₦airaland Forum

LordReed:
I used a Von Neumann machine as a possibility because it is just as speculative as a god.

No sir, a Von Neumann machine is not as speculative as a god because it doesn't fit the bill.

I am not interested in giving examples of a what because that is not what the question is about.

Then it's no longer conversation. In my experience, to hold a meaningful conversation both sides have to hold certain positions they are willing to share and grapple with.

What I think it is is irrelevant right now because the question is focused on why you think it is a personal being.

Actually what you think is very relevant for this to be a real conversation. Hence why I was asking what your goal was? It's only at a trial one side has to proof something and the other side has to just present doubt.

Neither you or DrLiveLogic have answered the question instead you both are dancing around it. The answer I expect would be in the form: I am convinced it's a personal being because of evidence A, B and C and it's not a what because of evidence D, E and F. You guys are just coming up with stuff that completely misses the point.

Well so far sir, it seems to me you are the one making the conversation circular. I've told you to read our previous conversation on why I believe what I believe and I believe you've done that.
https://www.nairaland.com/5908237/story-gods-great-lonliness#90493221

So far you've made only two comments on it. 1) You gave an example of a possible "what", but I think we are both in agreement that wouldn't suffice, and I'm waiting for you to give another possible "what" that can suffice as a self existent thing that is capable of creating a universe with similar constraints as ours. That way we can evaluate both positions and see if this "what" can suffice as creator for our constrained universe just as a "who".
2)You made comments about the initial constraints that I attribute to a mind in my other post, and I mentioned that you were parsing the information incorrectly by your comments. Here also I would like to know how you parse this physical constants and the other versions of the antropic principle from your viewpoint so we can evaluate how it stacks up against what I posited.
So far sir,From my vantage point,it seems to me you've been the one making this conversation circular by either backtracking on things you've said or by side stepping certain aspects of this conversation. I could be wrong but that's how it appears to me.

Only scientists who believe in a god argue that only an uncreated being can originate the universe, other scientists know that investigation beyond Planck time during the big bang at this point is merely speculative/hypothetical. How you are certain it is a personal being is the bone of contention.

Well that is not true sir. Our inability to precisely know what happened beyond the Planck time does not negate whether the universe is created or not. Hence why many in the sciences are trying to come up with different theorems of how the universe came to be as it is i.e the many-world theorems, the bubble universe, different iterations of the cyclic universe and so on. The bone of contention in the sciences is to have a theory of everything, that unifies gravity with the other fundamentally forces at a quantum level and have better understanding of what would have been when all the fundamental forces where one. It's hypothesized that the inflationary period was triggered by the separation of gravity from the other fundamental forces. This are things that become clearer as scientists continue to study black holes.
Like I said in the other thread where we had these conversation,as long as we have an inflationary big bang model as our theory of how the universe got started then the implication is that, this universe, this particular one we are part of has a beginning and is not eternal. Even with the inflationary big bang model ,it's still anybody's best guess what exactly happened at some of the earliest moments of the universe around the10^-36 seconds(that's like 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds) and 10^-32 seconds, i.e what started the inflation? Is it still ongoing today, constantly spitting out pocket universes with ours being on of those universes? what stopped it at the 10^-32 secs when normal expansion took over? Did the universe start out as pure space? Etc But what we do know is this particular universe didn't exist in a steady state.

Now what can never be detected by scientific means not even in a million years,thus we can never know through scientific means is anything that has no causal relationship with our universe. This is where we use logic, philosophy and basic rational as intelligent beings to parse the information we have about our universe and about ourselves to make inference on whether it's a who or a what that started this whole shabang. That is the bone of contention.
Like I said in the other thread where we had this conversation, The whole point of gathering evidence is to narrow down our assumptions.

So there are a couple of things we know at moment with a moderate dose of certainty.
This particular universe we are part of has a beginning, This universe has fixed laws, This universe appears to be fine-tuned for intelligent life and The initial cause has to be outside space-time itself from our perspective.

