Would Jesus condemn or condone Yahweh for his crimes against

I’ve been listening to Bart Ehrman who happened to remark that Gnostic Christians believed there is special knowledge and might have implied it was like magic chants or incantations. Alan also said that if one knew the name of God, he could exercise some special power with it. I don’t know much about this topic.

Does that imply anything about the name Will I am (William)?

I currently believe that any mind picture of God is a graven image and it’s more prudent to not try to conceptualize God. Faith is not-clinging.

How does one become brother to Jesus?

What do you make of the verse:

8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

That satanist on youtube (Mark Passio I think) says the verse alludes to duality and the nondual (eye be single). I’m not sure.

21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

It is not a direction to keep the commandments, but keeping the commandments is evidence of a saved condition.

Predestination supports the idea that there is nothing to be done.

Reminds me of this

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YwEArrXNnI[/youtube]

Yes I did because love of others and caring for others can be easily seen. I don’t understand why somebody would deny the reality of those observations.

As far as I’m concerned the better questions are : do you see people who love others? do you see people who care about others?

You’re the one talking down at me as if you and the philosophy 101 students have the ONLY TRUE KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING.

My post was about the Bible. You have not responded to the points I made.

That is not relevant. I am not one of the writers of the Bible. We were talking about what a quote meant and the Bible’s position or positions on the supernatural. The Bible portrays all sorts of supernatural events and entities and you add to them elsewhere with God walking around in clothes.

Also not a response to the points I made which were about the Bible. As I said there are quotes in the Bible that can be, but need not be, interpreted as saying that something more metaphorical is meant. But there are many quotes and ways of describing events such that they come off as describing real supernatural events.

Here you go personal and mention the supernatural being important to me. But the issue is not my beliefs or lack of in the supernatural. The issue is what the Bible is saying.

Here you make no attempt to respond to my points about the Bible and shift to focusing on me.

You’re not much of a philosophical discussion partner. You are a proselytizer, who posts as if, at least, you either are afraid to deal with ideas that differ from yours or think that people should only listen to you or agree with you after repetition.

That is childish. I’ll check back in few months and see if you can actually read other people’s posts AND show this by responding to the points, at least some of them, that other people make.

If I see a mother doing something for her child …

Why wouldn’t I say that she cares about the child?

Why would I say that she cares only about herself?

:confused:

It seems to me you’re describing an ideal prototype which is the best example of a category and the standard against which all category members are to be judged. Such is the absolute or essence or ideal of something which was the best example of that thing in experience or fantasy. This idealized experience becomes the standard against which all lesser real things are measured. Ideologues and absolutists believe uncritically in the reality of their absolutes or ideals. Sure we need ideal prototypes to communicate. But it doesn’t follow from that that they are real. Language is the imperfect product of human primates. Words referring to actual phenomena can’t be understood as naming fixed and discrete entities or properties. They’re naming points on a curve of probabilities.

You’re just mad and don’t really mean that :slight_smile:

I’m not condoning his behavior (nor condemning it because I’m not really following closely enough), but why should the rest of us suffer because you’re mad at him? I’d prefer it if you didn’t take a few-month vacation.

We all want to be here and this wouldn’t be a place to be if it weren’t for us, so let’s try to get along.

Per the thread about moderation, this is how one moderates an extreme situation. Bring it back to center and try to keep people from escalating and leaving. I may not be that good at it, but this is basically how lol

I can live with words not being real, but if we’re going to communicate, we must have absolute definitions so we know clearly what each other are talking about. Also, I’ve noticed that most arguments stem from not having agreeable definitions.

For instance, atheists are offended when someone insists they believe there is no god, but that’s what the word means, or should mean, because else we’re left with atheism = agnosticism and then we need a new word for people who believe there is no god. Why insist on having this much confusion?

This is where I differ with Christopher Hitchens who believes agnostics are disingenuous and loathes the advent of the word, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why he’s so married to a particular word. Why not say “Fine, I’m agnostic. Happy?” It’s better than enduring a 2 hour debate centered around semantic bickering regarding the meaning of atheism rather than the validity of it.

I could also speak critically of definitions within the science of physics. What is heat? There are oodles of quora pages defining what heat is. Why does a simple definition need to be so difficult to convey? What are gamma rays? It depends who you ask. A science should have clear and absolute definitions; otherwise it’s an art.

Likewise with love. If there isn’t a clear, concise, and absolute definition for the word, then defining the word becomes an art.

