Like what?
I’m having a little trouble parsing this, but it seems you’re saying that Jesus (and/or the Gospel writers) is just too vague about what he means for us to even start judging. I don’t think it’s a complete free-for-all (e.g. we can rule out “every man for himself” as a Gospel supported credo) but I agree that the answer to “WWJD” isn’t always clear. Whether you think that’s a reflection of worth, or of historical transmission, or authorial intent comes back to IMHO, I suspect. In any case we have what we have and if you don’t find it convincing, fair play to you.
One counter-argument to the vagueness, having said that, would be that in fact Plato (and Hobbes and Mill and anyone else who has tried to “order” society perfectly) is the one who got it wrong. One point of view says “The important thing is to be good: love your neighbour, forgive them when they do wrong and let the politics take care of itself [e.g. render unto Caesar].” The other seems to say “People are a problem. Unless we organise things just right, they’ll screw things up for themselves and for everybody else, so what we need is rule by the few/total state power/checks and balances/your solution here.” Again, it’s probably fair to make a judgement on this: is grappling with systems to ensuring “the good” a smarter method than preaching to individuals to change their own behaviour? I suspect we’d all agree that while the former approach would be great if it worked, practically speaking we’ll need some structures to regulate behaviour.
As an aside, I gather that slavery is still practiced in parts of North Africa today, so there’s still a small minority who don’t see it as beyond the pale - it depends on who “we” all are. And there are other areas where its more difficult to find agreement - the morality of taxing the populace to cure the sick doesn’t seem quite so clear cut. But I think your point about insight is excellent. Even when we think people get things wrong, we can judge their thought process (kids, show your working!). I think this links into the point about how people approach the problem of “the good” and how to achieve it, and what we think about that.
Well, what’s your stance on the potential moral goodness of unbelievers?
How about gay people?
Is there a hell, and is Ghandi in it?
My stance is that goodness is an aesthetic. Unbelievers are no less good than believers. They merely value something different. There is the potential, however, that what they value is indeed God, but that what they know of God has been skewed by evil men in prophet’s garb. (See below.)
They are like any other people, pursuing what they value and following their hearts to their treasure.
Yes and yes. Also, no and no. One man’s heaven is another man’s hell, and vice versa.
I think that sometimes people look at the metadata rather than the data. The label is not the thing that the label tags. Suppose you asked me who God is, and I replied that He is a judgmental and omnipotent being Who hates you for who you are. Surely, you would find Him to be aesthetically worthless. But then suppose that later, you see God for yourself, either before or after you die, and you discover that I had misrepresented Him, that He is indeed the Grand Agent of the sort of edification that you’ve valued your whole life. You discover that I was a liar, and that God is what you sought all along. In that moment, you have found what you treasure and my lies have failed to derail you. The metadata are gone, and the data are before you.
Hard to say, heaven sounds fairly boring and Plato’s Republic has its problems too. Note, I’m not an expert on Plato’s Republic, I’ve read Durant’s synopsis and I’m on page 336 of ~1800 pages of “Plato Complete Works” but I have not yet read the Republic itself. Still, I think a better question would be would you rather live in Plato’s Republic or roll a die in which if you roll a 1 you go to Jesus’ Kingdom of Heaven, and if you roll a 2-6 you go to Jesus’ description of hell. Any objections to that modification? As such, I’d choose the Republic for sure. Out of curiosity, which would you prefer?
Now to the topic on hand, do you think more IQ points are demonstrated by conceptualizing heaven as a land where all our problems disappear by magic, or by Plato trying to construct an ideal society where human foibles and biases are taken into account? Also do you think more brilliance is displayed by Plato describing an better society based on his long travels and dialogs with others, or Jesus’ description of magic land which was basically pulled out of Zoroaster’s ass.
