I think Christianity borrowed significantly from the pagan mystery cults. — Ciceronianus

A common practice. In large part it is war by other means, the vanquishing of their gods by assimilation. But there is also the tendency to borrow stories and practices that are found to be appealing, and making them our own. The Mithraic iconography of bull, lion head, snake, rock, and radiance can all be found in the religions of far more ancient cultures.

Without death and suffering, life would be next to impossible. — Olivier5

A depressing view that I am glad I don't share. The Universe is vast and has plenty of space and resources for new life.

That made me laugh. Who could possibly be the "others" in this context? People without a culture? :-) Cultural diversity is not something confined to certain folks and not others. — Olivier5

Laughter is a very subjective emotion, isn't it? If a culture demands, for example, that women cannot hold positions of authority then that is not conducive with the notion of 'common good,' so it would not be allowed inside or outside of such a culture. Its nothing to do with the culture of others. It is about establishing basic human rights regardless of cultural imperatives.

I don't think so. Yours is a naïve messianic attitude longing for some perfect resolution of our contradictions, neglecting the value and dynamic utility of those contradictions — Olivier5

I understand your opinion but I think it's nonsense and in my opinion, your opinion makes your views part of our problems and not part of the solution. There is nowhere left to take our exchange so thank you for the exchange.

Without death and suffering, life would be next to impossible.
— Olivier5

A depressing view that I am glad I don't share. The Universe is vast and has plenty of space and resources for new life. — universeness

It's a biological fact that pain evolved as a warning system for animals. The system is universal and complex. It exists for a reason: because it is beneficial for your survival.

So one who sees pain as a fundamental, existential problem is like someone who would complain that a fire siren is too loud, or that the lighthouse beam should be less blinding. But if the lighthouse beam was less intense, sailors could miss it on a foggy night and ground their ship, and if the fire siren was too low, some people wouldn't hear it. These things are alerting you of a possible danger. They NEED to be deranging, blinding or loud for your own good.

This is not a depressing view, it is a realist, science-based view. People who can't feel pain exist; it is a (thankfully rare) genetic condition, and a handicap.

As for death, you've heard of entropy? That's the god of death in thermodynamics, which underpin life as we know it.

You can only self-repair for so long apparently. Especially in the animal kingdom. Animals move, so they have moving parts, which as any engineer will tell you, are parts that erode due to friction forces. Eg the animal's articulations will get old.

The rare cases of apparent eternal life of an organism are observed in plants, eg those that clone themselves forever. Plants have no moving parts, it's comparatively easier (but still quite rare) for them to beat death.

For all we know, the whole universe will probly die sometime very far in the future, in one final collision between super gigantic black holes. It will become, finally, one. One black hole.

How's that for a depressing thought?

But as one of my favorite rabbis once pointed out, unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

He said that theologically, but it works biologically. Or at least, since it's a biological metaphor, it is evidently meant to make some sense at biological level. And to me it recalls the idea that parents must die for their children to live. If a field of grass or wheat was eternal, it would have no room for new individuals. All the available space would already be taken. For reproduction to kick in (with its significant evolutionary advantages, because children can be different from their parents) there needs to be death. Ecologically speaking, parents need to die to make room for their children to live.

Hey, maybe our universe, in dying billions of years from now, will produce many baby universes too... :-)

So the separation between church and state is also desirable because one cannot judge a king with the same moral standards used to judge day to day activities. — Olivier5

l hadn't thought of "render unto Caesar" as another way of saying separation of church and state. That makes sense to me.

Americans are religious because the various churches don't belong to the state and they have to compete for members. But when the church is part of the state and gets tax revenue, it doesn't have to compete. It basically rests on it's laurels. So anyone who wants atheism, agnosticism and overall secularization to advance should promote state religion and the church being part of the state. — ssu

I don't know if what you say is true, but it is an interesting way of looking at things.

I went to a Methodist church when I was a kid, but I'm not a member of any religion now. I've never paid much attention to Christian church history. This discussion has been eye-opening and interesting. Your posts in particular have been helpful.