But caring about others is caring about yourself.

Sure I see people who care about others, but only because they care about themselves.

No, philosophy 101 students represent what most philosophers believe and not what is true. I’m surprised this is an issue because most philosophy students would not require this to be explained to them. If this were a motorcycle forum, I would not be surprised that members have not encountered the “no selfless acts” claim, but on a philosophy forum, it is surprising to me and my surprise is justified by my experience in philosophy class and not my arrogance.

You’ve distorted that in every way possible: You’ve implied through exaggeration that I’m surprised that people do not agree with everything I say and then painted a picture that I should expect people to worship me for posting some videos n stuff. Now you distort my surprise as being a claim of what is correct or incorrect. It is not, but it’s a claim about popular knowledge (right or wrong) I expected philosophers to already have. And it’s not an appeal to authority by popularity anymore than expecting most mathematicians to already be familiar with 1+1=2.

I just find it odd that everyone offline knows what I’m talking about, but everyone online doesn’t. How can there be such a disconnect?

She doesn’t ONLY care about herself, but she cares about the child BECAUSE she cares about herself. If the child dies, it would hurt her, so if she doesn’t want to be hurt, she has to care for the child.

Almost, I was mad AND I really meant that.

Well, thank you. But I meant in responding to his posts. I will still be here scaring people from bringing up certain philosophers (though not Watts) and doing whatever it is you would miss (hopefully).

[/quote]
OK. One of my methods is to take breaks from people. So, I’ll take a break from him, but respond to other posts here, at least probably. And I was reading them and found yours with that possibility in mind.

In a no self universe, why would caring for others boil down to care for oneself. Wouldn’t it simply be caring?

Ibid.
But for all we know it is the other way around. Especially in a no self universe. There is care and it aims in different directions. Why said it is only about what only seems to be inside?

This does not fit with my experience. Further you are putting it into a causal chain of events - leading to the child’s death. A mother cares for her child in attitude and feeling directly on sight. It is not for something. Evolution is not teleological. It just is. Whether it was adapative or not AND THAT’S WHY IT SURVIVED AS A TRAIT has nothing to do with what it is for or doing in the mother. She cares about the child, period. That is what she is, someone who cares about her offspring. She is also a creature that cares about herself. There is no need to reduce her care to one kind of care, especially for someone who does not believe in selves or considers inside and outside illusory.

A pregnant lady who cares for her self only will commit abortion. Normal women don’t do this only psychos.

I think all sane nature cares about the outside first which is how it feeds itself. If it only cared for itself it would selfcannibalize and not even exist. It sounds weird I know.
I’ll go away now.

No, no. In general I agree with the path. Caring is outward first, then we get a sense of ourselves, and if we learn to, from the care of others, care about ourselves. It is not even a given that we care about ourselves.

Ok yeah, also we learn because others care for us too. The mom teaches us after all. The womb cares for us then gives us to the moms arms who care for us and so on.

What do you think comes first for a formula for happiness, caring for or being cared for.

“Serendipper”]

I’ve been listening to Bart Ehrman who happened to remark that Gnostic Christians believed there is special knowledge and might have implied it was like magic chants or incantations. Alan also said that if one knew the name of God, he could exercise some special power with it. I don’t know much about this topic.
[/quote]
The only god you can know is you and yes, if you accept that you are your own master, you can control yourself.

To mane any other your god does not give you control of him. It slaves you to him.

Not that I know of.

Faith without facts is not wanting to know the truth.

Gnostic Christians are esoteric ecumenists and perpetual seekers who follow what we see as the best ideology but we are eager to raise the bar of excellence and thus do not idol worship the way Christians and Muslims do. Like Buddhist say, if you see god on the road, kill him. We are eager to kill the ideal we see for a higher one.

Those three quotes say it all, basically. Go inside of yourself using Jesus as a mantra. You can else use anything else that helps you enter meditation.

Let me let Jesus answer that.

Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

That is not how I describe our single eye. I see it more as our just using insight to find what Yung and Freud named our Father Complex.

Firstly, the commandments are garbage.
Second, if your last were true, than all Christians are condemned as they break the first few commandments by putting Jesus above Yahweh.

Not to me. It indicates that many will seek a Christ consciousness and find it.

[/quote]
Not to that ridiculous level, but ya.

Regards
DL

But you are arguing that “There are no selfless acts” is a true statement.

