Holy Spirit

In our last class discussion, we began talking about what or who the Holy Spirit is in the Bible. I think we came to the conclusion that it is an extension of God, most often present when God speaks to his followers. We agreed that the Holy Spirit is a vessel, a voice, a presentation of God that exists between the infinite and finite worlds of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Man.

I did a quick Google search just to see if we were correct or close to what Christians believe it to be. A couple websites that I read, though I can't speak on their credibility, all seemed to agree on some basic principles of what the Holy Spirit is. Like God, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, omni-powerful and eternal. More importantly, they all state that it is a living person -- a man, because of the same use of "he" and "him" that is used to describe God -- and that he has a will. One source says that he is not the ethereal and shapeless presence that is attributed to the word "spirit". He has a form, and serves the purpose of bearing witness to Jesus Christ. Apparently, he resides in Christ's followers once they believe in him, and also wills those who don't believe to convert.

It's strange to imagine a third divine being walking around and working in the same ways that Jesus and God do. We see very little of the Holy Spirit performing real actions in the Bible, and instead read about him only in reference by other characters. For those who believe in the Trinity or have been taught anything about it, is what I read true or widely believed/accepted? And does this new understanding of the Holy Spirit change your perspective of the New Testament?

 If anyone wants to read the websites that I looked at, they're posted here:

http://www.everystudent.com/forum/hspirit.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Spirit
http://carm.org/holy-spirit

The Old and New Testament

Wendell Pfeffer

Blog Post – Nov 25^th

“Okay so what are the similarities and differences between Jesus and gods demonstration of power” (Presentation, Wendell Pfeffer)? We somewhat addressed this topic in class, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to get to it. The similarities are that both god and Jesus show off their power in order to acquire more and more followers. In the case of the Old Testament when Moses demands the pharaohs release of the Israelites he declines and thus in order to change his mind goes and demonstrates the strength and severity of his power on the Pharaohs land. In the process of doing so he hardens the pharaohs mind or heart so that he would continue to decline. The reason God did this was because he wanted to show everyone what he was made of. In the case of Jesus in the New Testament, when people questioned his authority he would just go and cure people from their illness and hope that the person watching them would be convinced and start following him. In other words, the similarity between both God and Jesus was that they both used and demonstrated their power in order to acquire and maintain their supremacy. Meanwhile, the differences between them was that god used fear as his primary element while Jesus used his kindness and generosity in order to inspire those to follow him.

Everyone what are your thoughts on this matter?

Death

I think its interesting that there are so many accounts of killing in the Bible. One of the excerpts we read talks about how a king some of the followers of Jesus because it was blasphemous against the Jewish tradition. This makes the king seem very devoted, but is he really? One of the ten commandments instructs the Jews not to kill, that it is a sin. It seems hypocritical and paradoxically that they are considered more devout for doing some specifically forbidden. Any thoughts?

Unfinished discussion on the Republic

Going back to the Republic of Plato, there are some things I wanted to cover in my presentation and didn’t have the chance to.

One of my slides was about laws. Plato argues that it is unnecessary to establish a large number of precepts and laws. Honest people will follow the precepts necessary to the practice of justice. It is arguable that in Ancient Greece, some laws without necessarily being established demanded that the virtuous men followed them. By studying the war ethos in the Peloponnesian war, we have established key characteristics of their personal ethos. Principled men had expectations to live up to and wouldn’t violate these unspoken precepts. Although one can argue that normal citizens could let their desire and needs interfere with their principles and their functions in society. We had a very interesting discussion in class about the need to have established laws for that reason. However, do you think that in the “ideal city” of Plato there could have been no formerly established laws and precepts?

On another side, I wanted to discuss this quote  “It is obvious that the elder must govern, and the younger be governed.” in Book 3, Section 412c. When I read this quote, it made me think of the citizens’ legacy and the legal and ethical codes, also mentioned in The Old Testament, The Peloponnesian War and Confucius' Analects. Filial piety is a virtue that we come to find again and again in different civilizations. In the Bible, important people are mentioned thanks to their relation as “the son of”, “the father of”. In the Peloponnesian War, citizens have to live up to the expectations of their ancestors. Finally, the Analects relates the respect and allegiance of the parents to the states’.

An apology to Aaron and to "philosophy"

I feel like I owe something of an apology to Aaron for his attempt to begin a conversation about the purpose of the Gospels, but I should warn you Aaron that philosophers have a sad knack for promising apologies that are not really apologies.