Thanks.

You started a really interesting discussion. Thanks.

You started a really interesting discussion. Thanks. — T Clark

You're quite welcome. The subject fascinates me. I think there are still many Christians who don't know aspects of Christianity's history. For example, I know Catholics, or former Catholics, who were surprised to learn Jesus had brothers. I don't remember it ever coming up either. I suppose Holy Mother Church in her wisdom decided it was one of many things her flock shouldn't be told, but I think they could be explained away if needed. They may have been children of the long-suffering Joseph from a prior marriage (he may have been a widower when he married his surprising wife Mary).

The Mithraic iconography of bull, lion head, snake, rock, and radiance can all be found in the religions of far more ancient cultures. — Fooloso4

Then there are the torch bearers, Cautes and Cautopates, one with torch up, one with torch down. Representing sunrise and sunset? Maybe. And then there are the seven levels of initiates: Corax, Nymphus, Miles, Leo, Perses, Heliodromus and Pater, each with their own symbols. Do they represent the known planets (gods)? Maybe. A curious cult, to which I'm drawn, oddly. Probably was a Pater in a past life.

l hadn't thought of "render unto Caesar" as another way of saying separation of church and state. That makes sense to me. — T Clark

It is of course a modern interpretation of the saying. His parables have a way of being timeless, maybe due to their simple, real-life setting. They lend themselves to modern reinterpretations quite easily, a plasticity which is part of his appeal I think.

Placed back in its historical context though (since this thread has touched on history), the question he is asked in this episode is what we would today call a wedge issue, revelatory of broader allegiances and positions, divisive, hotly debated. The question is explicitly about taxes raised by the Roman empire: should a law-abiding Jews pay taxes to Caesar? It points to broader attitudes toward the empire, and more generally towards gentilles. Predictably, there were two (rabbinical) schools: the House of Shammai, who was clearly xenophobic as the Torah frequently is, and the House of Hillel, who preached tolerance, friendliness and commerce with gentilles as the most rational and lawful approach.

These two rabbinical houses also argued on plenty other things. Generally Hillel is more easy going in his interpretation of the Law, while Shammai is very strict.

When things heated up, the House of Shammai ended in an alliance with the zealots who warred against Rome, after killing quite a few Hillel-followers, who preached tolerance of the empire, as narrated in the Talmud.

What followed is described in Josephus' War of the Jews. In short, the Roman legions won, after a long and grueling siege of Jerusalem. The last battle was fought for the temple, which burnt as a result. A massacre.

In a pre-war context, the question about Roman taxation is best understood as a wedge issue between the two rival poles of the rabbinical universe at the time: the Houses of Shammai and of Hillel, ie between ultra-nationalists on the one hand and more congenial, outward-looking political realists on the other. And Jesus is coming down on the side of Hillel.

(as he nearly always does; he was aligned on Hillel on most issues)

In his response, I guess he meant something like: "Your money is as impure as Caesar. Money and power are the same thing: they are this world that you need to renounce to become holly. So pay your taxes."

Or in modern parlance: God is not about whether or not you should pay your taxes. You should pay your taxes.

It is of course a modern interpretation of the saying. His parables have a way of being timeless, maybe due to their simple, real-life setting. They lend themselves to modern reinterpretations quite easily, a plasticity which is part of his appeal I think. — Olivier5

Again, thanks for your input.

You've been very kind, thank you.

I have been reading about the Ugaritic mythology. The influence on the development of Judaism is quite apparent. Here is a quick introduction: "The Gods and Goddesses of Canaan":

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cana/hd_cana.htm#:~:text=Ugaritic%20mythological%20tablets%20describe%20the,goddesses%20of%20the%20Canaanite%20pantheon.&text=The%20god%20El%20was%20viewed,good%2Dnatured%2C%20beneficent%20being.