I've shared a bit on how I parse this data from a Christain point of view on the previous thread we had, I would like to know how you parse this same data from your perspective. We might not agree but atleast I get to see where you are coming from and we can pick up from there.

LordReed:
I am not equating the Von Neumann machine to god.

No sir, you placed it as another good speculation of a god.

My question again, how are you convinced it is a who as opposed to a what.

And I've pointed you to our previous conversation on why God is personal(that conversation is a good place to start) and I believe DrLiveLogic has also given his views from a logic and philosophical standpoint.
The question now is why do you believe it's a what? How are you parsing the data? And what are your likely candidates for a what?

A Von Neumann machine is an example of a what.

Has our previous discussion, Von Neumann machine is not a good example of a what. Can you give another type of what that can fit the bill.

Besides it doesn't even matter if it is created, the question still stands.

It does matter sir, if not this won't be a hot topic in the sciences.

LordReed:
Maybe your should watch it again.

Is not any different from speculating a god did because the question still arises and your answer id to merely assert that your god was not created. Not a very good argument either.

There are other ways of speculating about God but a Von Neumann isn't really a good one. Like I said earlier, a Von Neumann is by definition something that is at some ultimate point created by a mind so it automatically leaves the realm of speculation as a god. For something to be speculated upon as a god, then it has to be self existing ,atleast from our point of reference for what existence means. So either the universe itself is self-existing or someone/something outside of it is self-existing. A Von Neumann machine by definition needs a mind at some ultimate point to begin to exist and needs space in which to exist in, so it by definition cannot fit the bill.
As for the question of who created God , I had a brief conversation with someone else here where I pointed out my take on how to parse it
https://www.nairaland.com/5903518/christians-not-afraid-atheists/1#90374839
You might not agree with it but thats the way it's being parsed in my mind.

You don't think constantly questioning my understanding or my motives is an escalation? You are constantly indulging in ad hominems but that's not escalation for you

Well for me it was odd that you were more interested in what I think over what experts in the field have to say, because I thought the premise of the conversation is to get accurate information on how to view the same data from different points. Atleast that's how it sounded to me when you initially quoted me.

LordReed:
Did you even watch video you linked, it was one of the objections raised.

I used a Von Neumann machine as a possibility because it is just as speculative as a god.

I actually haven't watched the video in a long time but I chose it because I wasn't up for a long drawn out conversation but wanted to point you to something that was somewhat neutral at a high level.

I'm not sure what the other person's reply was but I'm pretty sure he must have been taken aback because like I said at the very best you get a circular reasoning. A Von Neumann machine by definition is a created thing and needs a mind or atleast something outside of itself to create it. So the next question is who/what created it and the possible reply would be another Von Neumann created it, then another who/what created it and a possible reply would be another Von Neumann machine etc so effectively you have to get to a who/what created the first Von Neumann machine which cannot be a Von Neumann machine and you are back to the question of God or worst case scenario an infinite regression and if you have an infinite regression of causes then nothing can actually begin in the first place. Hence why its really not a good argument to start with.

I already stated it before so I don't know why you are asking again. I what to know why you think its a who and not a what. If you think I am looking to trip you up then you need to deal with your paranoia

Well, that escalated quickly.

LordReed:
From what I can see in that thread you believe its a who because of things like the physical constants. You do realise that those constants are relationships of observed phenomenon though, its not like someone looked and saw it written somewhere in the sky that g=9.8m/s², these are things men figured out. How you now derive a personal god out of it is what I am inquiring about. As far as been observed no person is formulating them, they are occurrances of nature. Also why do you think its a person as opposed to a Von Neumann machine for example?