My form of apology will articulate what I take to be one of the presuppositions of the Social Foundations series of courses.  Namely, how is Social Foundations distinct from Cultural Foundations?  Well, as all of you know, it is not necessarily distinct by text, since many of you are reading some of the same texts in both courses.  Instead, the SF series are distinguished by the ways that they read these texts, and that is as texts containing intellectual content, and being addressed in terms of their content, rather than primarily in terms of their form.

That is to say, that I presume (having not had the opportunity to teach CF) that one of the goals of CF is to address the great cultural works as artistic works, which means at least in considerable part, as works of tremendous (and historically significant) formal refinement and sophistication.

This is one of the perennial difficulties of the intellectual sort, that when we tend towards the philosophical, we aim at addressing content, frequently abstracted from formal trappings.

In this respect, I think that Aaron is thus quite right in provoking us to do that, particularly as this is an SF course.

My objection comes from a series of intellectual intuitions that I have developed over my fascinating career as an intellectual (and particularly as a result of my formation as a philosopher with a background in literature and an orientation towards the historicity of knowledge).  On these lines, I have generally rejected the conceptual distinction between CF and SF insofar as they imply methodological commitments (not insofar as they imply pedagogical or curricular commitments).  That is, I reject the idea that content and form may be abstracted from one another.

I'm a good Hegelian as such.

Clear?

Why Mary?

I found our discussion about Mary pretty intriguing during class today. I have often pondered the question why God chose Mary, out of all the women we never hear about in the Bible, to be the mother of the Son of God. We hear in Luke 1:28 that Mary is "highly favored", meaning that God has given her his graces. However, other than that small snippet, we do not have much more information on Mary's background.
There is of course the precept that God chose Mary to be Jesus' mother from the moment of her birth. Some Christians believe in this 'Immaculate Conception', which is that Mary was herself conceived without sin. From this belief, we could therefore assume that since Mary was pure and never sinned, she would be a good candidate for the mother figure of Jesus.
Another belief is that God chose Mary in order to "depose the mighty and raise the lowly" (Luke 1:51). This notion infers that God wanted Jesus to come from a poor family, rather than a high class, and therefore chose a woman of lowly status. This could also be why Jesus was said to be born in a manger.
There is of course also the belief that God chose Mary because she was righteous in her faith, just like many of the prophets God found favor with in the Old Testament.
What are some of your thoughts on this subject?
-Ali Swoish

Historical context and authority

Yesterday, we ended class with a discussion of Romans 13, in which we saw that Paul commanded that everyone should subject themselves to the authority of the civil government that rules over them. We had a problem reconciling this with the fact that not every authority is a just one, and the Roman government certainly would not be concerned with the word of the Christian God at this time. Therefore, it does not seem logical for him to say that everyone should follow the authority of their government because it may not be in line with the authority of God. However, Paul states that all of these earthly authorities come directly from God.

It is important to remember the context of the times during which this was written. Although the Bible is supposed to be a divinely inspired book, it was written by actual people who had to endure many different situations. For example, the first creation story of the book of Genesis has man and woman created at the same time. This is because this version of the story was written during the Babylonian Exile, during which it was critical that the Hebrew population remain as united as possible. Because of this, it did not make sense for them to write a creation story in which man and woman were seen as unequal at the time. Instead, the difference in the authority of the genders was put aside in order to focus on the more important point that the Hebrews were all God's chosen people.

In the same way, Paul had to be concise of how the Roman government would perceive his writings. During the period which Paul was writing, the Jews were on shaky ground with the Romans, and he did not need the same happening for the followers of Christ. The introduction to Romans explains that Paul was concerned with civic unrest in the Roman empire backfiring on them (1975). By this logic, it would make sense that Paul would write his letter instructing people to fall in line with the Roman empire, in order to prevent any kind of problem with them.

Romans 13 and the divine right to rule

I was just reading our assignment for Thursday and I thought it was really interesting that one of the sections we have to read, Romans 13, talks about how it is necessary follow the human laws of local rulers on top of those of God. The reasoning they give is that everything is created by God and therefore the local ruler's laws are not just another human's laws, but they are passed down by God and these leaders are God's servants. This shows the basis for the idea of the divine right to rule and can be referred back to for justification of it. This was a very important concept that existed in many kingdoms and was the entire basis for the ruling government in these kingdoms for hundreds of years, demonstrating how powerful the Bible has been in our history. It defined and changed the course of history and is why the word is the way it is today. I think one of the most interesting things about reading the Bible, because it has had to much influence in action and tradition throughout history, is being able to see these references and understand why our history is the way it is and why people did what they did, and the Bible is often the backbone to that. Any other example of a majorly influential idea that has its basis on a Bible passage we read?

