I’m back from a brief hiatus! Real life got in the way, but things have settled back down, and I’m excited to start back this week with another Philosopher vs. Priest post!
Check out this week’s reading here.
JJ:
From this reading I would surmise that evangelism is more important than providing aid, such as food, to those in need. Is that a fair interpretation of the priorities communicated by Jesus in this reading?
Jimmy:
Perhaps, I should provide a little bit of context to the Gospel readings for the past two weeks and the next two weeks. We have been reading from John Chapter 6 which mostly contains the Bread of Life discourse. This is a highly thematic discourse which in short can be reduced to speak of Jesus as our nourishment and in particular the Eucharist/Last Supper as his means to continue to provide his nourishment to his followers. Anyhow, I offer that just as a bit of perspective for the next couple of Sundays.
Now to your question.
I suppose your question about the priorities of evangelizing versus providing aid for the poor is lead by the fact that Jesus says, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” I believe rather than speaking about the priority of evangelizing over physical nourishment, Jesus in this statement is more making a statement of his superiority over Moses. Moses provided manna in the desert which provided passing physical nourishment while Jesus provides himself the true mana which supplies everlasting nourishment for eternal life. The true comparison being made is between Moses and Jesus rather than between evangelizing versus physical aid.
On another level, today’s readings showcases the fact that the Jewish people fail to acknowledge Jesus as the bread from Heaven because they presumed the bread from heaven couldn’t possibly be the carpenter, the son of Joseph and Mary. Throughout the Gospels we see that those who had long awaited the Messiah often fail to recognize him because the didn’t fit their idea of who he should be. As a philosopher can you speak about the role that bias or preconceiving ideas can play in preventing us from acknowledging reality?
JJ:
Great question! I can share a few observations I have made through teaching philosophy and presenting at conferences that I think are relevant to the problem with bias.
First, it seems that most people feel the obligation to have an opinion on any and everything. If a person is out drinking with their friends and somehow the topic of Ancient Mongolian Agriculture comes up, they’re likely to offer up some opinion. There are likely many reasons we try to have an opinion even when we don’t know anything about a topic, but one thing that’s sure is that we have a very difficult time saying “I’m not sure, I really don’t know anything about that.”
The other thing I’ve seen is that we tend to relate new ideas to ideas that we already have. That’s inherently the way we learn, which is overall a good thing, because it helps us make connections between ideas. However, I’ve seen this go to extremes far too often. At conferences I’ve attended, people asking questions always tie a presenter’s material to their own research, sometimes to the point that the connections they’re making are ridiculous.
These natural tendencies all serve an important purpose in the way we learn, but if we’re not careful, they can cause us to too easily disregard new ideas and ways of understanding the world. It’s very easy to fall into the notion that we know what we believe and are secure with that. We then conform everything else to that. Keeping an open mind is difficult, but ultimately important to be able to truly learn new ideas.
The idea of a single messiah is causing many problems in many people’s thinking, it seems. we’re all equal sons of god, that’s one very important thing jesus supposedly taught. he told his desciples not to take anything literally, for he discusses truths that lose certain power in words. he then went on to compare himself directly to truth itself, and addresses himself as “god” in various parts of the new testament. yet, as far as he himself is concerned, god is truth and love. if you have truth and love in you, truly as you are, you are guaranteed enlightenment. you dont need jesus himself but the ideas he proclaimed. bit of a rant, here..
Yeah, there definitely seems to be a bit of a struggle these days with whether or not to interpret things literally. Many of the people I know who consider themselves spiritual but not religious have a similar understanding of god as the one you’ve described here. Personally, my biggest concern with that is when you define god as something like “truth and love” I’m not sure you’re really saying anything at all – what does that really even mean?
Of course, that goes directly back into what you were saying about truth losing power when put into words. Which is frustrating, because then how do we share our understanding?
I’m not defining god as such; i believe jesus did. and having defined his god as truth and/or love, many interesting things can be derived from his teachings. i agree with him to an extent, but i dont think god is simply truth and love; those are circumstantial things that can’t really be pin-pointed for us. personally, i believe “god” is something that encompasses everything. probably consciousness but these are some loosely strung together thoughts. unfortunately, because i believe in duality as being inevitable with anything, there is a conditioned and unconditioned version of my god. the conditioned is when god (as consciousness) is perceiving through a body, actually allowing there to be a consciousness. the unconditioned consciousness is nothing. as with any other immaterial governing force, it is nothing without circumstance (truth, light, gravity). what i’ve derived from such thoughts is that the purest, unconditional form of god may be nothing (not the word, obviously).
in terms of your concluding question (and i apologize now if any of this seems like pointless rambling), we shouldn’t have to share our understandings cause these are things naturally a part of all of us. any need to communicate such ideas would imply the lack of these things in someone. we just need to be encouraged to look within
I’m enjoying this conversation. But my question based on your response is if these understandings are naturally a part of all of us, why do we disagree about these ideas?
ah, now we’re getting into nurture vs. nature! perceptions are a very powerful thing, and if you throw in some consciousness and a materialistic society then your prone to gain an attachment to the things you perceive. from our early development i believe we are heavily filtered, and pushed away from notions of truth and reason