The high god "El" from Ugaritic culture is one of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible. It is found in the name Israel. Beth El (House of God) is the name of numerous synagogues, cemeteries, and hospitals.

You're quite welcome. The subject fascinates me. I think there are still many Christians who don't know aspects of Christianity's history. For example, I know Catholics, or former Catholics, who were surprised to learn Jesus had brothers. — Ciceronianus

Indeed. One of the fascinating things about Christianity is so often the more ardent the faith, the more ignorant the believer. Faith holds everything together for many people. The Bible is not understood or read. Which is why Isaac Asimov said "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.' I've certainly met a number of atheists who reached their position after reading the Good Book.

It's not hard to find evidence for the proposition that ignorance and religion are familiar bedfellows. I've known a number of Thai and Vietnamese Buddhists who have had religious stories told them as children, but have never read a canonical word. Their faith is as threadbare as the faith of any Baptist...

Yeah, the whole idea of the human mind is incredibly fascinating, being experiencing itself everything emerging from... no one really knows.

I think I also see the source of confusion here. What you're referring to as unique to the brain is generally called complexity, which is amorphously defined, but generally has to do with how networked a system is, as well as its lying somewhere between too much order and too much chaos. Going back to the example, supercomputers might have more computational power than a brain, but they are orders of magnitude less complex.

The information content is something different from complexity and is directly tied to the amount of energy in a system:

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0064475

You might appreciate this. It has a neat introduction on information as entropy that's done pretty well. The whole "information content of the universe" thing is just neat napkin math to serve as food for thought. My point was that information in human brains wouldn't be exceptional, since that's a function of the amount of entropy in a system.

Any information can be coded as something else. The entire phase space of a human brain could be documented in an unrealistically large library without violating the laws of physics. So claims about the uniqueness of brains are off in that sense.

But a near endless library documenting a brain wouldn't be concious, you need the actual interaction and network. Arguably, that could also be configured in some other manner, but realistically the point is moot outside thought experiments.

But a near endless library documenting a brain wouldn't be concious, you need the actual interaction and network. Arguably, that could also be configured in some other manner, but realistically the point is moot outside thought experiments. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is all good stuff, yes, complexity (structurally) and networking (data accrual). Dan Dennett really covers this stuff thoroughly in a series of books: Consciousness and Content, Consciousness Explained, and Freedom Evolves. Which all have laid the groundwork of modern cognitive neuroscience, from a philosopher! I am fundamentally talking about what is called the "many-drafts theory," but I would tweak the jargon a bit myself.

I don't have much to say about the subject, except that what caught my eye was the fact that the term "Jesus Freaks" can be interpreted two ways: freaks who are Jesus Freaks, or as a verb, like "Jesus freaks (out) on the sight of Jesus Freaks."

By this token, all the pharaohs ought to be historically suspect... — Olivier5

No, because they are not claimed to be gods or God today; it is what is claimed about Jesus today that determines the focus of attention, not what was claimed in ancient times.

I take your point about the popularity of Christianity and it's global dominance, but since it is those interested in western philosophy who are, in this context here at least, attacking it, I think its dominance in the west is the salient point. It could be seen as a kind of Freudian slaying of the father, a rebellion against authority; I have noticed that the most vehement critics of Christianity are often those who were schooled in it when young and probably enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) a period of fervent belief.

The high god "El" from Ugaritic culture is one of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible. It is found in the name Israel. Beth El (House of God) is the name of numerous synagogues, cemeteries, and hospitals. — Fooloso4

"El" is also cognate to "Allah" (= "the El"), BTW.

"Elohim" is the plural. It means "gods" but is generally translated as "God" or "God and angels" to hide its polytheist origin.

Then there are the torch bearers, Cautes and Cautopates, one with torch up, one with torch down. Representing sunrise and sunset? — Ciceronianus

An interesting point in itself from a 'scientifically rigorous' standpoint. This is the kind of 'mistake,' that we find all over religious fables, that helps confirm their status as folklore. There is no sunset or sunrise. It looks like there is to us but it's actually Earth's rotation that causes this effect.

