Quite frankly I don't have any real interest in "what counts as Christian" per se. Just going by what is commonly understood as "Christian". — ThinkOfOne

Ok but you seem to be arguing about what counts as Christian and what does not count, so you surely have some answer to this question?

What's important are the underlying concepts conveyed by those words. For ease of conversation, it's just easier to speak as if the words were spoken by Jesus. Not sure why you seem to think it important. Why do you? — ThinkOfOne

You seem to be trying to develop a version of Christianity, an interpretation, especially when you say things like:

It's folly to take Jesus at face value. Jesus was a complex conceptual thinker. — ThinkOfOne

Christianity is a remarkably self-serving system of beliefs the core underlying concepts of which are, for all intents and purposes, antithetical to underlying core concepts of the gospel preached by Jesus. — ThinkOfOne

There are overarching themes and underlying concepts that run throughout that need to be taken into account. — ThinkOfOne

That's all.

For ease of conversation, it's just easier to speak as if the words were spoken by Jesus. — ThinkOfOne

Not really. You've just said 'as if' - so which bits of the gospels count 'as if' and which ones do not?

You are a traditionalist. I've not really concerned myself with notions of the good. I have considered simple minded notions of human flourishing as a goal for human behaviour. I generally do what I want but am tempered (or limited) by the Christian moral culture I have inherited. Notions of compassion, forgiveness, redemption, preferential treatment of the poor form part of my worldview. Jesus not so much.

Do you value truth and beauty along with the good?

I suspect that what is generally meant by a value system is simply those things they value rather than values that are systematically derived, determined, ordered, integrated and applied. — Fooloso4

Agree. Maybe I will use 'beliefs and values' from now on.

Further, it may be that we cannot always say in advance what it is we value until we are confronted with a situation where we must act or decide. — Fooloso4

No question. And what people say (or think) they value is often not what they value in practice.

Thanks

Is this heading towards a 'no true Scotsman' fallacy? And how exactly in theory would one determine what counts as Christian and what does not count? There are no actual words of Jesus, just things written in books many years after the events depicted by anonymous sources. Which words exactly could we demonstrate as having been said?

I have problems with the idea of value systems. No doubt we have things we value, but I do not think that they form systems. — Fooloso4

I've been happy enough with the idea, although I would never say it is perfect and maybe the word 'system' needs refinement. Some people hold to several systems or values presuppositions or values structures at once, say, Catholic social justice teachings and neoliberalism and view most activities through those lenses and may be tested by the inherent contradictions. So the systems I am thinking of do not work smoothly like a machine. I guess 'value system' means worldview. I also don't think people value notions because they are good as such. I think they value them often without knowing why and sometimes without even knowing that they hold them. For many people values are like a bedrock of 'reality' to them.

But it's worth thinking about some more and any further thoughts welcome.

The key word is more. Is ‘more nuanced’ better? — ArielAssante

Yes, I put those key words there for a reason.

You ask is this a problem for philosophy? How could it be a problem for an abstraction? — ArielAssante

Most thought is abstraction. And yet there are better and worse ideas, so I see nothing wrong here.

Interaction with others is a way to uncover the structure of my own “prison”. — ArielAssante

So you are looking to uncover the 'limitations' of your own ideas, based on your understanding of other's ideas?

This is completely subjective and selfish but that does not mean others may not benefit. My own journey has been informed by many. Some I’ve never met or even seen. In fact, Tom, your question has been very helpful. Thank you. — ArielAssante

How do you fell your subjective journey has been helpful to others? Has it changed you in a way that others my benefit?

I don't have a considered theory of The Good. But all versions are 'good' subject to a particular value system. I don't think it has to involve overt philosophy.

I knew a man who died this year aged 98. He believed in moderation in all things, living simply, planting trees, taking care of family and friends, keeping the noise down, not asking for special treatment and looking after the environment. He thought the idea of god/s were unnecessary and believed that religions generally led to conflict. He liked to garden and read books and preferred to stay out of arguments. Good health mattered more to him than money. He appreciated paying taxes and he trusted strangers. That's pretty close to a good life from where I sit.

:up: I think many people would agree with you.

