@dj2becker said
So how do you differentiate between good and evil then?

@FMF

I think what you mean this is that 'epitomizing the highest standard of human morality' is how Jesus has been portrayed by the people who carefully constructed a cult of personality around him in the decades and centuries after he was executed by the Romans for sedition.

As for the execution of Jesus it was not just for Roman sedition. Pilate wanted to let Him go. Pilate was forced to save his own skin, being a slave of the politics of the day, to stay on the good side of Caesar. They Jews accusing Jesus said "If you Pilate don't kill this man as we ask you're not a friend of Caesar. Want to keep your job? WE, the oppressed and brutalized Jews - have not king except Caesar."

The religious power structures hated Roman imperialism for sure. But Someone came along who they hated even more - God in the form of a man (according to His teaching). And between the two hated things, God and the Roman Empire, they decided that the Roman Empire was the lesser of the two evils.

You don't have to regard the New Testament as a sacred revelation to understand this. To read it as a historical document, which it ALSO is, tells you this.

"Shall I crucify your king?" says Pilate. The opposing religionists and the whipped up mob answers - "We have no king but Caesar. Crucify him and release to us the insurrectionist murderer Barabbas. We understand his kind of resistance. We don't understand the resistance of this miracle worker upstaging us and talking about loving our enemies." [paraphrased]

@sonship said
@FMF

I think what you mean this is that 'epitomizing the highest standard of human morality' is how Jesus has been portrayed by the people who carefully constructed a cult of personality around him in the decades and centuries after he was executed by the Romans for sedition.

Whoever are the imaginative people who invented Jesus and fictionalized words ...[text shortened]... y as best you could the inserted fictionalized quotations made up by these hijackers of the Gospel ?

@FMF

We have discussed this before. My perspective ~ and the reasons for it ~ has not changed.

@FMF

Our moral compasses are there to help us navigate our way through all this limitation and untrustworthy stuff.

@FMF

This is why it's all in the realm of subjectivity: the perceived point of life, how to live our lives, how we interact, how we are affected by things ~ it's all completely personal, subjective and varies from person to person.

@sonship said
Matthew 5-7 ? Separate the authentic words from the emendations of hijackers.

@sonship said
@FMF

This is why it's all in the realm of subjectivity: the perceived point of life, how to live our lives, how we interact, how we are affected by things ~ it's all completely personal, subjective and varies from person to person.

Is there an exception for this statement of yours above?
Then we should regard your explanation as not absolutely true bec ...[text shortened]... e it too is your personal, subjective opinion?

Is it too part of the "all completely personal" ?

@FMF

Does the timing of when the words were written hinder you from separating out the authentic words of Jesus from the ones you detect texturally are amendations?

How do we know that you are not using "all written years afterwards" as a handy excuse not to be able to point out "Here are the words HIJACKERS attributed to Jesus. Here are words He said." ?

How do I know "Words written years latter" is not just an excuse to fail to prove the message was hijacked?

@sonship said
Whoever are the imaginative people who invented Jesus and fictionalized words and deeds that He spoke, then must be consulted for conceiving the arguably highest known standard of human morality.

@FMF

Like I said, the things we are talking about are purely subjective for both of us.

@sonship said
Does the timing of when the words were written hinder you from separating out the authentic words of Jesus from the ones you detect texturally are amendations?

How do we know that you are not using "all written years afterwards" as a handy excuse not to be able to point out "Here are the words HIJACKERS attributed to Jesus. Here are words He said." ?

@sonship said
How do I know "Words written years latter" is not just an excuse to fail to prove the message was hijacked?

@sonship said
Then this sentence is not reliably true in a overall sense.

It is like " I can only speak three words of English."
It is self referentialy incoherent.