I'm not quite seeing the difficulty. — jorndoe

That's very sad.

But the Prime Directive makes good sense and I am sure that aliens with space travel capability are intelligent enough to work it out for themselves. — Agree-to-Disagree

Then you know more about aliens than I do. As to whether it makes good sense - maybe not equally to everybody.

I am confident that Data can understand the logic behind "You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure". Human parents usually understand this concept. — Agree-to-Disagree

He understands the 'logic'; what he had trouble with was the cruelty, which is why he would not abandon Sarjenka.
And it's BS, by the way. Parents need to be firm sometimes, but they never have to be cruel.

so a location in time and space, both? — jorndoe

How do you figure that?
You mean this?:
" If its arrival were tied to a location in time, it wouldn't matter whether you waited for it at the bus stop, in the pub or in the Tokyo stock exchange, it would still get to you at the designated time." But this is not the case.
The bus is located only in space. It moves; it changes location. You measure an abstract concept incidentally named 'time' by the processes, events and changes you experience, including the movement of a bus and the changing of numbers on a digital timepiece. Nothing and no-one is located 'in time', since time has no inside or outside. The bus moves along a street surface and, no matter when it's scheduled to arrive at any specific location along that street surface, it can't go into another time zone, or time-line or parallel reality. Location is of space; duration is of time; the two concepts are not interchangeable.

*You know what? This stopped being funny about a page ago.

f I went back a year,
— noAxioms
There is no there there. — Vera Mont

Your opinions. They're fine, but only opinions, and as stated above, much of the discussion revolves around a different view where there is a there there. — noAxioms

Okay. So time is a physical entity, with form, spatial co-ordinates and dimensions, which co-exists with the world in which we experience time only as processes, events and changes. In theory, a person can step from the 3-dimensional world into the stream of time and back again.
The body of evidence for this is found in which scientific discipline?

Proof? — Agree-to-Disagree

I've seen every Star Trek, Next Generation, Voyager and DS9 episode at least three times. You do realize that the Prime Directive is exclusive to that franchise?

If you know that interfering is likely to cause things to be worse than not interfering, then it would be possible to obey the Prime Directive. Some aliens might not want to play god. — Agree-to-Disagree

Aliens not only are not bound by the PD; they've never even heard of it. We can have no idea how they think or what motivates them.

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure. — Agree-to-Disagree

Explain that to Data. We know the theory of why a PD was formulated, but that 'right measure' is a lot easier to put on paper than to carry out in the real world. For a start, how the hell do you know whether an action will eventually result in more harm than good? It's possible that a patient being fitted for a pacemaker right now will commit a mass murder next year, but that doesn't stop the cardiologist doing his job.

It is amazing that the gods want the same things that I want. — Agree-to-Disagree

The gods don't. Only the one particular customized god you invent for yourself does.

who is it they suppose is really there, buried underneath those horrible stories in the OT? — Tom Storm

Anybody they desire, want or need. That's the beauty of imaginary entities: they are infinitely adaptable and interpretable. When gods did not exist, people found it necessary to invent them (yes: Voltaire was simply stating an observation of what had already happened) - not to explain things, which they could do very well for themselves, accurately or otherwise, but to grant wishes. The gods are images of man magnified to whatever size it takes to grant their wishes.

What am I to do over at the bus stop, when I find that the bus is scheduled to arrive in a few minutes...?
Do I deny that "events have temporal locations", and ehh head over to the pub instead? — jorndoe

The bus is expected (barring unforeseen events) to arrive at a bus stop: a specified physical location. If its arrival were tied to a location in time, it wouldn't matter whether you waited for it at the bus stop, in the pub or in the Tokyo stock exchange, it would still get to you at the designated time.

