Based on what evidence?
Kosta: What makes you think this is true Jesus' saying rather than the popular apocalyptic Jewish belief credited to Jesus?
D-fendr: It could also be both.
It could be neither too.
If memory serves, it is, again, the most reliable and seems to be a teaching he repeated to different groups.
Like which different groups? And what makes it reliable? Just because it's popular? What makes you thin it's his teaching and not the popular world view of the time?
The stock market does exist in reality
To an aborigine in Laitn America, no such thing exists. It may exist in your world but not his. The fact that it may exist independently of your world is meaningless. It begins to attain meaning when it begins to affect your world, if ever.
we and they do share the reality of what a human is and what our relationship is to creation, to the cosmos, including birth and death, suffering, joy, everything that exists in the universe including the shared human experience.
What is the reality of a human? What does it matter to an aborigine what my relationship to the creation is?
we could agree that that a human who sees two moons orbiting the earth has a defective instrument.
Why would he need an instrument to see moons orbiting the earth? You can see the moon quote well without any instruments.
Any accurate, true, experience of reality must include suffering
How odd. Accurate and true by whose yardstick? And why must human experience experience suffering?
I don't think we have to have all that exists in our attention at one time. As an analogy, consider a map or an area of geography
What makes you think we have the brains to conceptualize the "big picture" of "everything that exists" any more than your dog can conceptualize that what he lives on is really a planet in a solar system! he will never even realize why you leave your house to go to work, let alone where he lives in the universe. Sure he can put together some reality for a "small picture" but not the big one; and neither can we. Since we cannot know everything, we can never know/conceptualize what this is about, or recognize the Truth.
Maybe so, but we normally use very little of our capacity for this.
We use what we need, and how much we have at our disposal. It's like having millions of dollars in CDs that cannot be cashed. The potential is there but not the maturity.
The evidence available to historians. I'm just reporting the results of my own research, not suggesting you should accept it.
Like which different groups? And what makes it reliable...What makes you think it's his teaching and not the popular world view of the time?
My statement was the beatitudes, the sermon on the mount/plain is the most likely, most reliable of Jesus teaching, relative to all the rest. And my main point doesn't even rely on this, or other of Jesus' statements about God and humanity, being accurate. My suggestion is to follow the instructions and see for yourself. If it's true, who cares who said it. If it's false, then who cares as well. Isn't the point of all this knowing whether it's true or not? Well, it is for me; and, I'm suggesting that even if it isn't for you, it does allow another avenue for evaluating the validity of the Christian religion.
To an aborigine in Latin America, no such thing [stock market] exists.
But it does exist in reality. As do woomeras to the Australian aborigine which we are unaware of. But, again, that's not common, not part of what is universal among all humans.
What is the reality of a human?
My point of inquiry is just that and I'm referring to a possible method of researching it.
What does it matter to an aborigine what my relationship to the creation is?
Depends on the aborigine I suppose, but what does matter to you both is each of your relationships.
Why would he need an instrument to see moons orbiting the earth? You can see the moon quote well without any instruments.
I was referring to the human instrument. If he sees two then something is defective in his biological instrumentation. Perhaps cataracts, perhaps a brain defect, or perhaps he's just not paying attention.
And why must human experience experience suffering?
That's part of the inquiry isn't it? Fact is we do.
Accurate and true by whose yardstick?
By the yardstick of being part of reality. Suffering is an unavoidable universal part of being human. Any accurate and true experience or view of reality has to integrate it because it's real, it exists.
Since we cannot know everything, we can never know/conceptualize what this is about, or recognize the Truth.
Perhaps not, but that has never stopped some humans from trying. And giving it an honest effort entails exploration, observation, accurate instrumentation, comparing results and so on. No one is promising perfect truth or knowledge.
We use what we need, and how much we have at our disposal. It's like having millions of dollars in CDs that cannot be cashed. The potential is there but not the maturity.
We have a lot more at our disposal that we don't use or use poorly. We are teachable, trainable, we can improve our bodies and our minds, we can learn attentiveness, we can work to remove distractions, we can be better observers - much much better.
My suggestion was along these lines. Here is an attempt to boil it down, way down:
There is this argument going on - the Church says these guys said that Jesus said and Jesus was this and that and the other. And one way to approach this seeking the truth is what we see on this thread and what you have engaged in masterfully.
Another way is to focus on what they said Jesus said do in order to know and see what he said is real - about God and man and our relationship.
Now, given this, we could test this - do it and see if what they said he said is true - by experiment.
The result of this gives us certain information. It still has its limitations, but if whether the result is true or false we have valuable information to apply to the topic.
Personally, if the whole point is an intellectual exercise to determine the history and theology... well, that's nice, but so is a hobby. If we're just discussing history for its own sake, then why do we invest so much in this relatively little part of it?
For me, the point is seeking what's true as best we can as human beings. The value of Jesus and Christianity stands on this. IMHO, again. And the historical method is not the only one at our disposal. I don't think it's anywhere near the method Jesus taught.