The context is this thread. I didn’t take anything out of context.
Why do you created a statment like that? What is the point with what you are saying?
To be more accurate, it is an observation that leads to a fundamental concept.
Observation being the most profound divide between our human thoughts/mind, and the physical biological reality that we exist within.
Why that is so key is because it entails a recognition that all you experience, all you learn, and think, all your mind produces, is the product of your physical senses, and body & brain processing incoming information, and dealing with it - as your body is busy interacting with the living world.
All else belongs to physical reality.
It is true we never actually see reality -
A) because it happens on many levels beyond our macro-scale reality.
B) because we are limited by our biological perception instruments, that is our various senses.
etc.
Our body/mind collects and processes data, then creates an impression of the relevant reality it is dealing.
The perceiver opposed to the perceived.
…map…vs…territory
What’s the point of uttering any observation?
What’s the point of pursuing a constructive dialogue?
We can get back to this thread about Jesus.
What is the difference between the living breathing physical Jesus who in all probability did live a short life.
And with our memory of a son of God, holy savior for his tribe, with all of the magical things he does?
I suggest Physical Reality ~ Human Mindscape divide, provides a perfect guide for working through that.
Thanks for the question.
In Richard’s latest, he links to the list of scholars that agreeing was a myth, i.e. there never was a man named Jesus. It’s up to 50.
If you search CFI archives you can trace the long road to the building of this consensus, starting with some really poor work about Jesus as a myth. Turns out those early “scholars” were right, but for the wrong reasons.
In the final paragraph:
Which makes forty-eight relevantly qualified experts now who concur mythicism is at least plausible . A third of them are even outright doubters.
Although the last handful of citation included: “she does not regard doubting Jesus to be ridiculous, agreeing that it warrants inquiry.” with variations on that theme. So I don’t see what’s been decided.
But the most important point is, for me at least it doesn’t make a bit of difference, any historical Jesus was a man, that man was transmogrified into a myth and God. Those two things are absolutely different.
So it doesn’t matter to me if Jesus was inspired by a specific charismatic figure of his day (which makes a lot of ‘common sense’ sense) - or if Jesus was simply some myth build upon a composite of exemplary humans who are totally forgotten to history.
Either way, makes no difference to the fantasy nature of Christian (religious) theology. All that stuff is human thoughts upon human thoughts totally confined to our mindscape.
Here’s another example why this distinction is a necessary first base to a rational understanding of these matters.
"The missing key to Stephen Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria.”
“… missing was a much more fundamental division crying out for recognition.
Specifically, the magisteria of Physical Reality
vs. the magisteria of our Human Mindscape. …”
Of course it doesn’t. That’s not the point.
Fair enough.
So can you explain what is the point?
The point is to have a growing body of scholarship that challenges the fantasy. Up until recently, a Christian could say there was a consensus that Jesus existed. And they would be right in a very narrow technical sense. I have elaborated on that elsewhere.
Not long before that, a Christian would be flabbergasted to hear that the red lettered words on their Bible were not the words of Jesus. Not with any degree of certainty. The idea of using the same means to determine all the rest of history being applied to religion would be at least odd and to many, blasphemy.
Not long before that, questions about what the high priests said would result in being ostracized or much worse, depending on where you were.
The point then, is that we can question anyone with a theology degree and cite books and experts when doing it. Our sources are not amateur YouTubes or fringe conspiracy theories. It took decades to get scholars in theology schools to discuss the differences in the gospels, the Pauline letters that were forged, and the variety of theories about who wrote all the books in the Bible.
Those changes have helped the growing numbers of agnostics and “nones”, as well as atheists. They have helped get religion out of public schools. They helped split the third largest denomination in two, reducing the power of those who don’t accept gay marriage. I can’t predict the future, but this looks like rapid change compared to prior centuries.
The jews were right to unalive Jesus
Well yeah, but there sure seems to have been some decisive backsliding lately, I mean we American’s have abandoned our Constitution while it seems like just another day, with religion invading our governmental halls of power like never before.
As for underlying strategy, all I can think is WTF.
