by hamilcarr 50 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Are you quoting Nathaniel Merrit - or yourself perhaps? It sounds a bit New Age for me.
I see I forgot to add the author. No, it's a quote by the German writer Hermann Hesse. His point, I think, is that a traditional dualistic belief (JWs are a very good example) prevents humans from seeing the other half. Leaving Jehovah, therefore, means gaining a broader perspective instead of losing a focused one (unless you feel good with it).
Hesse? I liked Nacissus and Goldmund, but I never got on to other stuff.
Good and bad? It's all just labels and ways to divide up the world to make it make sense isn't it? It doesn't refer to real, objective distinctions out there in the world, just ones rhetorically useful for certain purposes. Which is fair enough for whenever you have a good reason for constructing such distinctions, but the world doesn't come ready-formed in good and bad packages. In fact it doesn't come in packages at all. We divide the world up into dicrete bits and give them distinct names, and fool ourselves into believing we found it that way.
So I might call myself post-dualist rather than anti-dualist.
To me the basic point is: you may just find someday that you have outgrown Jehovah, or any particular "god," or any particular notion of "God" you have long cherished. A subjective "event" to which no religion can prepare you, at least explicitly. Whether you consider this "event" nostalgically or tragically, in terms of "fall" or "paradise lost," or enthusiastically (!) as "freedom gained" or "fresh start into the world," the fact remains that it has happened.
Learning how to laugh is in order.
So I might call myself post-dualist rather than anti-dualist.
Excellent idea . Being a postdualist means 'going beyond' both dualism and anti-dualism. Similar to posttheism which goes beyond atheism and theism. Maybe it does describe our current situation rather well, despite your avid opposition to the overuse of the suffix -post. Maybe we agree that it's more difficult to leave JWs when you're a postdualist rather than when you become a anti-dualist.
you may just find someday that you have outgrown Jehovah
Definitely a point of no return.
Narkissos, sometimes I am not sure whether your wording is peculiar or I am just thick:
A subjective "event" to which no religion can prepare you
To me an event is something for which one prepares, not something to which one prepares.
I know you are exceptionally careful with your language, that is why I say. I am not nitpicking. (goodness knows my spelling and grammar leave a lot to be desired) I am wondering if it is an English/French issue or if there are nuances I am missing, which is often the case whenever I find something odd.
I sent you a PM about how to quote by the way.
despite your avid opposition to the overuse of the suffix -post.
"Post" is a prefix not a suffix - and that is nitpicking.
Yeah you and I have been arguing about words the past few days, but I get the feeling our outlook is basically quite similar, whatever "names" we want to call it; except you are more articulate than me.
Personally I did not outgrow Jehovah. It just happened that over a few days I began to doubt he was really there. I missed him but I couldn't invite him back. Everything changed.
slim: make it "for".
I finally found the "quote" style btw. Thank you anyway.
Maybe we agree that it's more difficult to leave JWs when you're a postdualist rather than when you become a anti-dualist.
Yes I agree. Or I would simply say, if this means the same thing, it is harder to leave the Witnesses if you don't have another belief system (any belief system from Christianity to militant atheism to Mormonism for that matter) with which to oppose it and replace it.
Mind you nothingness is perhaps a sort of belief system in itself. I sometimes wonder about that. But even if it is it seems to me to lack the necessity to demonstrate Witnesses wrong.
If Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong, they are no more wrong than everyone else in my view.
