The Jesus of the Gospels seems disposable. Why do they bother with Jesus? This is my question. — Ciceronianus

I used to ask this question. I think the answer is complex and hard for literal minded people like me to comprehend. The gospels are not 'disposable' - this is a reaction to, not an understanding of what is meant - the books suggest a truth above narrative and provide examples and teachings in a form for humans to engage with at their level of understanding.

Jesus can be seen to fit into in a bodhisattva story tradition. These day I'm more inclined not to resist or disparage this way of viewing things but find it fascinating that this is how humans make meaning. As long as Jesus isn't used as an excuse for fag hating; life denying, bad politics and the setting off of bombs (and let's face it this is where literalists have often ended up), I don't mind how his story is understood.

You see, this is my point. I'm quite certain that Christian philosophers theologians see Jesus differently than I do. I suggest, though, that they see Jesus differently than most Christians do, differently from how he is described in the Gospels. — Ciceronianus

Well yeah - this is part of the problem with many subjects. The Baptists down the road from me see a very different figure from the Catholics next door. The name Jesus is about all they have in common.

I have a friend who is a Catholic priest and he sees Jesus as a metaphor and an invitation for contemplative prayer. He has almost no interest in the story as fact - it is a teaching aid, like most holy books. The issue is people hold different levels of understanding - a shallow or deep faith. The same could be said for science, with its dogmatic materialists and more nuanced naturalists.

The number of highly qualified people in the field of theology, biblical study etc who now say there never was a historical Jesus, continue's to grow and grow.
Prof Bart Ehrman — universeness

Saw your correction - Bart Ehrman specifically does not belong to this group - he disagrees with the mythicists, as they are known and specifically debated against Robert Price. From Erhman's blog Oct 2016

I started this thread by indicating that the majority of my 30-minute talk was devoted to explaining the positive evidence that I think shows beyond reasonable doubt that there was indeed a man Jesus of Nazareth.

I think the more reasonable position on Jesus these days is that there was a human being who was killed and who inspired the myths. I think the general view, even amongst atheists is that the mythicists position is vulnerable.

Thanks, some very useful perspectives here well summarized.

Science, mathematics, logic, phenomenology. Any discourse which depends on observation and reason, and does not depend on authority. Any discourse, that is, that is in principle at least, defeasible and endlessly revisable, and wherein expertise can be gained by understanding clearly defined ideas, principles and observable or self-evident facts. — Janus

I like what you said, but couldn't it be countered that these ostensibly defeasible disciplines also develop their orthodoxies and may be resistant to new ideas or approaches they view as outliers and heretics?

iberation from ignorance and union with the Ultimate are central to Platonism.
— Apollodorus

I think that language belongs much more to Plotinus than to Plato, and even more so to later Christian Platonism. Do you think you might tend to evaluate Platonism from a Christian Platonist perspective? — Wayfarer

To be honest, before I started this OP, I had a view that enlightenment was probably understood just as @Apollodorus has so succinctly described.

The area I find most interesting at the moment is the idea of this liberation from ignorance. Or the attainment of divine knowledge (what is the best term?) In the tradition that @Apolloduros has described, is it generally understood that union and knowledge are always concomitant?

:up:

I always find it sad (OK, and a bit funny) to see atheists contort themselves in an effort to deny the reality of the Creator. Atheism is an irrational worldview.

Nothing personal, just an observation. — Photios

I always find it sad (OK and a bit funny) to see theists contort themselves in an effort to prove the reality of a creator. Theism is an irrational worldview.

Nothing personal, just an observation.

..though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position at least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears.

Kant Bxxvi-xxvii.

So the 'noumenal object' is not something unknowable - rather it is the idea or principle of the object as perceived by nous. The idea is the form of the particular, determining its identity. I can't see how that is represented in Kant, though. I'm hoping to glean the answer from the Pollok book I mentioned. — Wayfarer

Sounds promising. Well, if you're willing to do the research on this, great. This to me seems to be the gap we've been wondering about.

It'd be good to see some kind of diagram constructed out of this model.

Good luck with the move - watch you don't do in your back!

:up:

Sorry, it's my default setting. But I am getting better. :pray:

Natural beliefs can cause great harm too. Just look at the state nature is in. And the worst has still to come. — Dijkgraf

Human beings cause great harm, period. :wink: But this doesn't change the nature of religious harm.