Is justice natural?

Today there was a lot of debate about whether or not justice is natural in human beings. I think its really important to first define what natural means, and to realize that it may not have a direct association to what we think is "good". Natural, to me, signifies something that occurs in nature, without human reason. Things that are almost animalistic, like killing another creature without remorse or taking what one needs without a thought of whether it is "just", is what seems natural.

However when things like these are performed among humans, they are thought of as injustices. Someone brought up the fact that many people would indulge in unjust acts if the laws controlling them were taken away; i.e. murder, theft, violence, etc. This inclination to do unjust things seems somewhat natural, but in this case natural does not have a good meaning. And in this case of lawlessness, many more people would revert to the ways of justice. Though not because justice is natural to humans, but because justice is the response to injustice.

In Plato's Republic, Socrates discusses who is fit for ruling at the end of Book V and continues it on into Book VI. Tuesday we touched upon whether this society could actually exist or could it only remain abstract. In 458 a and b, Socrates says that he wants to think of it all hypothetically before he can assert whether it all could actually possible. Later, he talks about how philosophers are the only ones fit to rule. Socrates places philosophers in charge for their ability attain knowledge without bias. I also felt as if he placed philosophers as rulers since this is his ideal society and he would like himself to be part of the highest social ranking. I want to know the perspective have on this. Do you think it is "just" for him to assert that those who are not philosophers are not fit to rule? Do you think Socrates would be fit to rule himself?

The Role of Women

Yesterday we discussed the role of women according to The Republic and whether women were considered inferior or not.  Men are definitely seen as more fit to be guardians for the fact that they are initially and women are brought up secondary to them.  However, Plato does have progressive thoughts on women in society, and his philosophy suggests that women can be more than child bearers, and can even be guardians.  While the sex festivals did seem in favor of men, there is an explanation other than sexism.  This has to do with the man and woman's differing roles in reproduction.  The man spreads his seed that may or may not create a child and the woman can only get pregnant with one man's baby.  I do not mean to give a sex ed lesson but while reading this is what I thought.  Yes this society has a bias towards men, but it is regarding the nature of reproduction.  Women are still considered guardian material however their roles as child bearers and mothers are inevitable and may interfere with their other roles in society or vice versa.  Any ideas on women in The Republic?

Self and City

At the end of yesterday's class we briefly discussed the idea of group suffering.  In The Republic the idea that all suffering and happiness should be experienced by everyone in the city.  What causes and constitutes individual suffering or happiness if all emotion and self is tied to the city already.  Maybe Socrates is just reinforcing this idea that life is in function of the city since I do not see there being any real individual suffering or happiness as the people would have little self to begin with.  Is the idea of a giant family where everyone experiences emotions as one being possible?  Even with the people one loves most, it is hard to always share in their pain and joy because it is not possible to feel someone else's emotions exactly as he or she is.  When the family is expanded to the whole city, this seems even more doubtful.  It would present problems in this society described.  It would mean that at points in time the whole city is depressed or the whole city is happy, which sounds dangerous as no one would be serving their function or everyone would be serving their function.  The two extremes would disrupt the balance and justness that is supposed to be present in the city.  Do you think this idea of group suffering and group happiness is possible/ makes sense in the society described or in our own?

11/5 event

Synchronicity and Other Mind-Matter Conjectures

Harald Atmanspacher, Joseph Cambray, Edgar Choueiri, Farzad Mahootian

Moderator: Beverley Zabriskie

How are mind and matter related? In the mid-20th century, the psychiatrist and analyst Carl Gustav Jung and the Nobel Laureate physicist Wolfgang Pauli formulated the concept of synchronicity. They sought a philosophical answer to this still unsolved question of how the mental and material, the physical and psychological are related in time. Pauli and Jung’s thesis suggests two types of mind-matter correlations for synchronistic experiences in which meaning is crucial.

In this second roundtable on "The Pauli-Jung Conjecture.”, the physicist Harald Atmanspacher and the Jungian Analyst Joseph Cambray will further the April 2014 discussion at the Helix Center (video at www.thehelixcenter.org ). Edgar Choueiri and Farzad Mahootian will argue its central thesis, that the mental and the material are two complementary and intersecting aspects of one underlying reality. (more here)

Wednesday, November 5th, 8 pm  Alumni Hall, NYU Langone Medical Center,  550 First Avenue between 30th and 32nd St. New York, New York

This program is free and open to the public.  Pre-registration (here) is required.

For more information, consult the JPA website www.nyjung.org or contact Allison Tuzo at JPA@nyjung.org