Spirit(s)

by Narkissos 34 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Narkissos

  ql, thanks for the clarification, I didn't in fact gather that from your first post. I focused on the notion of "potential for transformation" as a possible way to "reinterpret and re-present 'spirit' and 'spirituality'" (assuming that the traditional religious notions were the ones being "reinterpreted" and "represented").

  Are you suggesting that instead of reinterpreting old religious tradition a modern "spirituality" should actually build a fresh self-understanding on the current scientific views of biology and anthropology?
• 

  quietlyleaving

  Nark

  ql, thanks for the clarification, I didn't in fact gather that from your first post. I focused on the notion of "potential for transformation" as a possible way to "reinterpret and re-present 'spirit' and 'spirituality'" (assuming that the traditional religious notions were the ones being "reinterpreted" and "represented").

  Are you suggesting that instead of reinterpreting old religious tradition a modern "spirituality" should actually build a fresh self-understanding on the current scientific views of biology and anthropology?

  I guess I'm coming from the angle that ancient religious thought regarding spirit was based on the observation of breathing and its power to keep one alive. And there is an element of breath and breather ruah/psyche in the religious notion (based on the words) while spirituality imo focuses on higher existance to which religion points humans (awareness of the potential for transformation).

  Science shows the chemical transformation that happens through combustion during breathing. So a fresh look at old words in the light of oberved facts can be just as inspiring as old notions that likely were based on observed facts. From our modern human standpoint, evolutionary- wise we are hoping to go on improving and transforming (although evolution may have other paths and we may not figure in them) - still we humans have always drawn inspiration from what we observe in ourselves and from the world around us.

  so I'm not saying instead of but that there is scope for continuing to reinterpret old religious tradition just as those old religious notions were an interpretation of life and living and the notions they developed then came to be seen as part of religious traditions.
• 

  Narkissos

  I like your explanation quietlyleaving.

  This is not meant to reflect your thinking, but your post "inspires" me the following: metaphors might indeed be "regenerated" (in a sense that implies both resurgence and difference; non-identical recurrence, as in Deleuze's interpretation of Nietzsche) within a sort of triangulation involving:

  1. "Tradition" and more generally the "inertia" of language -- structures massively inherited from the past (and as such, still haunted by the ghosts of dead metaphors) yet ever slowly changing;

  2. "Science" and the new paradigms which through education and popularisation necessarily affect our current representation of "reality" (against which we are bound to dismiss a "literal" understanding of traditional notions like "spirits" as "pre-scientific," "mythical" or "superstitious," in any case "unreal");

  3. "Self" and intersubjective communication as the "meeting place" for the experience and expression of sensations (of physical phenomena like breath or wind), emotions (like passion, anger, grief -- which were also once described as "spirits" -- or anxiety of death), reflection and creativity.
• 

  myelaine

  dear lovelylil...

  "We have all seen people under the influence of an evil spirit, take someone like Hitler for instance. Or any of your run of the mill child molestors or serial killers. We have also seen people influenced by a spirit of love and goodness, Jesus Christ for instance. Ghandhi, Martin Luther King, The Dahli Lama, Mother Teressa, etc.

  So again, for the most part a "spirit" is an unseen force that influences our mind and emotions and makes us act a certain way towards others.

  I think one mistake most Christians make and others is thinking a spirit means the person has a personal demon living inside them. Like the movie excorcist. Its been my personal experience (while I do believe in demon possession but that it is rare) is that most "spirits" are a force that influences the persons mind and thoughts, from outside their bodies. "

  I agree with you that most spirits influence from outside...which is why we have to look beyond good and evil as a gauge that determines acceptance of a "religious" belief...there are many really good people that are caught up in a spirit of error because it seems "good" to them....1 John 4:6.

  love michelle
• 

  Homerovah the Almighty

  I'm under the impression that the very word spirit or spirits was developed with the intension of speaking of the unknown and was supported by human ignorance

  of the world and perhaps the universe of which we live in.

  As man has progressively gained knowledge and understanding the notion of spirits gains redundancy in its meaning and purpose.

  I'm quite happy to say I'm glad to be living in this segment of human history rather than what was being put forth and accepted 2000 years ago,

  mankind's advancement is dependent on utilizing this given knowledge .

  You might say the spirits have disappeared and reality has now been revealed ........Amen !
• 

  Narkissos

  HtA

  To most of us the spirits have disappeared indeed, but has reality been anymore revealed?

  Imo, to the ordinary people who genuinely used it in their everyday life (I'm not referring to Western "believers" with a modern education who only play with it in church context), "spirit talk" was just as much a description of "reality" as our scientific (medical or psychological, for instance) taxonomy is to us. It stood for real phenomena (e.g. pathological symptoms) they actually had to deal with (that's one of the reasons why I said this issue is distinct, in principle, from "mythology" which is not as closely related to phenomena). I don't think the average 21st-century Westerner has a better personal grasp of "reality" just because s/he uses the word "epilepsy" instead of "evil spirit".

  I tend to think that every linguistical description of "reality" highlights some aspects of it and obscures others. There might be a trans-personal and dynamic aspect of reality which we have lost as "spirits" vanished from our "realistic talk," and sometimes resurges under other forms (e.g. the modern concept of "meme"). On the other hand, a lot of notions which we generally do not question (such as that of a "person," or "self" ruling the "body" from within, as it were) may ultimately be just as questionable from a "scientific" standpoint...
• 

  slimboyfat

  Narkissos,

  I tend to think that every linguistical description of "reality" highlights some aspects of it and obscures others.

  This assumes there is an underlying reality to which descriptions and conceptions can be more or less accurately fixed. Have you discovered a way language might assuredly be said correspond to what is?

  I can see how linguistical descriptions can obscure aspects asserted by other earlier linguistical descriptions. But to say that different linguistical descriptions inevitably obscure certain aspects of "reality" would seem to imply an alternative access than through language to reality by which to test the claim. I know of no such. Indeed how do we really know that any linguistical description truly highlights any aspect of reality at all so that we can compare the realistic merit of one against the other?

  Isn't all we have competing stories? Saying different linguistical descriptions obscure different aspects seems a political observation rather than an epistemological one. The relevant task would be to find out the agenda behind viewing certain aspects as "obscured". Indeed in the absence of any method for discovering whether an aspect of reality is truly obscured by a certain formulation, looking for the power play would appear to be the only fruitful task.

  Could you spell out what you feel is lost by the failure to perceive the activity of spirit(s) in the world? And what is the agenda for highlighting what is "obscured"?

  Slim
• 

  nvrgnbk

  I don't think the average 21st-century Westerner has a better personal grasp of "reality" just because s/he uses the word "epilepsy" instead of "evil spirit".

  Maybe just a little better?
• 

  quietlyleaving

  reality is shifty imo
• 

  lovelylil

  Narkissos,

  I guess I just assumed you were asking what is a "spirit" like in the biblical sense. Spirit can mean all sorts of things today such as breath, wind, a disembodied soul, the emotions of a person, a drink, etc. I guess the answer to your Q then as to what is a spirit, would be that depends on in what context are you asking? Lilly