The "Jesus" I like is similar to Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Workers. — Bitter Crank

I'm ashamed to admit I thought, for a very brief but delightful moment, you were referring to "Doris Day."

It is in line with what you say. Of course not everyone agrees with her, but even her critics cannot dismiss her scholarship — Fooloso4

All we can do, is ask others to study this stuff. Perhaps we might even scream it from the pulpits of the internet and help move our species forward and out of the theistic fog and the fog of nasty political systems which only benefit and maintain a few rich and powerful demagogs who seem determined to destroy all of us without the acceptance that they will also be destroyed.

I don't see an issue here. Nietzsche's sister wanted to read her antisemitism and racialist theories into Nietzsche, but she clearly misunderstood him. Kaufman has great insights on Nietzsche writing a century later.

It's an issue for people embracing Sola Scriptura and denying contradictions in the Bible. They seem to not get that Jesus could have written a book. He could have issued systematic theology. He did not. Which to me would suggest that if you're a Christian, the logical conclusion is that God created different narratives that work on multiple interlocking levels of allegory to communicate to different people with different personalities and abilities. But that's just me.

But they go to such great lengths in their efforts to make of Christianity what they want it to be, what they find to be intellectually acceptable, that Jesus, as portrayed in Scripture, seems less and less recognizable. — Ciceronianus

It's their religion, they can do with it whatever they want.

Is the claim here that information in brains can't be replicated in the way that information in MP3s or DNA can because it is more complex? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, more the structure of how data is actually integrated and anaylized, prioritized and distributed, and how that informs both your desires, and your disinterests, which ultimately govern your actions.

I'm not sure if that appeal to complexity gets you very far. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This sentence is a very strange way to make an appeal to complexity fallacy. I didn't appeal to complexity, I said you relegating its complexity to mere matter is absurd, which it is. This is an appeal to complexity, your entire statement is predicated on it: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Complexity
It doesn't matter if you understand what I'm saying, or can only liken it to computer files, which the human mind created, the fact is the human brain is not mere matter, but as I described, which is concurrent with cognitive neuroscience today.

Which is just an example, the bigger issue is why the laws of information science/physics vis-á-vis information would be different in a nervous system. — Count Timothy von Icarus

They are a billion times more complex. Nobody on this site has time to convey this to you. The brain uses computing processes beyond anything we could ever imagine building right now, between chemicals, electrical functions, electromagnetic waves, and 86 billion neurons. You're completely off the mark on this. i implore you, as a fellow philosopher, go get aqcuainted with modern cog-neruoscience, you needs this information to inform your conclusions.

I wasn't assuming anything on the epistemological front, just listing other common objections to "people are brains," that I feel are less fruitful because they tend to become debates over ontology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Gotcha. Yeah, it's not my interest, except for simply functionality and nature, beyond that it doesn't seem productive, philosophically.

Then the jews get blamed for asking for this nice placid Jesus to be crucified and the Romans try their best to refuse! This is obviously Roman propaganda! — universeness

Well, Christian propaganda, more likely. As Christianity spread, it was prudent for Christians to make the Jews the villains rather than the Romans.

Josephus Flavius started as a Sicari but got captured by the Romans and turned traitor. — universeness

He became a kind of pet of the Flavians, true. I'm not sure about him writing the Gospels and inventing Jesus, though. I'd be surprised if Tacitus used him as a source for his comments about "Christus" and his death at the hands of Pontius Pilatus. But, who knows? At least we got some confirmation of the existence of Pontius Pilatus when the so-called "Pilate Stone" was discovered. Sadly, I can never think of him without recalling Michael Palin's portrayal in The Life of Brian.

In Greek, even his name literally translates to Jesus(Saviour) Christ(Messiah), so his name is Saviour messiah. — universeness

According to the web, Jesus would have been known in as Yeshua Ben Yussuf; Jesus - son of Joseph; which was a common name when he lived. Christ was not his name, it was the designation he gave himself.

It's their religion, they can do with it whatever they want. — baker

Yes, even change it, or ignore it, as I think they did.

