Smart Christianity / Dumb Christianity

[Dontaskme]

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:06 pm
The old saying is right: When people stop believing in God, they don't believe nothing; instead, they believe anything.

Who would believe that.

Show me a man who has finished with belief.. and who would believe that?

[Belinda]

I must have omitted to comment on that important point made by Immanuel Can. I agree Jesus was no simplistic legalist, and when he aimed to be a faithful Jew he aimed to support the transethnic ability of the Jewish God. He succeeded in this, and so did Paul.Forgive the anachronistic words.

I know almost nothing about contemporary Judaism.

I don't think he was trying to be a bridge for Judaism to other religions. I think that he was trying to remove or replace Roman influence in Israel. But he died before he could effect that.

Also, he might have thought that he was the bringer of the Apocalypse and of Utopia. But he died before he could effect that.

I think that starting a religion was not his intention. More of a kingdom of his own.

I

You are right. I said that wrong. I did not mean Jesus aimed to be transethnic I meant he supported a version of Judaism that happened also to be transethnic.

[Belinda]

Intelligence is dangerous in the wrong hands.

So a better solution would be what? Let the power, technology, science, etc. stretch beyond the bounds of our intellect?

Anything born of thought, is destructive.

Intention is even more destructive.

In other words, stop giving yourself an intellect, aka a mind.




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But if good men don't intelligently examine what is going on, the bad men will become powerful.

Moreover a lot more than human thinking is "born of thought". There are other thinking species besides homo sapiens. DAM his/herself thought before posting, and thinking people taught him/her to speak and to write, and others to understand the language.

True, individual minds are interconnected so that each individual is a necessary part of the whole. However we all need our egos to survive in a relative world. The thing is to do without ego as much as possible i.e. to think universally not selfishly.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:06 pm
The old saying is right: When people stop believing in God, they don't believe nothing; instead, they believe anything.

Who would believe that.

Show me a man who has finished with belief.. and who would believe that?

"The old saying" is hyperbolic, but has truth in it. The more modern way to describe the situation is 'cognitive dissonance'.

In order to recover from cognitive dissonance and its unhappy effects on peace, prosperity, and happiness among individuals and societies education is needed for facts and judgement.

This sort of education must be universally available and of the highest possible quality and duration for all individuals regardless of how poor they are, what race they are, what sex they are, what sexual orientation they are, what nationality or ethnicity they are , their past crimes, and what disabilities they have.

[Dontaskme]

True, individual minds are interconnected so that each individual is a necessary part of the whole. However we all need our egos to survive in a relative world. The thing is to do without ego as much as possible i.e. to think universally not selfishly.

Yes, that's right, One must necessarily function with their ego fully intact for obvious reasons. Just don't identify with the ego as belonging to you, egos do not belong to a you. They belong to no entity. They are a more complex appearance within consciousness.That's why other thinking species besides homo sapiens do not declare war upon the homo sapiens or any other species. Not the kind of wars that homo-sapiens create ie: nuclear wars... for the other animal species have no mind to so, they have no concept of a mind belonging to them.

That's why human thinkers identified with their thoughts as being their own can become a destructive species, for these species believe they are the doers of their deeds, when in fact they are not, but they cannot see that they are not the doers, that until they can.
And when they can they will see...
''Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself''





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[RCSaunders]

There are other thinking species besides homo sapiens.

Can you recommend any of their books?

[Immanuel Can]

So the gospels that were likely written long after he died and the religion had been established...

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All were contemporaries of Jesus. You can say you don't think the authorship is authentic, and give your reasons for saying so, I suppose; but if the ascribed authorship of the originals is at all truthful, then that argument wouldn't work.

Moreover, if the authors of the originals knew their accounts were distortions, they would have been expected to be contradicted by literally thousands of witnesses to the same events, most of whom had incentive not to favour their message.

So it's hard to make that case.

It is foolish to think that Jesus wanted an Earthly kingdom, because the Bible said so?

Well, no... but it seems rather foolish if we were to say that His own words and actions, though clearly contrary to the project of setting up any earthly kingdom, actually were somehow targeted to getting that same project done. We'd owe somebody an explanation for why we thought, and why he/she should think, that "My kingdom is not of this world," means "My kingdom IS of this world," and "Love your enemies and pray for them," means "Hate your enemies and conquer them."