For the record I don’t want to put Plato up as the only comparison. I used him in the thread title because he’s one of the most recognizable names and he predated Jesus by several hundred years. Remember I listed several other guys, and us regular dopers, for comparison as well, Epicurus being my personal favorite, of the really old guys. That said I agree the concepts of heaven and hell should be based on what Jesus reportedly actually said, rather than what people today “interpret” things to mean. From what I have read it still seems that Plato stands infinitely taller than Jesus, on both an intellectual level and for that matter a moral level, even with his eugenics. Also, as I recall Plato was pretty egalitarian about his eugenics. Everyone had an equal opportunity of education, and if higher class folks had dunces for offspring, said offspring would drop in society in accordance with their abilities and vice versa if a bootblack had a brilliant son. Let me know if I’m wrong on that, and if so, please cite where in the Republic I can read more about it.
That’s not biblical. According to the bible, Jesus’/god’s angels literally throw people into hell. I am aware of no references to people choosing to go to hell. Paul in Romans specifically says we can not will or work for our salvation. Jesus specifically says people are “condemned” in John 3:18. If this condemnation is not the case, and your opinion is in fact correct, then I would say that is points against the intelligence of Jesus for not being very articulate.
Also, worth asking, if we assume for a minute that Jesus really is god, and heaven really is so good, then why would Jesus just be conceptualizing it (or rather plagiarizing the Zoroastrians) and not simply making the world that way immediately? Also I don’t think Plato was conceptualizing the world as they way it should be, but rather as a way it “could realistically” be. Give Plato omnipotence and I’m sure he would and could do better, but I bet he thought writing about such things seemed childish. Heaven, where if your good everything is perfect for ever and ever just sounds like something little kids might make up, with all the intellectual rigor of Santa bringing presents. Of course that’s just my opinion.
When Jesus prophesized he’d be in the earth 3 days and 3 nights (as Jonah was in the whale) yet he was allegedly in the earth sort of 3 days (of you stretch it) but only 2 nights. Also Jesus prophesized the second coming within the lifetimes of those to whom he standing next to, but hasn’t been back yet.
I’m saying Jesus’ teachings are really not worthy of much respect or such a following, and are inferior to the teachings of others by a long shot. Not that Jesus’ teachings didn’t do as you say. As for the odds I think he just got lucky as far as preachers go. One might argue that it’s against all odds that a golf ball will land on a particular blade of grass, but in hindsight they almost always do anyway.
According to Durant, Plato’s dialogs were his works intended for commoners, at least literate commoners. I’m unfamiliar with Aesop, is this some admission that the parables of Jesus just don’t hold up to Plato very well? If so I agree.
How might we sort the data from the metadata?
That is the question of the ages because the method and timing is different for every person. The nature of our universe is such that no two people can experience the exact same thing at the exact same time in the exact same place. Even if you and I were to stand cheek to jowl, peering ahead at some X, you would see X’ while I would see X’’. That’s because we cannot merge our eyes, let alone our brains, together. Electromagnetism sees to it that gravity does not scrunch us together into oneness. And entropy sees to it that the same event will never recur.
Therefore, the metadata I compile will always differ from the metadata you compile. I did not see the blue dot that you saw just ever so slightly visible on the left because I was just ever so slightly moved to the right. And even if we stood at the same place sequentially, our heads locked in the same position, your notes would timestamp the event differently from mine. So, if you saw an X-sphere with a blue dot at H-hours; I saw an X-sphere with no blue dot at H-hours, or else an X-sphere with a blue dot at H’-hours. The only commonality is X-sphere.
And so we look for themes — commonalities — in the teachings of Jesus, and one stands out above all others. It is an old commandment. It is a new commandment. It is a way to discern a disciple from a wannabe. It is what God actually is. Love. Our quest, then, is to define this thing. But in so doing, we take our interpretations with us, and our metadata again differ. If love is the facilitation of goodness, then how to facilitate and what is good falls again to us to decide independently. Again, because we are subjective beings.
What then is God to do epistemologically? How do we acquire the knowlege of what are data and what are metadata? There is only one way, and that is the way He has done it. The epistemology is necessarily revelatory in nature. These answers must be revealed to us by Him. There is no other possible way, and therefore there is no world — no consciousness — in which such knowledge is gained by inspection, scientific test, inquiry, or investigation.
