He is now pushing for a 90 day review process of the documents. Run the clock out until after the midterm elections.

I am not concerned. — NOS4A2

Well that settles it. NOS is not concerned. We can all rest assured.

He was the president of the United States, the commander in chief, and had the unilateral power to do whatever he wanted with those documents — NOS4A2

The commander in chief is not an emperor. He cannot do whatever he wants with classified documents. He cannot give them or sell them to Russia or China or use them as leverage against his enemies.

If someone were to read this without having read what comes before it they might assume you are talking about Trump.

And they’d be wrong. — NOS4A2

Only because they did not notice you were not referring to Trump, not because it does not describe what he continues to do.

They’re your interests, maybe. — NOS4A2

They are the interests of anyone who is able to see the threat of a nuclear Iran. On the one hand you point to Iran killing US soldiers but on the other pretend there is no danger with them being a nuclear power.

I don’t care about the article or the book of some establishment bureaucrat. I read what you quoted and what you tried to sell from it. — NOS4A2

You admit you didn't read it but that did not prevent you from saying:

This is a good little reminder, despite the breathtaking stupidity of the review. — NOS4A2

I won't say what stands as a good little reminder of breathtaking stupidity.

I did not try to sell anything from it. But, of course, you would not know that since you did not read the review and what it says in distinction from what you assume I rather than the review said. The review speaks for itself.According to the review Berman describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican and that during the 2016 presidential primary season, Mr. Berman volunteered for Mr. Trump’s campaign and later for his transition committee. Unlike you, Berman has first hand insider knowledge of the things he wrote about.

The idea that using the FBI to raid political opponents over national archives ... — NOS4A2

It is not simply that the material belongs to the national archives, it is that the material contains classified documents. Having them in his personal possession raises national security issues. The fact that he did not protect them from a whole host of people raises national security issues. Is it that you are not able to see why it is of concern, or are you just pretending not to?

The efforts of former bureaucrats to undermine the president of the United States ... — NOS4A2

If someone were to read this without having read what comes before it they might assume you are talking about Trump.

I don’t give a straw for the “allied interests of the world”. — NOS4A2

Spoken like a true Trumpster. The allied interests of the world are our interests. It is not as if we are separate and safe from a nuclear threat that only affects the rest of the world.

By "someone" I did not mean some particular someone.

You're conflating the words attributed to Jesus said while He walked the Earth with the mythology NT writers wrapped around His words. — ThinkOfOne

How do you disentangle the two? Are you referring to the findings of phase 1 of the Jesus Seminars?

The most obvious problem with trying to separate the mythology of NT writers is that any talk of God, whether it was said by Jesus or not, is mythology.

There is another problem that you have avoided. Your interest does not seem to be in what Jesus said but with subjecting his words to a tortured reading that turns them into what you want them to say while ignoring the words themselves.

I know that he was not in fact quoting Berman in the content you provided. — NOS4A2

Based on what you have said you have made it clear once again that you did not read the article. What do you hope to gain by providing further evidence of it?

when Iran was busy killing US soldiers in Iraq — NOS4A2

So, because Iranian soldiers were busy killing US soldiers while US soldiers were busy killing Iranian soldiers (it's called "war") efforts to salvage a nuclear arms deal made by several world powers should not have taken place? The allied interests of the world, not the unilateral interests of Trump or what he thinks are the interests of the US are at issue.

No, you quoted the reviewer. But you claimed it was Berman’s claim. So why won’t you show me Berman’s claim? — NOS4A2

From my first post on this:

...from an advance copy review by the NYT — Fooloso4

The reviewer quotes Berman. Perhaps I assumed too much, that you would know what an advanced copy is and how quoting sources work.

When asked about reports of him meeting the Iranian foreign minister he said “ Yes, I have. That’s accurate”. It was on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. — NOS4A2

He acknowledged meeting with the Iranian foreign minister. That is not the same as the claim that:

Kerry had a rogue “back-channel” with Iran during the Trump years. — NOS4A2

The problem is with your characterization of the meetings as rogue.

According to a report in The Washington Times, Zarik also met with Robert Malley, who was President Obama’s Middle East adviser and Obama-era Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. All were top U.S. negotiators of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The fact of the matter is that there were efforts throughout the Trump years to minimize the harm being caused by him. Kerry's allegiance was not to Trump, but to the US. And this failure to demonstrate allegiance to him is why Trump pushed for an investigation.