Well sir,I'm not sure you understand what these constants truly are and how they relate to our physical universe, because it seems you are parsing the information incorrectly. I believe there are some videos on the Fermilab institute's channel that are short but we'll articulated that dive into the topic.
There's a reason why the current ways of explaining them from a secular standpoint is mainly either to have an infinite number of universes or some iteration of a cyclic universe.


Secondly, I'm not sure why you would use a Von Neumann machine as a possible example, maybe because its sci-fi but at the very best it would only get us into circular reasoning and at worst it shouldn't even be in the conversation.

Thirdly sir, quick question. Are you more concerned about what the science actually says and how one can parse the data or you are more concerned about having a gotcha moment?

LordReed:
The premise of that conversation is different.

But the science and the rationale are still the same. If you continue to read down, I believe I touched on one or two of the reasons why I believe the creator is personal.

Besides, the best way of grappling with complex concepts that can be viewed from different angles is to listen to conversations of people with deep understanding of the subject parsing it out from opposite sides. You might not agree with either of them but atleast you are not getting an asymmetric information.

LordReed:
While it is good to consider what they have to say I am much more interested in knowing why you think so. What convinces you there is a who and not a what behind all of this.

Well I hold similar viewpoint to the person arguring for a personal creator and I believe we've had a bit of this conversation on another thread. https://www.nairaland.com/5908237/story-gods-great-lonliness#90493221 and you can find other of my conversations with other people on my page.

Besides it's makes whole lot of difference when you can you can see two people with very deep understanding of the subject matter parsing it from two very distinct viewpoints. Atleast it does for me.

Incase you are wondering if it's some religious propaganda. One of the speakers is coming from an atheistic viewpoint and the conversation was held by the atheist society

OtemAtum:
You are very very wrong. I never said that God Almighty is just the universe, but the totality of existence is what I said. The uncountable universes are as well parts of existence and not the whole. And you even said that 'whoever created the universe must exist independent of the universe itself'. This doesn't hold water when we are talking about the totality of existence and not totality of universes. Can Existence(God Almighty) exist independent of existence? That would be a grammatical tautology you know

Okay.

LordReed:
One I am willing to have.

I'll much rather point you to conversations between people who are PhD level scientific and hold this difference in viewpoint and you can watch them trash it out if you don't mind. The first one is an actual conversation between the two differing viewpoints with questions from other scientists, the other is more of a talk on why the creator is a personal being.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZPDIkTpezg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3do_Pp-dQ4

LordReed:
How do you its a who and not a what?

Well that boils down to difference in perspective and a much longer conversation.

OtemAtum:
That a first cause exists isn't the problem, but that the first cause is Jehovah, Allah, Moloch or any of these other puny gods out there is the crux of the matter. God Almighty is the totality of existence and it is an insult to the totality of existence when you handpick any of these riffraff creatures like Jehovah and Allah and call him God Almighty. It's a big slap on the face of nature to call dull religious gods God Almighty.
Science is an offshot of God Almighty (Totality of Existence) and the knowledge of science is far far greater than the knowledge of Jehovah, Allah and all other religious gods combined.

There's only one problem sir. The universe itself has a beginning and was created so if your god is the totality of existence then he is part of this universe; effectively making him also a created being.
Whoever created the universe must exist independent of the universe itself.

Kobojunkie:
What separate ways? The Church of Christ is not in a building or organized in a community as you imagine it. Christ is the Head and since His own learn everything from Him, whether alone or among others, they are still a part of His church, the only church that matters. All other representations mean nothing.

When the Spirit of God led Phillips away to a foreign land, did he, Philip, abandon the church of Jesus Christ? No, he remained a part of the body of Christ, even with an assignment that took him to a faraway place. The same applied then and now to all members of the Church of Jesus Christ. When Andrew and the others were later sent off to foreign lands, their membership in the church of Jesus Christ did not end, even in foreign lands.
The Spirit of Truth went with them, teaching, guiding, helping, comforting and counseling them every step of the way. Though they are separated by distance, they are still part of the body of Christ. Their fellowship is with the very Spirit of God, and they are led and taught by the Spirit of God alone.

