Narkissos
JoinedTopics Started by Narkissos
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How is the Internet changing us?
by Narkissos inopen question: i really don't have any ready answer for that one.... my basic assumption is that mankind has always been different.
every period and situation of history can be construed as a "system" involving specific political, economical, social and technical conditions and a corresponding set of ideas, or beliefs, allowing for a certain type of self-, community- and world-understanding.
just to follow one particular line among many: .
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Subjective "truths"?
by Narkissos inthis is somehow related to my previous topic on "truth and freedom" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/159428/1.ashx) and to an even more recent exchange with hamilcarr on the issue of "authority" of scripture/writing, on the fringe of another thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/159703/2.ashx).. truth in the "objective" sense implies a strict and exclusive correspondence of language and fact (or, more modestly, perceived "phenomenon").
the kind of correspondence (whether provable or not, that is still another issue) which is sought in both "scientific" and "fundamentalistic" speech.
once the signifiants (words) and the signifies (phenomena) are accurately defined, an assertion can be qualified as either "true" or "false" (tertium non datur: there is no "third" option, according to the famous aristotelic principle).
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(How) Does Truth Set Free?
by Narkissos in"the truth shall set you free" (cf.
john 8:32) is the kind of sentence that potentially transcends any contextual setting.
as we know only too well, it has been used over and over again in religious propaganda and is very easy to return against it (i.e.
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Is "consciousness" overrated?
by Narkissos indisclaimer: this is the rambling of a french mind, where the single word conscience embraces what the english language distinguishes as "conscience," "consciousness," "awareness," and is closely related to connaissance, "knowledge".. to this french mind "consciousness" appears as a wonderful yet bittersweet product of reflection (the specular or "mirror" metaphor being central to it).
although it is objectively related to animal sentience, our view of consciousness, i think, is entirely dependent on the seminal technique (the "technique of techniques," as french theologian gabriel vahanian put it) of language / symbolism (the ability to point to "things" even though absent or non-existent) and imagination (representing "things" on our inner and cultural "mind map"), from which both memory and anticipation as we know it derive.
functionally it serves a practical purpose, which is precisely technique: through this way of dealing with "things" we can "change" them.
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On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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Christianity after Nietzsche.
by Narkissos inmost of us are familiar with, or at least have heard of, friedrich nietzsche's virulent criticism of christianity: according to nietzsche the belief in, and desire for, "another (higher or future) world" and "eternal life" betrays a hatred of this world and real life, of power and beauty, of the animal and the "body," a "slave morality" which essentially consists in "resentment" against everything real, powerful, beautiful, etc.
christian "spirituality" is shameful "nihilism," nihilism in disguise, the central emblem of which is the cross, understood as the very negation of life, with the "will of power" and the cruel beauty it is made of.
nietzsche lumps together christianity and anarchism as expressions of the same basic rejection of reality.
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We are fiction(s).
by Narkissos inthis is the truth.
hidden in plain sight.. know thyself.. we were made in the image of god after all.. not only fiction, but also fiction.
biology and fiction.. not basically a "bad" thing to repent from.
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Understanding.
by Narkissos ini was thinking that understanding -- in the sense of self-, community- or world-understanding -- might be the main stuff people are looking for, and willing to buy, in religion and philosophy.
even before hope, comfort, practical help or the sense of belonging.
a "vision" (in greek theoria) that "makes sense" of "reality" as it is perceived and construed.. it seems to me that such understanding (or intelligibility) has little to do with "truth".
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The "Historical Jesus" and Christian Faith
by Narkissos inin the wake of lovelylil's recent threads on the "historical jesus," a side question.. let's assume, for the sake of the discussion, that the four canonical gospels are not historical accounts of jesus' life, but a much later elaboration of christian faith in narrative form -- there are many reasons for such a proposal, but i'm not going into them right now -- let's just assume.. what do you think would be better or worse to find out in the historical field, from the perspective of christian faith:.
1. that there was no "historical jesus" at all, and that the gospels are essentially a religious myth made (hi)story, "the word made flesh" so to say;.
2. that there was a "historical jesus" completely different from the christian saviour -- for example, a galilean apocalyptic prophet and political zealot, trying to cleanse the nation and the temple from both the roman occupation and ritual disorders, with no interest at all in starting a new universal (i.e.
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Supernaturalism and reason.
by Narkissos inreading one more time (on the umpteenth thread about the 70 weeks of daniel, into which i'm not going again) the idea that "anti-supercalifragilnaturalistic bias" ruin the unbelievers' (or misbelievers') exegesis of bible texts, and readily admitting to such... bias, i have one very general and simple question which might be worth its own thread.. here it is:.
once you admit such thing as the "supernatural", .
on what grounds can you assess anything.