Anyone can look at the past, which isn't any sort of retrocausality. I mean, that's exactly what hte archaologists do. — noAxioms

No, it isn't. What archeologists look at is bits of pottery and metal and the remnant of walls that they dig up in old habitation sites. From those physical bits and pieces, they construct a story of what the people who lived there may have been doing and how long ago. What paleontologists look at is layers of rock and fossils, from which they construct a story of what may have happened in the past.
You can mess with language, not with physics.

Perhaps God IS an alien with advanced technology. If so, then he/she has not followed the Prime Directive (from Star Trek - the guiding principle that prohibits interfering with the natural development of other civilizations). — Agree-to-Disagree

Nobody ever follows the Prime Directive. If you have space travel capability and an impulsion to help those in trouble, it's impossible to obey.

Isn't it more that events have temporal locations? — jorndoe

No. What you've got there is a metaphor. You can mess with language, but you can't mess with physics. Time has no substance, no length and width, no spatial orientation, no compass points, no loci, no tangible co-ordinates at which you can land a 3-dimensional object of any kind.
(Not even if you were unconcerned about displacing an object or collection of objects of the same mass and/or volume that occupied the same space at that time. If you time-zapped yourself into the 17th century, might you not worry that Rene Descartes would be zapped into the present? Or a skinny med student and a half-killed dog? Worse yet, you could not return him to his proper time, because the processes and changes he was supposed to undergo through the duration of the absence did not take place; the Descartes of a day or a week later no longer exists. Nor, of course does the you of tomorrow or next week.But we're not concerned about that, right?)

Anyway, duration and simultaneity are meaningful enough, and suggest some temporal structure taken together. — jorndoe

In the human mind.

Processes/events can be reasonably clear temporally, and less clear [meaningless] spatially. — jorndoe

Objects can be reasonably clear spatially, and less clear temporally; — jorndoe

Objects with a longer life than a muon's exist in space-time. You can ask : "When was this ball red?" and the correct answer might be "Before Rex chewed the paint off it." But there is no place in time where you can go and see that ball as red; in order to remember it, you had to have seen it while the paint lasted.

volume and place are meaningful enough, and suggest some spatial structure taken together. — jorndoe

Volume and place, sure; duration and process, not.

The same pretty much applies to all entities that have been worshipped as deities, whether they created the world or just ruled it. Anyone who demands obedience through fear doesn't deserve respect. I'm sort of open to nature spirits - or was, until we destroyed nature: don't think I could stomach the wholesale massacre of dryads and naiads.

I suppose he would have to tell me. Of course, I might have to be dead in order to understand him. Then I would regret my apostasy.
My biggest problem with Jehovah is not his existence but his reported behaviour. My father, when he was very drunk and worked himself into a lather regarding his due as paterfamilias, would bellow "I am the lord god!!" That's the model for the god of the OT. Any or all of the gods humans have set up could exist, I suppose, given a distant enough mountain/galaxy/plane to live on, but that would not make them worthy of reverence.

Pretty much, yea. — noAxioms

And time is not physical.

No memory is completely verifiable, so I disagree with this statement. — noAxioms

No amount of circumlocution will turn any form of memory into any form of time travel.

If I went back a year, — noAxioms

There is no there there.

Wycliffe, Dalziel and Pascoe, Silent Witness....
I'm revisiting the old BBC series I used to watch on PBS. Don't like most of them as much as I did then - except Poirot: I never tire of Poirot.
Alternatively, The West Wing on DVD. Very tiring!

Well I didn't say 'travel to where they keep time'. — noAxioms

But you did say:

SEP envisions time travel as some sort of vehicle (Doctor, Leap, Putnam) or other device that takes the occupant to a destination time selected by the occupant. — noAxioms

This means a physical body in a physical container, being transported from a point of departure to a destination, which would have to be an actual place where an actual body can land. That would be the only version that could be called time travel. Comas and aging and messed-up, unverifiable memories don't count.

In block terms, time travel is either a discontinuous worldline, or a worldline that isn't everywhere time-like. — noAxioms

The what now?

