Tolstoy references the Book of Jonah in What I Believe as means to explain that we should still be of the world and not entirely give it up for the sake of the church. I think there’s more to it then that however.
The Book of Jonah (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah+1&version=ESV) teaches the most valuable lesson in scripture in my opinion—that ignorance (lack of knowledge) is an inevitability; it’s a consequence of knowledge to begin with, a byproduct if it. Of course lack of knowing comes along with being able to know anything in the first place, and some people are even born without the ability to be able to know their right hand from their left (Autism Spectrum Disorder for example):
"And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” - Jonah 4:11
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge [ignorance].” - Hosea 4:6
“And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” - Luke 23:34
No one can know until they know, and no one can even begin to dream (imagine) of being able to see what they don’t know and therefore can’t understand, and no one asks or earns how they came out of the womb biologically; we’ve all either stumbled upon on it or your God made it so. This is what warrants anything we come to hate infinite forgiveness, because it comes from ignorance (lack of knowledge), as we were when we were kids ourselves for example, of course God can’t help but see us the same way. Yes, we’ve grown up and subsequently know better, but far from everything, no matter how old we become, everything’s doing is a doing out of a degree of lack of knowledge, especially being still so far away from the sobering influence of the knowledge of the experience of our own death.
This inevitable lack of knowledge, that’s simply a consequence of our unique and profound ability to acknowledge knowledge to the extent we can in contrast to nature to begin with (of course there’s going to be absence of it to some degree as a result), especially including the knowledge of the experience, of being poor, starving, or collectively disliked as a few examples, needs to be gained, therefore, someone needs to be willing to teach it. Jonah was hardly even willing to go about it, and even ran away initially because of his hate and contempt for the people of Nineveh, due to their debauchery (making God’s of their sense organs) and iniquity. But what if there was someone willing to go as far as to even suffer for the sake of spreading the knowledge of God, thus, the path to peace and its value? That I personally equate as our knowledge of morality, no matter the source. Hence the fruit of the tree that gained us the unique and profound ability in contrast to nature to acknowledge knowledge of morality that rendered us being made in Gods image complete. Jesus calls this book the “sign of Jonah”:
The Sign of Jonah
29 “When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” - Luke 11:28
The sign being an influence, thus, incentive and will therefore, via a knowledge to save themselves from their inherecy to themselves, being absent the knowledge of God (of morality) otherwise; instinct leads us to sin (selfishness), knowledge leads us go be able to pierce through what instinct demands of us, away from the hell we potentially make for ourselves here in this life, becoming either a prisoner of our minds (of our conscience), or to men, ultimately. And as the storm of death begins to slowly approach the shores of your conscience, where will you have built your house (your life)? Out on the sand, with the fool? As most people would be inherently drawn to? Or with the wise man, out on the rock? "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” - Matt 7:27
The Golden Rule
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction [selfishness], and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life [selflessness], and those who find it are few." - Matt 7:13 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7&version=ESV
There are a few discernable nuggets of wisdom. Chief among them, you have to go through some shit to know some shit to teach some shit;
This inevitable lack of knowledge, that’s simply a consequence of our unique and profound ability to acknowledge knowledge to the extent we can in contrast to nature to begin with (of course there’s going to be absence of it to some degree as a result), especially including the knowledge of the experience, of being poor, starving, or collectively disliked as a few examples, needs to be gained, therefore, someone needs to be willing to teach it.
but your language and your insistence on seeing this through a theological lens are throwing me off and making your work very inaccessible.
It’s a convoluted, meandering, incoherent mess that might as well be generative AI slop.
- Autism isn’t the inability “to know their right hand from their left”.
- The section on the “The Golden Rule” isn’t even the Golden Rule.
- The quotation marks are paired inconsistently or left open.
- I can only pick out bits & pieces clear enough to respond to.
It inspires its own question. Which is more efficient: human-generated slop or AI slop?
I don’t think we need the Book of Jonah to know ignorance exists & is practically impossible to eliminate.
No one can know until they know, and no one can even begin to dream (imagine) of being able to see what they don’t know and therefore can’t understand
I think you’re underestimating imagination. People can & have imagined practically anything in total ignorance: for example, god(s), dogma, an afterlife, divine justice, morality, social constructs. They can imagine contradictions & the illogical. They can also imagine a better religion & better gods than the deeply flawed, morally bankrupt ones.
everything’s doing is a doing out of a degree of lack of knowledge
Phenomena have nothing to do with knowledge: nature proceeds according to cause, effect, chance regardless of knowledge thereof. Not even choices depend on knowledge: while knowledge can inform choices, the decider is free to make any choice.
someone needs to be willing to teach it
what if there was someone willing to go as far as to even suffer for the sake of spreading the knowledge of God
knowledge of morality that rendered us being made in Gods image complete
Why would teaching require suffering? Morality doesn’t come from or require a god: we can reason about it. Holy laws in the Bible are often weird & irrelevant to morality:
- purity laws against eating/touching shellfish, pork, “unclean” animals
- laws against mixing fiber, crops, animals
Some of it is outright immoral.
instinct leads us to sin (selfishness)
Not so: sin is a product of imagination.
Philosophers often approach morality with concepts such as moral agency that emphasize moral reasoning (if choices are possible).
What if these places represent emotional states of being (the kingdom of heaven is within you), and “the people” are various aspects of one’s personality?
What do you mean? Are you saying something similar regarding how Tolstoy equates the supernatural and miracles within religion? As a means for men mellieniums ago to express thought?
If I’m understanding your posts correctly, yes.
Alright great.
So what do you mean by “these places” exactly?
Ninevah, here.
Was this generated by AI? Not only does it lack any philosophical argument, it also lacks theological argument. It makes some reference to Tolstoy, providing the start of a literary argument, but then doesn’t actually complete the thought, almost as if it was generated from sources instead of being argued by a human.
It’s not AI and I’m sorry you’ve missed the more philosophical message, but its definitely there, but it’s shaped around the book of Jonah, that Jesus (who I equate as a moral philosopher/activist) referred to as “the sign of Jonah.”
May I offer to try to simplify your thoughts? Big words are fine, but the post questioned as AI was a little convoluted.
I know you are not me, but often, when I ramble or tend toward garolousness, it’s because I’m having trouble formulating how to get my thoughts into writing. What’s been helpful is writing/typing long thoughts out, away and coming back later to edit and re-edit, until I’m satisfied.
Are you referring to this post here regarding the book of Jonah?
Yes and the other but I’ve not looked at your other threads.
Oh okay. Yeah you’re right, it definitely needs plenty of work; think of my posts more as drafts rather then being a representation of something finished. I appreciate your thoughts, thanks!
You’re welcome. Maybe working out drafts before posting can make it easier for people to understand. I’m unable to respond authentically if I don’t understand what you are communicating.
Seems OP posts a convoluted text containing Tolstoy and the Gospel every week. Not sure if this is AI, though. At least not the common ChatGPT style of writing. Maybe a broken AI? Or human copypasta. Anyway, judging by the history they don’t seem to be interested in a conversation. What is it, OP?
Oh and I don’t post about Tolstoy and the Gospel, I post about Tolstoy sure, amongst other things. Recently however I’ve been posting the preface of his translation of his interpretation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief, which is a more philosophical, objective, less supernatural interpretation of them.
Thanks for the clarification! Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to tell because people tend to do all these things, have AI post here (which isn’t as common as on other places on the internet), or cross-post and copy stuff and they never come back to talk about it or read the answers. I personally think that’s super frustrating because I invest time to read and reply, which is then wasted. (Unless someone else chimes in, but that doesn’t always happen.) I assumed this was that, too, because you post more complex thoughts than you discuss in the comments… But seems I was wrong. So… I don’t have a good opinion on the Sign of Jonah, so I can’t write anything of substance here, but I’ll read your next posts 😃
That’s very kind, I appreciate that. Have you considered this one?: https://lemmy.world/post/36602700
I haven’t gotten anyone’s thoughts on it and I don’t how stupid or kindergarten it is. And if it’s not to much of a bother, I’d be even more interested in your thoughts on this here; what I like to call “The Basis of Things”:
“Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” - Solomon (Doing of doings; all is a doing)
“Morality is the basis of things, and truth is the substance of all morality.” - Gandhi (Selflessness and selfishness are at the basis of things, and our present reality is the consequence of all mankinds acting upon this great potential for selflessness and selfishness all throughout the millenniums; the extent we’ve organized ourselves and manipulated our environment thats led to our present as we know it)
If vanity (a desire to do; a striving), bred from morality (selflessness and selfishness), is the foundation of human behavior, then what underpins morality itself? Here’s a proposed chain of things:
Sense Organs+Present Environment/Consciousness/Imagination/Knowledge/Reason/Truth/Influence/Desire/Morality/Vanity
- Vanity is governed by morality,
- Morality is rooted in desire,
- Desire stems from influence,
- Influence is shaped by truth,
- Truth arises from reason,
- Reason is born from knowledge,
- Knowledge is made possible by our imagination,
- And our imagination depends on the extent of how conscious we are of ourselves and everything else via our sense organ reacting to our present environment. (There’s a place for Spirit here but haven’t decided where exactly; defined objectively however: “the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.”)
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein
I’m more than interested in conversation, that’s why they’re all titled “what are you thoughts?” Because I’m genuinely interested in them. And no AI.
What is this actually saying? It’s just quoting a few things, doesn’t explicitly describe what the “Sign of Jonah” is to OP, and doesn’t even go on to posit the question at the end.
This is either LLM generated, or posted prematurely by a child.
I don’t agree with walling off people from knowledge via words for words; more complex words that are just words for more simpler ones that do the job just the same. And you must have missed this:
"Jesus calls this book the “sign of Jonah”:
The Sign of Jonah
29 “When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.” - Luke 11:28
The sign being an influence, thus, incentive and will therefore, via a knowledge to save themselves from their inherecy to themselves, being absent the knowledge of God (of morality) otherwise; instinct leads us to sin (selfishness), knowledge leads us go be able to pierce through what instinct demands of us, away from the hell we potentially make for ourselves here in this life, becoming either a prisoner of our minds (of our conscience), or to men, ultimately."
So… the sign of Jonah is … using big words?
If someone thinks that’s a sign of evil, they’re only showing that they WANT to be ignorant fuckwits.
On the other hand, as Einstein said, “If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough”.
IMO, the riduclous old-timey and mistranslated verbiage of that style of verses are exactly the “fancy words for words sake” that only contributes to people failing to understand things. Religious texts are largely just a failure at attempting to mix history, ethics, and baby’s first philosophy. Anyone who clings to such misguided, poorly worded, and often straight up outdated ways of thinking is only harming themselves, just as those poorly worded verses warn against.
The same as my thoughts on whatever Gandalf said to Tyrion.
