Going Up a Level with Jesus

CSGnet Archive CSG2019
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“Jesus can be credited with taking humanity ‘up a level’.”

Totally agree, Rick.

Happy New Year to all!

Best,

Joh

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On Tuesday, 25 December 2018 03:43, Richard Marken csgnet@lists.illinois.edu wrote:

[Rick Marken 2018-12-24_17:37:22]

I don’t have a lot of time but I wanted to post this on Xmas because it seems appropriate.

One of my favorite stories of Jesus is of his confrontation with the Pharisees over their accusation that his followers were breaking a law of the sabbath by eating some grain in a field; apparently there is a law in the Torah that says you are not supposed to “harvest” on the sabbath. Jesus basically told the Pharisees to lighten up saying: the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.

I take this to be an “up a level” comment. What I think Jesus is saying is that the rules (laws about the sabbath) exist as the means to control for high level goals, like principles, the principle in this case being something like “control for as appropriate mix of work and relaxation”. This means that you can’t control for following exactly same rule in all circumstances or you won’t be able to control for the higher level principle. In other words, the rule was made for man (actually, by man) in order control him to be able to control for a higher level principle; man was not made for the rule in the sense that we are not made to blindly follow rules no matter what.

So I think Jesus took Judaism “up a level” and it didn’t sit well with the Pharisees (the religious fundamentalists of their time – kind of like the Christians who voted for Trump) and apparently Jesus paid dearly for it. So even though I am completely non-religious I think Jesus can be credited with taking humanity “up a level” which was a giant step forward in our thinking about ethics.

So have a very Merry, Loving and Principled Xmas

Best

Rick

–

Richard S. Marken

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you

have nothing left to take away.�

                            --Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2

[Rick Marken 2018-12-24_17:37:22]

I don’t have a lot of time but I wanted to post this on Xmas because it seems appropriate.

One of my favorite stories of Jesus is of his confrontation with the Pharisees over their accusation that his followers were breaking a law of the sabbath by eating some grain in a field; apparently there is a law in the Torah that says you are not supposed to “harvest” on the sabbath. Jesus basically told the Pharisees to lighten up saying: the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.Â

I take this to be an “up a level” comment. What I think Jesus is saying is that the rules (laws about the sabbath) exist as the means to control for high level goals, like principles, the principle in this case being something like “control for as appropriate mix of work and relaxation”. This means that you can’t control for following exactly same rule in all circumstances or you won’t be able to control for the higher level principle. In other words, the rule was made for man (actually, by man) in order control him to be able to control for a higher level principle; man was not made for the rule in the sense that we are not made to blindly follow rules no matter what.Â

So I think Jesus took Judaism “up a level” and it didn’t sit well with the Pharisees (the religious fundamentalists of their time – kind of like the Christians who voted for Trump) and apparently Jesus paid dearly for it. So even though I am completely non-religious I think Jesus can be credited with taking humanity “up a level” which was a giant step forward in our thinking about ethics.Â

So have a very Merry, Loving and Principled Xmas

BestÂ

Rick

–Â
Richard S. MarkenÂ

"Perfection is achieved not when you have nothing more to add, but when you
have nothing left to take away.�
                --Antoine de Saint-Exupery