If true that a wise person doesn't need God, then what did Jesus teach that was so wise?

[BurtWorm]

I hear all the time from people--even non-Christians--who claim that even if Jesus wasn't God, his message was an important one for the world. But what specifically in his message was so important and extraordinary?

[thereismore]

1. I think your premise is false. nt

[BurtWorm]

2. You think a wise person does need God?

How? For what?

[Fresh_Start]

15. I agree

wise is not the same as moral.

[razors edge]

3. Never

give in to the authorities without a fight.

[cosmik debris]

4. You are using a nonsensical premise

When you could have just asked "What did Jesus teach that was wise?"

The answer is: The same thing his predecessors taught.

[BurtWorm]

6. And that is specifically...

What?

[cosmik debris]

9. He taught that people should not be jerks. n/t

[unpossibles]

10. Jesus thinks you're a jerk

And it would be true!

(lol)

[cosmik debris]

11. It's a good thing I don't believe in Jesus

Or I might get my feelings hurt. :)

[unpossibles]

12. that is good. Sorry, I was just quoting Zappa

inspired by your username and all.

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/frank+zappa/jesus+thinks+youre+a+jerk_20056591.html

[cosmik debris]

16. Wow, I can't believe that got by me.

But thanks for the good thoughts.

[unpossibles]

23. no problem. And here I thought you were setting me up for the joke. n/t

[BurtWorm]

20. And that is what makes his message so extraordinary?

So extraordinary that people turned him into a God?

[cosmik debris]

21. I wouldn't describe it as extraordinary. Others might.

And I wouldn't describe him as a god. Others might.

But his message was contrary to the popular accepted norms of behavior while being in line with the higher teachings of his predecessors.

As far a promoting him to god, Kool-aid may be older than you may think. We will never know who was the first person to "drink the kool-aid" or why they drank it.

[BurtWorm]

26. Personally I find his teachings to be an incoherent mish-mash...

a mixture of pretty basic stoicism ("turn the other cheek," "the poor will always be with you"), Jewish social justice ("love they neighbor"), and (most bizarrely) threats of eternal damnation if you don't get with his program. To me, this incoherence argues pretty strongly for his being a fabrication. I don't see any remnant of an original idea or coherent philosophy in the NT to support the idea that Jesus must have been a "great rabbi" or "teacher."

However, the reason I posted these threads: I am trying to understand, if a person wants to be wise as philosophy instructs us we should be (by its very name), is there anything in the Christian message that points us toward that goal? Clearly, I don't believe so, but can anyone point to anything in it to suggest otherwise? More to the point, is Christianity detrimental to the quest for wisdom, or complementary, or neutral, or irrelevant?

[cosmik debris]

28. That's what you get for looking at the big picture

You should have learned by now that Modern Christianity is a cafeteria style religion. Accept the stuff you like and call the rest metaphor.

Is Christianity a path to wisdom? That would depend on the wisdom you seek. If it makes you feel wise to be told to turn the other cheek, then you have achieved wisdom. But there are no discrete levels of wisdom. You can't get a black belt in wisdom.

[Hekate]

5. Go read it -- as you would any sage to discover what they said.

Also read about the cultures of the Jews and Romans of the time to see where his teachings fit in or clash with accepted mores. Then consider our own culture today with the same things in mind.

The teachings of Jesus need not have been utterly new to have had great impact at the time and even now. Sometimes the personality and actions of the teacher are as much of a lesson as the words.

And Poster #1 is correct -- your premise, unfortunately, is false.

Hekate

[BurtWorm]

7. Be specific about what's false about it., please.

[Buzz Clik]

8. What a bizarre twist of logic.

Let's assume for a moment that a) Jesus existed, b) his teachings were as written in the New Testament and c) he was the son of God.

I don't recall anywhere in his teachings in which Jesus said, "You need me to be wise" or "Wise me need me" or anything even similar.

This thread strikes me as yet another transparent attempt to stir up emotions for no reason.

[Zebedeo]

13. Your premise is incorrect

The Bible teaches that wise men do need God. "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" Psalm 14:1

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. How is true that a wise person doesn't need God?

:shrug:

[BurtWorm]

19. In another thread, you yourself said a person doesn't need God or gods to be wise.

Didn't you?

[Rabrrrrrr]

25. No, I said that people don't need god/gods to be moral or ethical.

You had the initial qualifier that the wise person doesn't need god, to which I suggested that you take out "wise" and just say person.

