Codrus @ Codrus @lemmy.world

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10 mo. ago

But almost certainly the illiterate peasant that had such an effect on him would have considered supernatural miracles to be literal historical facts.

What makes you so certain of this?

I can't say for a fact of course, but are you assuming that I'm idolizing Gandhi?

I think people are really good at lying about people, and subsequently just as good at not even bothering to even begin to consider that what they're being told regarding someone else might be total bullshit, and nothing but the consequence of the lack of knowledge, or experience specifically, of the woes of slander.

Absolutely, my pleasure.

From what I understand, Tolstoy believed that a more philosophical, objective, non supernatural interpretation of the Gospels but especially of the Sermon On the Mount specifically (Matt 5-6: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=ESV) and its precepts, including to never take an oath at all (including promising to consider anything as infalliable), holds the potential in becoming a kind of constitution for our conscience so to speak, for our hearts, as a species. By constitution I mean something we can gather around and consider a common understanding of how we should be striving to live, something to unite us as a species and make us stronger the same way a constitution does for a nation and did regarding how weak the colonies here in America were back when we didn't have a constitution to unify us; it only divided us and made us weak and vulnerable.

I'm not 100% on this next bit, but based on reading his non-fiction it sounds like he didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah (savior) in the traditional sense—the Nicene Creed interpretation. I believe Tolstoy believed that Jesus, amongst all the humans that existed both before and after him, was the one that taught and suffered to transfer the knowledge of love so well (not perfectly; if Jesus was God he would've done it so perfectly to the point where it would've easily have done its job by now) that he considered Jesus to be the bee—amongst all those that came before and after him—that stirred (inspired) the hive (humans) so well that ultimately, one could argue that Jesus saved mankind from its inherency to itself: selfishness, being absent the knowledge of his teaching otherwise—the value and potential of selflessness; Messiah is defined as a savior of a people.

Little do the majority know that they've only smothered (yet again, like the Pharisees and Sadducees did in Jesus' time) the "Law and the Prophets" as a whole: "Love your neighbor as yourself," by all our (again, yet again) incessant, blind oath taking to our contemporaries. To the point where the precepts—born out of the logic of the "Law and the Prophets" as a whole—of the Sermon On the Mount (selflessness) are the last thing people are met with (in favor of the Nicene Creed, of things Jesus never spoke of or even hinted at when he mimicked Moses, bringing down new commandments during the most public point of his ministry, thus, the most accurate) or are taught when they go to Church or are taught of Jesus today, in favor of securing our or ones place in Heaven (selfishness).

The intent isn't to impress, to meet anyone's standards or for any amount of vanity for the sake of myself, but purely to teach. Just as long as the knowledge is being diffused to whatever degree; I'm honored to be a part in its diffusing.

I appreciate your consideration.

Sounds like someone needs to read Tolstoy's non-fiction.

Wow thank you, it's my genuine pleasure my friend!

Hahaha no I totally hear you! That's why it took me so long to reply as well because I wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling rushed through it and had plenty of time to really take my time with it.

Hey again, sorry if I scared you away, I know the extremes of it are delicate and unattractive. Just wanted to clear the air a little more regarding the morality being a spook thing; would things like morality being a consequence of consciousness a good way of describing what you mean? Like our sense of time? That it's our ability to be concious to the extent we are that gives birth to these things in the first place? If so, my refute—still humbly ignorant to what you meant exactly—would be that just because there's no one around to be concious of the tree falling in the woods doesn't mean it's not happening, and that it didn't exist. We've came up with ways to understand that xyz object(s) are this or that years old and etc. It doesn't mean things like morality and time aren't real in my opinion, I think it means that there's something that actually exists able to comprehend them and to organize something like time the way we do/did, and to imagine morality in our minds to the extent we do in contrast to anything; that yes, the fact that we're concious of such things does give life them, indeed. I think it points more in the direction of the significance of my point of view on it ironically. That it's more of an obligation therefore even, or a responsibility to be as selfless as possible.

Alright thanks!

Are these good replacements?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C8ZQTRD7?tag=hawk-future-20&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBHHT8LY?tag=hawk-future-20&psc=1

I'm only buying it for Elite Dangerous to be honest but games like Helldivers 2 and anything else really would be an added plus of course.

The proof of the extent that the influences of a God and an Afterlife—being held as unquestionably true—have had for evil throughout history.

Socrates, The Story of Jonah, and Jesus.