The most you can hope for is that someone in the past made a faithful virtual recording of some aspect of their world, and you can access that recording through some device. Like old movies.

Did I miss anything? — noAxioms

Just the fact that time has no physical locations.

As in all areas of human thought, there is a lot of excess, a lot of unnecessary complication and obfuscation. You also have to allow for some pretension and delusion. But none of that invalidates the effort to figure out how we relate to the world we inhabit, the worlds we invent and the worlds we build.

Identified as or practicing?

I don't agree with all philosophies as philosophies can be wrong. — HardWorker

Good. Now name something that can't be wrong.

That said, I was exposed to both Protestant and Catholic practice as a child. My city grandmother attended a grand cathedral with huge stained glass windows, marble columns and statues, zillions of candles, incense, overpowering music - and, oh, the pageantry of midnight mass! I loved it.
I also loved my country grandmother's village church of whitewashed adobe; the clean simplicity of the surroundings and the service, the warmth of breaking communion bread. There is something in the rituals of each religion that deeply appeals to the human psyche - not just in childhood, but always.
What I could not accept, once I was old enough to read the Bible, was the precepts.

I wonder if this 'blessed' state is why she's still the healthiest, most optimistic octogenerian I know. — 180 Proof

It doesn't hurt. Of course, that independent religious view is part of a more comprehensive self-awareness and self-possession: an integrity of character that cuts through all the guff and bluster to the essence of things, hugely reducing doubt, anxiety and stress.

If i myself had any spiritual leanings, I'd be attracted to some form of animism; probably one of the North American Native varieties. Their gods and spirits are accessible; they have a sense of humour and can be playful. I like that in a supernatural entity, just as I like it in mortals.

The expression was chosen deliberately, I could have used 'obey' as well. The implicit question here is: what is the difference between the so-called laws of nature and civil law, that is: do we discover these laws of nature or do we just invent them. — Pez

'Obey' means the same thing and is wrong for the same reason: it is an action taken by a conscious entity with the option to do otherwise. Both words apply to humans and the domestic animals under human control. Humans formulate and enact laws to limit and govern the behaviour of individuals through coercion.

We invent - no 'just' about it; this was a big step in self-and social awareness - not only laws but the very concept of laws.

What we 'discover' - gradually, one revelation at a time - is how things operate in the world outside of us - and eventually that they operate the same way inside of us, which is another big step, followed by the realization that we ourselves operate inside of and according to the physical universe. We then superimpose our concepts, via language, onto the description of the relationships and patterns we observe in the world.

All of that said, I'm not an atheist. But I no longer worry about any ongoing debate about God's existence; I'm now bored by them. — Noble Dust

My mother's attitude was the best non-atheist one I know. She had no use for (nor animosity toward) any formal doctrine; she simply didn't need them. Her relationship with the version of God she believed in was secure without intervention or interpretation.

Unless I have read you wrong, it looks to me that you feel that you have been provoked. — Fooloso4

Your perception is incorrect in this instance. I do not feel provoked. The kind of provocation it takes to turn me against religion is far greater in scope and effect: it is in the realm of political influence.
I do believe that the historicity and mortality of Jesus, and how it affects modern Christians theology - is not well situated in the Lounge, and that, insofar as it relates to the OP question, has been exhausted.

Given its diversity, any focused discussion of Christianity or more generally religion needs to deal with some degree of specificity regarding beliefs and/or practices. — Fooloso4

That sounds like a worthwhile endeavour. I'm sure there are appropriate platforms for it.

Perhaps not to you but it makes a great deal of difference to some who question whether they can remain Christian and not believe that Jesus was more than human. — Fooloso4

They will simply have to do whatever people who questioned have always had to do: decide what they believe.
Christianity got itself established quite firmly in the world without benefit of the pedigree you seem to require. It's done and has not come undone by force of arguments, debates, investigations, archeological digs, commentaries, apologetics or encyclicals. It will not come undone by some minor quibble over who is what religion and why in a tiny backwater of the internet. Whoever else wants to further discuss it will get exactly same forrurder.