I’m reminded of something that happened life times ago, I was taking an EMT course as we were role playing for emergency situations involving psychologically challenged people & situations.
In my first situation I had a hallucinating person, and I played along with her hallucination. I GOT THE BUZZER. I was advised, never do that, the responder is there to represent reality, you talk to your patient honesty - never let anyone derail that imperative, even if humoring a delusional patient might seem humane in the moment.
This seems similar and underscores the entire reason for my passion feeling about striving to convey the realist evolutionary biological based understanding of ourselves one that dissolved the 'Hard Problem" as the spoiled clubs self deception that it is.
The only way to help people understand why God is a self produced character of our human Mindscape, is to help people GET why they are evolved biological creatures of Earth’s creation. That what’ll open some gates of enlightenment that can lead to genuine deeper self-understanding, within the dimension that we active exist within..
I don’t know if I can find a good reference, but I remember reading once that when clinically diagnosing delusion, they exclude the delusions that are maintained by culture, by a large segment of the population. Think about it, could doctors start having people committed because they believed in an imaginary man in the sky who could deliver miracles?
Now, apply that to your singularly focused obsession with evolution. It’s been 100 years since the law backed the people who didn’t allow evolution to be taught in schools. Times have changed, but who gets to say how fast the world should catch up to science?
It’s not how science works. Studies get done. Papers get published. Scientists don’t then go out and make people GET their findings. Dawkins didn’t start going public with his anti-God message until fundamentalists started harassing him.
OTOH, I agree we need better science communicators.
Christ stop with the hyperbole, I’ve got a wider spectrum of interests than most!
I do make the claim that we humans, can’t really understand ourselves, without fully integrating our evolutionary biological reality.
Here we get back to the Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide.
Too many believe that line is squishy, because they have never given it much thought, instead embracing the obsession that our Gods are where our answers are to be found.
Never having the common sense, or intellectual honesty, to realize our God(s) come from within ourselves. Period!
It happens that appreciating Evolution is the only way for that self-realization to make sense.
But you rather ridicule one moment, next moment you tell me: “Hey man, I hear you.”
I’m not the one who’s confused around here.
Cheers.
Spoke like someone who believes we humans have done a good job of stewardship - when we’ve been utter fatally flowed idiots about it.
How well did we nurture American amazing US Constitution? How did we nurture community cohesion? How did we nurture young families? How did me manage our humanity, when wanton gross violence is the norm for the rich to get their way - while the rest go along with it?
And I’m appalled by the obsession with the philosophy of the mysterianism of consciousness with all it’s out of this world nonsense, like pretending we can transpose mathematical weirdness at quantum scales to explain how our biological bodies operate, or that we need to reach out into the cosmos to find the origins of consciousness.
We need more intellectually honest people! Instead we have sheople with comfort on our minds.
That’s a nice cozy excuse.
I’ve been getting enthralled my good science communicators since the freak’n 1960s, don’t tell they haven’t been around! It is the interested audience that’s missing. Guess, Hollywood stole 'em all.
Oh I read an interesting article that’s relevant to the quantum claims show business.
In Two Place At Once
Unraveling the mystery of quantum superposition
You words. You refuse to own this:
And
Not ambiguous.
Then:
No idea how you get “stewardship” out of what I said
Did I bring that up? You are the one obsessed with it, you respond to it when no one in the room (i.e. this thread) is talking about it.
I didn’t. I’m done. All I do is respond to things you say about things I didn’t say.
What’s the point of philosophy if not to help inform how we understand our selves, and our lives???
Humanity is proving itself to be an unmitigated self delusional disaster - and our self-absorbed and self-serving nature is smugly ignored as are the lessons of physical reality, we rather stay within the playground of our mind. But I should not complain about the philosophical mysterianism that dominates our attempts to understand the self.
While you want me to pretend that’s not what dominate the study of consciousness and the folly of searching for mind within the brain, while ignoring body and the interaction with the physical world?
This failure shows itself real world results - which are the scorecard of our success, or failure as the case may be.