A lot of this I learned and thought out through reading Tolstoy's hard work in his non-fictions: Confession, What I Believe, The Gospel In Brief, and The Kingdom of God is Within You

"Socrates believed that his mission from a God (the one that supposedly spoke through the oracle at Delphi) was to examine his fellow citizens and persuade (teach) them that the most important good for a human being was the health of the soul. Wealth, he insisted, does not bring about human excellence or virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for human beings (Apology 30b)." https://iep.utm.edu/socrates/#:~:text=He%20believed%20that%20his%20mission,human%20beings%20(Apology%2030b). The story of Jonah in the bible (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%201&version=NIV) teaches that the knowledge of the value of virtue, selflessness and goodness needs to be taught; it's a knowledge that needs to gained. Because like it teaches at the very end of the story: some people don't even have the ability to "tell their right hand from their left" (Autism Spectrum Disorder for example). Or in other words: ignorance (lack of knowledge) is an inevitability; nobody can know until they know. The now pejorative term is neither an insult, nor is it insulting; it's nothing more than an adjective to explain my, yours, or anythings lack of knowledge to anything in particular. All hate and evil can be catorgorized as this inevitable lack of knowledge—thus, warranting any degree of it infinite forgiveness, because again: you don't know until you know, this would of course include the lack of knowledge to the value of virtue that leads to hate, evil, and iniquity. Socrates on ignorance and evil: https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/apology/idea-nature-of-evil/

Jesus referenced the story of Jonah twice in The Gospels, both times being challenged to show a sign of his divinity: 4 "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” - Matt 16:4 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2016&version=ESV

Jesus would always refer to God as "Father" because that's how he was taught about what this God consists of, as having a parents kind of love for you—rememeber the very beginning of The Gospels, where he becomes lost and is found at a temple as a child? And is taught of God as being his "Father;" if you had a child and they committed suicide, would you want them to burn eternally in a lake of fire for it? Of course not. And Jesus didn't know who his real father was correct? Interesting right? Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that everything we know of God now has came from a collection of blind men, telling other blind men that what they have to say should be held as unquestionably true via the influences of the idea of a God and an Afterlife (of a "heaven"). Everything after Jesus—Paul's letters, The Gospels to a degree, The Nicene Creed, The Book of Revelation, the idea that a God of love unconditionally would bother with conditions like having to believe Jesus was divine or any of the seemingly infinite amount of external conditions that need to be met to call yourself a "true Christian." Despite Jesus calling the Pharisees hypocrites every chance he could get and when his disciples told him of some external thing that they needed (bread in the circumstance linked) he would dismiss it as completely unnecessary: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2016:5-20&version=NIV

Jesus calling out Pharisees: 8"But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers (to "our father"). 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." - Matt 23:8 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean." - Matt 23:25 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew%2023&version=NIV

Now lets take a look at one of my favorite things Jesus said, on the the Sermon On the Mount (debately, the most publicized point of his teaching, thus, the most accurate in my opinion) that lead to another connection between what Socrates did and had to say, and Jesus (keep in mind the extent Greek influence made its way throughout Jerusalem and the surrounding areas at this point in time):

"Socrates believed that the most important pursuit in life was to constantly examine one's beliefs and actions through critical thinking," (lest you find yourself throwing the supposed messiah up on a cross—like the Pharisees, or persecuting early followers of Jesus' teaching convinced its right, true, and just—like Paul, or in a war between nations, or collectively hating someone or something, etc.) "and he would not back down from this practice even when it made others uncomfortable." https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/no-apologies/#:~:text=The%20Examined%20Life,still%20less%20likely%20to%20believe.

Oaths 33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.[g]

Anything more then yes or no regarding the influences that come from the idea of a heaven (God and an afterlife), or Earth (people and what they're presently sharing in), only comes from a worry, a need, a fear for oneself: a selfishness. Questions like that only come from our sense of selfishness, and only lead to division, i.e., religion or even more theoretical sciences and philosophy; this is why it's so important to always consider anything man made as questionably true, opposed to unquestionably true, and that it's no longer up for question, or whats called: infalliable (no longer capable of error). Questions like what does a God or Afterlife consist of or how exactly did the universe begin, pale in comparison to the truth that is our capacity for selflessness not only individually, but especially, collectively; God or not.

It's only what a man thinks that can truly defile it: "What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." - Matt 15:11 "Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.” - Matt 15:17 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2015&version=NIV It's "oath-taking," so to speak, that leads to slander and the collective hate that's bred from it—racism, hate between cities or their high school sports teams, hate in general if you think about it enough, quarrel at all between nations and any potential war between them, and the list goes on. We're all humans; one race, brothers and sisters. The worst thing to come from "oath-taking" in my opinion is the hinderance of foreign influences or new knowledge and an open mind along with it. Because it's this that determines the capacity and how detailed ones imagination is, and it's imagination that serves as the basis of our ability to empathize, thus, love.

Interesting how neither Jesus or Socrates wrote anything down, and both even went as far as giving their lives dying a martyr trying to teach what they had to say.

"The hardest to love, are the ones that need it the most." - Socrates