Matt. 22: 37-19? In any case you have something you call "the golden rule." — tim wood

You COULD call it 'the golden rule,' but that would NOT be correct. These have been widely known, at least since the King James version in 1511, and possibly longer than I have been told (but running into limits of the English language and requiring analysis of latin for further elucidation), as THE TWO COMMANDMENTS. Which Jesus is by all evidence the first person to state, although you can find some precedent for them in the old testament, what is it, psalms I think? But they are not COMMANDMENTS in the old testament. The point was, when Jesus fulfilled the holy covenant by sacrificing his own blood, the old law of Moses, the TEN COMMANDMENTS, no longer required animal sacrifice for atonement of sins, after which THE TWO COMMANDMENTS were sufficient. One may argue the holy covenant was a tribal misconception, but according to what's written, that's what they are, TWO commandments.

NOT ONE RULE

TWO COMMANDMENTS

There is something else in the epistiles which is sometimes referred to as the ONE COMMANDMENT, but its not considered fulfillment of the covenant whi

THE GOLDEN RULE refers to some proposed and, by all that I can determine, entirely contrived abstraction that Jesus deviously kidnapped for his own purposes which was, according tp new age hippies, wiidely known from the hareems of the sultans alive at the time of Christ, to yellow savages in the far east slaughtering each other between hugs.


Glad to oblige, thanks for the invitation

Hi Tim )

Actually it wouldn't help, because I looked into this so-called 'golden rule' thing, and I can't find any evidence it existed at the time of Jehovah and Jesus, lol. There is a long bizarre article claiming it did on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and I heard people say it was from 500BC. But the encyclopedia has no references to actual texts to prove it, and I never even knew one even try to produce a reference anywhere else, but it has appeared in my Facebook feed occasionally from the Gaia ex-hippie no-longer-barefoot-wtih-Birckenstocks-from-divorce stoned-again-and-now-what community.

And even if there is a reference produced now, popped up from somewhere, it's probably fake and should be thoroughly vetted with deep suspicion. It appears it is another effort to discredit Jesus, this time by claiming he took his teachings from some other fictitious person again, without ever actually saying who, and there's a variety of such frauds perpetrated against him, and this one is the claim he stole his teachings from someone else.

I dont know where the 500BC came from, thats even 200 years before Buddha, lol.

There were some other golden things. There was a golden age, quite famous through literature for about 1200 years, described in Hesiod, ca 700BC,

And there was a golden harmony talked about by the Huang Lao in attempt to 'improve' of Confucius' harmony of the spheres, by adding the necessity of an emperor to oversea the perfect order, kind of a good deal for the emperor, didnt appear to help anyone else.


Glad to oblige, thanks for the invitation

IAbove post, highlights added and clarified, Sunday 9:26 AM

Above post edited, Sunday 9:08 am PST.

Well thank you for a kind answer. It's clear we both would rather have a conversation, and I'm sorry I lost my temper. But I should also say, I guess, although Id rather not, but I will, is that one of the people I talked about this with was my father Karl, who passed away very recently after a very long and productive life.

Karl grew up in Wisconsin, his Mother was a Russian Jew, and his Father a German humanist. At Wisconsin University he almost became a Rhodes Scholar, but he was interested in the international dealing of archaeological artifacts but wanted to work in politics, so he won a place at Princeton, where he earned an MPA and doctorate in politics, studying there with Henry Kissinger. He became a journalist, manager of Bernstein and Woodward before the Watergate scandal at the Washington Post, ran the Post's Washington bureau in London, and on the editorial board in charge of human rights issues for the New York Times for many long years.

Karl was a VERY erudite man, who loved books, read them continuously, his private library was at least 10,000 books. With his interest in archaeology, he read all the Greek and Roman texts he could find, now I cannot say in how much detail, often he read very quickly, but he was very familiar with the era. KRAL could not think of an example of any Roman or Greek being upset because they had taken any personal responsibility for what they had done in all he read. Karl did think about it a very long time, and he did say, of everything I ever said to him, it was maybe the only thing I ever said that really impressed him, lol.