These things can give us glimpses. Our experiments and logic and prayers can help us to formulate metadata but never data. Therefore, we sort the data from the metadata on the basis of what has been revealed to us versus what we have attempted to find. As subjective beings, you and I must of necessity search in different ways and observe different events. Only the Objective Being can reveal Himself to us both such that we both understand Him the same way.
If you were the respondent, it might not seem so digressive. Now that your question has been ignored, perhaps your empathy will engage.
I agree with everything you’ve said here. My one problem is that it is possible for us to have “false” revelations; what appear to be data may indeed be metadata too, dependent on our own thoughts and senses rather than gifted by an outside agent. I imagine it would indeed be possible to tell data from metadata, but I don’t think it is as simple as what has been revealed to us versus what we have learned on our own.
And Jesus warns us of this. Deciding what is true and what is false is itself based on what you value. You cannot escaping pursuing what you value. You will pursue it. It is your essential nature. Whatever it is that you have when you’re done, that’s your data.
I’m not sure about the die roll - there are conditions of entry to Plato’s Republic too (it’s only meant to be a small city-state after all, so not everyone’s going to be there. And if you want to be any kind of artist, poet or actor, you get drummed out of town.) To be honest, the idea of living in a state where the rulers reserve to themselves the right to lie to the populace for their own good, and where the good of the state will always trump the good of the individual gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies (current affairs fans, insert your own withering political satire here!) and less attractive overall than a world where regardless of political structure, the priority is on caring for others and being quick to forgive wrongs.
I think there’s some confusion between us here. I would say that many of Jesus’ “The Kingdom of Heaven is like this. There was a master/father/traveller…” parables are not statements about the afterlife, but lessons for living life here and now. It’s these that I was suggesting we compare with Plato’s Republic, as they are about how mankind should live life on earth, not about the afterlife. He did also speak of paradise, but I would suggest its better to compare those statements to Plato’s metaphysics, on an apples-with-apples principle.
(Also, when Plato gets ideas from others, its “dialog” and when Jesus does it’s plagiarism. Do you think it’s possible you’re coming to this question with some preconceptions?)
I’ve said before that I think posthumous IQ tests are a) impossible and b) otiose. That said, I don’t think Plato took human foibles and biases into account so much as tried to steamroller over them. Other philosophers, however (let’s not get hung up on Plato), have come up with considerably more sophisticated approaches to the problem of politics (Hobbes, Marx and Locke, for example) and I’d give them great credit for intellectual rigour. It takes much more hard, careful thought to produce a Leviathan, or a Communist Manifesto, or a US Bill of Rights, than it does to preach love and forgiveness. Let’s note though that despite the intellectual rigour and brain-sweat, most political philosphies have turned out to be flawed to a greater or lesser extent - some practically, some theoretically. So we’ll have to allow that people can be incredibly smart - and wrong, often in some fundamental way.
For the record, I don’t believe in any afterlife, or in reincarnation or immortal souls. On the other hand, I’d really hesitate to say that people who do should have IQ points knocked off.
I think you’re right about the possibility of promotion from the dross - but for me, that doesn’t begin to excuse the whole concept. Plato wants to treat the majority of the population of his Republic as an irrelevant sub-class whose opinions don’t matter, whose lives don’t matter, who exist only for the good of the state and the elite. He’s based his ideal political structure on the ant-hill and morally that really, really sucks.
Interesting exchange. Let me had my own slant and hopefully it won’t muddy things up.
IMHO Jesus taught a simple method. Judge men by their fruits. By people’s actions we see the true spirit that lives within them. All the labels and doctrine doesn’t matter. Look beyond that to the way a person lives their day to day, moment to moment life. Of course our primary responsibility is our own growth, and our own behavior. I believe the essence of God is love and truth and the journey is to understand the depth of meaning in those and how to live it rather than just preach it. So rather than WWJD my question is “what does love and truth require of me in this situation” Our experiences show us as individuals what areas we need to work on. The task of figuring this out is different for me than it would be for any other and that truth affects my judgment of others. I don’t know what their path “should” be. So I speak my own truth and honor their right to choose their own way.