Which to me would suggest that if you're a Christian, the logical conclusion is that God created different narratives that work on multiple interlocking levels of allegory to communicate to different people with different personalities and abilities. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure how that's the logical conclusion, but it certainly might be a way of making Scripture "one size fits all" if that's what you want it to be.

Man is an end in himself. Consciousness is self-producing and self-informing. This is what Hume didn't understand in his "Problem of Induction," or so called. The concept of 'circular argumentatin' can be applied to the human mind, no more than what it can be applied to the earth. Nor are humans an argument. We are conscious. The human brain developed and emerged out of the crucible of 3.5 bill years of evolution to provide us with the capacities you are using to read this now. If that is a reduction to you, as opposed to some mind-body mysticism you may be working with, then I don't know what can help you understand. There is NOTHING more complex or advanced in all the known universe than the human brain, and the consciousness it produces. — Garrett Travers

Massively, and I suspect willfully, misses the point. You have to think better about this: explain how it is that your material reduction of a person to brain activity escapes as a reduction itself, the same reduction? Observe the computer that sits before you: What are you experiencing, neuronal activity? How is neuronal activity experience as a computer? How does, a "computer" get inside this matrix of activity and make you aware of it? What is there in this relation you have with something that is out there beyond "you" that makes for the necessary EPISTEMIC connection? How does causal account in this relation translate into an epistemic account?
My guess is that you don't even know these issues exist. Rather typical.

My brain - yours as well - is designed to retrieve data corresponding to reality, with it to build coherent neworks of data that inform rudimentary behaviors and thoughts, then when enough data has been gathered, use those networks of data to formulate concepts that inform future actions and behaviors as a metter of executive function, and using that data we formulate values which inform all data networks gatherd in a feedback loop of information exchange. The human is the definition of explanatory matrix, and the only one we know to ever exist. Ontology, as far as my interests go on the subject, and maybe I'll do some writings tonight, is self-explanatory in all things, one merely needs to know what its functions are. Properties of actions, properties of function, in the case of humans, thoughts, and the relation between them contained therein. — Garrett Travers

By all means do some writings, but you will have to write about how this "the only one we ever know to exist" sits with phenomenological thinking. You likely think science is foundational, but this is because you have never read any continental philosophy.

I'm going to forgive this kind of statement, as a starter. If it happens anymore I'm going to inundate you with the content of my extensive philosophical training, that is still on-going in professional academia, as well as private, everyday pursuit. As far as suffering qua suffering, you're going to have to be specific about the point of exploration you'd have me analyze, as you could be meaning several things. Because, as it currently stands, we know suffering to be a function of the brain used to reinforce certain types of thoughts, granted it's not entirely clear why certain suffering functions are distributed as they are, but neuroscience is still young. As far as it not being a fact, such a thing is going to have to be qualified. I would take a look at this and get back to me on that fact business: — Garrett Travers

A function of the brain? True. But to call it this is to give interpretation that is outside of the interpretative context of pain as such, as it stands before waking experience. We live in a world of possibilities, and among these events as brain functions is just one.

Look no further for a neuroscientific account for this. Not that this has no value for, say the treatment of schizophrenia or other disorders, but it has limited philosophical use. this is why Rorty, e.g., straddled the fence, putting Heidegger among the three greatest philosophers of the past century. Rorty was something of a pariah in analytic philosophy, but this was because he knew the problems that were being ignored. He once succinctly put it: " No one can explain how anything "out there" gets "in here." He knew Heidegger was right. Scienctific account need to be seen AS account in unison or contradiction with others, but in essence a "regionalized" thinking that has its own ontic place and relevance.

Look, don't inundate me with anything. I don't have the time. But make your point. And spare me the threat of your awesomeness. But thank you for that all the same. It did give me occasion to smile.

Yes, even change it, or ignore it, as I think they did. — Ciceronianus

There is a fundamental tension in religion. On the one hand, there is the belief in immutability, and on the other, the historical evidence of continued change.

Christianity prior to the hegemony of the Church Fathers was without official doctrines. It was an "inspired" (the indwelling of spirit) religion. But even the attempt to establish the inalterable truth met with change from the very beginning. Rather than "the rock" on which the Church was built, it has been shifting sand.