:pray:

Jesus is known through his apostles. This is well known — introbert

If you are talking about the gospels, no one knows who wrote them. They are written many years after the events depicted and by anonymous writers. Mark being the earliest at around 60 years later. Subsequent tradition gave the books/gospels names. In most Bibles there is even a note about the text explaining this point. We literally have no contemporary account of whoever it is that may have inspired the Jesus myths.

Many theories may not be useful now, but once we understand the mechanisms of the semiology between all academic fields, we can better understand the blueprints of the future. — Christopher

Not sure what that means, but where to from here? All human enterprises are constantly changing and building on old models, from sport to the car, medicine to painting. Where does this place you in relation to humanities? Are you saying that the humanities are outmoded or in need of reinvention? Or both? And who has the capability to tell what is useful and what is not? I don't. I read what interests me, not what is valuable according to an external value system. What subjects are we prepared to fund at universities? That's a separate matter of what cultures value and who's in power.

Humanities and social sciences are no longer useful in academia." — Christopher

By the way, that phrase has echoed across English speaking universities since the 1980's and has led to many departments being defunded or closing down on the basis of a neo-liberal perspective that universities should just train people for jobs, not merely educate.

Every academic field requires the humanities and social sciences, which is why philosophy is considered the "mother of academia." After all, where would we be if we never stopped asking why, or worse, what if we had never asked why in the first place? — Christopher

I wonder if you are asking a range of questions that can take us in many directions; there's epistemology, values, the role of education, unexamined metaphysical positions...

Is philosophy considered the mother of academia? I think this will be news to many people. This kind of debate is generally about the values and presuppositions held by individuals or select communities. Some of these are held with more rigor and justification than others.

It is perfectly possible to have a rich and rewarding life without participating in the humanities or social sciences so... But it is true that all beliefs held by people rest on assumptions - on epistemology and metaphysics - often unexamined and poorly understood. But does this really matter? I generally hold that humans tell each other stories to account for what they call reality. Some of those stories are better for certain purposes than others. I'm not convinced we can arrive at truth or reality and question what those terms mean.

It makes no sense to talk about what might affect the organism from the world outside of its ow. making (niche) because there is no world for an organism outside of its reciprocally interactive niche. The same is true of our sciences. There has never been , and there never can be, a world for us outside of the continually evolving response theoretical niches we construct in interaction with that aspect of world that is relevant to our goals and purposes. — Joshs

This is a powerful image. Is there any sense to you that our continually evolving response is in some way inevitable based perhaps on the intrinsic limitations and opportunities inherent in being? By the way, I'm trying to ask this question without trapping myself in notions of time or destiny.

So, what are debates about? Seems like: my philosophy is better than your philosophy.

What do you think? — ArielAssante

When it gets to debates or arguments between members then often it seems to boil down to 'my reading of the text/s is more nuanced (or more useful) than yours.' With texts all we have are readings, interpretations and re-interpretations.

There are clearly communities of intersubjective thought which share presuppositions and values. Is this a problem for philosophy? Are you looking for a meta-narrative (an account of truth or reality) which will subsume all other thinking?

The Good life = Jesus of Nazareth (only a man and yet ... a god). — Agent Smith

Not sure that sacrificing yourself to yourself to save us from yourself and from rules you made yourself - counts. Given Yahweh is jealous, vengeful and murderous, like any Mafia Don, then Jesus is part of the problem.

Why do I feel like you may have argued somewhere that all off our posts are for our own respective amusement... — Srap Tasmaner

I'd be surprised if this wasn't the case for all of us.

As I already typed Tom, I have no recollection of every typing the phrase, 'skepticism is self-refuting.' — universeness

Never said you did. I'm just joining in a general discussion. :wink:

I don't recall ever typing the phrase 'skepticism is self-refuting,' If I did then I copied it from somewhere as it's seems greater than my skills as a wordsmith could muster. — universeness

Skepticism is not self-refuting - absolute or global skepticism is self-refuting and probably psychologically impossible. More conventional skepticism is how science generally works. It shouldn't be confused with cynicism or denialism. For a modern skeptic a claim may not be provisionally accepted until there's evidentiary warrant or it's supported by sound reasoning.

Sometimes I think that the mythopoeic world lives on in QAnon and UFO culture.