You are also arguing that “You cannot love someone else” is true.

You are also arguing that “You cannot care about someone else” is true.

In fact, you equate these statements to the mathematical equation 1+1=2. IOW something beyond dispute.
(“And it’s not an appeal to authority by popularity anymore than expecting most mathematicians to already be familiar with 1+1=2.”)

Maybe everyone offline accepts your definitions and assumptions and people online don’t accept without justifications.

I don’t accept your definitions and assumptions with respect to love and caring because they appear not to be supported by my observations.

Don’t take it personally. I don’t accept a lot of definitions and assumptions in philosophy and theology. And therefore I don’t accept a lot of the conclusions.

I’d be surprised if Phyllo hasn’t encountered it before. I certainly have. It appears every now and then. Are you sure you are not taking disagreement for never having encountered it?

I don’t think I encountered it in the beginning philosophy class I took. But I certainly heard people saying it. It’s the kind of meme that circulates and not just in academic circles or in the educated class. There are many forms, some seeing all acts as selfish - iow that there is no actual care about anybody else. Joker and his later avatars would bring that one up occasionally here.

I would tend to think there are no selfless acts, though I would want that term defined. But that’s different for me than saying that really it is only self-care or some of the other ways all acts have been described.

I know what you mean. I have to take breaks from people in general to regain my center.

Rober Price did it in this debate at 2:09:30

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzjYmpwbHEA[/youtube]

You think Paul didn’t write Galatians?
That’s right.
Wow!
If you think my views are wildly insane then there’s no point in going on [sets mic down].

Misalignment of ethics I reckon. That’s a shame because I was waiting to hear why he thought Paul didn’t write Galatians.

Hmm… you may be right. Maybe I am assuming that because he disagrees, that he’s never encountered it, and I may have been right purely by luck because if he had encountered it, I think he would have said so by now. Probably the reason I just assumed he never encountered it is because people who have heard it before usually (exclusively) concede that there are no selfless acts. It’s not by indoctrination either since after eons of thinking on the subject, from Aristotle to Nietzsche, there doesn’t seem to be an example of a selfless act or even how an act could be selfless. So I think that one day in a classroom of debating whether selfless acts exists would be sufficient to convince pretty much anyone and therefore if someone is not convinced, then he must not have encountered it before. I think you caught me in a legitimate assumption though, so you deserve credit for that! :slight_smile:

A selfless act is an act that doesn’t ultimately benefit the one doing the act. The best objection was the guy who said he reflexively ran to the aid of someone in an auto accident and he insisted it was selfless because he didn’t have time to even think about it, but reflexes aren’t acts (if reflexes are acts, then what isn’t an act?). So if an act is selfless, then it’s not an act and if it’s an act, then it’s not selfless.

I’m not appealing to popularity to show the statements are true, but to show the statements are notorious. The fact that you can’t get your head around that doesn’t bode well for your capacity to understand deeper concepts.

Mathematicians accept 1+1=2
Philosophers accept there are no selfless acts.

In no way does acceptance imply truth. Truth is independent of acceptance and both are separate arguments.

  1. I’m asserting popularity to justify my being surprised, which you distorted as some form of arrogance.
  2. I’m asserting all acts have a selfish motivation, which is self-evident from inspection of every and all acts until we encounter one that is not.

Those are separate arguments and you either can’t see that or refuse to.

[i]“How could something originate in its antithesis? … The unselfish act in self-interest? … Such origination is impossible; and he who dreams of it is a fool, indeed worse than a fool; the things of the highest value must have another origin of their own.” -Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil

First, any being who would be capable of purely selfless actions only is more fabulous than the phoenix. It cannot even be imagined clearly because from the start the whole concept of “selfless action,” if carefully examined, evaporates into the air. Never has a man done anything that was only for others; and without any personal motivation. Indeed, how could he do anything that had no reference to himself, that is, with no inner compulsion (which would have to be based on a personal need)? How could the ego act without ego? nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/frie … b645f.html

There’s no such thing as altruism. No such thing as a truly selfless act. We always get paid, one way or another. HAHA LUNG, Mind Control: The Ancient Art of Psychological Warfare

The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest. PETER WATTS, Blindsight

Biologists, philosophers, psychologists and sociologists have all held that “altruism” is never what it seems. That all apparently selfless acts are self-centered is known in the sciences as ‘universal egoism’, which according to the prominent psychologist Richard Gross, "is the dominant ethos in social science including psychology. […] Sociobiologists consider that acts of apparent altruism turn out to be acts of selfishness in disguise". There is such agreement amongst psychologists and specialists that it seems “altruism is an impossibility”. humantruth.info/altruism.html[/i]

Independent of the truthfulness of the claim, EVERYONE believes it… except you. You’re taking on the entire science and academic community in effort to support your sinking dogma no differently than apologetics against evolution… and it will remain a dogma until you provide some substantiation that neither I nor Nietzsche, nor Rand, nor Aristotle, nor Kant, nor Watts, nor anyone I’ve ever seen or heard of, could conceive.