In 2019, Trump himself, according to the article, sought to open his own back channel of communication with top Iranian officials.

Then quote him. — NOS4A2

That is what I did! If you had read the piece you would know that. But you do not even read some of the things you link to, so there is no reasonable expectation that you would read this one.

Kerry himself admitted it. — NOS4A2

What did he say and where did he say it? Or don't you actually know because he didn't actually read more than a headline?

That said, I suspect that some who post on this site are a bit short on logical thinking skills and/or the basic teaching of Jesus. Likely they mindlessly repeat things they found on the internet. — ThinkOfOne

Your response is typical of someone who clings to their beliefs and refuses to look carefully at what the gospel texts actually say. You assume you have an adequate understanding of the basic teachings of Jesus and so reject anything that does not conform to your beliefs. Unfortunately for you, this includes what is actually said in the texts themselves.

Rather than confront and address what I have pointed to in the texts you ignore it and attempt to discredit me. That is a common tactic of someone who wants to protect their beliefs and must ignore the texts to do so.

There is a great deal of scholarly disagreement, but at a minimum one must be able to address specifically what is said in the text, rather than impose one's assumptions on it. As a general rule of interpretation, when there is evidence in the text that seems to contradict one's assumptions then you must either alter those assumptions or defend them on the basis of additional evidence found in the text. Vague claims about the basic teachings of Jesus won't cut it.

Perhaps whether or not it occurs to someone that it is a matter of choice is a matter of intelligence.

The concept of the Messiah and the Kingdom are Jewish not Greek or Roman. The Greek and Romans, however, held to the idea of human gods. In Christianity the two are conflated and the messiah eventually comes to be regarded as God. The term "son of God" as it is used in the Hebrew Bible and literature of the time referred to a human being favored by God, not God himself begetting himself.

A king anointed by God (Greek Christos) is Jewish.

The belief in resurrection is a traditional Jewish belief.

Keeping the sabbath is a Jewish belief.

The existence of angels is a Jewish belief.

I don't think we can draw any conclusions from the Q source since it is hypothetical and we do not have any documents that can establish its existence. Paul, whose writings are the oldest never met or saw of heard Jesus and according to his own accounts he split off from the disciples and went to preach to the gentiles. What he said was not based on the authority of what Jesus said but was based on "inspiration", the belief that it was through the indwelling of spirit.

Jesus was anointed by God (Luke 4), — ThinkOfOne

You cite Luke 4 but do not take into account how often Jesus' responses quote what is written. The online version of the New International Version includes footnotes that identify Deuteronomy (the Law) and Isaiah (the Prophets). It is Isaiah not Jesus who claims to have been anointed (4:18)

The passage from Matthew is not an alternative to or "rather than the OT"

He is responding to the Pharisees and Sadducees who are challenging him as to how the Law and Prophets are to be interpreted. He is not proposing a replacement for them. It is, rather, that to follow the Law without love of God and your neighbor is not sufficient.

In essence, the entirety of the true ways of God boils down to what is often referred to as "The Golden Rule". Jesus effectively replaced a rules-based understanding of the ways of God (the OT) with a conceptual understanding (The Golden Rule). — ThinkOfOne

In Matthew 5 he says:

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

The smallest letter and stroke of the pen refer to what is written. He goes on to discuss several specifs regarding the Law and how it is to be obeyed. He does not say to ignore all that written stuff. He says:

Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven

One of the least of these commands means that there are many not two.

The greatness of a moral teaching lies solely in the goodness of its contents. — Tzeentch

If you or I were to repeat teachings that we found elsewhere it may be that the teachings themselves are great, but would that make us great moral teachers?

The person who repeats it, or even the person who invents it, are in my opinion not relevant at all to the worth of a teaching. — Tzeentch

I agree, but the title of this thread is: "Jesus as a great moral teacher?"

They do not have that much in common with Judaism in general and at certain points can be even be considered polar opposites. — Tzeentch

From the Sermon on the Mount:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Law and Prophets are the basis of Jewish teaching. Jesus says they must be upheld.