It would strengthen your ideas if you could provide some evidence or citations for your claims. I tend to agree that morality works through intersubjective mechanisms, socialization and power. Definitions of good and evil, like definitions of truth, don't engage me very much. We all have a sense what these things mean and values differ across individuals, communities and cultures. Humans are a social species and cooperation seems hard wired into human behaviour and is perhaps foundational to our morality.

So, by what definition is this art? — T Clark

No real view on whether this is art, but to me it looks like the kind of kitsch, heavily derivative, CGI fantasy design you might find in a Marvel movie like a Doctor Strange.

Didn't someone do this exact question a few months ago? While the Jesus character in the books may have been slightly based on someone who lived (although this is far for certain) the New Testament describes a mythic or fictional character - so Lewis' question is moot and should be a quadrilemma

Liar, Lunatic, Lord or Legend?

Legend.

it’s just not that clear to me what it is you are saying. No worries, let’s see if others can assist.

I'm not really able to follow so much text going in so many directions. Would you be able to state an argument either in a syllogism or in a few dot points?

Capitalism has been called 'wage slavery' since the 19th century.

Equivocation fallacy - Wiki: In logic, equivocation is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses within an argument.

For me the biggest problem is that Marin's taste in music seems banal and her partying appears somewhat hygienic. I wish she were really going to town with some old style blues and and swigging from good bottle of rye whiskey in a cool looking bar. I wish leaders would let their party animal loose more often - it's not hard to be a fully integrated human being, with a sense of fun, along with a sense of duty. If this seems like an irresolvable contradiction to voters, they are to be pitied.

In terms of beauty - I would think that goes against candidates too. A lot of people resent attractive women for obvious reasons, and may even assume they are unable to do a good job because they are good looking. My first wife was a former model and super intelligent but she copped that prejudice all the time. I suspect that is why people resent Marin's dancing - it activates this particular prejudice. Often people assume attractive women can't be leaders and are always seeking out evidence of this. Marin's dancing and having 'fun' (even if to me it looks humdrum) is 'good evidence' to the jealous naysayers, the wowsers and the bitter. Images of an attractive women having fun is like catnip for misogynists and jealous women.

We experience dread and anxiety because we are perfectly reasonable beings that can observe reality and report back how it is. — 64bithuman

The only true choice is to look into the face of reality, see nothing which resembles ourselves, and then decide that in spite of that, something, somewhere must resemble ourselves, or it is to recognize that all of reality is hostile to life and that we are a mistake in the eyes of reality that will one day be corrected. — 64bithuman

So firstly - not all people experience anxiety and dread. I don't. I see no reason to fear or dread or fester over anything much. To steal from Hamlet - ...there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so. People become prisoners of their thinking.

I do not think that we can 'look into the face of reality' or 'know' reality. All humans can do is observe a world of appearances and generate useful or inadequate narratives that explain what they see. If you are generating a narrative wherein all of reality is hostile to life, it's likely you are generating a less useful narrative.

It's about the idea of god as being a source of ethics. The murder of god by logic and science has left a vacuum of fleeting Christian morals. — 64bithuman

That's actually hard to justify if you consider it. Christians have no objective basis for morality. What they have is subjective or personal preferences regarding 1) who they think god is and 2) what they think their version of god wants. This explains why Christians (and other religious folk) have absolutely no agreement on core ethical questions and are all over the place. Take any issue, from gay marriage to abortion, capital punishment, stem cell treatment, the role of women - whatever - theists are all over the place, from fag hating to rainbow flags of diversity. In the end all anyone has is personal judgement about what is right. A Bible or the Koran are only an impressionistic springboard for selecting a personal preference via interpretation.

:up:

I'm not really sure what inner awareness is meant to refer to and how it matters. Perhaps it's something along the lines of insight or Jungian individuation. Not sure how that is meant to work across society. Some of the most obtuse and self-interested folk I've met have been big on New Age slogans about higher consciousness. Perhaps motherhood statements breed motherfuckers.

This is true, but it is also too general and not particular to ethics. — Alkis Piskas

Sure. But just because a subject shares something with others doesn't mean this shared characteristic is not a defining feature. There are many ways to define ethics, but you have almost nothing if you don't incorporate conduct towards others. My favourite definition holds that morality is principles created by humans to facilitate social cooperation in order to achieve our preferred forms of order. And this too could apply to other subjects like law or education. Do you have a preferred definition of morality?