No, more the structure of how data is actually integrated and anaylized, prioritized and distributed, and how that informs both your desires, and your disinterests, which ultimately govern your actions.

So this structure makes the information different from information held in other systems? Is the argument that this change is an emergent phenomena only of nervous systems, or complexity in general?

Ironically, I have a degree in neuroscience. Perhaps I chose a bad example. My point was that the internet, a system joining billions of human brains, has those properties you appeared to ascribe to being unique to nervous systems in a system that, as a whole, holds more information and processes more computations.

It's a bit aside the point because there are loads of things nervous systems can do that human built devices can't, but having 86 billion neurons doesn't necissarily mean much in terms of nervous systems being unique (and I agree they are unique). The fastest super computer processes about 4,500 times as many computations as a human brain per second. There is a hard limit on the amount of information you can store in a given volume, since additional energy will result in a black hole, and its many orders of magnitude above that of a human brain. Black holes and super computers aren't self aware though. If various measures of complexity or computational power were directly tied to sentience, we wouldn't have the Hard Problem.

the fact is the human brain is not mere matter, but as I described, which is concurrent with cognitive neuroscience today.

Maybe you meant this another way, but the claim that the human brain is not matter, not physical, is simply not a mainstream claim in neuroscience. The claim that it can't be explained solely by recourse to physics is common enough, but this in no way posits that physics works differently in relation to nervous systems.

If physical forces aren't the only thing at work in the brain (merely matter), what is it that makes it different? Some sort of Cartesian mind substance? Extra-physical forces?

There is nothing in the empty void except that which we bring with us.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself. etc, etc.
All the horrible experiences the human race has memorialised since our civilisations began have surely screamed at us their main message:
THERE ARE NO GODS TO HELP YOU! HELP YOURSELVES OR PERISH!
We must accept this and build a fair, global civilisation with economic equality for all or perish as bad stewards of Earth.
Another species will emerge in time on Earth, if we cannot correct the historical
errors, which have led to our currently dangerous predicament. — universeness

But this is putting it all in a dismissive narrative about how all is lost and it is just up to us, and so forth. \

The matter gets interesting only when we examine what is there, in the ethical nihilism as a rejection of something. What is rejected, exactly? It is that there is an ethical foundation that lies in the deepest analysis of ethicality itself. What does this come to? One has to look at a given ethical problem, the anatomy of an ethical problem qua problem. This goes to the concrete circumstances of our prohibitions against causing others suffering through the many ways this can be achieved. At root, it is the pain itself, and the joy and pleasure: these rise to the surface of the discussion, for these are these existential foundations of ethics.
The question then is, what is pain? What is pleasure? What is falling in love? Being tortured?

A serious analysis of religion BEGINS here.

But they go to such great lengths in their efforts to make of Christianity what they want it to be, what they find to be intellectually acceptable, that Jesus, as portrayed in Scripture, seems less and less recognizable. — Ciceronianus

Do you have specific examples; a compare and contrast? I don't disagree, but the complaint seems a bit vague.

I'm with BC. A really good post. Thoughtful and well-written. — T Clark

Thanks.

Right, forgot an important caveat, it should be "if you're a Christian who believes the entire Bible is divinely inspired and accepts Sola Scriptura," then its logical. You need the premise that the Bible is the sole source of doctrine and that it is inspired for it to follow. Obviously Christians could also claim that the wrong books made it into the Bible, or that Satan edited them to create disagreements if they don't hold the Bible as fully inspired, or they could rely on tradition to solve discrepancies if they don't hold Protestant Sola, as the Catholic and Orthodox churches do. Non-Christians have none of these issues of course.

I'd be surprised if Tacitus used him as a source for his comments about "Christus" — Ciceronianus

Tacitus suggested time was 56 AD - 120 AD
Josephus suggested time was 37 AD - 100 AD

I don't normally use AD and prefer BCE but based on the above, they may well have been contemporaries.

