second, of course, was inexpressible. When his attack was over, and the prince reflected on his symptoms, he used to say to himself: "These moments, short as they are, when I feel such extreme consciousness of myself, and consequently more of life than at other times, are due only to the disease--to the sudden rupture of normal conditions. Therefore they are not really a higher kind of life, but a lower." This reasoning, however, seemed to end in a paradox, and lead to the further consideration:--"What matter though it be only disease, an abnormal tension of the brain, if when I recall and analyze the moment, it seems to have been one of harmony and beauty in the highest degree--an instant of deepest sensation, overflowing with unbounded joy and rapture, ecstatic devotion, and completest life?" Vague though this sounds, it was perfectly comprehensible to Muishkin, though he knew that it was but a feeble expression of his sensations.

That there was, indeed, beauty and harmony in those abnormal moments, that they really contained the highest synthesis of life, he could not doubt, nor even admit the possibility of doubt. He felt that they were not analogous to the fantastic and unreal dreams due to intoxication by hashish, opium or wine. Of that he could judge, when the attack was over. These instants were characterized--to define it in a word--by an intense quickening of the sense of personality. Since, in the last conscious moment preceding the attack, he could say to himself, with full understanding of his words: "I would give my whole life for this one instant," then doubtless to him it really was worth a lifetime. For the rest, he thought the dialectical part of his argument of little worth; he saw only too clearly that the result of these ecstatic moments was stupefaction, mental darkness, idiocy. No argument was possible on that point. His conclusion, his estimate of the "moment," doubtless contained some error, yet the reality of the sensation troubled him. What's more unanswerable than a fact? And this fact had occurred. The prince had confessed unreservedly to himself that the feeling of intense beatitude in that crowded moment made the moment worth a lifetime. "I feel then," he said one day to Rogojin in Moscow, "I feel then as if I understood those amazing words--'There shall be no more time.'" And he added with a smile: "No doubt the epileptic Mahomet refers to that same moment when he says that he visited all the dwellings of Allah, in less time than was needed to empty his pitcher of water."
...
Just call me cynical, but the WTS, IMHO, is adverse to any ecstatic element, or uncontrollable feelings of attachment to the divine for the very same reason that proto-orthodox christianity was against the montanists. They would lose their status as sole channel to God and then power would shift to the individual
I fully agree, and I have seen that in more than one place personally (I remember a Calvinist theologian's warnings against "illuminism," for instance). And I think it was part of Paul's strategy in trying to substitute a rhetorical (hence logically controllable) dialectic of "folly (môria)" and "wisdom" to the uncontrollable ecstatic brand of inspired mania in Corinth...
Iow, private inspiration is only welcome in the institution as long as it confirms the official dogma. The WTS is happy to print any irrational experience that leads someone to "the truth" (e.g. I prayed and guess who called, or my eyes fell on this magazine in the dustbin). But any experience of that kind will be dismissed as satanic if it leads somebody "astray" from the "proper" belief or behaviour.
Narkissos

Shameless and unresigned bttt...
I'd really love to see other xJWs explain how they now deal, either as believers or unbelievers, with the "foolish" side of their past and/or present "faith".
I understand it is difficult because it has to do with our most vulnerable spots. It's so easier to look and sound reasonable in public. But I believe we have much more in common than "common sense".
Is society a crowd of lonely fools acting wise? Or am I the only one?
Please...
Twitch

While this topic clearly exceeds the JW/xJW sphere, I'd like to ask a couple of questions here:
(1) Do you think you were attracted to the JW teaching because "it seemed reasonable" (borrowing from a frequent and revealing WT phrase) or because it sounded (and ultimately was) crazy? (This question mostly addresses JW "converts" rather than "born-in")
(2) Since you left the "truth" (lol), have you been mostly pursuing some form of "reason" (which can include scientific knowledge, plain "common sense" or social "normalcy") or some form of "folly" (whether religious experience or personal fantasy/intuitions for instance)?
(1) does not apply; born & raised
(2) does
I'd have to say it's been a mix of the two. Always thought it took some experimentation to arrive at some sorta truth,.....:-)
Twitch

I'd really love to see other xJWs explain how they now deal, either as believers or unbelievers, with the "foolish" side of their past and/or present "faith".
I understand it is difficult because it has to do with our most vulnerable spots. It's so easier to look and sound reasonable in public. But I believe we have much more in common than "common sense".
Is society a crowd of lonely fools acting wise? Or am I the only one?
past is past. perhaps the best place to leave it, no?
what is "common sense" exactly? Seems relative somewhat. However, what is more common than "common sense"?
yes you are,....
:-)

Wisdom and folly

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