But most refuse to (… or are they incapable - you tell me) imagine any connection between understanding our own evolution on a deep level and how that has a direct bearing on one’s own behaviors and attitudes and self-understanding.
You seem to think that is idiotic, so demand that I stop talking about it. Why does the topic of understanding “Self” via understanding our Evolution repulse or frighten, or threaten you so?
Honey the contrived Hard Problem has sucking up all the oxygen in the intellectual’s room, don’t tell me not to point that out! Why are you incapable of acknowledging the dominance of the philosophical mysterianism of the Descartes-Nagel-Chalmer’s paradigm?
It’s the thoughtless acceptance of that mysterian framing that results in weakling minds susceptible to every whim that Christian/Hollywood mindset that seems to have saturated the American nation. Look who’s in charge of USA government, but you don’t see any connection there.
You seem possess a notion that philosophers don’t have any duty other than to furthering their own careers. Fine, I’m a freakster I expected more, considering all the talk we are capable of.
Why do you get mad at me because I say understanding evolution along with the Deep story to how we, and this biosphere around were evolved in step with each other???
I don’t do that
I didn’t demand anything. I point out that not everyone thinks that way and there are layers of reasons why. Simply stating that people should think a certain way is, well, just that, a statement. Why not dive into how the thinking came to be and how culture changes and what one person can do?
I didn’t tell you not to bring it up. I said I did not bring it up.
Why are you incapable of remembering that I have acknowledged that? Then I moved on.
I didn’t get mad at you for that. I point out that you are responding to things that others say, things that bother you, not this thread. This thread is about a historian who works outside the mainstream so he is free to challenge the hierarchy and move the needle to an appreciation of history, to explode a myth that has dominated half the world for centuries.
Guess I missed the “explode” part, and you haven’t done much to help highlight it.
I say that because it sounded like kicking the same old can down the same well worn path, and arriving at the same nowhere.
My Criteria for the Historicity of Jesus
Richard Carrier in his On the Historicity of Jesus 1 made the point that there are as many bad mythicist theories as there are bad historicity theories. To be rigorous, we must have a coherent definition of what mythicism or historicism means. My theory of mythicism simplifies Carrier’s definition2 of mythicism to: Most of the Jesus narrative is within a mythic framework, and there are no means by which a modestly rigorous historicism can be demonstrated with existing evidence. My modestly rigorous criteria for a historical Jesus is:
- there was an actual man named Yeshua (Aramaic for Jesus) who acquired followers;
- these followers continued as a movement after his death;
- two or more events in this life can be confirmed at a 70 percent or higher probability; and
- this man is the same one worshiped as a living god by Christians.
My historicism differs from Carrier in that he requires for the plausibility of historicism only the singular fact that Jesus was executed by Jewish or Roman authorities, and he specifies no specific level of confidence for this to be true.3 …
Don’t know why, but I looked at that article again, and it still feels like indulgent talk for talk, with no moral at the end of the story.
Besides, there are some way more important myths’ to go after. Such as the philosopher’s love of mysterianism and theology over learning from scientific evolutionary biological understanding.
Carrier’s is the first peer reviewed work on the question of the actual existence of Jesus. The magical powers of Jesus have been questioned. The words, questioned. Whether he was born a god or a god spirit entered him later, that caused a split in the church. But the question of mythicism was not seriously addressed by a scholar of history until now. Apparently you are unaware of all of this.
Indeed I am unaware of Christian Scholarship - Tabor Lutheran in Chicago, and Trinity Lutheran in Burlingame, CA ca. 67-72 - taught me plenty enough to know it was a very human centered exercise, focus on egos and word plays - imaginings on top of imaginings, all the way now. I’ve spent my life learning about how in actually, here on this miracle planet Earth, it’s biology ALL THE WAY DOWN.
As for the endless scholarship, what rises to the surface to reach the general public has pathetic enough - now we have the proof in the pudding - Christian Nationalism transforming our country into a genuine dictatorship and a public too doped out to recognize what’s happening in front of them. Or at least too comatose to do anything, not even think about it.
Worse than a bunch of natural lemmings, who were driving off the cliff by Disney. 
Bubbles within bubbles.
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