I'm not sure about him writing the Gospels and inventing Jesus — Ciceronianus

Joe Atwill and others do not claim he wrote the gospels and he invented Jesus, they claim he was likely involved in such along with many others. I think the current main suspect for writing the gospel of mark is the Egyptian, very powerful and very rich, Marcus Alexander.
A small intro to him is:
Marcus Julius Alexander, the son of Alexander the Alabarch and brother of Tiberius Julius Alexander, was a distinguished and wealthy Alexandrian Jewish merchant

Atwill's book Caesars Messiah is based on 10 years of research. I am not convinced by all he has written in this book but I certainly found his general thesis compelling.

So this structure makes the information different from information held in other systems? Is the argument that this change is an emergent phenomena only of nervous systems, or complexity in general? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of brains, as far as I know, yes. The result of 3.5 billion years of evolution selceting for the pinnacle predator, instead producing the source of morality and of self-recognition as functions of its brain. Meaning, the natural ethical machine that is consciousness, is in fact the what characterizes us as the pinnacle predator; yes I am saying pinnacle, not apex. The computation of brains is multifarious, not predicated on simple binary code, or basic, or anything like that. Chemical, electrical, electromagnetic, structural, processing in a network of billions of pathways. It's quite genuinely unbelievable. I contend that if we as a species can grasp what I'm discussiong with you, the nature of what we know to be ethics has the potential be altered forever in a way that is grounded in science, nature, and human cognition. The objective anchor that we've needed since Dostoevsky and Nietszche announced the death of God. I think this is that anchor.

It's a bit aside the point because there are loads of things nervous systems can do that human built devices can't, but having 86 billion neurons doesn't necissarily mean much in terms of nervous systems being unique (and I agree they are unique). The fastest super computer processes about 4,500 times as many computations as a human brain per second. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Even those computers that can do more than what we can were created to do so by us, and can only achieve within the domains that we programmed to operate within. Furthermore, we still cannot produce A.I., general or otherwise, because of how advanced our brains are as opposed to our creations, which wasn't something developers expected to be confronted by. Computers like what you're describing lack all of the other functionality that the brain allows for, including awareness of self and concept creation, they are resticted to those functions. It isn't about speed, it is about the symphony of functions of the brain, all in network.

If various measures of complexity or computational power were directly tied to sentience, we wouldn't have the Hard Problem. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Exactly.

If physical forces aren't the only thing at work in the brain (merely matter), what is it that makes it different? Some sort of Cartesian mind substance? Extra-physical forces? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. There is no mind substance. I'm going to use a computer example just to illustrate, not to conflate, only to compare loosely to the concept I'm telling you abour. Computers have motherboards. On these motherboards, one can see with the naked eye all of its terminals, cpu, heatsinks, transformers, and best of all for this example, the curcuits. Now, you hit power to boot up, and as long as all those curcuits are connected, and all of the structures are intact, the computer boots up and you have an interlocking system of structures working together in tandem to provide your computers with all of its functions, powered by the curcuit. If, by chance, you were to take a needle, or a razor, and cut even one of those curcuits, the whole system shuts off. The structures remain intact, but without function any longer. Consider this when thinking about what the brain does, and how it produces what it produces, namely consciousness and concept generation. What makes it different is that it is a network of structures developed by genetics to operate as a whole. With humans, enough energy was able to be allocated for the development necessary to allow that system to apprehend the world it occupied with its senses. That is the basic gist of it. Want me to elaborate more on this?

According to the web, Jesus would have been known in as Yeshua Ben Yussuf; Jesus - son of Joseph; which was a common name when he lived. Christ was not his name, it was the designation he gave himself — T Clark

Maybe true, but there were many others who also claimed such titles:
Dositheos the Samaritan, Simon bar Kokhba, Sabbatai Zevi, Simon the magician and that's before we look at all the other known leaders of the Sicari in the Ist and 2nd century CE. Most of them named, Jesus, Simon, Peter, John, Eleasar(probably the biblical Lazarus)

Even the first name of Barabbas was Jesus. In Hebrew, Bar means 'son of' and 'abba' means 'father.'
So the character Barabbas in the bible was a mockery/parody of Jesus son of the father.