Christianity without a Christ seems to be oxymoronic. — Fooloso4

Yes, I get that. So? It does not alter the history or present state of Christianity. It doesn't make the least little difference to what people have done, what people do and what people believe.

Here we are all those years later still discussing it. — Fooloso4

We were. Now, only you are.

Is it your position that Christianity is whatever you want it to be as long as believers are decent to one another, regardless of what else is believed, said, and done? — Fooloso4

No. I have no 'position' on the matter. I describe things as i see them. If my perception is incorrect, then my answer is wrong.

If Jesus was just a man then it would be a mistake to worship him as a god. If he is a god then it would be a mistake to regard him as merely a man. — Fooloso4

That's your position, is it? Fine.

Then secular rather than religious? — Fooloso4

Any society.

In which case it would would seem that there is nothing that distinguishes it. — Fooloso4

Fine.
Are you aware that this horse died about 1600 years ago?

I asked the question of how we are to understand Jesus — Fooloso4

and my answer was: However you can, according to your own lights
[

against the background of how he is understood within Christianity.

Variously. So variously that you might not even recognize the different strains of it as the same religion. Indeed, the dominant one very often declared one or another variant as heretical and persecuted those who believed it.

Put differently, what does Christian belief and practice look like to Christians who regard him as a moral man.

Ask a Christian. Ask many Christians. You'll probably get as many answers.

Right, but its success does not mean it was not a mistake. — Fooloso4

Who is to say which religion is "a mistake"? I'm sure there are plenty of opinions.

There is nothing particularly Christian about this. — Fooloso4

Of course there isn't! It's the kernel of all practical instruction for a coherent society.

What, if anything, distinguishes Christianity? — Fooloso4

The fact that it had Constantine as its patron, at a time when he was gaining power. (Paul was a pretty good salesman, but he couldn't have done it at the grass roots.)

ut there are no major religions worshiping these figures. — Fooloso4

That no current religions worship those ancient figures, or that I left Gautama off the list, has little to do with their archetypal similarity.

Does this mean that Christianity is an enormous mistake?

No. It's an enormous PR success. It was promulgated and sold in Roman format, under the auspices of a mighty empire with some pretty canny administrators. They had the missionaries, the architects and enforcers to cobble every pagan sect into some semblance of the Christian faith.

How do we distinguish between essence and distortion? — Fooloso4

Each according his sensibility. The accuracy of the original doesn't matter a damn: it was preached to different peoples in different times and is relevant to our lives only in the most basic points: be decent to one another.

What you might take to be essence others might see as distortion because it leaves out what they believe is essential. — Fooloso4

Yes, of course. How do you think all those different Christian sects came to exist? Why do you think they've made so many wars and persecutions over it? People are perverse: when they read "Love thy neighbour as thyself" they sometimes choose to understand it as "If thy neighbour is not enough like thyself, burn him at the stake for his own good."

How are we to understand him? — Fooloso4

As a legendary hero figure. (Hercules, Prince Yamato, Odin, Ta Kora, Maitreya, Boewulf...) A special human who is born to greatness, pursuing his assigned quest; his exploits exaggerated and embellished over time.

If there is nothing unique about him what does this mean for Christianity? — Fooloso4

There is something unique about all hero figures, but they also conform to an archetype: their culture's ideal of virtue, accomplishment and perseverance. What is means for Christianity is not at issue: Christian churches have made up their own version of the religion, in most of which Jesus hardly signifies at all, except as a conduit to heaven and a focal point for the major feast days.

If the stories of Jesus are distortions then what are we to make of the teachings ascribed to him? — Fooloso4

The stories have been edited, revised, Europeanized and abridged. If you're interested in the teachings, you'll find their essence in those texts, regardless of distortion.