And I suppose this is the ultimate source of my anger. It is not the belief in life after death per say, it is the belief in something that is not real, that I, in my viewpoint, see as self-evidently wrong after these years. — Philosophim

It's interesting when you work alongside palliative care services, where people are dying, how many religious people no longer believe in anything at the end.

Further, I find the idea of life after death the ultimate in arrogance and hubris. — Philosophim

I'm not sure I can see hubris or pride in this. Fear and denial, yes. People don't want the show to end and they hate the thought of those they love no longer being extant. An afterlife, reinforced by society and culture, is an effective way to manage grief and dread. But I agree with you that supernatural beliefs like this often cause great harm.

What if mass shooters really believed that they would suffer in the afterlife as a consequence of their actions? As it is, I'm sure most of them believe that when they die there are no consequences. — Wayfarer

What about all those hideous crimes, from bride-burning to mass murder that are initiated by religious belief? Seems to me religions are often a benzedrine for atrocity. Think of the Saudis executing homosexuals on behalf of Wahhabi Islam. Bet they think this will take them to Paradise. I've met serious Lutheran Christians who thought the Shoah/Holocaust was God's work (perhaps based on ideas in Luther's sermons). So there is that.

Yes, I see the issue. This is a much deeper account of what I was initially wondering about and why I was hoping for more information on the proposed 'nature' of the noumenal. Do you suppose the transcendental aspect of Kant's model covers the gap?

I cannot do much better than that without writing a helluva lot more ... I don't want to right now, so hope that gives you food for thought at least. — I like sushi

Cool. That's more than enough. I'm not a detail guy. Appreciated.

"The concept of noumenon is, therefore, only a limiting concept, and intended to keep claims of sensibility within proper bounds, and is therefore only of negative use. But it is not mere arbitrary fiction; rather, it is closely connected with the limitation of sensibility, though incapable of positing anything positive outside the sphere of sensibility." — I like sushi

Thanks ILS but I am not really sure what that means.

In short there is no noumenon other than the concept used in relation to phenomenon applicable ONLY in a negative sense. — I like sushi

Can you try this again? I'm sure it's my fault. From the Oxford Reference:

On a different view, the distinction merely reflects Kant's understanding that all knowledge is knowledge from a standpoint, so the noumenal is the fraudulent idea of that which would be apprehended by a being with no point of view. It is unclear how on Kant's own view we can mean anything by the term

Is this the same thing?

For a very useful primer have a read of The Continuing Relevance of Immanuel Kant, Emrys Westacott. — Wayfarer

Good little primer. Thanks again.

That's what I linked the Westacott article for. I know Kant is a lot of f****ing reading but that article is about 2,200 words and an excellent primer, by a philosophy prof. (If you want, here's a decent edition of the entire Critique of Pure Reason.) — Wayfarer

Thanks, will read the article as soon as I can. I have, over time, read a number of papers on Kant and some slabs of the Critique. I am left with some basic questions and I wanted to hear from others.

To simplify, the Tao is what there was before there were people to see it and talk about it. But of course, that's not right, because, to Lao Tzu, before oneness was divided into a multiplicity, those things in a sense didn't exist. — T Clark

You may well be onto something and thanks. I fear I am one of those people who just can't discern all that much from those sorts of ideas. To me it all reads like cross word clues in search of a word that hasn't been coined yet. But I'm happy to keep looking into it. Is there a specific reference in the Tao you can point to that resonates with any aspect of Kant, or are you talking more in terms of tone of the work itself?

“It is indeed even then inconceivable how the intuition of a present thing should make me know a thing as it is in itself, as its properties cannot migrate into my faculty of representation.” — Mental Forms

I think this line, despite the new questions it generates, probably answers all my original questions.

One of Kant's key insights is that we're not the passive recipients of sensations but knowledge is in part constituted by a priori or transcendental factors (contributed by the mind itself) imposed upon the data of experience 1. — Wayfarer

Yes, this is indeed an even more fascinating area of Kant - the preconditions which make intelligibility and knowledge possible...

Now presumably you think that these people - the ones who are not in agony with no prospect of it ending, but are just bored and what a change of scene - do not, in fact, have reason to kill themselves? — Bartricks

They are not bored. They are dealing with depression and post-trauma reactions, or an overwhelming situational problem - a crisis which temporarily has a detrimental hold on them.