Christianity has much more in common with classical Greek philosophy, especially (neo-)Platonism. — Tzeentch

Christianity and the teachings of Jesus are not the same thing. While we have no way of determining what it might have been that Jesus taught, it is clear that the gospels contain significant differences. The early Jesus movement, the suppression of "heretical" gospels by the Church Fathers, and what was declared official Christian doctrine at the Council of Nicaea give us very different pictures of what Christianity is as it developed and changed

Put differently, the further we get from Jesus, the less apparent the Jewish roots of his teaching and the more it comes to resemble the pagan beliefs of Greece and Rome. This is not at all surprising given that following Paul's preaching to the gentiles the distinction between Jew and Gentile grew and became more and more acrimonious and Christianity came more and more to resemble the gentile world.

She claims — NOS4A2

Who is "she"? The reviewer, Benjamin Weiser, is not making any claims. He is reviewing a book by Geoffrey S. Berman. It is Berman who made the claim. How does this lead to your conclusion that the review is breathtakingly stupid?

Kerry had a rogue “back-channel” with Iran during the Trump years. — NOS4A2

You turn a rumor into a fact. Trump himself tweeted that what Kerry was doing was:

possibly illegal Shadow Diplomacy

More from the review you did not read:

Mr. Berman says that after an investigation of roughly a year, his office told the Justice Department that it would not prosecute Mr. Kerry.

A short time later, on Sept. 19, 2019, Mr. Berman writes, a senior adviser to the attorney general called to say that Mr. Barr expected to take the Kerry case to another U.S. attorney’s office, this time in Maryland.

That office reached the same conclusion as the Southern District had, Mr. Berman writes, “and the Kerry investigation just quietly died — as it should have.”

Haven't you read what I said? — Alkis Piskas

Haven't you read what you said? You begin the post in which you acknowledge that it is not so simple by quoting me saying that the background here is likely to be the dispute between Paul and Jesus' disciples regarding the Law. You dispute this saying:

The background here is Jesus vs Pharisees. I have made that clear. I gave two references on that. — Alkis Piskas

It is in response to this that I said again that it is not so simple. The setting of Matthew's narrative, Pharisees challenging Jesus, is not the background against which he presents his narrative.

Which means, I'm not actually interested. — Alkis Piskas

There are other people reading these posts and forming their own opinions. When someone makes a statement, even if he claims he is not actually interested, it is appropriate for others to respond if they have a different take on the matter.

the breathtaking stupidity of the review. — NOS4A2

Explain how a review of a book you have not read is breathtakingly stupid.

Seems to me the worth of a moral teaching is found in the doing. — Banno

If a moral teaching is doing what is already found in the tradition should the "great moral teaching" be attributed to the one who repeats it?

But instead the thread bleats on about scriptural interpretation and Jewish history and so on... — Banno

I don't see how the question of his teachings can be separated from questions of interpretation and the context within which those teaching occured, that is, the teachings and practices of his fellow Jews.

The moral teachings themselves, in distinction from the teachings about him, have much more in common with the teachings of the Jewish sects of his time than any differences we may find. As a moral teacher there is nothing remarkable about the teaching attributed to him. If he was not regarded as the Messiah, the savior and redeemer of mankind, it seems likely that he would be largely unknown today.

I like the approach of "The Historical Jesus in Context". The title is somewhat misleading because the focus is not simply on trying to establish who the historical Jesus was, but rather, looks at the historical context in which the gospels were written:

The Historical Jesus in Context is a landmark collection that places the gospel narratives in their full literary, social, and archaeological context. More than twenty-five internationally recognized experts offer new translations and descriptions of a broad range of texts that shed new light on the Jesus of history, including pagan prayers and private inscriptions, miracle tales and martyrdoms, parables and fables, divorce decrees and imperial propaganda.

I like to keep the various senses of foolosophy in play.

Fools who think themselves wise.
Wise about fools.
Wise enough to know that human wisdom may be no more than foolishness.
Wise enough to know when to fool
Wise enough to play the fool

He has repeatedly and without evidence made accusations about election fraud, and now ... he is being investigated for election fraud. He may once again avoid prosecution but some around him will no doubt be convicted.

I have often thought that if you want to know what Trump is up to, look at what he accuses others of.

Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York until he was fired by Trump has a new book, "Holding the Line". Some highlights from an advance copy review by the NYT:

The book paints a picture of Justice Department officials motivated by partisan concerns in pursuing investigations or blocking them; in weighing how forthright to be in court filings; and in shopping investigations to other prosecutors’ offices when the Southern District declined to act.

The book contains accounts of how department officials tried to have allusions to Mr. Trump scrubbed from charging papers for Michael D. Cohen, his former personal lawyer, and how the attorney general later tried to have his conviction reversed. It tells of pressure to pursue Mr. Kerry, who had angered Mr. Trump by attempting to preserve the nuclear deal he had negotiated with Iran.