Now the question is: are we in the position of these chicken or can we rely on being fed every day? — Pez

What's their alternative? What is ours?

Language does us a great disservice when we use terms like 'laws' of logic or 'laws' of nature in as much as for many this word implies a 'lawmaker', — Tom Storm

Language is of our own making, and it serves us fine, as long as we're using it sensibly to communicate, instead of trying to bend artificial, specialized systems like Logic or Metaphysics around a mundane vocabulary.
We make laws to regulate our social behaviour. When we invent gods to grant our wishes, we have them make laws (pretty much the same ones we already had) to regulate our behaviour. When we raise a god up to creator of the universe status, we have him make laws to regulate the behaviour of everything. It's normal, sloppy, habitual thinking, which serves fine for chatting with a neighbour.
Philosophizing over such terminology is a waste of time.
But then, what else were we going to use it for... assuming time exists to be saved, used or wasted?

You can try. Just remember, even if you make it - hardly a given, since it's a demanding sport, this is likely to be a short career. Better study dentistry as a backup.

Um...okay...

Presuppositions are the products of human-world interactions. They are guides to future interactions based on ways of organizing previous interactions, and subject to change as the way we modify our environment by interacting with it feeds back into these presuppositions. — Joshs

That doesn't get us any further, since I find it too convoluted to follow. How does one organize previous interactions? Surely, it's only an image, memory or concept of them that can be organized - presumably for reference. Organize, how? Form a mental model? Classify as to type? How does this process differ from describing the interactions themselves and deducing natural laws?
Observe and predict, sure; that's the beginning of science. Prediction and theory, based on observation and subject to change as new evidence comes to light. In my dictionary, a "presupposition" is

a thing tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument or course of action

i.e. that which has not yet been observed and analyzed.

Unreligious. Anti-religious only when provoked.

I think Jesus was a composite figure put together to make a coherent story of the events chronicled in the NT, some of which were certainly true. The christian heresy did originate somewhere, from somebody, before Saul of Tarsus made much hay of it. The rebellion of 66AD had long, deep roots.

But that's beside the point. One can be interested in religions and mythology without buying into them. In fact, I find that the more you learn about their history, the less you believe their content.

Are they merely descriptions, or are they presuppositions concerning what things are and how they behave? — Joshs

You can't pre-suppose the world. Maybe a creator god can, but humans are in and of the world. They can't suppose anything that they don't already know something about. They can look at things - objects - in the world, describe them, use them, affect them and be affected by them. They can observe relationships and processes in the world, form mental models of how those processes work, infer causation. From this, the human mind can extrapolate a set of laws: this thing, when it meets that thing, always does thuswise. A human might presuppose that a thing similar to this, when encountering a thing similar to that will also behave thus. But he cannot presuppose from ignorance.

Nature doesn't 'comply' to anything. Nature is everything. Laws are a human convention to describe how things behave in nature. The implied coercion - how things must behave comes from having the word adapted from the description of how humans are compelled to behave in society.

Not to mention the case of the baby incubators, the vial of white powder, aerial photography involving toys trucks, etc., etc., - every government, every country, every war. I don't have time now to dig up each citation, but there are plenty of examples, going back to the crusades and probably much earlier.

One thing to remember here is that the public is not CONSULTED in any meaningful way about planned military or other actions that may or may not be criminal. The lack of consultation or ability to intervene in top administration activities severely limits responsibility. — BC

As does deliberately misinforming the public, or at the very least presenting a situation to the public in a biased way. Propaganda is standard practice in governance, especially as regards selling a war, just as secrecy ("National security") is standard practice in all matters pertaining to the crimes of government and its various agencies. The citizen has already submitted his share of taxes; what's done with it is none of his business. Every military action has its its own sales campaign at the beginning, its cheer leaders during and its apologetics after.

I'm not from this day or age - I'm a leftover from the 20'th century, keeping my head down in spaces where I don't exactly fit.