Surely your very job presupposes the truth of what I am saying, namely that, in the main, killing oneself is irrational and thus those who are inclined to do so need help and to be diverted from making an irrational and very harmful choice? — Bartricks

Can't see that. I never use the term irrational since I don't think reason plays all that much of a role in behaviour, or life in general. Sure people have reasons, but that doesn't imply a measured or 'reasoned' world view. People tend to be reactive in my experience. And all of us love our post hoc rationalisations.

My role in these cases is to prevent unnecessary death. It is not tied to any presuppositions other than life is preferable to death. A view an atheist might hold on the basis that the flourishing of conscious creatures is a useful guiding principle for actions in the world.

I choose to assist people because it pleases me emotionally - it seems like the right thing to do for me. It is not tied to a consciously held foundational narrative or any reasoned system. I also know that people generally choose suicide as a reaction to problems which can be overcome. Those who survive ususally say something like - "I couldn't see any solutions and didn't think I would be happy again, that's why I wanted to die. I'm so glad I didn't do it.' People sometimes require a reboot.

Anyway, despite all this stuff the most I can commit to is that life is preferable to death. If people really want to die (and many do) they don't generally seek help from services. They, to quote the execrable Nike, just do it.

Enjoy the argument, I'm out. I'm pretty sure I don't understand your thinking and it shouldn't matter to you or me that I don't. Cheers - TS

Wow, a rich load of replies, thanks all.

Thanks and very interesting. Welcome.

Cheers - will try to source this. A problem for me is time for reading.

Thanks - too much fuckign reading. That's the problem.. What's the definition of a philosopher - one who can't stop reading....

Apologies, no idea what you were saying - when 'spacetime' enters a reply I generally experience a collapse of my wave function..

"Direct" feedback? What exactly does that mean? And of course by "dying" do you mean something other from and different from living? — tim wood

Thanks Tim. I was being playful about the potential interrelationship of both realms at the point of death. Is death part of the phenomenal world? How does it relate to the noumenal world? That kind of thing. I guess it isn't.

End game: in Kant, there is no such thing as a noumenal world, as far as the human cognitive system is concerned. If there is one, merely from logical non-contradiction, our system does not admit the possibility of the experience of its constituency. — Mww

Yes, I kind of figured this might be it. I've found I get nowhere in life without asking obvious questions. Thank's also for your thoughtful answers.

Goodness. You may be right about that.

the distinction he makes is between 'things as they appear to us' - as phenomena - and 'as they are in themselves' (the infamous ding an sich) which is often equated with the noumena. However opinion is divided as to whether 'the noumena' and 'things in themselves' really are synonymous - this is one of the things Schopenhauer criticized, saying he used both terms inconsistently. — Wayfarer

Good - thanks. What I need is a basic primer that articulates this in summary. I am not really a detail guy (and certainly no philosopher). My overall reason for asking all this is simply that Kant is influential and many projects have reacted against his ideas. I am also interested in getting more understanding of the the various versions of idealism posited. I was wondering if the noumenal world was Kant's philosophic construction of something like the realm of quantum waves. But I am no QM wanker...

The argument I made is simple: death is a harm of such gravity that it plausibly outweighs all the goods a life contains. It isn't hard to understand. — Bartricks

I understand the point you are making, but your argument doesn't resonate with me. Part of my role involves working in the area of suicide prevention, to provide crisis intervention to people who what to kill themselves. Despite the strong taboos of religions and culture, suicidality is common and not often the result of 'agony'. Generally it is situational and people just don't have the desire to continue because they find life overwhelming emotionally. We understand that around 15% of people consider suicide at some point.

Many people don't want to live. The offical figures for suicide are alway under. For every successful attempt there are probably 5 or 6 who were unsuccessful. And many suicides are recorded as accidents or misadventures. I would add to this all those folk who partake in high risk activities that have a high chance of killing them - substance use, smoking, 'lifestyle' choices. The risk of death, as an oncologist tells us, is generally not enough of a disincentive for certain behaviours.

So, it seems that 80 years of moderate misery is better than death. And that goes for a life of 150 years of moderate misery, and 500 years and so on. Our reason tells us to stay here, in this realm, for as long as we possibly can, save agony. That is, it tells us that it is in our interests to stay here, in this realm, forever, if possible, so long as one's life is not outright terrible. — Bartricks

I don't read any conclusions like this from behaviour. I also think 'reason' and behaviour don't always have a connection. Emotion would seem to me to be a bigger influence. I would also argue that from an evolutionary standpoint (and I am not a social Darwinist) that species are hard wired for survival. So there's that.

