If you believe in nothing, then how do you know JW's are wrong?

by slimboyfat 70 Replies latest jw friends

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  slimboyfat

  hillary_step,

  The logic of your theory is flawed, as has been pointed out to you. I think you are attempting to bend conclusions to suit the theory that you have posited and that is why you have tangled yourself in your own words.

  Yes I do feel tangled in my words. As soon as I say them I doubt them. It is always like this. I shut up for long periods, and then nonsense just comes out.

  1) A religious 'narrative' as you describe it can be measured against the object of its foundation.

  I think that is indeed a useful approach, but it does still require a commitment to the idea that beliefs should be consistent. It is also inevitable that other bodies of knowledge and systems of thought need to be drawn upon during the evaluation. No evaluation, even of a "foundation" can be done in a vacuum.

  2) It does not require that a person hold to any religious belief in order for them to prove a flawed theology.

  No religious belief is necessary obviously, but that is not the same as saying no other belief system at all is required. My contention is that one belief system can only be combatted by adopting another for the task. Otherwise you might as well try to as well try to knock down a wall with a bathroom sponge in your hand. Further I suggest that we are all equipped with sledgehammers anyway, even those of us deluded into believing we have only sponges.

  The statement "x is false" is meaningless without some positive affirmation lurking in the background.

  I am not sure what has been going on between yourself and Narkissos but I understand completely and actually confirm with my own view his expression which suggests that he believes 'everything and nothing' - though taking a literalist approach to this statement, as you seem to have done, is actually missing its point.

  I am not sure what is going on either. His attack on me came totally out of the blue. I like the way it sounds, how you and Narkissos express yourselves, I just worry that the claim to believe in nothing is either meaningless or deceptive/delusional. What purpose does the claim serve?

  If you do not mind me observing, your posts often reflect the mind of a person who is desperately trying not to face the inevitable about the WTS and its teachings.

  Well I don't believe Jehovah's Witnesses have the truth in any shape or form at this point. I don't know how many ways I can say that same thing yet some seem to doubt I mean what I say.
• 

  Narkissos

  slim,

  I'm really sorry if you perceived my post as an "attack," especially "out of the blue". Rightly or wrongly, I sensed a certain aggressivity in your previous posts, so it was more as a "reply in kind". But if you are surprised I was wrong obviously, and I sincerely apologise.

  I'm glad, though, to simply state that I do not claim consistency of any sort, especially within a "sceptical" or "nihilistic" system. You may find me speaking or acting on tidbits of rationalist, Christian, Gnostic, mystical, Freudian, Marxist, anarchist or postmodernist script tidbits depending on the context. I don't even claim a right to that. I just "prove to be what I prove to be" -- like everyone else I suppose.
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  slimboyfat

  Narkissos,

  Next time you see a child about to cross a busy street, won't you move a finger or say a thing, for how could you know what is better?

  I really feel I am that child, and you are not helping me. I am sorry too. In real life I tend to argue most with those people I have affection for and respect for some reason. What's the point arguing with someone you don't care for and don't expect to learn from? The person I used to argue with most was my grandad. I am sad he is no longer around and I can't tell him he was right about the Witnesses after all. I will stop now before I get even sillier. You don't owe me an explanation. Sorry.
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  Terry

  No religious belief is necessary obviously, but that is not the same as saying no other belief system at all is required. My contention is that one belief system can only be combatted by adopting another for the task.

  I think I see what you are saying here. Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.

  You want something and it has to be at least as useful (more so would be better, of course) as the nothing you leave behind.

  For me, the philosophic foundation of OBJECTIVISM did the trick.

  I don't get caught up in the personality cult of Rand, personally. But, the logic of Ayn Rand's system of taking Aristotelian thinking and making it practically and consistently IN PLACE OF religion, made a lot of difference to me when I needed to get across a chasm.

  You might try PHILOSOPHY-WHO NEEDS IT?
• 

  Narkissos

  you are not helping me.