The high god "El" from Ugaritic culture is one of the names of God in the Hebrew Bible — Fooloso4

Is it not also true that El also translates to 'the' in English. Like El Toro in Spanish is The Bull in English.

"EI" is also a way of misspelling the name of the AI god, found in many computer science cultures.

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.' I've certainly met a number of atheists who reached their position after reading the Good Book. — Tom Storm

Sooooo True. I have read both Old and New testaments twice(although I would call them bad rather than good books). I was atheist after watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos, when I was around 13. The Old Testament would make a better TV serial than Game of Thrones, when it comes to mass violence, intrigue, sex, and supernatural BS. But then this would probably be true for accurately depicted series on the Mahabharata (not the recent, cleaned up TV version) or the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I think that's another skewed view, the 'global' importance the West suggests the bible has. The Quoran, The Mahabharata, The shen manuscripts in china etc are just as important and influential within the cultures that created them.

The Quantum Theory created by pure reason, advanced math and highly intelligent atheists, and with absolute lack of evoking supernatural forces in its creation, is the most potent force for theism ever conceived.

That must be why theism is on the wane in some of its traditional heartlands such as the USA.
The more educated people become, the more they will question the validity of supernatural claims.
It's a natural effect of increased intelligence. Very few scientists are theists.

Perhaps I am just not following the 'irony' of your chosen handle or your choice of representative Icon.
You suggest a god that has no self-belief and you use a Hollywood actor in a bad film as your profile pic.
Then you seem to defend theism.
Go figure!

Here is a little fact about myself and my own life experience.
After I had finished watching Cosmos by Carl Sagan and an RE lesson I had in year 1 in secondary school. I sat up in my bed in the dark at night after a bad dream. I was 'annoyed,' that the dream scared me (I was only 13). I sat for ages thinking about 'stuff.' I took a torch and shone it under my chin whilst looking in a mirrored wardrobe for effect. I then called god lots of bad names and challenged him to send his enforcer (satan) to come and 'sort me out.' I said I would even accept a clear warning (because I was scared, just in case!) and if I got such, then I would accept its existence. I eventually fell asleep and woke up in the morning as one usually does.
Since then, I have repeated this, especially during/after traumatic situations like the death of a loved one etc. There is nothing in the empty darkness except the fear we bring with us.
All the hallucinations reported by others including NDE stories are just 'interrupted and corrupted' info packets in the brain or bad wiring etc.
I request that all theists out there or those who are scared of the supernatural. Use all of the will power you have to call upon/pray for/invoke these forces now, to manifest the powers at their command and destroy me before 8 am tomorrow morning. If I post a message tomorrow then this does provide some evidence of that such forces do not exist. It doesn't count if I get 'sorted out' by a messed-up human who claims the supernatural is working through them. My destruction must be by supernatural means not natural.
I have agreed this with groups of individuals in the past btw and I am still here.
Gods have no power because they don't exist.
I don't want to post expletives on this site so just accept that in my mind I am using every expletive I can muster against all god fables and supernatural claims.
Why don't you try it for yourself, if you are not too scared to. Watch a really scary horror film based on the supernatural first. I've done that too, many times, especially after a few single malts!
Post to you tomorrow guys!! :naughty: :strong:

Oh, I forgot to say. If I am destroyed/die from natural causes/accident etc at any point after 8am (unless it can be definitely proved it was by supernatural means) tomorrow morning then it does not count. That's the offer I am making to the non-existent supernatural. So claims like 'yeah but he was killed by a car, a lightning strike, a terrorist attack, an upset theist three days later, DOES NOT COUNT. I would just be dead and the supernatural would still not exist.
That's about the best I can do. Put my own life and risk of eternal torment (come ahead you demons, science will smash you) on the line.