I'm not talking about individuals as part of Christ body. I'm talking about the community of believers that was setup by the apostles to worship, pray, strengthen one another, have the communion together etc.
Philip was part of the Jerusalem community and was one of the first deacons of the church. Because of the persecution in Judea the disciples spread out and every where they went, they setup similar communities(churches) and kept in touch with them. We find these in the books of acts and the apostlic letters.(this is the model we still use today in Bible believing churches).

You said these churches were disbanded after the death of the apostles and everyone went their separate ways.
My question is how did you come to this knowledge?

Kobojunkie:
Those of them who were not killed during the persecution continued to live as Christ commanded them through His Spirit, and work righteousness wherever they found themselves, wherever God sent them.

Ok so, everyone went their separate ways.
And you know this how?

Kobojunkie:
None of that!

So what happened to them?

Kobojunkie:
Christ's church is still marching on... only it is not the visible church, what I call "world church" that you see and know of today as Christianity.

Ok so, in your view, what happened to the community of believers after the apostles died. They all stopped meeting together and everybody went home(their separate ways)? Or Christ stopped being the head because the apostles are dead?

Kobojunkie:
The Church of Jesus Christ began after Jesus' death and resurrection. After His Ascension, the church came into its own(became capable) with the arrival of the Spirit of God. That Church, headed by Jesus Christ, is the church that belongs to Jesus Christ. Many of the members eventually met horrible fates but that Church remains the Church that belongs to Jesus Christ and is headed by Jesus Christ.

Ok so, the church ended in the first century?

Kobojunkie:
No, the "world" church you have today is not the same church the disciples were a part of back in the 1st century. That is the point I was making in the comment you jumped in to respond to.
Christ was, and is the head of the first and only church that existed when the disciples were still living. However, Christ is not the head of the "world" churches of the Christian world.

Wait, you mean the only church that existed was when Jesus was with the disciples?

Kobojunkie:
It was unnecessary because I was referring there to the root of the "world church" as we have it today, not Christ's Church which is still led by Jesus Christ Himself.

I don't know what you mean by "world" here but the church as we have it today is still basically the same as they had it in the days of the early church (atleast in Bible believing church). It's still a community of believers regularly meeting to worship,to pray, to learn and to share the bread and the cup. There was leadership and organizational then like we have it now(larger now as there are more Christains today as opposed to then). Christ was the head then and Christ is still the head now.

Kobojunkie:
In the English language, the word "church refers to a group of people or a gathering of people for a common purpose or reason. The word is also used in reference to the buildings in the Christian religion where worshippers gather to worship their God.

I have no clue what relevance this here has to what I typed, the topic or even the questions asked.

And here I thought you were writing in response to what I wrote or something. Kindly spare me your sermons next time ....

It wasn't a sermon. It was explaining to you from both a historical context and from the Bible that the gathering of believers as a church is built into the DNA of christainity from the very beginning and it's not a Roman Catholic construct as you posited. It's part and parcel of being a Christain and people shouldn't go about telling others otherwise

Kobojunkie:
Also God certainly didn't ask you or anyone to go to church either. Matter of fact, the world church you know of today all have roots in the Roman church, which was decided on by disgruntled Bishops who saw the Christian movement as a source of power and wealth that should be controlled by them, about 300 years after the disciples had all died off.

Ofcourse the many bishops and those that followed did a good job of killing off the competition and what you have today is all rooted in all that.

So?

Well that's not accurate. The concept of the word "church" is rooted in the New testament in the Greek word ekklesia, which means "a called out assembly". The word ekklesia is used in the greek translation of the old testament (the Bible of Jesus, the apostles and the early church), where it is used for the general assembly of the Jewish people, especially when gathered for a religious purpose such as hearing of the Law. It's also used in classical Greek for a general assembly of people but for the majority of the time it's used in the new testament, it was used to denote the gathering of believers(about 115x).

After the Ascension of the Lord, the early Jesus followers came together under the leadership of the disciples to worship,pray, learn and strengthen one another. This concept spread outside of Judea when the Jerusalem persecution started and many of the apostles were forced to spread out within the Roman empire. Everywhere they went they setup this ekklesia (churches) which regularly met in homes and so on(see the book of acts). Hence the bulk of the new testament are letters to these young churches in order to give them doctrinal instructions,words of encouragement,words of admonishment and also pastoral instructions like how to organise the church, what type of person should be chosen as a Presbyter(leader of a local Church),how to approach the bread and the cup(holy communion) and so on.[the letters are generally divided into 3: a) Letters to specific churches b) Pastoral letters c) catholic letters( not to be confused with the later Roman Catholic church; catholic here means universal).
Even the Lord's address in the book of revelation was to churches in Asia Minor.

The idea that one can be a Christain in isolation as it's taught today would be foreign to the apostles and the early Christians. Yes, the Christain race is a personal race but that is just one half of the equation. The body of Christ has always been a communal body where Jesus followers come together to worship, pray, strengthen one another, learn from others and share the bread and the cup together as Jesus instructed(Luke 22:18-20, 1corinthians 11:23-25, mark 14:22-25). The Christain race is a personal race but also a race ran with the help of other believers. Doing one without the other, one runs the risk of being pulled into an extreme.

Its understandable why most people are skeptical of being part a church today especially with all the fake congregations we hear of everyday, but no matter how bad it looks, there are still and will always be lots of genuine Jesus communities around. Just as Elijah thought he was alone but God was like naa, i still have 70,000 people who have not bowed to Baal(see 1kings 19:18), so it is today. The idea is to prayerfully seek out these communities. This is the laid down principle from the Lord.

It would also be great if more Christains take interest in the real historical Jesus and christainity through the ages, because we are living in a time of hyper misinformation. Too much is been ascribed to the Roman Catholic church and Constantine. This things have been repeated for so long on YouTube and blogs that they sound like facts even though they are historically incorrect.

Aside: The English word "church" comes from Old English cirice, circe which after passing through multiple languages eventually ends up at the Greek word kuriakē oikia(house of the Lord).

Kobojunkie:
You saying in all those verses listed Jesus lied about the cost?

You mean to say that there is a way to get around Jesus's own commandments as far as becoming His follower ( born again) is concerned?

I'm guessing you are confusing the free gift of salvation with the likely consequences of choosing to live a counter-cultured life in a broken world(different degrees of friction for different people living in different cultures). One of the many reasons we rely on the HolySpirit to strengthen us and help us navigate through the journey.

My advice if you would accept it, is to read the entire gospel according to Matthew and try working through how those verses you quoted fit not just into the gospel alone but also into the entire biblical story as God has shown you. A good well grounded commentary on the gospel of Matthew would help if you choose to use one(Just a suggestion cos it is not an absolute necessity but a helpful one).
While you are at it, you should also read the books of Hebrews,Romans and Ephesians. They would be helpful

Have a good Sunday.

Kobojunkie:
Let me help you with Jesus Christ's own teaching. If you claim to belong to Jesus Christ but never knew this or did what He commanded in the passages belong... i suggest you begin considering reviewing the relatonship you claim to have with Him.

His Salvation comes at a cost. And those who want it ought to understand the cost and be willing to pay it. There is no cutting corners to get at it and there is no 419 way to it.
No one can become a follower of Jesus Christ simply by wishing for it. Jesus required that those who choose to follow Him do the work that He commands they first do.

1. Be prepared to abandon parents, brother, sister, children, spouse, in-laws, e.t.c.
2. Abandon all that you know/believe, have, and all that you are
3. Bear your own burden (not someone else's cross- not even your family's or children's)


4. Become a child again in your thinking and your actions

5. Be prepared to lose life(reputation, career, control, property, etc.)




6. Desire above all to find and enter the Kingdom of God and also walk the path of righteousness, with God as your guide every step
7. Let go of all control you have over your life and circumstances, allowing God to take care of your every need

So basically you are rejecting the free gift of salvation for working your way into it?

Mehn, people will always read what they want to in any situation. She said it happened when her and will were separated and they both thought their marriage was effectively over, but everyone making sound like it happened when they were still together. Like she was running around sleeping with someone else when she was still sharing a bed with Will.

What she did was still wrong from a Christain standpoint(sex only with someone you are legally married to) or from a secular black & white stand point(she should have waited to be officially divorced before sleeping with another person) but truly how many people actually live up to these standards.

But it's someone else so everybody got jokes.

LordReed:
I am open to learning your point.

BLM organisation are becoming or have become inseparable from the movement such that support for one is essentially support for the other which I am categorically calling bullocks.

That's not my point. If you read my post again,you would see that the point i was making was, " they can become inseparable if people are not intentional in separating the two, as the line separating them can become blurry if you are not paying attention".

The time to warn against and curb the influence of interest groups or extremist ideas in any society is at their inceptions or when their influence has not yet been fully entrenched into the collective mindset. Once that happens,it's already too late.

Consolidation of power do not happen overnight, extremist ideas do not take hold at once. They take time and are usually a gradual process.
It's easy to dismiss the BLM organisation currently because they do not yet hold considerable influence, but the thing is they are trying to. Same goes for the extremist ideas floating around.

If there's one thing we can learn from history during this period is, whenever there's a disruption in the societal mindset or a vacuum in the society, there are always individuals ready to take advantage of it. The Nazi party and the Church during the middle ages are two extreme examples of how seemingly obscure groups of people and ideologies can slowly and gradually become very powerful and unchallengeable.

If there was ever a time to start ringing the alarm bells against interest groups and extremist ideas floating around during this racial equality climate, now is that time.
In summary: It's prudent to be very intentional about separating the BLM organisation from the black lives movement itself. Not because the BLM controls the movement now but because they are trying to.
Same goes for any extremist ideas trying to bundle itself with the racial equality conversation.

In Terry Crews case, He is speaking out mainly against any extremist ideas floating around in the racial equality conversation and not against any organisation in particular.




Below is my original post, so you can read it again in view of explanation.

I doubt that is what he meant. I read his statement as someone saying we should all have the presence of mind in separating the movement from the organisation, as sometimes that line can be blurred.

Interest groups have a long history of usually trying to control the narrative of an ideology/movement from within, effectively making the group and the movement one and the same. If people are not cautious of these at the onset, the leadership of these groups can become too powerful, at which point it's already too late (well except the movement itself breaks down).

LordReed:
Both you and CoolUsername are insinuating that the BLM organisation are becoming or have become inseparable from the movement such that support for one is essentially support for the other which I am categorically calling bullocks. The dynamics of the movement have gone beyond the direct handling or influence of the BLM organisation. Take the Seattle CHAZ/CHOP for example, the BLM organisation is not in charge there, it is purely a community effort.

I'm guessing you missed the point I was making, but it's fine sir

LordReed:
I'd like to see where anyone claimed that supporting the BLM organisation was essential to the fight for racial justice and equality.

I doubt that is what he meant. I read his statement as someone saying we should all have the presence of mind in separating the movement from the organisation, as sometimes that line can be blurred.

Interest groups have a long history of usually trying to control the narrative of an ideology/movement from within, effectively making the group and the movement one and the same.
If people are not cautious of these at the onset, the leadership of these groups can become too powerful and at this point it's already too late (well except the movement itself breaks down).

Well for starters, outside of the Abrahamic religions that have a developed conception of God that is utterly transcendent and distinct from the universe; an infinite individual who created the universe out of nothing, other creation myths have mostly anthropomorphic concepts of God and a creator within or part of the universe.

That's kind of a big difference.

From greek the name was further transliterated into Latin which was pretty straightforward, the only thing that changed was ou being rendered as U.
IESOUS = IESUS.
As the christainity became the state religion and Latin the Lingua Franca of the church, the Latin translation of the Bible(Vulgate) became the defacto translation of christainity throughout the empire.
IESUS was the defacto pronunciation of the Jesus's name for about 1000yrs.

Originally the letter ( J ) was just a stylish way of writing( I ). Meanwhile, at this time the English language was developing and evolving from the 5th century Germanic tribe settlement of Britain (Old English).
Sometime around the 12th century, the Latin word Iesus entered into Middle English and for the next 500 years the language kept evolving, mixing with French and other languages, undergoing the great vowel shift where the letter ( I ) gets its current sound from the Middle English ( ē )as in sweet. And finally in the 16th century the letter ( J ) is differentiated from( I ) and officially enters into the Modern English with its current consonant form in the mid 17th century.

It is from this mid 17th century Modern English we get the proper name Jesus as we pronounce it today. It's also from these period we get other proper names in the Bible like Jacob, James, Jerusalem,Judah, Jeremiah,Job etc.

In summary the name Yeshua passes through greek, through Latin , through Middle English and then finally gets to us in Modern English as Jesus.
Yeshua -> Iesous -> Iesus -> Jesus

Just as Ade and Vladimir retain their meanings from their source languages, the names Jesus also retains its meaning from its Hebrew roots.
Similarly Peter, Petrus, Pierre,Pedro, Bitrus ,Петър all have no meaning in their respective languages but get their meaning from one source Πέτρος(meaning stone).

The Hebrew name of the Lord is Yehoshua, which is also the name of Moses's successor (Joshua son of Nun) and the high priest in the book of Ezra .The meaning of the name in its literal form mean Yahweh saves or Yahweh is my/our salvation if you want to put it in proper English grammar.
Sometime after the Jewish exile the name was shortened to Yeshua and was a common name for Jewish males.
Because of the exile and subsequent settlement of Jews outside of Isreal many Jews living in diaspora weren't conversant with Hebrew and couldn't read the tanak(Jewish Bible/ Old testament) on their own. Not too different from how 2nd or 3rd generation of Nigerians born in Europe can't speak any Nigerian language.

Alexander the Great's conquest of the then-known world gave everyone a unified language, Greek. From this we get the Jewish Bible translated into greek around the 3rd/ 2nd century bc. This translation commonly known as the Septuagint or the LXX was the unifying translation for Jews everywhere during the greco-roman period and was also the translation the new testament authors quoted from when quoting the old testament.

It is from this translation we get the earliest greek transliteration for the name Yeshua. Basically it goes like this:
Y: In Greek there is no specific letter that
indicates the “y”-sound. The letter “I” used with the “apostrophe”-symbol at the top left is used to indicate the sound “Y”.
E: The closest equivalent Greek sound to the “e” of Yeshua is the η. This sounds like “ey” as in they.
SH: In Greek there is no “sh” sound like the Hebrew shin in Yeshua, and therefore the “s”-sound is used as a substitute.
U: The “u” of Yeshua sounds like Luke, and it correlates with the Greek οῦ.
A: Because greek is a case-ending language, the “a” at the end of Yeshua is dropped and replaced with “s” (ς) to indicate it's a masculine noun(name).
At the end we get Ἰησοῦs (the ending s here is to denote masculinity of the name in the normative case).
In English letters it would look like IESOUS(pronounced as ee-ay-soos). This was how the name was transliterated into greek long before Jesus was born.

The new testament was written in greek so the authors followed the Septuagint transliteration by using Iesous in it for multiple people. Other Jewish writers writing in the same time period in greek (Josephus , Philo etc) also used this transliteration for people bearing the name "Yeshua"(remember the name was fairly common at the time).

Seems like the question is becoming important to some people so I figured I do a writeup about it to the best of my knowledge.

So firstly, a bit of background:
When translating from one language to another, we have the options of either translating the words(I.e finding equivalent words in the target language with the same meaning as the words in the source language) or we transliterate them(Meaning: changing the letters from the source language into the corresponding, similar-sounding letters in the target language). Basically in the case of a transliteration, we are creating a whole new word in the target language and this new word only gets its meaning from its source language.

The goal most of the time is to stick to translating words as much as possible but transliteration is sometimes the preferred option in a couple of sceneries
• The word is indigenous to only its culture and there is no substitute for it in the target language. Example sharwama, gbegiri etc.

• The word is a proper name, like the name of a person or a place.
Example: Adé lọ si ìlú Ìbàdàn (Yoruba).
In this case it would be weird if we translated Adé and Ìbàdàn to give us "Crown went to the city of the edge of the meadow(atleast that's the etymology of Ibadan i could find)".
It's pretty easy to see how we would quickly run into problems and confusion if we try to translate the proper names.
To get a more accurate translation for the sentence above,we do a transliteration for the proper names and get "Ade went to the city of Ibadan".
In this instance we just created two new words (Ade & Ibadan) that do not exist and have no meaning in English but they get their meaning from the their language, Yoruba.
Lets take a proper name in a language that does not share alphabets with English to drive home the point.
Владимир (Russian: loosely meaning "great ruler, to rule greatly,ruler of the world/peace [modern]).
As it's a proper name we do a transliteration to find equivalent alphabets in English that match on to the russian ones as best as possible.
В = V
Л = L
А = A
Д = D and so on until we get the English word Vladimir(the first name of Russia's current president).
Again this word has no meaning in English but it gets its meaning from the Russian word Владимир.

One thing to note is that transliteration is not an exact science as there would be instances when there is no equivalent alphabet or sound In the target language. For example there are sounds in Arabic or Southern African languages (think the gods must be crazy movie) that have no direct equivalent sounds or alphabets in English. At other times, the rules of grammar in between languages can also affect how words get transliterated. In both these cases ,words would inevitably loose some of their sounds during transliteration.

With that background,we can walk through how get Jesus from Yehoshua in the next post.

YouAreFinished:
You're the most useless thing on nairaland

When did it become a crime for someone to voice their opinion? Why are you guys so triggered by it? I'm less bothered about trump or America's politics, but calling someone a "thing" for voicing out their opinion... That says more about you than him

IMAliyu:
Ok, I get your point.

We've been religious creatures for thousands of years, so simply consciously concluding that no deity exists still doesn't get rid of some of our religious and groupthink nature.

But I think what you are seeing is just something that is characteristic of an ideology (which I would call 'New atheism' one) and in any ideology there are people that take things a bit too far.
Like self proclaimed atheists that got offended by words like 'Godspeed' simply for having 'god' in it, and things like changing the reference of the calendar from BC (Before Christ) to BCE (Before Common Era), both mean thesame time frame, but I feel BCE is a discredit to religious(Christian) origins of the modern Gregorian calendar.

And yes there are some forms of religions that don't have a belief in a deity like some sects of Buddhism, however they still retain practices(spirituality, prescribed meditation) that are characteristic of religion.

I've heard some that try to argue that an atheist is never truly an atheist, because they retain a presupposition or value that orients them in life which is based on some kind of faith and not rationality and that presupposition and value serves as their god whether they are conscious of it or not. Although I think they were seriously stretching meaning of words here or speaking in a metaphorical sense to come to this conclusion.

Yea, I heard neil degrasse talk about the "godspeed" episode on Joe Rogan's podcast a while back.

I understand what you are saying also and I can understand why we agree on some things and where we might disagree on others.
But all in all,Its been a great conversation sir. Enjoy the rest of your week.