  Believe me or not I'm trying.

  Theoretical scepticism, however warranted, can easily develop into practical paralysis. Because quietism seems to be the only logical consequence. That's where a measure of intuition hopefully steps in, provided it is not repressed by the worry of consistency. Allowing yourself (and others!) some inconsistency is very liberating.

  I trapped myself several times (including, into the JWs) through the lure of consistency. Now I know there is some wisdom in the trivial "just do it".
• 

  RAF

  Whatever you believe or not when it's about Christianism :

  Christians (Christ disciples = students) only have one real task (working on themself) : to make sure that in whatever they do they really adhere to the main principle (= the only fondamentale law) love others as yourself. Therefore whatever they choose, have to be mainprincipleproof (.. O_O ... I mean like bulletproof) at least they have to want it - Roman 7 (not being hypocrites about their choices/reasons to do or not doing wathever. that's why 1 Cor 10 : 23-24 (there's no law against wathever) Galate 2:4-5 (there is only one principle for everything)
  
  So it is not a religion matter (not really related to God in a litteral sens but spiritual sens : God is love but not the love which means attachement to whatever but God as AGAPE means inconditional love witch actually means not conditionned by any Ego to be able to be objective on any matter weither we are concerned or not).

  So when it is said love other as yourself as your God to resume (what's actually your spriritual origine - the reason why you do exist = Love the AGAGE one witch actually means CHARITY Ephesian 4:6 that's what's God did sharing ITSELF)

  The god of someone is what he is really attached to, that's is what will lead all his actions and reactions. So regarding the JW doctrine ... IT DOESN'T MATCHCHRISTIANLY... (we know why and mainly because what you actually focus on as a JW is to be saved - of what that's an other question - but they are attached to THEIR lifenot to love (the AGAPE one).
• 

  Rapunzel

  Slim - I have to say that I find the notion of someone believing nothing to be absurd and logically untenable. If someone were to believe nothing, they would say: "Nothing is true." As Andre Comte-Sponville states in The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, "[The proposition that nothing is true] is logically untenable. If nothing is true, then it is not true that nothing is true; the phrase destroys itself without refuting itself (if nothing is true, then no refutation is possible).This is the defeat of reason. You can think nothing at all - or rather, you can think anything at all, which amounts to the same thing. Anything goes, but nothing is meaningful (in philosophy as in the sciences, thought can progress only by encountering impossibility, which is the proof of objectivity; even if there is no such thing as absolute truth, we need to be able to reject errors - that is, statements that cannot be true). Reality itself becomes ungraspable. [...] If nothing is true, no one is either innocent or guilty of anything, and we can formulate no reproach against negationists, liars, mass murderers, (since it is not true they are such), or ourselves."

  It might be best to consider Immanuel Kant's three degrees of belief and assent, as enunciated in his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant distinguished between:

  1.) opinion, which that it is both subjectively and objectively insufficient

  2.) faith, which is subjectively sufficient but not objectively sufficient

  3.) knowledge, which is both subjectively and objectively sufficient

  Everyone who thinks has an opinion in regard to almost everything; and many people have faith in many notions, ideas, concepts etc.
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  Deputy Dog

  Isn't there a saying that says something like: Those that believe in nothing, fall for everything.
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  Narkissos

  From the beginning of this thread I have been thinking of Vladimir Jankélévitch's notion of almost nothing -- Le je ne sais quoi et le presque rien ("The I-don't-know-what and the almost-nothing"); I don't know how it translates into English, but in French it was both light, deep and fun to read.
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  Rapunzel

  DD - I believe the expression is: "Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything." I take it to mean that people who have no scruples or principles will find themselves easily manipulated by other dishonest and insincere people.

  Narkissos - I haven't read the particular work that you cite, however I have read a little of the author. I read his ideas on irony. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for me to read the work that you mention.