But he also hated Saul, or St Paul as most call him, with a fervor you cannot imagine. Karl called him Satan incarnate way before the phrase was common after Bush called Hussein that. Karl said no man had ever been responsible for more deaths in history. Now on the RESULTS of Paul's letters we can perhaps all agree to some greater or lesser extent. But on the other hand, it really was not what Paul was trying to do, and personally, I would regretfully say, it was really the Church Fathers who over-emphatically selected his letters for the canonical bible, and St Augustine's City of God which places personal salvation above secular justice and bringing about the entire Dark Ages, that were the real sources of the problems with religious authority that led to the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and other such abominations. So I wrote kindly of Saul, or Paul, saying he had such a sudden episode of guilt that, not knowing what to tell his followers eager to pillage and rape some more Christian households in his hometown in Syria, Damascus, while returning there after killing many Christians on his own mission, tolerated with amusement but not generally regarded as necessary at the time, for killing Christians who denied the Emperor as God. In other cases, the Roman Empire did not disturb local religions, but in this case, Saul took it on himself, it seems from what we know, to conduct a kind of genocide, reaping the rewards in much the same way the Nazis seized belongings during the Holocaust.

The thing that strikes me, whether he was actually blinded or just described it that way, or something else, is that the Christians then said much like 'ok youve done some bad things, well, worse than most, but anyway, come in and have some wine.' And Saul, baptised Paul, was totally overwhelmed by the forgiveness. Totally, For the rest of this life.

But Karl really could not tolerate me saying that. I waited until he died before speaking at all of almost all my thoughts to anyone.

While in private contemplation, I sat in silence with the Quakers for many years in silicon valley. There a man was working on the translation of the Gospel of Thomas. At first I objected in a very asinine Christian way, but then I realized how much he loved Jesus, so I thought about it quite a bit. In the canonical bible there is what 2 verses? 3 verses? Thomas says he cannot know if Jesus is really him without sticking his fingers in the wounds. What does Christ say? Does he say 'you stupid boy'? Does he say 'get thee hence for doubting me'? No! He says 'go ahead, if that's what you need to do.' And so I thought about all my doubts from studying philosophy and psychology at Oxford, and it seems to me in the modern era, many other people have the same problem with miracles and such, and that Thomas is a model for the modern scientific way commonly described in a simplistic way as 'obtaining proof.'

So I did not want Karl to die. I would rather have waited longer. But now Karl has passed away, I have this huge idea, a new concept that could make so many people happy who have been struggling with doubts, that St. Thomas' skepticism is a channel through which us scorned intellectual elitists, us scientists, us rational beings, that we also may also discover the love of God, however skeptical we are, and may know the kingdom of heaven, if not in the afterlife, but right here on earth, just as Thomas writes in his gospel. I asked the Quakers about it, but they could not do anything for other reasons....I keep hoping they change their mind....In fact only one person has ever really supported me on my beliefs, a monk on patmos, where St John the Divine had his revelation. He said I should start a new church. At first I did not want to be so disruptive. There are so many churches already. But the churches have rejected me and some have even excommunicated me for even mentioning part of my beliefs.

So now I am trying to write all my long-hidden ideas down. Next I am working on my next homily, 4th attempt to get it right, 'the alpha, the omega, and the bee orchid.'

So now Matthew, as for our debate on the what Romans or Greeks actually felt, I did ask you to review my elaboration on it. I would be grateful if we could step back to that a few posts ago, and meanwhile I should start working on my next homily, because I have spoken with a neighbor here, at long last, about publishing it, and I should get it written for him.

Oh. As you see from what I told you, regarding giving his name: I cannot believe Karl would give his permission to use his name in my published work as substantiation of what I say due to his own beliefs; and my Jewish stepmother is doing everything possible to silence me. I reached the point of threatening to put a restraining order on her.

But I would tell you in confidence, you can see Karl's biography here, Im just looking at it for the first time in a while. My stepmother essentially tried, for many years, to take his place, and after my father became too terrified even to talk to her any more, in my opinion, she declared him senile, made my share of Karl's estate her own and disowned me from the family; made a separate page for herself for her own career; removed any mention of archaeology that would help my own meagre ambitions from the page, and it even tells a lie to do so. Karl actually spent 6 years 1969-1975 working on various published books on archaeology, one published by Atheneum, one of the most prestigious publishers in the world. She rewrote it saying he was still working at the Post 1970-1975 instead. That's just not true, as you can see from the bibliography on this page, he actually published 3 books on archaeology during that time.

Also she removed the names of me, Jon, and Heather from his page. After making Jon and Heather subservient to her own fiscal dominance, having taken as much money she could for herself, and my siblings have to do what she says. So I lost them as family too. Thats why I am a little emotional at the moment. I keep finding things like this she did already. Again, apologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_E._Meyer

Before getting into whether I should put my friends with PhD's repurations at stake for discussions we had as friends, you should first be less rude in considering my own authority, which should be obvious from what Ive written, but as you cant see it, here it is in black and white. I started studying Latin and Greek myself when I was very young, I think 10. I have read Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Plato, Euripedes Sophocles, Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, and the new testament in 'original' ancient greek. The list of Latin texts I have read is too long even to think. I was at Oxford University where I was so fluent in Latin and held debates in it, and was asked to participate in ancient Greek plays, in Greek, because even though it was not my primary subject, many admired my knowledge on it. Ive been reading translations of classical literature all my life.

Now. I repeated continuously what I meant by the emotional guilt, and you still did not understand it. I asked you to consider a correction, and you challenged my own authority and authenticity, and tried to change the subject. That's offensive to me. Considering your refusal to accept your own error when I pointed it out repeatedly, I now have to reciprocrate the question. Who the FUCK are you?

let me try this addition: "Even when Romans and Greeks were shamed by others, they still did not believe it their own fault. They blamed the Gods or other people for all their faults. They never took personal responsibility for anything they did wrong, and if given the chance, would only complain, extensively if possible, about how they had been wrongly abused at the hands of man and the divine."

Well I can understand that. I add something. In terms of human volition, there are two aspects one may consider: permission, and power. To a parent, the aspect of permission is important: " you may have an ice cream after dinner." which becomes objectively true by statement, but contains an ambigiuity. To Schopenhauer, power is important. "You might choose your beliefs" but it remains objectively an issue of faith.

That's because, if you are concerned with objective reality, the principal problem you have is to define intentional causality objectively. Compared to that, every other issue is basically trite. A good summary of an empirical perspective of that problem is here:

[url=http://]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_sufficient_reason[/url]

On Thucidides REconstructing Speeches

I did not quite represent this correctly. From Thuc. 1:22:

"As to the various speeches made on the eve of the war, or in its course, I have found it difficult to retain a memory of the precise words which I had heard spoken; and so it was with those who brought me reports. But I have made the persons say what it seemed to me most opportune for them to say in view of each situation; at the same time, I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said. As to the deeds done in the war, I have not thought myself at liberty to record them on hearsay from the first informant, or on arbitrary conjecture. My account rests either on personal knowledge, or on the closest possible scrutiny of each statement made by others. The process of research was laborious, because conflicting accounts were given by those who had witnessed the several events, as partiality swayed or memory served them."

The specific problem to scholars remains, Thucydides never indicates which speeches he recalled from hearing in person, and which speeches were reported to him. Stucturalist analysis of the speeches could reveal no differences in the prose at all.

Correction: Ancient Egyptian Surgery was on Knee, not Spine

Apologies my memory since 2003 is off. I had said there is evidence were in posession of many lost advanced medical techniques, which kjesus could have learned from scrolls that his father had obtained from the plundering of the library of Alexandria in the first great fire, 145BCE. So first of all, specifically, the mummy is in the Wikipedia, but the text is currently out of date:

[url=http://]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usermontu_(mummy)[/url]

Above it states the mummy is from 400BCE, according to carbon darting (I had remembered 1500 BCE). There is a current link on the page to an article stating that a metal pin was used to repair a broken knee before death.



BYU Professor Finds Evidence of Advanced Surgery in Ancient Mummy
[url=http://]https://magazine.byu.edu/article/byu-professor-finds-evidence-of-advanced-surgery-in-ancient-mummy/[/url] BYU Magazine, Brigham Young University, 1996.

And this could be a cause for many's confusion, because the story changed over successive examinations since the first time I heard it. What I remembered was hearing with astonishment that the man lived at least a decade with the pin in his leg. Quote from article:

A BYU professor and a team of specialists discovered an iron pin in the knee of an Egyptian mummy at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium in San Jose, Calif., evidencing an advanced surgical procedure performed nearly 2,600 years ago.

C. Wilfred Griggs, director of ancient studies at BYU and a professor of ancient scripture, was intrigued by the discovery of the pin in August 1995 when he and a team of experts saw it in the X ray of one of six mummies they were examining at the museum. Griggs was visiting the museum as a precursor to a lecture he was asked to give in San Jose in the fall. When invited to speak, the professor asked if he could first analyze some of the artifacts in their Egyptian museum so he could add a local viewpoint to his talk on the application of science and technology in archaeological field work.

After Griggs’ August visit to the museum, he returned to Provo thinking the 9-inch orthopedic pin was inserted centuries after the death of the mummified body (named Usermontu from an inscription in the coffin in which the body was found). From the X ray taken of the wrapped knee, it was impossible to determine any ancient characteristics of the metal implant.

“I assumed at the time that the pin was modern. I thought we might be able to determine how the pin had been inserted into the leg, and perhaps even guess how recently it had been implanted into the bones,” Griggs says. “I just thought it would be an interesting footnote to say, ‘Somebody got an ancient mummy and put a modern pin in it to hold the leg together.'”
Griggs returned to the museum in November to unwrap the mummy and to determine what he could by visual examination. From this examination of the exposed joint, Griggs and the surgeons who have worked with him now believe the pin was implanted between the time of Usermontu’s death and his burial.

“It didn’t appear to be a modern pin insertion. There were some characteristics of the knee joint, namely some of the ancient fats and textiles, that were still in place and would not have been in place had the leg been separated in modern times,” Griggs says.

Griggs returned to Provo a second time and gathered a team to go to San Jose in February when he and the medical doctors made a full-scale investigation of the mummy, and the team concurred that the pin was ancient and was implanted after Usermontu’s death.

Griggs, Dr. Richard T. Jackson, an orthopedic surgeon from Provo, and Dr. E. Bruce McIff, chief of radiology for Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, drilled the bone containing the pin to try to extract samples of the bone and the metal from the pin.

“We are amazed at the ability to create a pin with biomechanical principles that we still use today—rigid fixation of the bone, for example,” Jackson says. “It is beyond anything we anticipated for that time.”

The pin, says Griggs, tapers into a corkscrew as it enters the femur, or thigh bone, similar to biomechanical methods currently used. The other end of the pin, which is positioned in the tibia, or shin bone, has three flanges extending outward from the core of the pin that prevent rotation of the pin inside the bone.

The cavity for the pin in the tibia also contained a resinous glue that aided in the fixation of the joint, says Griggs, who has excavated in Egypt for more than 15 years and is a historian and ancient texts expert. The team discovered the resin, he says, when a specialist, using a high-tech medical drill, exclaimed that there was wetness inside the bone. The drill bit, moving as fast as 75,000 rpm, had generated enough heat to melt the resinous glue, which is believed to consist of a type of cedar and other organic materials.

The resinous glue also was more advanced than Jackson expected. “It is a precursor of the cement we use these days to secure a total joint.”

Explaining such meticulous effort for a postmortem body, Griggs says Egyptians believed strongly in a physical resurrection. The technician preparing the body, he says, was to make the body appropriate for the reunification of body and spirit.

“How fascinating that the technician took such considerable thought constructing the pin,” he says. “The technician could have just simply wired the leg together and assumed that in the resurrection it would knit back together.”

The pin is a unique find, says Griggs, who has never before encountered anything from the ancient past displaying such advanced surgical understanding or techniques. Griggs says the sophisticated surgery in this mummy suggests that such procedures may have been performed previously on bodies, and the team was fortunate enough to encounter one sample.

In fact, they were fortunate to have access to the mummy. The Rosicrucian Museum acquired Usermontu’s sarcophagus in 1971 when it appeared in a Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog in a section called “His and Her Gifts for People Who Have Everything.”

The sarcophagus was thought to be empty when a worker heard a rattling from within the sarcophagus during preparation for shipment, museum officials say. The rattling turned out to be an unwrapped ancient mummy inside the coffin. Whether it was originally the body for which the sarcophagus was made cannot be determined. The museum purchased both the mummy and the sarcophagus for $16,000. Before placing the mummy on display, museum curators wrapped the body in ancient linen from other collections in storage.

“It’s a strange story,” Griggs says of Usermontu’s discovery. Griggs believes the sarcophagus was probably not the original tomb used for the burial of Usermontu.

But the story of the mummy’s acquisition may not be as intriguing as the implications of its existence.

“The story tells us how sophisticated ancient people really were,” Griggs says. “Sometimes our cultural arrogance gets in the way of our being able to appreciate how people from other cultures and times were able to also think and act in quite amazing ways.

“The story has so many ramifications for how we look at the past. It also tells us how little we truly know.”

Most bizarrely, a more recent article from 2015 explains more details about the pin, claiming it was inserted after death instead, but quotes the above article as source.

... There is nothing more degrading or shameful than a woman who can contemplate and carry out deeds like the hideous crime if murdering the husband of her youth. I had certainly expected a joyful welcome from my children and my servants when I reached home. But now, in the depth of her villainy, she has branded with infamy not herself alone but the whole of her sex, even the virtuous ones, for all time to come.

- The Odyssey, penguin classics, 431 — I like sushi

This is exactly what I am saying. Not only is there no record of the Greeks and Romans taking personal responsibility for the things they did wrong themselves and feel bad about it...but now, 2000 years later, a thinking and rational person like yourself cannot even tell when someone is demeaning and degrading their own wife...Instead he blames her for her behavior because of what he did wrong, in this case, if I identify the location of the quote correctly, without even thinking she might be slightly upset about her husband disappearing for seven years to a war she didnt want him to join in the first place. I rest my case. Even today people these days cant tell the difference. YOU can't, lol. Not that I blame you, everyone else does it, but it does show the scale of the problem I am trying to address.

I should actually explain, spell out, and repeat that guilt is not saying someone else is at fault, but taking personal responsibility for a fault. I would also like to include, with your permission, your quote, claiming it is an example of guilt, to illustrate how even now people dont know what it is so well, which may partly explain why no one noticed the absence of guilt in Romans and Greeks before.

S that means, I guess, you are also at odds with Wittgenstein. Well whatever, I do wish you well on your pursuit. If it gives you an erection to talk about the philosophy of hedonism, I couldnt be happier for you! lol

However, there's absolutely nothing wrong in asking P the question: what about rationality is pleasurable? P then might reply that the fact that rationality ensures not losing touch with reality makes rationality pleasurable. Can no more questions concerning Hedonism be asked to P? To my surprise, it seems we can ask another question to P: what about not losing touch with reality is pleasurable? P might have a perfectly reasonable reply but whatever constitutes that reply, we can always ask what about it (content of the reply) P finds pleasurable? So on and so forth, ad infinitum. — TheMadFool

That's all very clever, lol, but I guess you run into problems with how OTHER philosophers define pleasure, for example, Locke in the Essay on Human Understanding defines pleasure as temporary satiation of the physical senses with fades with time; and so we were created with 'appetite' that is continually renewed, due to the greatest wisdom of God, that we may continually find the simplest enjoyments of being alive. After that, Locks states, and hence as stated in the constitution by jefferson, as a natgural right, we may instead know happiness, which is more enduring fulfillment of the soul, necessary for the perpetuation of a successful government, for the most enduring and longest lasting happiness is acting for the greater good.

All that said, there has been alot of anger about the theistic definition of happiness in natural rights, but for some reason people still generally agree with Locke about the definition of pleasure, even if they deny it was intentionally created by a divine supernatural being.

Hence I think it difficult for you to defend that philosophy is hedonistic, due to the pervasive general opinion that the pleasure it is based on derives purely from the physical senses. Whereas most would agree that philosophy can make you happy, even if only a few wise few agree that acting for the greatest good yields the most permanent and everlasting happiness.

that may have been true in the past, Michael, but from what I see happening now, with memes and instults so popular in the era of Trump, the sneering minority has become an aggressive majority, per my own experience.

Well. From the psycholinguistic standpoint, I would offer considering the power of conditional verbs, as to what 'may be objectively true' and as to what 'might be objectively true.' Its a subtle but powerful distinction.

Well thank you for the pointer, and perhaps I can add it to references, but really if you will look at my thesis in total, that St. Thomas was an example of a rational skeptic, and there is no room in the church currently for rational skepticism, and instead, huge swaths of ignorant people dismissing the entire story as a myth, AND most people don't even know the gospel of Thomas exists at all; additionally, no one else has even realized, as far as I know, that the sponge offered to Jesus was a shit sponge, nor has anyone noticed the lack of emotional guilt in roman and greek civlizations, and moreover, more points I raise in my other three homiliies have to my knowledge never been discussed either, I have a rather larger issue that simply the likelihood of the texts being about a real person. If anything, I wrote too much on the the comparative quality of the Christian texts, because most people say that part is too long and boring.

Well Im sorry. I thought you wanted to put aside the issue of religious authority. True, even if there is no evidence that Romans or Greeks felt guilt, its possible they did. Nonetheless, in the rather significant volume of literature handed down to us, neither I nor a number of experts in the field have been able to identify one case where someone felt bad about what they did, while thinking it was their own fault. In all cases, it appears always to be the fault of someone else or the Gods, which is in fact, touted as being the truth in the entire body of all Greek tragedy. Considering how much people these days often claim or behave that no criticisms of them are ever their own fault (even extending to the President of the United States now), it does appear this is a topic deserving far more attention than a philosophy forum, so I intend to publish.

Exactly, which precludes objectivity. — Possibility

Ah. The first problem is, some people say there is no such thing as objective truth. Your presentation resembles the proverbial lawyer question 'have you stopped beating your wife"' lol. Not intended to say you are wrong, just that it precludes the issue of whether there is objective truth in the first place.

Advising me to read 'Fear and Trembling.' lol. Thats really funny. Of course you have not seen 'Christ, the Shit Sponge, and Beyond' so you would not know why it is so funny, but thank you for making me laugh.

Maybe it is the opposite of the original question to you. But it is not the opposite of the original question to me. Also monks still set themselves on fire in Tibet. However as you have asked to put aside the issue of religious authority, its not directly pertinent to why people let themselves be eaten alive before there was any religious authority, because, they were doing so in protest that the government had overruled their own religious authorities. The issue of why people would commit themselves so much to brotherly love and forgiveness in a society which previously had not even manifest guilt remains.

I invite you to find an example of guilt in roman and greek texts. As I say, I talked with a number of historians from Oxford, two with PhDs, and they could not think of any example either.

The reason I say it is a deeper question is because I cant imagine any way to fully corrobarate any hypotheses as to its answer such that it would be truthful beyond doubt. It seems to me a matter of opinion, and therefore, I ask your opinion on why you think guilt, brotherly love, and forgiveness were so powerful in nature that people let themselves be eaten alive, when they could simply have left the early Christian church.

Hmm. A false trichotomy )
First you would have to add a condition, if there is such a thing as objective truth, then...are these alternatives the only ones, and whether or not they are, is one or more of them a correct definition?

ok. I think I have the right clarification for you. First, here is the current text on the topic which I have improved rather substantially, albeit making it longer:

(2) Hermeneutic Corroboration

• Hermeneutic: (from Hermes, messenger and soul guide of the Greek Gods): wisdom in interpretation. Hermeneutic theory is "a member of the social subjectivist paradigm where meaning is inter-subjectively created, in contrast to the empirical universe of assumed scientific realism (Berthon et al. 2002). Other approaches within this paradigm are social phenomenology and ethnography. As part of the interpretative research family, hermeneutics focuses on the significance that an aspect of reality takes on for the people under study" (University of Colorado).

In the next section, I will advocate how it is not an unreasonable postulation that Jesus learned of otherwise lost Egyptian medical techniques. First I consider the consequences of Jesus' decision to affect a major change to human spirit, instead of being a doctor in accordance with the talents he displayed. And so it was that Jesus introduced astounding teachings on love and forgiveness that were totally alien to the cultures of the time.

Of Ancient Emotions: Consider for example, in all Roman texts, there was no emotion of guilt. None at all. There was valor, humor, and desires to improve civilization in Stoic manners, but no guilt. It rather surprised me no one observed this before, so I asked a number of knowledgeable friends what they thought. They all expressed, with some surprise, they could think of no example of Romans expressing guilt in all the literature they knew either.

Similarly, the Greeks did not know the emotion of guilt. The Greeks beat their chests and bemoaned the fates they could not escape, but they didn't have any emotional guilt. For the Greeks it was always the fault of other men or Gods, all the way from Helen's abduction to Troy, all the way to Oedipus blinding himself because he did not know he had married his mother and killed his father. The absence of Greek and Roman guilt is one observation I have made which apparently no one has ever thought of before, but on asking my friends knowledgeable in the field, they also cannot remember any examples of Roman or Greek guilt.

Emotional guilt was instead known commonly to the Israelites, who were the first society to attempt a system of rational law based on divine justice (compare to, for example, Draco's tabulation of totally random rules in Athens, 620BCE; and the far more common systems of punishment based solely on opinions of the rulers at the time, without any clear statement at all as to what crimes actually were). Prior to that, there is some idea of guilt in the Egyptian judgment in the afterlife. But it was a very different idea than it is now, based on terror of Gods, whether living or beyond life. When we look back to those eras, we tend to assume everyone had much the same judgments and emotions we have now, but we are looking at an extremely savage time, and the social mechanisms to enable such judgments and emotions to blossom in civilization had not fully evolved.

Of the New Idea of Faith, Hope, and Love: The disparate emotional lives of the various ancient cultures is a frequently ignored fact that circumscribed the doctrines of Jesus. The novelty of his lessons could have been no more than amusing, and simply disappeared, but somehow thew grew with significant alacrity. It remains unclear how his teachings gained so much traction at all, amidst the far louder rhetoric and more powerful means of rich and well-entrenched opponents.

His new ideas resulted in spiritual growth of compassion, and love, together with the positive nature of the afterlife, looked to with hope rather than fear (unlike any other tradition of the time ever). Cultural response of the opponents included Nero's feeding early Christians to lions, because they didn't mind dieing, and the Roman crowds just adored watching it, without any guilt at all. It is impossible to imagine at all how so many people professing faith in Christ would join together in such an apparently defeatist effort, and let themselves be so persecuted. Not only does it beg the question of whether there is no empirical evidence for the Holy Spirit working in the world, but also, regardless that, there must have been some genuine historical antecedence (as perpetuated by the Nicaean council, however one regards the creed they defined). But here, I put aside how much corroboration should be necessary to consider belief in the Holy Spirit as rational too.

New teachings by themselves would not be enough to convince people that another way of life might be better. Even now, people are extremely resistant to changing their mind about virtually anything at all, only scoffing at others being wrong. So it seems to me Jesus'' medical knowledge, described by people of the time as miracles, was totally necessary to affect the change for the better he sought. Some would scorn that as fraudulent, but amidst the ignorance and savagery of the time, I personally do not find it in myself to be so condemnatory.

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So then, now I believe I can pose my thought to you. Why exactly was guilt and forgiveness suddenly so appealing to international cultures which had lived without them for centuries, indeed, over a millennia? If there were not some underlying spiritual force, be it of the human nature or supernatural, guilt and forgiveness would simply have vanished, as unnecessary or unwanted or for whatever reason you may construe, in the panoply of human experience. But those emotions did not disappear, instead they surged with such force that people were fed to lions, when they simply could have left the church. They chose not to. They were so committed to brotherly love they found, that they even let themselves be eaten alive for sport. If there were not some underlying need in the human spirit, whatever that need may actually be, then there would be no reason for such a sudden, dramatic change that swept the Western world. That's how I see it. If it still does not make sense to you, I would be indebted if you would ask for clarification or criticize what I say, because I do feel it is an important observation that has in fact never been made before.

well I wa sthinking of the nature of numbers at the time, but the same applies to all emotions which is more obvious.

I agree with schopenhauer on this point. One might explain how the phenomenon exists in terms of physicalism, and even perform experiments to validate the expalnation, but it doesnt actually have any pertinence to the experience.

I can give a kind of parallel example. Suppose you have three pencils on the desk. You look at them and think, there are three. It doesnt have anything to do with the pencils. The three is in your mind. Similarly, you can find out how neural pathways create consciousness perhaps. You could even identify the ones triggered when you think 'there are three pencils.' But that does not define the experience you have of looking at the pencils and thinking there's three of them. It merely defines how the experience is produced.

The way I heard it, the devil thought it worth having a three way tempt of Jesus in the desert. And he resisted. He could have done evil, but he didn't. — unenlightened

I think the temptations were cleverer in this case. It is debatable whether turning stones into bread is actually evil. And you would know, from my own stance, that the story actually means Jesus was considering staying there and farming rather than continuing on the mission he had committed to. The actual answer on the stones into bread is interesting too, because it does not say doing so is evil either, but the point was more that he resisted the temptation and followed the word the god, which is kind of cute really ) Thtas what I think for what its worth.

I must object to you using the word 'gnostic' in your name and stating the inflammatory kind of things you do. It makes it very difficult for people like me who actually are gnostics. If you have any respect for yourself, you shoud respect other people's opinions. Otherwise, its clear you dont respect yourself either, and have a real problem. I suggest not talking on this forum again and seeing a psychotherapist.

I think I need to think about that a while and see what I could say better for you. Could take a day or so )

But if that's too much effort for you, here is your short answer:

[url=http://]https://wiki.c2.com/?FalseDichotomy[/url]

I can see you put alot of effort into writing those, um, 22 words is it? Yes. Well here, let me put the same effort into replying to you as you did reading my first intro post, I know it was long, but if you wish to discuss further, I must ask you actually figure out I already answered your question in my first post.

What gifted person you are. Just imagine if everyone else was like you. We wouldnt even need to talk too each other )

well its the same question, why does someone choose to be totally subservient to someone else? Once theyve chosen so, the results are fairly predictable, but it takes an act of will to choose to give up one's will. Why does someone choose to give up their own will?

Im sorry, could you clarify what you mean by that? I dont understand.

oh, well from what you said thats easy to answer. Hypnosis is not possible unless the subject is willing. The deeper question is, why is the subject willing?

New conclusion to first homily:

The Response of St. Thomas:

This homily started by indicating how to extrapolate logically from the skepticism of St. Thomas. He did not accept that Jesus actually had been on the cross without feeling the holes in his limbs.. St. Thomas could very much speak for the reasoning person of science today. The philosophy of science holds that truth can only be known when sufficient hypotheses are verified to corroborate a theory beyond doubt. That's what St. Thomas was saying.

References to St. Thomas in the canonical gospels are few. But in 1945, a gospel by St. Thomas himself was found in the Nag Hammadi library, hidden during the long dark ages, all the way through the emergence from the enlightenment, to the current era of scientific skepticism.

With excitement I worked on my own translation in early days of research, only to find, to my complete astonishment, that it contains virtually no statements of historical events in Jesus' life at all. The text instead simply describes enough to set the stage for a fantastic set of Jesus' replies to questions. In the answers, Jesus often emphasizes how to find the Kingdom of Heaven--not necessarily only in whatever afterlife there is, but also, possibly, here on Earth as well.