We see numerous examples of people looking to other people to tell them the way. That’s normal and human but it seems at some point each person must decide for themselves and look within to find their own path. You can listen to other words “Try the spirits and see which are of God” but learn to trust your own inner voice. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit living within us and guiding us to all truth and seeking the kingdom of Heaven within. The NT with all it’s flaws contains other passages about this living spirit changing us from within so that at some point our love for our fellow man is not just an nice idea on a greeting card but something we truly feel and live.
I seem to recall some passage in the bible where at an early age Jesus impressed a lot of rabbis with his knowledge.
The only time Jesus ever is reported to have written anything, it must have been profound enough to deter a rabid middle eastern mob from stoning a woman for adultery.
Luke 2
" Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers."
I think you helped clarify something, actually. I think questions like “but what about Mr. X who does horrible thing Y because of what he treasures?” miss the point. We do not have to judge the morality of Mr. X. Judge the ethics, fine, but not the morality. In other words, we as a society might have to restrain or punish Mr. X to keep others safe. But our moral judgments of what guides his heart are worthless. We have enough to do in judging our own selves. Self-assessment should keep us all plenty busy. If God needs our advice and counsel to judge Mr. X, then surely He will ask us.
But that what Jesus says is valid and worthy of consideration is itself a value judgement. How are we to know that this method of understanding data is itself data? That’s my point. We can’t evaluate data/metadata without making a value judgment as to what is a good method in the first place, and we can’t make a value judgment until we have a method. Like I said before, I think there may be a way to distinguish data and metadata, but it can’t just be that simple.
But what I’m saying is that you must decide for yourself what is your best method. Your best method won’t be my best method. (And thus the extensive sidetrack about subjectivity and the nature of electromagnetism.) We cannot see anything the same way at the same time in the same place, and that includes data/metadata schemes, without direct revelation from a source that is objective (privy to both our consciousnesses). That’s why it’s useless to dwell on what Mr. X should do to be right with God. Concern yourself with what you need to do. And I will do the same for me.
If Jesus’s teachings are of no value to you, then that does not anger me. Nor does it mean to me that you’re irredeemable or that your viewpoint is in anyway inferior to mine. It’s simply yours — the one that you cannot help but see through. I don’t even mind Badchad hating Jesus so much. All that bothers me about him is his apparent need to bait others (especially Poly) into sharing his misery with him.
What Jesus said, What Buddha, Plato, Gandhi, MLK,Poly or **Liberal ** said only has meaning if it has meaning for you. It is you and what and who you are within that makes the judgment and the choice about what is important to you. Often our true motives are subconscious and denied. That is where a commitment to truth comes in and why Jesus says, “all will be revealed and the hidden things made known” If we give lip service to the principle of brotherly love but our real motives are to gain praise from others without really having to live those principles, eventually the spirit reveals itself and our choices of what to pursue has real consequences.
I believe we are all part of larger consciousness and the truth of that calls to us from within. That’s why Jesus says, “Whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself” We are interconnected and interdependent beyond any ability of ours to change that fact. Still too many live in denial of that basic truth and live in a me or us vs. them kind of world.
I’m amazed to find a kindred theological spirit. 
I agree (within the bounds of my subjective interpretations) with practically everything you’re saying, Cosmosdan.
Thanks. You were a big help to me when I first joined the board. You gave me a link to Popper which helped me understand a lot of what was being said about falsification. I remember reading with interest your analogy about the fountain in the center of the garden.
Many years ago when I first became a Christian and then many years later when I was no longer one, I had profound moments of peace and contentment. An inner joy and serenity. I wondered why those times felt so similar while I as a person and my specific beliefs were quite different. My conclusion was that in both those times I was being as true to myself and those around me as I could be. That realization was a milestone for me. Since I could be so different and yet feel that joy on those two times of my life, of course others could as well, and who am I to judge the correctness of their path at the moment.
But I ramble, Thanks **Lib ** it’s good to have you back.