Or maybe people online are trolls? I’ve provided infinitely more justification here than I ever could offline.

Then your observations are either more or less perceptive than a long list of fancy-pants philosophers: either you are genius to such extent that even the smartest people can’t see what you see or you’re not equipped to see what everyone else can plainly see. Take your pick.

Don’t take it personally, but you’re painting yourself as a troll with such admission. Repetitive and habitual dogmatic dismissal without rationale is the very definition of trolling and “not matching my observations” is not rationale.

So either come up with some example of a selfless act or concede selfless acts do not exist so that we can move on from this, otherwise your continued objections on the basis of “not feeling right” are impeding progress.

I could extrapolate and say that’s what alan says because he says “there is no dancer; just the dancing.” And he criticizes the english language for dividing nouns and verbs which is, apparently, different from the chinese language. Evidently, dancing is a thing rather than what you do. I don’t know chinese, so I’ll have to take his word for it, but it makes sense considering the opposite points of view of west and east.

But removing the self does not disturb my argument that no selfless acts exists because if there is only the love and no lover or loveee, then there is just the Self and we’re back to no selfless acts.

There is no mechanism to care about someone else because in order to do so, you’d have to BE them.

Why should I care if someone falls off a cliff? I am not them, so it has no effect on me. But if I were a Corsican Brother, then I might have a mechanism to care and that mechanism is the direct suffering of consequences as if I were them (by magic). Now, someone falling from a cliff might bother me if I can relate in such a way that I also suffer direct consequences (empathy), but I only care about the guy falling off the cliff because of the damage it will do to me. Maybe I’ll have to live with myself for not helping prevent the fall. Maybe imagery of the event would be traumatic. Maybe I’d be worried about public perception. Maybe the only reason I’d try to save the guy is to win some recognition as a hero so that I could then claim it’s nothing and anybody would have done the same. Who knows, but it could only be about me because there is no other mechanism for motivation.

My heart goes out to the animals gofundme.com/tammie-hedges-legal-battle I don’t want to help them because I care about them, but because I don’t like feeling bad knowing they are without homes after having previously had homes. Domesticated animals don’t belong in the wild.

I care less about the people because they’re too likely to be pricks who’d cut me off in traffic and cling dogmatically to failed arguments online and just generally not playing fair nor being considerate even though they have the capacity to. At least animals can cite cognitive impairment as excuse for lack of consideration.

You keep bringing reality into the conversation as an objection, but if we’re going to talk about reality then there is nothing to talk about. There is no mother, child, you, or me, and not only is there nothing to talk about, there is no one to talk about it. So either we describe (cut something out of something) abstractions and relate them to other abstractions or we stare at a wall in realization that there is just the staring without a wall nor an onlooker.

Assuming you find it more entertaining to contemplate things rather than melt out of existence, then from a point of view in this universe, a mother can only care about her child because she cares about herself and, in some way, harm to the child will cause harm to the mother.

That doesn’t mean evolution is teleological

2. Evolution: Social Species are Programmed to do Good
Social behaviour that benefits others is a feature of genetic programming in all social species, and its success as an evolutionary strategy has made it "a part of the behavioural repertoire of social animals, so it can be expected to develop much further in intelligent and intensely social animals, like our human ancestors"4. The neurological rewards are what you seek when you do seemingly “altruistic” things. Those who do good often are addicted to the drugs released in our brains; they do it for the rush even if they don’t know it. This isn’t a bad thing, of course, the only negative aspect is that they think they do it for the general good when in fact they do it for the neurological high that it brings. An ideal model of unthinking genetically inherited social behaviour is that of ants and bees and other worker insects. At this extreme we see that even the most selfless social behaviour can be genetically predetermined.
humantruth.info/altruism.html

That pretty much says it all.

We put ourselves on pedestals.