And in September 2018, Mr. Berman writes, two months before the November midterms, a senior department official called Mr. Berman’s deputy, cited the Southern District’s recent prosecutions of two prominent Trump loyalists, and bluntly asserted that the office, which had been investigating Gregory B. Craig, a powerful Democratic lawyer, should charge him — and should do so before Election Day.

“It’s time for you guys to even things out,” the official said, according to Mr. Berman.

“Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Mr. Berman, 62, writes, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.

The background here is Jesus vs Pharisees. — Alkis Piskas

Again, it is not so simple. Paul himself discusses both his dispute with the disciples and the question of obedience to the Law. The Gospel of Matthew was written about 50 years after the death of Jesus. The stories it and other gospels contain are influenced by Paul and the schism that led to the separation between Jews and Christians.

Where Matthew portrays the Pharisees as the adversaries of Jesus, Mark warns against the Scribes (Mark 12:38) While some scribes were Pharisees not all were. The issue with both Scribes and Pharisees was the question of who had authority regarding questions of the Law. The question is further complicated by Paul's claims about the Law and Gentiles.

Yet, I couldn't find where does the statement "Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die" exactly refer to in the Old Testament. — Alkis Piskas

That is because it is not there. As I said:

The prohibition against killing is one of the ten commandments ... It is the second clause, which does not appear in the Hebrew Bible ... — Fooloso4

This embellishment too is related to the question of who had authority regarding the Law.

But we should not lose sight of what is at issue in this thread. If Jesus taught obedience to the commandments, and it is evident that he does as he is portrayed in Matthew, then it is what he believed and taught. Or, more precisely, it is what Matthew's Jesus believed and taught.

I would like to know what people think of C.S. Lewis's argument for the divinity of Christ. — Dermot Griffin

The idea that Jesus is divine is paganism. Jesus would have been appalled and outraged.

It is not so simple. What is at issue is the distinction between tradition and commandments. (Matthew 15:3) The background here is likely to be the dispute between Paul and Jesus' disciples regarding the Law. Jesus not only quotes the commandment, he says elsewhere that all the commandments, even the least, must be upheld (Matthew 5:17-20).

How can Jesus ever say or think such a thing at the moment he was agains killing? — Alkis Piskas

The prohibition against killing is one of the ten commandments. The obvious problem is, how can one
uphold all the commandment when one commandment says do not kill and another says that one who reviles his mother and father must die? One possible answer lies in the distinction between death and wrongful death. The full statement passage from Matthew is:

You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. (5:20)

It is the second clause, which does not appear in the Hebrew Bible, that seems to support the distinction between death and wrongful death. Whether the action is wrong and punishable will be judged. If it is in accord with the commandment then it cannot be wrong.

It is the only bit of moral teaching that is not explicit in classical philosophy. — Banno

This is not something I have thought about before. Why this difference in attitude? Some quick musings:

Perhaps it has something to do with the Greek notion of virtue (arete), which includes the attributes of strength and power, and so, an indifference or disdain for weakness and poverty.

Jesus elevates the weak and poor:

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke 6:20)

and regards wealth as a liability:

Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:23)

There may be two related things at play here, the low status of the early followers and the messianic promise of a new world.

This was not an innovation, it is a part of traditional Judaism:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/charity-throughout-jewish-history

I am more than a little uncertain, however, if such a dive into primary texts will interest the Forum. — Paine

That is an uncertainty that I confront every time I start and continue to put time and effort into a thread based on a primary text. There are always more readers than there are members who participate.

I encourage you to do it.

You are a traditionalist. — Tom Storm

I do not consider myself a traditionalist. In part because I don't know what is included or excluded from the tradition. I am a Marxist ... Groucho, that is: "Whatever it is I'm against it".

I have considered simple minded notions of human flourishing as a goal for human behaviour. — Tom Storm

So, you're a traditionalist! The notion of human flourishing (eudemonia) is from Aristotle's Ethics.

Do you value truth and beauty along with the good? — Tom Storm

Yes, but do not give them equal status. I prefer Plato's "trinity", the just, the beautiful, and the good. But I do not regard them as eternal Forms. I think that is a misreading of Plato. I have made the case for that elsewhere on the forum.

And what people say (or think) they value is often not what they value in practice. — Tom Storm

Agreed. Good point.