Though I will also say here that one does not need god/gods to be a wise person, I do not accept as truth that a wise person does not need god/gods.

I know many wise people who DO need god/gods (or, more accurately, believe that they do; the issue of whether their belief that they need a god/gods is an objective truth is another argument). Which is not to say, of course, that all wise people feel that way - only that some do.

[BurtWorm]

27. True, you did say that.

Again, very well said. There's some fog in my brain today and it's preventing me from being careful and precise with language, so I appreciate the care *you're* taking.

These questions are prompted by my reading lately--Spinoza and Dawkins in particular. Spinoza, as I'm sure you know, was excommunicated from his Jewish community in Amsterdam for putting forth the heretical proposition that God is identical to nature and that reason is sufficient to understand God's mind. Most shocking to his contemporaries, Spinoza rejected revelation and miracles and anything that couldn't be rationally explained. His reduction of the universe to the natural leads many to characterize him as an atheist, despite his assertion that contemplating God (or Nature) is the highest good a person can do if they wish to be wise. He's arguably better described as a pantheist, although when you get right down to it, there's not much difference between Spinoza's pantheism and scientific atheism in practice. Dawkins opens The God Delusion with a discussion of Einstein's religious non-religion, noting that Einstein famously said that if he believed in any god it was "Spinoza's god."

So I've been wondering lately, especially after a dialogue with jerseygirlCT last night, about the nature of believing in revelations and miracles after Spinoza. And this is leading me to wonder if the kinds of things Christianity apparently requires you to believe are compatible with the kinds of things philosophy requires of you if you want to be a wise person.

[Meshuga]

17. Actually

I find one of his teachings to be unwise: "turning the other cheek"

[JerseygirlCT]

18. That's most definitely one of the toughest ones, isn't it? nt

[Evoman]

24. I agree with you there.

Both the old testament, and Jesus, were wrong on this issue...they were both too extreme. While eye for an eye seems like justice, that philosophy can lead to too much violence and immorality: mercy is important in a civilized society. On the other hand, turn the other cheek is a terrible philosophy as well, since it gives bullies and tyrants free reign.

[Meshuga]

29. An eye for an eye is not justice

The popular context we know today for "an eye for an eye..." is necessary to give more emphasis to the peaceful and more reasonable sounding passages in the book of matthew when Jesus talks about "giving the other cheek". It is also great for fundamentalists to justify cruel and unusual punishment.

An eye for an eye is not justice, especially when it applies to accidents and with no intention to cause harm. You know, as the passages say, "When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined... If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." (exodus 21:22-25)

That's pretty harsh as a punishment for an accident!

Right before that, in Exodus 21:18-19 also has two individuals fighting and then one injuring the other. This is a case of intentional damage. What is the punishment for the intentional damage? If the injured party survives and this is not a case of murder, then the punishment is "the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery". In the case of intentional damage the punishment is purely financial.

And like the sages of the Talmud would ask, "what if a blind man causes another person to be blind?" In the Talmud the concept of an "eye for an eye..." is taken as financial retribution for the damages not personal retribution or intention to cause the same bodily harm.

Ayin tachat ayin ("an eye for an eye") is a very unusual phrase in the torah. The hebrew word tachat in ayin tachat ayin never meant that one part has to give or suffer something because another party has.

Instead, it means that one party must give or suffer something that another party cannot do. For example, when a king dies his son succeeds tachat his father the previous king (1 Kings 1:30). The new king rules in the place of the previous king who can no longer rule himself. Similarly, Genesis 44:33 reads, "Now therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord in place of the boy; and let the boy go back with his brothers." Yehuda is asking to be a slave because his younger brother Binyamin cannot be one. While tachat can mean a monetary exchange, that is when two objects are exchanged for each other. When dealing with actions, it only refers to doing something for someone who cannot.

in, Joshua 2:14, for example, "The men said to her, 'Our lives for (tachat) yours!' The spies told Rachav that if she keeps their secret then they will place their lives to be killed in order to save hers. They will die so that she will not.

The sages of the Talmud saw that the word tachat does not mean that an injurer will be punished with the injury that he has inflicted. It meant that the injurer will receive a punishment that was not done to the victim.

I know I only touched on the first mention of retribution. There is more (like in leviticus 24:17-21) , but this post is already too goddamn long... :-)

[Evoman]

31. Um..I agree with that.

Thats why I said it SEEMS like justice.

