Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

7But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

I was reading this verse in 1Peter and was struck how contrary it is to much of the discussion on the alt views forum.

According to Peter a sound mind, a sober mind, and someone who is intently “watching” would result in that person praying.

For example, let us consider the science behind Climate Change. I have been intently watching this since the 70s. I was at Rice U., one of my professors was spending time in Antarctica studying this and so I was probably ahead of the curve. It was tempting to think that if we just could explain this carefully people would change course. Several great books and studies came out with that burden. Of course nothing happened. Then the thought was if only we could explain this to the masses, and again you had a couple of very good movies released, and again, nothing. Yes it was a political football, rose in the conscience of the American people, and many promises were made. Finally we did sign an accord. Sounds like progress was made, yet even if that accord were followed to the letter, which no one believes will happen, it will not stop the advance towards catastrophic destruction.

But then when you look at history this is clearly what you should expect. Animal extinctions and habitat destruction are the norm, not the exception. All empires did this to themselves. The only thing that has changes is the size and scale. Now we can influence the world’s climate, not just that of Mesopotamia, or Greece, or Egypt. No one today would ever name the “fertile crescent” that.

Anyone who thinks human civilization can be “saved” by science is deluding themselves. They do not have a sound and sober mind. They have not been watching intently. If they did they would be praying.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

I'm down with watching and praying as long as prayer includes mostly listening. There was usually way to much chatter in most of what passed for prayer when I've gone to "church" meetings.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Yes, Peter's view on prayer was quite different from the worst of the LC.

1. Sober mind vs get out of your mind

2. Watching vs mindless repetition of WL

They would pray to get into the spirit, vs Peter saying that a sober mind and sound judgement would result in prayer.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Yeah and when I said to church meetings I was referring to most that I've been to not just the Witness Lee group.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Well Peter was written for all of their benefit and for your benefit as well.

"The end of all things is at hand" -- after 200,000 years of humans living on earth we had come to this point. We had written language. After the flood only the fertile crescent had domesticated animals, giving them the power to spread their civilization worldwide. After Moses we had a religion that could organize millions of people together into a "eusocial" society. The last piece to the puzzle was the NT, setting the stage for a society without caste, without discrimination, without kings and slaves. At the time Peter wrote this our history was 99% of what it is now or "the end of all things is at hand". A God's eye view of human history.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

More like a ZNP's eye view. You're confusing yourself with God. That's a red flag to the rest of us.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

My reference simply meant if you were to look at Earth's history over 4.6 billion years and the history of Homo Sapiens over the last 200,000 years.

Personally I believe the account in the Bible with Man basically begins with the beginning of written language and the agricultural revolution (Adam & Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), though chapter 1 gives an exceedingly brief nod to a longer history than that.

Still, I would argue that "Homo Sapiens" are different from "Man" in that they only represent the flesh, whereas "Man" includes written language, culture, and everything else that comes with it.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Written language is, no doubt, important to the understanding of human culture including the transmission of religion. However, a lot of language development had to take place before written language was possible.

The development of the symbolic self is intimately tied to the development of language. Gestures are behavioral responses of animals to stimuli from other organisms. But non-humans don't understand the “meaning” of their gestures. They simply respond, that is, they use symbols without “significance.”

For a gesture to have significance, it must evoke in a second organism a response that is functionally identical to the response that the first organism anticipates. In other words, for a gesture to be significant it must “mean” the same thing to both organisms, and “meaning” involves the capacity to consciously anticipate how other organisms will respond to symbols or gestures. It does so through the "vocal gesture."

A vocal gesture can be thought of as a word or phrase. When a vocal gesture is used the individual making the gesture responds implicitly in the same manner as the individual hearing it. Gestures become significant symbols when they implicitly arouse in the individual making them the same responses which the explicitly arouse, or are supposed to arouse, in other individuals.

The critical importance of language in the development of human experience lies in this fact that the stimulus is one that can react upon the speaking individual as it reacts upon the other. All this was necessary for human interaction prior to the invention of written language.

I also noticed the way you used the word ""flesh". Flesh has multiple sometimes overlapping meanings in the Bible. https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/flesh/

Your use of the word suggests that you may be looking at it from the standpoint of mind-body dualism. Contemporary neuroscience has departed from that kind of thinking. Yet, neuroscience is not necessarily incompatible with Bible if it's interpreted phenomenologically.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Yes, oral language is important, but it is also important for whales, chimpanzees, birds, etc. I am trying to identify those things that distinguish man from all other creatures. Oral language would have been used by homo sapiens for 200,000 years, but written language is when we separated ourselves from all other creatures. From that point on we could have a written history, we could have scientific invention that would be transmitted through the ages. We could "stand upon the shoulders of those who have gone before us".

You could never have space flight without the written language. You could never have atomic energy or electric power without the written language. Architecture, engineering, the sciences, etc. They all require the written language to get off the ground.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

I delineated the fundamental difference between human language and that of other species below. If you're just going to ignore or dismiss what I write I'm out of here.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Where is the evidence that non humans do not understand the meaning of their gestures? It has been proven that apes can use sign language and learn 200+ signs.

Dolphins can also learn sign language. In one study they told the dolphins to create a new jump they had never done before. The dolphins went underwater and then came up out and did the exact same flip / turn, etc. So somehow the dolphins communicated between each other and told each other what actions to do.

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

"When a dog barks a second dog either barks back or runs away. The 'meaning' of the 'barking gesture' is found in the response of the second organism to the first. But dogs do not understand the 'meaning' of their gestures. They simply respond, that is, they use symbols without 'significance.'" https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mead/#LanMin Mead's model of symbolic interaction is still used in sociological research today. Elsewhere I read that researchers have found that the gestures of non-human primates are different from human gestures in many aspects, since they are mostly used in a dyadic and imperative way, and they lack the high level of abstraction.

That's interesting. Is this the study you're referring to ... https://florida.pbslearningmedia.org.../#.Wh5lKIanF0w The video suggests that they can innovate and coordinate together. I can't say with confidence that what Mead called "significance" is not involved. So, you have settled on written language to delineate human from non-human because it's an unambiguously unique human ability. Is that right?

Re: Be sober and watch unto prayer
 

Yes. that is right. It isn't simply uniquely human, it also allows for things that a spoken language doesn't. We can read Homer, it may have changed some, but not nearly as much as it would have had we not had a written language. We can read texts from ancient societies. This is a great advantage to archaeologists and historians. I am not aware of any other species with historians or archaelogists. Yes there are other species with specialized jobs, the eusocial species. But only humans completely depend on the written language for both their specialized jobs and also the rules that teach them to be eusocial.