I wonder what this feeling the saved ones get comes from? Sometimes it makes people better and sometimes it makes them kill other non-believers. God has caused more death and destruction than any other source so I wonder how he is so loving?
Ken P.
Accepting Destruction To Obtain Life
by choosing life 16 Replies latest jw friends
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quietlyleaving
Dear quitelyleaving,
Interesting thought. I think there is no question that the archetypical manifestation of God is (in part?) a coping mechanism. At least it has to be a mechanism for something, otherwise it wouldn't survive. The mind has undergrone evolution, just like the body (another one of Jung's insights). If this is so, there are all sorts of vestigial structures in the mind just as there are in the body (which makes it so difficult to get a clear picture of it).
Perhaps one of these vestigial structures was the concept of self/god (and soul as imago dei, immortal image of self/god) as coping mechanism for death (of self, and loved ones), constructed in a primitive line of reasoning like 'if they must die, then by my own hands!' Having a (projected) God above you at least gives certainty.
These conceptual frameworks are by their nature very risky, I'm just probing here.
Regards,
Deus Mauzzim
I'm not sure if we can dismiss those conceptual frameworks as vestigial just yet. Cos the concepts may have got them past futility and despair as they do today. I'm not agreeing with them - I'm just very impressed that they used their imagination to fuel their desire to continue living and progressing and not giving in to the futility of death and destruction in nature and in humans.
I'm seeing our projection of religious concepts as vestigal and primitive as our way of coping with our past in the same way that people in the past and today project their deep seated fears onto god. Does that make sense. We can't escape ourselves and our fragility - we have to face it.
But I'm straying from this thread topic.
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choosing life
Fifi40,
I think that the fear of our own death drives many things, including walking away from the death of others, if deemed necessary. But I think it takes a cult or at least a turning off of rational thought, to be willing to walk over the bodies of those closest to us in order to be "saved."
With the cults, I think fear of man may be even more important than fear of death.
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changeling
Absolutely. Human sarifice to appease the "gods", so others may live is barbaric.
changeling
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Mum
nelly: That "but for the grace of God" quotation was originated by one of the Wesley brothers (John and Charles, founders of the Methodist movement). The saying was intended to help Christians understand that those who were suffering physical, emotional, economic, or any other hardship were still equally God's children and to be accepted as they were because any day it could be you or me in the same condition.
Regards,
SandraC, ever in a deplorable condition
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Blueblades
Religion poisons everything.
Bluebladestake care
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choosing life
Hey Blueblades,
It is good to hear from you. I hope things are going well for you.
Sincerely, Choosing Life