[Meshuga]

33. I know you do

I'm just adding more (boring) background. I'm not trying to debate you. :-)

[Rabrrrrrr]

30. What MrWiggles said, and also note that "eye for an eye" was a limiter,

not a permission granter for undue violence.

That is, Jesus was limiting the amount of vengeance - it had been, basically, "your whole body for an eye" or maybe "two arms and a leg for a tooth".

It's not just a statement against standard Jewish practice, either - it's also clearly a statement against Roman legal/punitive policy.

He was saying, "IF you must seek retribution of some kind, the most you can seek is that which is in some way equal to what was meted out to you: you cannot escalate. But even better than that is to turn the other cheek, to forgive, and to love your enemy."

[JerseygirlCT]

22. I don't know that Jesus' message was extraordinary, if by that

you mean unique. I think it's a message we'd been given before. (Rabbi Hillel's words so mirror Jesus' for instance, and he pre-dated him by 80 years or so).

I think it's a message we've seen repeated in many disparate cultures. That only underlines it's importance, to me.

[struggle4progress]

32. The Christian texts are not about wisdom: as Paul says, the texts concern

".. things the world considers foolish .. to shame those who think themselves wise" and enable ".. the powerless to shame the powerful .."

Consider, for example, Saint Simeon, Salus

Late Antique hagiography often uses narrative to teach moral lessons. The hagiographer communicates his message to an audience by relating the activities of a holy person ... Theodoret of Cyrrhus deliberately presents the behavior of some of his heroes as inimitable. He carefully avoids presenting extreme challenges to the body as patterns to be copied. Yet Theodoret takes it for granted that such behavior is glorious and exemplary of Christian virtues.

The case for Symeon the Fool, on the other hand, is far from clear. To be sure, Late Antique saints are reported to have done many strange things: standing on pillars, cross-dressing, donning chains and other iron devices. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see how the Life of Symeon might fit established patterns for the representation of holiness or how its hero could be called saintly. After all, Symeon does such things as defecate in public, associate freely with prostitutes, and eat gluttonously, especially on fast days ...

In the process of curing a man with leucoma, Symeon nearly burns the man’s eyes in his first attempt, but he does eventually cure him ...

Symeon’s behavior confounds the residents of Emesa. To some, his actions appear as the deeds of a madman. The children who see him dragging a dead dog behind him call out, “Hey, a crazy abba” ... When there was a new moon, “he looked at the sky and fell down and thrashed about," a literal lunatic.

Symeon’s relation to the Emesans is nothing less than adversarial. They respond to Symeon’s apparent madness with harsh blows. When he throws nuts at the women in church and overturns the tables of the pastry chefs on his way out, he is nearly beaten to death. When the phouska-seller and his wife discover Symeon’s empty cash box, showing that Symeon has given their merchandise away for free, they beat him and pull his beard ... When he enters the women’s bath, the women beat him and throw him out ...

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft6k4007sx&chunk.id=ch3

Krueger, Derek
Symeon the Holy Fool: Leontius's Life and the Late Antique City Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft6k4007sx/

[Imperialism Inc.]

34. If the bible records the real sayings of Jesus then he was only

passing on things the Greek cynics said. Almost all of the things the bible has Jesus saying have their counterparts in cynic philosophy. Cynics would typically travel around from town to town teaching moral precepts (sound familiar?). If you want to know how they dressed just read about John the Baptist in the gospels because that is exactly how they dressed.

Personally I think most of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels were just compiled sayings of cynic type philosophers that were later attributed to Jesus. That kind of thing is not unheard of even now. You can probably think of some quote or another that you've heard attributed to various people. "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." is one that springs to mind for me. I've heard it was Einstein or Frank Zappa or Mark Twain. That kind of thing, attributing a quote with truth in it to an important individual, was very common in the ancient world.

To address one particular set of quotes I'll talk about the give to the poor type stuff. The cynics probably used those types of quotes to actually refer to themselves! In other words, "the poor" was actually the cynic himself. I mean they traveled around and had no job so they had to eat somehow. So they would tell their relatively more wealthy hosts to please give them something to eat but in a less direct way. "Give to the poor" = "Can you spare a hunk of bread?".

Edit: I didn't notice that this was apparently a carry-over from a thread about the wise not needing god so I basically ignored that part. I also never really answered the other part of the question. Great post eh!? haha. Anyway, as should be obvious from my what I did write, I don't think there was anything particularly special about what Jesus said. It was just rehashed cynicism.