It is found in the name Israel. — Fooloso4

And in many other names. A list from Wikipedia with their meanings in Hebrew:

Abdiel – Servant of God
Abiel – God my Father
Abimael – A Father sent from God
Adbeel – Disciplined of God
Adiel – Witness of God
Adirael – Magnificence of God
Adriel – Flock of God
Advachiel – Happiness of God
Ambriel – Energy of eloGod
Ammiel – People of God
Ariel, Auriel – Lion of God
Armisael – Mountain of Judgment of God
Azael – Whom God Strengthens
Azazel – God Strengthens
Azrael – Help of God
Barakiel, Baraquiel – Lightning of God
Barachiel, Bardiel – Kindness of God or Ray of God
Bethel – House of God
Betzalel – Shadow/Path of God
Bithiel – Daughter of God
Boel – God is in Him
Chakel – Wisdom of God
Chamuel – He who Seeks God
Cassiel – Speed of God
Denzel – Fortress of God
Daniel – Judgement of God
Elad – God Forever
Eliana – My God Answers
Elijah (Elias) – Whose God is Jah, God Jah
Elisha – Salvation of God
Elishama – My God Hears
Elishua – God is my salvation
Eliezer – My God Helps
Elimelech – My God is King
Elizabeth – My God is Oath
Elkanah – God has Possessed, or God has Created
Emmanuel – God is with us
Ezekiel – God will Strengthen
Ezequeel – Strength of God
Ezrael – Help of God[2]
Gabriel, Gavriel – Strong Man of God
Gaghiel – Roaring Beast of God
Gamaliel – Reward of God
Hamaliel – Grace of God
Hanael – Glory of God
Harel – Mountain of God
Immanuel – God with us
Imriel – Eloquence of God
Iruel – Fear of God
Ishmael, Ishamael – Heard by God, Named by God
Israel, Yisrael – Struggles with God
Jekuthiel – God will support
Jerahmeel – God's exaltation
Jeremiel – God's mercy
Jezreel – God will sow
Joel – Jah is God
Jegudiel – Glorifier of God
Katriel – Crown of God
Kazbiel – He who lies to God
Kushiel – Rigid One of God
Lee-El, Lee-el, Leeel – For God
Leliel – Jaws of God
Lemuel – Dedicated to God
Mahalalel – The blessed God
Malahidael – King of God
Matarael – Premonition of God
Michael – Who is like God? a question
Mishael – Who is what God is? a question
Nathanael, Nathaniel – Gift of God
Nemuel – Day of God
Othniel – Hour of God
Peniel, Penuel, Phanuel – Face of God
Priel – Fruit of God
Rachmiel – God is my Comforter
Ramiel/Remiel – Thunder of God
Raphael – God is Healing
Raziel – Secret of God
Rameel – Mercy of God
Reuel – Friend of God
Sachiel – Price of God or Covering of God
Sahaquiel – Ingenuity of God
Samael – Venom of God
Samiel – Blind God, epithet for Baal or the Demiurge
Samuel – Name/Heard of God
Sariel – Command of God
Sealtiel – Intercessor of God
Shamsiel – Lonely Conqueror of God
Shealtiel – I asked God [for this child]
Suriel – Moon of God
Tamiel – Perfection of God
Tarfiel – God Nourishes
Tzaphkiel – Beholder of God
Tzaphquiel – Contemplation of God
Uriel – Sun of God, Light of God or Fire of God
Uzziel – Power from God
Verchiel – Shining of God
Yophiel – Beauty of God
Za'afiel – Wrath of God
Zadkiel – Righteousness of God (rabbinic)
Zagzagel – Splendor of God
Zaphkiel – Knowledge of God
Zeruel – Arm of God
Zophiel – Watchman of God
Zuriel – Rock of God

Use all of the will power you have to call upon/pray for/invoke these forces now, to manifest the powers at their command and destroy me before 8 am tomorrow morning. If I post a message tomorrow then this does provide some evidence of that such forces do not exist — universeness

I wish you a long, happy and healthy life. If you end up having one I don't imagine it will be to do directly with my wishing you it. But every little helps.