However, the foundations and principles of the ethics system used (there are different ones) is never changed. E.g. The "major good" principle is always the same. Even the concept of "good" is the same: it refers generally and invariably to support of life, well-being, happiness etc. But the things that are considered "good" may be different from one culture to another and they can also change within the same culture. — Alkis Piskas

I know this is a common view and one I have held but I think this is problematic and perhaps lacking in utility. I would say something like 'the good' is not an ethical position at all but an empty statement requiring qualification. We have to demonstrate what counts as good. Pol Pot's version of the good is at odds with yours (I hope) and this is no small thing. Enough to make a category like 'the good' to be close meaninglessness in my view until it is clarified through action. Ethics is ultimately about how one conducts oneself towards others.

Even the concept of "good" is the same: it refers generally and invariably to support of life, well-being, happiness etc. — Alkis Piskas

my comment deleted as irrelevant

. If anything, I do query why people get fierce arguing for and against God when it is difficult to prove one way or not. — Jack Cummins

Because god'/s are hardly ever the point of these debates - it's value systems supported by belief. As the Trumpists demonstrate.

Have you read Richard Rorty's book -Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity 1989?

From Wiki - For Rorty an ironist is someone who fulfils three conditions:

(1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that arguments phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power, not herself.

In relation to your statement that reality is dualistic. I don't think anyone knows what realty is as such. It's just a word, right. Really real? At best what we have is tentative models or stories of what we like to call reality, which essentially amounts to the world of appearances as apprehended by humans and/or their instruments.

I simply acknowledge that there is conceptual room for god, especially given my low wattage beam on reality. I simply chose order as the essence of god as it encompasses most of the conventional understandings in social, symbolic, and moral systems. — introbert

Yes, order is an obvious attribute of traditional theism. No argument there. But we wouldn't be good skeptics if we didn't try to unpack that notion. Plus philosophy in certain guises would question the very notion of humans being able to determine just what counts as order or chaos outside of our limited perspectival capacities. You can find conceptual room for god in almost any discussion if you wish, since god is so often applied like Du Pont's Big Gap Filler.

If you read the right philosophy you will see that the concept of "God" actually has great explanatory power. — Metaphysician Undercover

Start a thread on this if you like. I suspect it will come down to whether one is susceptible to those arguments.

I appreciate there's more premium thought out there that constructs a version of theism with greater nuance and texture. I enjoyed Paul Tillich some decades ago. In clarification - I guess I'm saying that the versions of god in the marketplace have no explanatory power. But to be frank - I am not really in the explanation business. It's religions which seem to want certainty. As an atheist, I am quite happy to say 'I don't know' about any number of subjects.

I am trying to explore what does it mean, philosophically, to argue that God does or not exist? — Jack Cummins

It means nothing in itself - just whether you accept a story or not. The problem is not in the belief, but where the belief may take people. Eg, where would Trump or the Taliban be without theism? Or where would Albert Schweitzer be without Christianity?

For me god/s have no explanatory power. To say god made the world is no different to saying the world was made by a fairy. There's no texture or nuance to such a claim and in general the idea seems to be maintained by fallacies like an appeal to ignorance or an argument from incredulity.

The things that religions claim about god might not be fact but there is order, whether moral, linguistic or social etc. that is governed by something beyond our power and we must adapt and comply with. — introbert

Notions of order and chaos are human constructions and likely based on the neurocognitive system. Order, like time and space, are probably a neurally generated matrix of gestalts that allow us to make sense of things. No need to reach for the heavens just yet.

The Jews and Christians I know do not hold Bible stories as literally true so these questions don't concern them. The Bible has a long tradition of being understood as allegory. I think the hallmark of prominent contemporary Christianity, and the reversion into Protestant primitivism, is Biblical inerrancy, which is a kind of hermeneutical throwback, like the Taliban.

The big question for me is why is it that god/s are never known directly? All we have is people telling stories, or old books that say a thing. No god ever shows up, except in the stories. Highly suspicious, don't you think. :fire: - And no, that's not a burning bush.