Nicely put, I appreciate your perspective. :pray:

There is no "mercy" in violating the interests of billions of sentient beings for a nonexistent good or a "solution" that's much worse than the problem. — DA671

I agree. But I am putting it out there as it seems that for some it could be the logical next step from antinatalism.

Given this, it's irresponsible & immoral of us to bring children into our world. Would you, for example, send your friend on a quest if his/her safety was in question? It's the same thing, may be even worse. — Agent Smith

I wonder then if the best thing to do then is find a way to nuke the entire planet and kill all life. We would, perhaps, consider this one giant mercy killing (putting people and animals out of their misery) and definitively ending the breeding of more humans.

Yes, I was just merely bouncing off what others had said since I am unable to follow your argument. I'm sure it is my fault for not reading closely enough.

Well, only if your idea of God is absurd. And the kind of absurd idea I have in mind, is God as a kind of uber-director, standing behind the scenes directing everything. — Wayfarer

Now don't go being rude about the millions of literalists around the world. :wink: Just because you went to university doesn't mean you can look down on all those believers who have a more simple faith. You know well that this is how god is widely understood. By those who cause most of the problems. And they are a vast number in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the USA. We know that they dominate health policy, politics and shape legal systems. Call them 'absurd' if you wish but they are legion. :pray:

We fear (in descending order of intensity)
1. Suffering (torture)
2. Dying (the transition phase between life and death)
3. Death (the state of being nonexistent)

I don't want to live on in my work. I want to live on in my apartment.
— Woody Allen — Agent Smith

I think this is a fair assessment. Personally No 3 doesn't concern me much, I'm been nonextant for most of 13.77 billion years already and it didn't bother me.

I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
- Woody Allen (again)

Do sites like TPF give individuals the opportunity to justify why they have not done more to help others? — universeness

People act, so my take is that if a person has to ask the question, it's unlikely they are going to do anything about it. So I figure they can just get on with whatever it is they do. :wink: Scenarios and conundrums are diversion strategies.

a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic”
___Joseph Stalin — Gnomon

A single death is a statistic, a million deaths are a tragedy.

I will note that they stick with the traditional Kierkegaardian view of life being totally absurd without a concept of God — Dermot Griffin

Maybe a digression, but I have often wondered why god or no god makes any difference to absurdity. Isn't the idea of god in a world such as ours absurd in itself? Is there anything inherent in the idea of god/s (deities being a pretty incoherent notion at best anyway) that diminishes the world's absurdity in any tangible way? Tentative notions of purpose and meaning as the consequence of a god belief seems more like whistling in the dark and you have to work very hard for any notion of god/s to add anything more to the mystery of life than yet a further mystery. That's absurd. :wink:

Diversity as a standard for filling a Court seat with the responsibility of interpreting the law, and perhaps changing it? Skin color is a standard the supercedes competance? Supercedes honesty? Or, perhaps is on par with those standards? — Garrett Travers

No.

How's that? At what point did you determine there was racism within the Supreme Court solely on the basis that the men on the Court, who aren't Clarence Thomas I'll assume, are white..? What informs this notion? — Garrett Travers

I make no such claim. I made some jokes to @Banno. I simply believe that this nomination is justified on the basis of potentially making this institution more diverse.

It's neo-Marxist manipulation... bet the Rockefeller foundation is behind it all.

Yeah, you really need more old white men. Been working for hundreds of years, why change. — Banno

Exactly, and there'd be the additional benefit of a lack of racism.

Well, remember Ronald Reagan made a similar pledge in 1980 and delivered the first female SC judge - Sandra Day O'Connor. Court nominations are always political, so what?

If Everett's is the solution, then what is the problem? (I've asked that question on The Physics Forum and never got a very good answer.) — Wayfarer

Did no one say consciousness?

Einstein was challenging the Copenhagen interpretation — Wayfarer

I'm not a QM junkie, but didn't we end up with (amongst other things) the Everett interpretation or (thanks to DeWitt), the 'many worlds interpretation' to get us out of that conundrum? What wave function collapse?!

Well, I see physicist Sean Carroll now talks about an 'asleep' cat versus an 'awake' cat, the poison being swapped with a mere soporific. Even QM is politically correct it seems. I wonder if that proves God exists...

The idea that I am not caring if I discriminate in my considerations on whether I will provide aid to someone is bizarre. It's what everyone does in any given situation. You don't just open your home to beggers and orphans. — Garrett Travers

I don't consider this relevant to my take on Josh's point. But you and I are too far apart on these matters, let's not even start. :wink: