Does this explain religion?

PureX · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
It's true that incoherence is a judgment, but it's not an arbitrary judgment ─ incoherence can be demonstrated.

Only by a confused mind, however.

blü 2 said:
I don't think incoherence is a mystery either, a puzzle to be solved. Instead it points to the lack of meaning in the concept presented.

Right, the old, "if I can't understand it, it must be gibberish!" meme.

blü 2 said:
And again, in my view, what is true depends on what is objectively true ─ reality is the arbiter of the truth of any statement.

Except that YOU are a subject, not an object. So YOU aren't ever going to be able to assess/ascribe objectivity, objectively.

PureX · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
Not quite ─ the correct statement is that we have no reason to think the supernatural exists,...

And no reason not to.

blü 2 said:
... not least because the concept of the supernatural is, as I said, incoherent.

But it's only incoherent to a limited and confused mind. Mystery, paradox, incoherence, these are 'real' states of consciousness. So they are already 'real in that sense. In whatever other sense they may be real is unknowable, because of their nature.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

PureX said:
Only by a confused mind, however.
Right, the old, "if I can't understand it, it must be gibberish!" meme.

Do you want me to demonstrate the incoherence of the concept of a "real supernatural"? Or of a "real God"? Just say the word and I'll spell it out ─ it doesn't take long.

PureX said:
Except that YOU are a subject, not an object. So YOU aren't ever going to be able to assess/ascribe objectivity, objectively.

But I can do what reasoned enquiry does, and set out to maximize objectivity. Are you saying that's something you can't do?

PureX said:
And no reason not to.

There are any number of excellent reasons not to think something is true when we have no reason to think it's true. It's not a good attitude for crossing the road, for example, or playing the stock exchange. Nor is it helpful to think there really is a duck out there that stands the height of a seven year old, has wings in the form of arms ending with three digits, speaks English and lives in Duckberg.

PureX said:
But it's only incoherent to a limited and confused mind.

No, it's just plain incoherent, and as I said, just ask and I'll spell it out.

PureX said:
Mystery, paradox, incoherence, these are 'real' states of consciousness. So are drunkenness, fever, concussion, Alzheimer's, and so on.The test for whether a statement is true or not is how accurately it reflects reality.

PruePhillip · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
Really? Where does it say the messiah must die, how does it say the messiah must effect redemption?
The messiah would liberate = obtain political autonomy. I'm not aware of anything said of a messiah that would require him to die, or go away, and then come back to conquer. What text says that?
Redeemer in some sense other than political liberator?

Job was one of many who spoke of the Redeemer, the one who would pay the price for our sins.
The Redeemer is symbolized in the young male lamb, brought into the household for three days
and killed (after bonding) and his blood daubed upon the lintel.
When Job said "I know that my Redeemer lives, and he shall stand on the earth in the latter day."
he meant:

I… not someone else, me

Know… not believe, not think, not suppose, but know

My… not someone else's, mine

Redeemer… not a king, not a warrior, not a philosopher

Lives … not did live, not will live, but live as in now

He … coming as a man

Shall… not maybe, not possibly

Stand… not recline, lie down - but stand for something

Earth … here, this place

Latter day… in the future - for Job this about 500 to a thousand years before Jesus. Isn't that marvelous?

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

PruePhillip said:
Job was one of many who spoke of the Redeemer, the one who would pay the price for our sins.

The translation 'redeemer' may suit a Christian argument, but the sense of Job is much better served by the equally available translation 'Vindicator'. The text says nothing about the Vindicator being a messiah.

Incidentally, Job is a morally vile and repulsive fiction, the tale of a righteous man cut down, his position in society destroyed, his family and loved ones arbitrarily murdered at God's instigation, and all for a bet. If that were a fair portrayal of your god in action, it's time you became a Buddhist.

PruePhillip said:
The Redeemer is symbolized in the young male lamb, brought into the household for three days and killed (after bonding) and his blood daubed upon the lintel.

No. The Tanakh has many instances of lambs being sacrificed to God, apparently on the basis of the pleasing smell of the meat offered by Noah on leaving the ark. The lamb has nothing to do with the messiah (though it's a popular Christian attempt at retrofitting), and as far as I recall, Job doesn't sacrifice a lamb or daub a lintel.

stvdv · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
"... mysteries give an air of pleasurable profundity, whereas explanations always smack of the banal."

─ Robert Sheckley, Minotaur Maze, 14

Your views?

I went to a church this morning, and talked to nobody. That felt great, not having to explain that I have a different spiritual path.
And biking home I thought exacty the same as you write "better to stay mysterious than explaining and getting negative judgmental vibes in return".

PureX · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
Do you want me to demonstrate the incoherence of the concept of a "real supernatural"? Or of a "real God"? Just say the word and I'll spell it out ─ it doesn't take long.

I'm sure it doesn't if you presume your own limited and biased understanding of what is "real" is the criteria of what is real and what isn't. The flaw, of course, is that your opinion on this would be entirely subjective. So the "incoherence" would be, as well.

blü 2 said:
But I can do what reasoned enquiry does, and set out to maximize objectivity.

You THINK you can, but in thinking so, it becomes entirely subjective.

blü 2 said:
Are you saying that's something you can't do?

I'm saying that we are subjects causing the subjectivity, and we can't escape from our own limited and biased cognitive perspective.

blü 2 said:
There are any number of excellent reasons not to think something is true when we have no reason to think it's true.

We can think whatever we like about the truth. What we can't do is claim to be objectively certain that we're right. Our truth, as human beings, is based on semi-reasoned relative probability, not on objective knowledge.

blü 2 said:
It's not a good attitude for crossing the road, for example, or playing the stock exchange. Nor is it helpful to think there really is a duck out there that stands the height of a seven year old, has wings in the form of arms ending with three digits, speaks English and lives in Duckberg.
No, it's just plain incoherent, and as I said, just ask and I'll spell it out.

When you find someone claiming this, then, you can prove them wrong .... or can you?

Shadow Link · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
"... mysteries give an air of pleasurable profundity, whereas explanations always smack of the banal."

─ Robert Sheckley, Minotaur Maze, 14

Your views?

I really like some of Robert's titles, "The Odor of Thought, The People Trap, The Victim From Space." Looks like this guy inspired Douglas Adams too. Good stuff.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

stvdv said:
I went to a church this morning, and talked to nobody. That felt great, not having to explain that I have a different spiritual path.
And biking home I thought exacty the same as you write "better to stay mysterious than explaining and getting negative judgmental vibes in return.

Right on the point! Thanks.

Is it the case that you form your views through critical analysis, taking them apart and looking at the pieces and the combinations from all sides? Or are you guided by a sense of psychological/intuitive goodness of fit?

Trailblazer · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
We find absolutely zero credible evidence of prophecy anywhere in the bible.

For instance, Jesus is never, not once, not even possibly, referred to in the Tanakh.

As I've pointed out before, he intersects with the job description of a messiah nowhere. He's not a war leader. He's not a king. He's not a high priest. And 'messiah', Greek 'christos', means 'anointed', unambiguously in the sense 'anointed by the Jewish priesthood', but Jesus was never anointed.

And there is no reason to think that Jesus is going to come back to earth a second time to BE and DO all those things Christians believe, essentially becoming a completely different man.... As I just explained on another thread, Jesus never promised to return to earth a second time. The Church misinterpreted the Bible and thought verses were about Jesus that never referred to Jesus:
#70 Trailblazer, 14 minutes ago

blü 2 said:
That's why stories are stories.

That is also why beliefs are beliefs.

PruePhillip · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
The translation 'redeemer' may suit a Christian argument, but the sense of Job is much better served by the equally available translation 'Vindicator'. The text says nothing about the Vindicator being a messiah.

Incidentally, Job is a morally vile and repulsive fiction, the tale of a righteous man cut down, his position in society destroyed, his family and loved ones arbitrarily murdered at God's instigation, and all for a bet. If that were a fair portrayal of your god in action, it's time you became a Buddhist.
No. The Tanakh has many instances of lambs being sacrificed to God, apparently on the basis of the pleasing smell of the meat offered by Noah on leaving the ark. The lamb has nothing to do with the messiah (though it's a popular Christian attempt at retrofitting), and as far as I recall, Job doesn't sacrifice a lamb or daub a lintel.

Though your points are factual, they form a Non sequitur.

We don't know if Job sacrificed after his suffering - he did
so BEFORE his suffering.
At the Passover in Jerusalem Jesus did not speak to the
old law but made it clear HE was the Passover lamb. He
was giving His life for His people.
Isaiah spoke of Him as being like a lamb before His
shearer, and His life is taken from the earth.
Daniel said He would die while the temple yet stood, 'but
not for himself" (for His people.) Such verses confuse the
Orthodox Jewish mind.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

PureX said:
I'm sure it doesn't if you presume your own limited and biased understanding of what is "real" is the criteria of what is real and what isn't.

I may have said this before, but anyway...

I make three basic assumptions. They have to be assumptions, because I can't demonstrate their correctness unless I've already assumed they're correct. They are these ─

That a world exists external to me;
That my senses are capable of informing me about that world.
That reason is a valid tool.

By posting on RF you demonstrate that you share at least the first two; and if you don't share the third, it would help if you said so at once.

The world external to me is reality, nature, the realm of the physical sciences, the sum of things with objective existence. It also provides the most objective standard of truth available to us: a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / accurately reflects reality.

And the world external to me is where my air, water, food, come from and my shelter, parents, society, partner, children exist.

There are no absolutely true statements. There are however statements that accurately reflect reality. At the level of reasoned enquiry ─ scientific method, historical method, and so on ─ these may depend on best opinion for the time being. For example it was once not only true but absurdly obvious that the world is flat, and that the sun, moon and heavenly bodies go round it. Or Newton's view that gravity acts instantaneously; that fire is explained by phlogiston; that God created species individually; that light propagates in the lumeniferous ether; that time advances at the same rate throughout the universe; that the earth's crust is a single solid unit; that the Higgs boson is only a hypothetical particle. Each of those things are, on our present understanding, no longer true. And you can make a similar list for our understanding of history, of the human brain, of medicine, taxonomy and so on.

And we continue to learn about reality by maximizing objectivity; by using repeatable experiments, by arguing honestly and transparently from examinable evidence; and you possibly noticed some criticisms recently that peer review isn't working as it should, but that's always the first step towards correction or a better system.

PureX said:
The flaw, of course, is that your opinion on this would be entirely subjective. So the "incoherence" would be, as well.

Okay, make this coherent for me.

Why is there no definition appropriate to a real God? A definition such that if we found a real candidate we could determine whether it were God or not? Why are the definitions we have suitable only for imaginary gods, with imaginary qualities like omniscience, omnipotence, perfection (whatever that means), and so on? Or the apophatic attempts at definition?

And why is there no concept of 'godness', the quality a real God would have that a superscientist who could create universes, raise the dead, travel in time &c would lack?

Make the concept of a real god coherent, meaningful, credible for me.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

Shadow Link said:
I really like some of Robert's titles, "The Odor of Thought, The People Trap, The Victim From Space." Looks like this guy inspired Douglas Adams too. Good stuff.

'Dukakis and the Aliens', 'Zirn Left Unguarded, the Jenghik Palace in Flames, Jon Westerley Dead', 'A Plague of Unicorns' ─ Sheckley was a creative genius, a versatile hack, later a clever but could-be-annoying surrealist; but somewhere to hand was always that large intelligent wit.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

Trailblazer said:
And there is no reason to think that Jesus is going to come back to earth a second time to BE and DO all those things Christians believe, essentially becoming a completely different man.... As I just explained on another thread, Jesus never promised to return to earth a second time. The Church misinterpreted the Bible and thought verses were about Jesus that never referred to Jesus:
#70 Trailblazer, 14 minutes ago

It's also not clear whether Jesus and the NT's 'Son of Man' who will bring in the Kingdom are the same person.

Trailblazer said:
That is also why beliefs are beliefs.

Which is to say, same to you.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

PruePhillip said:
We don't know if Job sacrificed after his suffering - he did
so BEFORE his suffering.

But that has nothing to do with our topic, what is a messiah?

PruePhillip · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
But that has nothing to do with our topic, what is a messiah?

So, why bring it up?

There's TWO MESSIAHS present in the OT. One is the Redeemer and the
other is the King. They are one and the same. The Jews will see their King,
but will mourn because he was the Redeemer they crucified (Zechariah)

Most Jews feel no need of a Redeemer. They just want a worldly King because
they have a worldly mind.

Trailblazer · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
It's also not clear whether Jesus and the NT's 'Son of Man' who will bring in the Kingdom are the same person.

It is clear to me that it isn't, and here is the reason...
According to my beliefs, it is impossible for the same man Jesus to return in the same body because the physical body of the same man Jesus is not still alive in heaven. Heaven is a purely spiritual world so a physical body cannot live in heaven. The soul of Jesus is very much alive in heaven in a spiritual body, but souls do not come back to earth, as that would be reincarnation. Instead, what I believe happened is that the ‘spirit’ of Jesus, the Christ Spirit, and the Holy Spirit returned to earth in the body of another man who was the promised Messiah of the OT and the Comforter/Spirit of truth that Jesus promised to send from heaven in the NT.

Mark 14:62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Mark 13:26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

Did anyone ever wonder why Jesus did not say “And then shall they see me coming in the clouds with great power and glory?” Not once in the entire NT did Jesus ever say He was coming back to earth. I have discussed this with Christians for years and the verses just are not there. Christians just want it to be Jesus so they interpret verses to mean they are about Jesus when they are not. And if Jesus was coming back to earth, where is He? The prophecies have been fulfilled and still no Jesus.

Why would Jesus keep it a secret if He had been planning to return to earth? Why did Jesus say His work was finished here (John 17:4) and He was no more in the world (John 17:11) if He was planning to return to earth? Why did Jesus say “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) if He was planning to come back and build a kingdom on earth? When asked if He was a king, why did Jesus say explain to Pilate “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth” (John 18:37) if Jesus was coming back to rule as a king, as Christians believe? Jesus fulfilled His purpose by bearing witness to the truth about God, so there is no reason for Jesus to return to earth a second time. These verses are clues that tell us that Jesus was never planning to return to earth to rule and build the Kingdom of God, and that means that the Messiah who would accomplish this has to be another man.

The title ‘Son of man’ is symbolic of the perfect humanity that Jesus represented, but it does not apply exclusively to Jesus. It ultimately comes from the Book of Daniel, where it refers to the Messiah. It is a Baha’i teaching that the title applies to both Jesus and Baha’u’llah.

To explain in brief, I believe that ‘Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven’ means that the return of the Christ Spirit promised in the Bible will be made manifest from the heaven of the will of God, and will appear in the form of a human being. The term “heaven” means loftiness and exaltation. Although Jesus was delivered from the womb of His mother, in reality He descended from the heaven of the will of God. Though dwelling on this earth, His true habitation was the realms above. While walking among mortals on earth, Jesus soared in the heaven of the divine presence.

blü 2 said:
Which is to say, same to you.

Correct, beliefs are beliefs. They cannot be proven to be true, but logically speaking they are either true or false.

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

PruePhillip said:
There's TWO MESSIAHS present in the OT. One is the Redeemer and the
other is the King.

The messiah is a liberator, a war-leader or king, or a high priest. His title means he's been anointed.

Jesus was not a war leader or a king or a high priest or anointed. If there was an historical Jesus at all then the best guess is that he was a player in the Jerusalem religion industry ─ so minor that there's not a single contemporaneous mention of him, so minor that when the author of Mark came to write the only purported earthly biography of Jesus, he had almost nothing to go on ─ perhaps some sayings, perhaps the report that he fought with his family and his mother ─ and had to devise his hero's progress by moving him through a series of Tanakh scenes which apparently appeared to him to serve as messianic prophecy.

PruePhillip said:
Most Jews feel no need of a Redeemer. They just want a worldly King because they have a worldly mind.

That's gratuitously snide of you, dear Prue. It appears to me that "most Jews" think that their God is perfectly capable of doing any redeeming that may be required and has no need of an assistant for the job. He handles the spiritual side while the messiah / king / war-leader / religious chief looks after the national politics. The Tanakh reads along those lines, and Judaism, although influenced by Greek thought, is not nearly so taken up with Greek ideas as Christianity is.

(As I've pointed out to you before, Mark's Jesus is the only one from Hebrew tradition, born of human parents in the usual way and elevated to 'son of God' when JtB washed his sins away and God proclaimed him his son, in the same way David became son of God in Psalm 2:7 (as Acts 13:33 confirms). The Gnostic Jesuses of Paul and the author of John, and the divine-insemination Jesuses of the respective authors of Matthew and Luke are Greek in concept and in trappings.)

blü 2 · Nov 3, 2019

Trailblazer said:
It is clear to me that it isn't, and here is the reason...
According to my beliefs, it is impossible for the same man Jesus to return in the same body because the physical body of the same man Jesus is not still alive in heaven. Heaven is a purely spiritual world so a physical body cannot live in heaven. The soul of Jesus is very much alive in heaven in a spiritual body, but souls do not come back to earth, as that would be reincarnation. Instead, what I believe happened is that the ‘spirit’ of Jesus, the Christ Spirit, and the Holy Spirit returned to earth in the body of another man who was the promised Messiah of the OT and the Comforter/Spirit of truth that Jesus promised to send from heaven in the NT.

Mark 14:62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Matthew 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Mark 13:26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.

Did anyone ever wonder why Jesus did not say “And then shall they see me coming in the clouds with great power and glory?” Not once in the entire NT did Jesus ever say He was coming back to earth. I have discussed this with Christians for years and the verses just are not there. Christians just want it to be Jesus so they interpret verses to mean they are about Jesus when they are not. And if Jesus was coming back to earth, where is He? The prophecies have been fulfilled and still no Jesus.

Why would Jesus keep it a secret if He had been planning to return to earth? Why did Jesus say His work was finished here (John 17:4) and He was no more in the world (John 17:11) if He was planning to return to earth? Why did Jesus say “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) if He was planning to come back and build a kingdom on earth? When asked if He was a king, why did Jesus say explain to Pilate “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth” (John 18:37) if Jesus was coming back to rule as a king, as Christians believe? Jesus fulfilled His purpose by bearing witness to the truth about God, so there is no reason for Jesus to return to earth a second time. These verses are clues that tell us that Jesus was never planning to return to earth to rule and build the Kingdom of God, and that means that the Messiah who would accomplish this has to be another man.

The title ‘Son of man’ is symbolic of the perfect humanity that Jesus represented, but it does not apply exclusively to Jesus. It ultimately comes from the Book of Daniel, where it refers to the Messiah. It is a Baha’i teaching that the title applies to both Jesus and Baha’u’llah.

To explain in brief, I believe that ‘Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven’ means that the return of the Christ Spirit promised in the Bible will be made manifest from the heaven of the will of God, and will appear in the form of a human being. The term “heaven” means loftiness and exaltation. Although Jesus was delivered from the womb of His mother, in reality He descended from the heaven of the will of God. Though dwelling on this earth, His true habitation was the realms above. While walking among mortals on earth, Jesus soared in the heaven of the divine presence.

Correct, beliefs are beliefs. They cannot be proven to be true, but logically speaking they are either true or false.

What can I say but, Good luck with that too!

And of course

PruePhillip · Nov 3, 2019

blü 2 said:
The messiah is a liberator, a war-leader or king, or a high priest. His title means he's been anointed.

Jesus was not a war leader or a king or a high priest or anointed. If there was an historical Jesus at all then the best guess is that he was a player in the Jerusalem religion industry ─ so minor that there's not a single contemporaneous mention of him, so minor that when the author of Mark came to write the only purported earthly biography of Jesus, he had almost nothing to go on ─ perhaps some sayings, perhaps the report that he fought with his family and his mother ─ and had to devise his hero's progress by moving him through a series of Tanakh scenes which apparently appeared to him to serve as messianic prophecy.
That's gratuitously snide of you, dear Prue. It appears to me that "most Jews" think that their God is perfectly capable of doing any redeeming that may be required and has no need of an assistant for the job. He handles the spiritual side while the messiah / king / war-leader / religious chief looks after the national politics. The Tanakh reads along those lines, and Judaism, although influenced by Greek thought, is not nearly so taken up with Greek ideas as Christianity is.

(As I've pointed out to you before, Mark's Jesus is the only one from Hebrew tradition, born of human parents in the usual way and elevated to 'son of God' when JtB washed his sins away and God proclaimed him his son, in the same way David became son of God in Psalm 2:7 (as Acts 13:33 confirms). The Gnostic Jesuses of Paul and the author of John, and the divine-insemination Jesuses of the respective authors of Matthew and Luke are Greek in concept and in trappings.)

"Mark's Jesus" is no different, historically, to any other Jesus.
He simply did not mention the "Christmas story."
Just as others did not mention various aspects or incidents.
John didn't mention the virgin birth either.

Yes, the Messiah is TWO.
You cannot dismiss so many hundreds of prophecies, like
many Jews do.

Does this explain religion?

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