I'm not an atheist — Noble Dust

I need a term that means less than "atheist" and more than "not a believer". "Agnostic" isn't it. "Atheism" is too loaded. "Agnostic" is too wishy-washy. "Not a believer" could mean 'not yet', 'not now', or 'not interested'. I am interested, and I was a believer, but I am not now. I have not achieved closure, which is a frequent annoyance. I don't like "spiritual", which sounds lame. (It's lame the way some people use the term, announcing that "we are not into church, we are spiritual". "Spiritual", unlike 'atheism' which is too loaded, isn't loaded enough.

"Church people" are all over the place, one finds. (Surveys have found this too.). Some active church members are devout creedal believers. Some active church members don't check all of the boxes as they say the creed. Some check only a few--maybe "God the Father". Some, a few, don't check any of the boxes--and are still active church members--just not creedal believers. Decreeded? Creedless Believers?

Jesus would have been known in as Yeshua Ben Yussuf — T Clark

A name not mentioned in the bible at all!

It's all in the parables. They seem to have come from a speaker rather than a writer. But, then again, we can't give people enough credit. There were wise men in dark ages, though we wouldn't recognize them.

Anything that is a threat is a lie, though.

Have you painted yourself into a misanthropic corner? Because non-Christians are no better

That's because the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and then translated into Latin. Didn't Jesus speak Aramaic? He might have known Koine Greek, but probably not. The oldest version of the OT is in Greek too (a more formal dialect).

But this is putting it all in a dismissive narrative about how all is lost and it is just up to us, and so forth. \

The matter gets interesting only when we examine what is there, in the ethical nihilism as a rejection of something. What is rejected, exactly? It is that there is an ethical foundation that lies in the deepest analysis of ethicality itself. What does this come to? One has to look at a given ethical problem, the anatomy of an ethical problem qua problem. This goes to the concrete circumstances of our prohibitions against causing others suffering through the many ways this can be achieved. At root, it is the pain itself, and the joy and pleasure: these rise to the surface of the discussion, for these are these existential foundations of ethics.
The question then is, what is pain? What is pleasure? What is falling in love? Being tortured?

A serious analysis of religion BEGINS here — Astrophel

I understand the majority of what you state here from the individual meanings of the words you use and the context within which you use them but I am not so interested in this type of analysis. It is a very valid analysis I'm sure and certainly belongs on this forum, more than my approach does but I would refer you to members like Garrett Travers or fooloso4 to name but a few, for better feedback on the points you raise, than any that I can offer you.

I'm ashamed to admit I thought, for a very brief but delightful moment, you were referring to "Doris Day." — Ciceronianus

Dorothy enters the shabby dining room of the Catholic Worker House of Hospitality in a full-skirted pastel dress with cuffed short sleeves singing Que Sera Sera.

You beat me to it.

That's because the New Testament was written in Koine Greek and then translated into Latin. Didn't Jesus speak Aramaic? He might have known Koine Greek, but probably not. The oldest version of the OT is in Greek too (a more formal dialect). — Bitter Crank

Well, many people use this fact as evidence that the jews could not have written the gospels.
Why were the Gospels written in Greek? Perhaps because this was one of the main languages used in Rome and was used by the Flavians the Alexanders and the Herods.
As you say why are the Gospels not in Hebrew or Aramaic?
The dead sea scrolls are in Hebrew so why not the gospels?

I understand the majority of what you state here from the individual meanings of the words you use and the context within which you use them but I am not so interested in this type of analysis. It is a very valid analysis I'm sure and certainly belongs on this forum, more than my approach does but I would refer you to members like Garrett Travers or fooloso4 to name but a few, for better feedback on the points you raise, than any that I can offer you. — universeness

Impressive. An honest answer. At any rate, if some time in the future you want to look analytically at nihilism, check out Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics. Perhaps Husserl's Ideas I. they don't talk about ethical nihilism, but they do give al discussion about foundations.

:up:

Maybe true, but there were many others who also claimed such titles: — universeness

Why is that relevant?

Jesus would have been known in as Yeshua Ben Yussuf
— T Clark

A name not mentioned in the bible at all! — universeness

Yeshua is Hebrew. Translated through Greek to English it became Jesus.