I'm just trying to think outside the box here.
You don't have to believe me when I'm trying out different theories.

Well, some stuff just might be too far "outside the box" to be credible. That sometimes happens, too.

[Systematic]

It is foolish to think that Jesus wanted an Earthly kingdom, because the Bible said so?

Well, no... but it seems rather foolish if we were to say that His own words and actions, though clearly contrary to the project of setting up any earthly kingdom, actually were somehow targeted to getting that same project done. We'd owe somebody an explanation for why we thought, and why he/she should think, that "My kingdom is not of this world," means "My kingdom IS of this world," and "Love your enemies and pray for them," means "Hate your enemies and conquer them."

Two groups of people:
The one that Jesus is leading--the sheep.
The one that don't follow Jesus--the goats.

The one that Jesus is leading--the plants that bear good fruit.
The one that don't follow Jesus--the plants that bear thorns, etc.

It doesn't seem that much unlike an Earthbound kingdom to me.
And he consistently says that the one's that don't follow him will be destroyed.

Why don't I have solid proof of that hypothetical? Because, the records of Jesus are part of a religion. Or, like you said, because he never meant to be king. Either way, we don't really know, so why be so certain that the hypothetical is incorrect?

[Immanuel Can]

Two groups of people:
The one that Jesus is leading--the sheep.
The one that don't follow Jesus--the goats.

The one that Jesus is leading--the plants that bear good fruit.
The one that don't follow Jesus--the plants that bear thorns, etc.

It doesn't seem that much unlike an Earthbound kingdom to me.

Well, really, it should. Because Jesus made it quite clear, in both those passages, that he was not talking about any earthly political project, but about the Great Judgment, which is not an earthly event, nor something even within the power of political authorities on earth.

The Judge is God. And the time is "the end of the age."

Either way, we don't really know,

Yeah, we do.

All we have to do is listen to what He said, and observe what He did. And if we think he was talking about an earthly kingdom, then we're going to have to make very exotic and implausible interpretations of those things, because they argue for the total opposite of an earthly kingdom. So it's not at all an "either way" situation, and yeah, we do know.

Or to put it another way, if anyone had any ambition to rule in this present earth, can you think of any plan less productive of that goal than dying for one's enemies?

[Immanuel Can]

There are other thinking species besides homo sapiens.

Can you recommend any of their books?

Good one, RC.

And just to add to your case, we might consider that if, say, our alleged closest "relatives" the apes, had even 1/1,000,000th of our ability to generate culture, than over the span of the millions or even billions of years said to be the span of their existence, animals ought to have very elaborate cultures with vast quantities of cultural artifacts, erudition, and so forth.

Or heck...just a little something. One book isn't too much to ask.

But only humans generate any culture, no matter how long time passes. The apes of a 1,000 years ago, we can certainly say, are not different from the apes we have today in that regard. They've made no progress at all. The apes the Persians traded and the Romans used in their circuses are, to all evidences, the very same sorts of creatures we have now.

[Systematic]

There are other thinking species besides homo sapiens.

Can you recommend any of their books?

I'm not going to downplay the advantages of the written word, but it doesn't follow that all thinking species must have the written word.

[Systematic]

Or to put it another way, if anyone had any ambition to rule in this present earth, can you think of any plan less productive of that goal than dying for one's enemies?

No, I can think of no other less ironic event.

Edit: I can think of no other more ironic event.

[Systematic]

I don't know what I was thinking. The proof is definitely in the pudding. Getting Christians to espouse intelligence is about like trying to get Charles Manson to be free without starting a murderous cult. They're just too far gone.

Maybe it should just be a completely ethical conception: Be kind when you can. Be smart when you can. And try your best not to get brainwashed.

[Immanuel Can]

Edit: I can think of no other more ironic event.

No probs. We all "mistype" sometimes.

[Systematic]

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 13, 2020 9:06 pm
The old saying is right: When people stop believing in God, they don't believe nothing; instead, they believe anything.

Who would believe that.

Show me a man who has finished with belief.. and who would believe that?

In this case, post hoc ergo propter hoc, is not a fallacy. It's an insight.