So now, as discussed already, we have no necessary proof that that there is an afterlife. In accordance with rational empiricism. We can only wait to genuinely know of it, after our own passing. Yet it is fairly truthful to say, like St. Thomas, we still can turn to the marvelous lessons of Jesus to find joy here on Earth, right now, with all people joined together by the spirit of hope, love, and forgiveness, every day.
All churches today may say I have no faith. In one respect, they would be correct. The scientific method frowns upon belief without empirical ratification. But in another respect, I still believe in the lessons of Jesus.

My next homily "the alpha, the omega, and the bee orchid" discusses how current scientific knowledge, as well as Kant's 'theory of intelligent design,' can provide insights into the entire span of spiritual time, from the creation to the end of the world.

But for now, whatever faith I may be felt to possess, this homily has shown that the textual evidence for the existence of Christ is an order of magnitude greater than for any other person of the era. It can only remain a matter of opinion whether or how much the gospel accounts of miracles, and inconsistencies between the gospels are fraudulent, intentionally or not.

St. Thomas puts the quibbles of inconsistent historical details aside. Indeed, instead of recounting historical events at all, he focuses on his memories of Christ's lessons. For Jesus still leads us to a kingdom of perfect joy, eternal beyond time.

Ok I started to look at your post, and I think it's just great. Would you consider collaboration on an anthology type thing? I have a couple of other homilies in progress:

* 'The Alpha, the Omega, and the Bee Orchid - Discussing how a different perspective of time can accommodate the biblical visions both of the creation and end of the universe make sense, also discussing the impact of technologies such as cloning on lifespans, and Kant's theory of intelligent design with respect to this planet being at the entropic center of the universe, rather than Euclidean space. Also it includes how history since Christ can be viewed as the three eras of the father, son, and holy spirit.
* The passion, the shit sponge, and beyond - Historical imagination and contemplation on the significance of of Christ 'only being dead enough' when taken off the cross.
* Holy Crap - historical imagination of the birth and contemplation on it
And I would like to include the Gospel of Thomas in the anthology

Well, lol, I know you are wise enough to avoid answering questions, but in this case, I would have to ask you, putting aside issues with religious authority, how much more corroboration do you actually need that a Hoiy Ghost is working in the world, when Jesus wrought such a great change in the spirit of man? If you refer back to my section on therapeutics in the first piece, you will see I have revised it, maybe it does not say what it should well enough, but thats what Ive got so far.

I have to put some time into reading Schopenhauer's posts, it may be some time before I can get back to you.

That's something I can really understand, lol. There aren't many of us, most people dont even really know the docs exists. I'll look forward to hearing from you very much!

Actually I have put quite a bit more work into my piece. I adjusted the section on Judaic history a little, but perhaps not enough in your opinion. I added a new introduction, a section on the doctrine of the Holy Covenant which expresses the above frustration perhaps not as tactfully as I would like, and a new conclusion which is actually from other meditations I'd already written. In the section on the Covenant it states:

Fourth, and most importantly: if one is to believe in God giving humankind free will, then one cannot claim that differences in creeds, across those different sects who seek to know God, are part of God's will. Differences in creed, written by humankind, are not God's will. They are part of humankind's will. If there is an afterlife, God is rather put in the awkward position of stopping those with different creeds continuing their debate, possibly forever. It all seems to me essentially childish to insist on specific creeds when the full truth of one's heart could only ever be known by God. If we wish to know divine love, but cannot accept our differences in how we experience the divine on earth, how long must God keep all His children in separate playpens that they not quarrel, not on earth alone, but also in whatever afterlife may exist?

What do you think of that?

I agree your first perspective is a viable way to view religious authority. On the other hand, it must rely on the fact that people actually want to respect religious authority, which opens a deeper question.

Personally, having been raised by a Jewish Father and Christian Mother, I have to say, I am extremely grateful for the existence of love and forgiveness that Christ initiated in the West. I do understand other people have not had good experiences with the Church. I also have not had good experiences with the Church in the last few decades, despite my continued love of Jesus, so I totally understand that frustration. But I do not believe he can personally be blamed for how religious authority still tries to dominate the world, with increasingly less success.

Oh dear. Im sorry to misunderstand you. Sadly, they have to, because according to what they believe, even my reading of the Gospel of Thomas makes me heretical, let alone my postulation that all the miracles and even crucifixion could be explained with the laws of rational science. It's fundamentally contrary to the Nicene creed, leaving me only in a small sect known as the gnostics. If you look 'gnostic' up on Google, it states in no uncertain terms that gnostics are heretics. I can only hope that the future allows for people prefering not to believe in the scientifically impossible could also be accepted into the folds of the church, but as things are, I can't even get any ministers to reply to my emails.