I wouldn’t expect that if we were to discover a planet with its own intelligent life, its conceptualizing capabilities would be radically different than ours. — Joshs

I am not so sure. I imagine it very well might be.

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. 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.

What we may regard as good is what in one sense or another we value, but I think this falls short of what ethical deliberation requires. My own view follows that of Plato and Aristotle - it does not focus on values but on the question of the good. We all desire what is good, but the good does not guide our deliberations. It is rather what those deliberations aim at. The question of the good is aporetic. Short of knowledge of the good the best we can do is what upon deliberation seems best, and the flexibility of thought to modify what seems to be as needed.

To paraphrase and correct Wolpert, we regularly become those beings for whom things are knowable, but not to us currently, because we are not capable of conceiving of that kind of knowledge in the first place (within our current schemes of conceptualization). — Joshs

It may not be a matter of the limits of current schemes of conceptualization, but of all schemes of conceptualization that are available to us qua human beings.

This is not a question that we can give a definitive answer to, but my guess is that we will never know more than a sliver of reality.

Here is a quick and clear summary:

Mueller revealed why he didn't charge Trump with a crime — and it wasn't because of a lack of evidence

The former special counsel Robert Mueller went into detail Wednesday about why he didn't make a decision on whether to charge President Donald Trump with obstruction of justice.

Mueller pointed to three factors that he said impeded prosecutors from making a decision on the obstruction case.

The first is a 1973 decision by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted. For that reason, Mueller said, charging Trump with a federal crime "is unconstitutional."

He also said it would be "unfair" to even suggest Trump had committed a crime, because it would deprive him of the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law.

And he said filing a sealed indictment was not an option because of the 1973 DOJ policy, and because there was a risk that it could leak.

"Charging the President with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider," Mueller said.

But the former special counsel emphasized that if prosecutors had confidence that Trump did not commit a crime, they would have said so. He also implied that it is up to Congress to potentially pursue impeachment proceedings against Trump. (https://www.businessinsider.com/why-mueller-didnt-charge-trump-obstruction-2019-5)

What'll be the reaction of those on this forum if no evidence of significant wrongdoing is produced? — Tzeentch

The evidence of significant wrongdoing has already been produced. He is wrongfully and illegally in possession of classified documents.

There was plenty in the Mueller report. Trump was not, as he claimed, exonerated. The fact that he was not prosecuted does not mean there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing.

Not to mention Trump’s medical and tax records and passports. God knows what they found in Melania closet and Barron’s room. — NOS4A2

The reason why is simple: he has no regard for national security. He carelessly threw all these things together as if they are his personal effects.

It’s a nothingburger. Zilch. Nada. — NOS4A2

I assume you must have read the documents, perhaps even the missing ones, if you know this. You did not tell us that you are authorized to view classified documents.

Nietzsche's views on science are something I have not given enough attention to. A few scattered thoughts as to where attention should be given:

The relation between knowledge , truth and life.

Not simply science but the different sciences.

Determinism and eternal return.

But all versions are 'good' subject to a particular value system. — Tom Storm

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.

It is commonly held, and some might regard it as a truism, that what we value is what is good. But the question arises whether we ought to value something because it is good rather than regard it as good because we value it?

His argument seems to me that humans are equipped with formal structures of cognition that are perhaps evolutionarily based and that are therefore basically set in place and relatively fixed. — Joshs

He calls human language and mathematics "cognitive prostheses" and identifies "mathematics as a special case of human language.". We no longer expect ordinary language to give an adequate description of the physical world. Should we expect mathematics to?

but my contention that these schemes are continually adapting and changing. their nature in response to feedback from the world, so there is not the disconnect between formal cogntive structures and world that Wolpert suggests needs to be overcome in order to see more of reality. — Joshs

If I understand him, he moves in a different direction:

I am emphasising the possibility of things that are knowable, but not to us, because we are not capable of conceiving of that kind of knowledge in the first place.
This returns us to an issue that was briefly discussed above, of how the set of what-we-can-imagine might evolve in the future. Suppose that what-can-be-known-but-not-even-conceived-of is non-empty. Suppose we can know something about that which we truly can’t imagine.

He makes a distinction between the possibility of gaining knowledge based on what we can imagine and our inability to imagine what that knowledge might be.

Maybe it’s about both. — Joshs

What I should have said is that AI is only a part of the larger question of limits. And, of course, death is the ultimate limit, or so it seems.