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Quote: The only independent account of Jesus existing was in the writing of Josephus. It has now been conclusively proven that was a forgery added to Josephus' writings because those mentions of Jesus do not exist in the earliest manuscripts. It was a 4th century addition. There are many such discredited additions to historical records. What does it mean that this proven fraud is still taught in Bible Colleges as historical proof of Jesus' existence? It means that it's pretty weak if all they can cling to are discredited ideas. Science is about accepting things based on evidence. Religion is about rejecting evidence when it contradicts your deeply held delusions. Jesus is no more historical of a person than Luke Skywalker or Han Solo. He was simply made up.
Oh is that how science works. So if a person from ANCIENT history cannot be proven to exist using science than your conclusion is they probably didnt exist? Actually you go a step further and conclude that there is virtually no possibility he existed.. "luke skywalker" haha..
You are using the same logic as the bible schools in thinking that this one historian either proves or disproves whether or not Jesus existed.
You misapply science to make an erroneous, massively over-simplified conclusion and think you are being rational/logical, what a shame. Jesus doesn't equal Christianity btw.. and just because something is not written on a piece of paper does not mean it did not happen.
Well I see your point. However given the evidence that the documentation of Jesus' life was manufactured and forged in the third and forth centuries CE; I see no reason to believe it's anything more than what it appears to be, which is a hoax.
Quote: soldatheero said: Oh is that how science works. So if a person from ANCIENT history cannot be proven to exist using science than your conclusion is they probably didnt exist? Actually you go a step further and conclude that there is virtually no possibility he existed.. "luke skywalker" haha..
You are using the same logic as the bible schools in thinking that this one historian either proves or disproves whether or not Jesus existed.
You misapply science to make an erroneous, massively over-simplified conclusion and think you are being rational/logical, what a shame. Jesus doesn't equal Christianity btw.. and just because something is not written on a piece of paper does not mean it did not happen.
I will agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, in this situation, I would like to invoke Russell's Teapot. The burden of proof is not on the skeptic to disprove the believer, but on the believer. Substantial claims require substantial evidence. And in the case of Jesus of Nazareth, the evidence just doesn't seem substantial.
-------------------- I like whiskey in my water and acid on my blotter.
The past is brought into perspective only after new experience is gained: before that point, experience is never truly realized.
Quote: c0sm0nautt said: It scares me how time and time again in this supposedly open-minded forum, people often refer to large heterogeneous groups in these absolute terms, often equating a whole group with the worst aspects of the minority. I understand making the world that black and white helps with your conceptualization of it, but come on...
I grew up in a variety of churches and the fact is that most of these people really do judge all drugs and spirituality folks as hell bound Satanist's. My Rock'n'roll records really did get smashed up and this large group consists of crazy, hypnotised dangerous people. Christianity continues to infect society, this is where our unquestioning belief in authority comes from, blind faith is still very much intact.
-------------------- In every winter there's a different cold
in every winter I feel so old
so very old as the night
so very old as the dreadful cold
Quote: c0sm0nautt said: It scares me how time and time again in this supposedly open-minded forum, people often refer to large heterogeneous groups in these absolute terms, often equating a whole group with the worst aspects of the minority. I understand making the world that black and white helps with your conceptualization of it, but come on...
I grew up in a variety of churches and the fact is that most of these people really do judge all drugs and spirituality folks as hell bound Satanist's. My Rock'n'roll records really did get smashed up and this large group consists of crazy, hypnotised dangerous people. Christianity continues to infect society, this is where our unquestioning belief in authority comes from, blind faith is still very much intact.
My experience has been wholly different here in NY.
-------------------- The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein
Quote: c0sm0nautt said: It scares me how time and time again in this supposedly open-minded forum, people often refer to large heterogeneous groups in these absolute terms, often equating a whole group with the worst aspects of the minority. I understand making the world that black and white helps with your conceptualization of it, but come on...
I grew up in a variety of churches and the fact is that most of these people really do judge all drugs and spirituality folks as hell bound Satanist's. My Rock'n'roll records really did get smashed up and this large group consists of crazy, hypnotised dangerous people. Christianity continues to infect society, this is where our unquestioning belief in authority comes from, blind faith is still very much intact.
My experience has been wholly different here in NY.
If you want to come down to Tennessee in late July you can stay at the farm. I'd like you to see and experience the real Bible belt experience. There are literally snake handler churches. It's in the middle of several dry counties. If you're not a born again republican you can't fit in. Living in NY you've never been exposed to this kind of "Bible believing" Christianity.
I know there are douche-bag Christians, I don't have to go to Tennessee to verify that. Like I said, if you equate a large group to the few individuals you have had experiences with, you are being naive.
"It scares me how time and time again in this supposedly open-minded forum, people often refer to large heterogeneous groups in these absolute terms, often equating a whole group with the worst aspects of the minority."
-------------------- The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift. - Albert Einstein
Quote: enokiikone said: Hmm, I wonder if the Jewish people accept the historical existence of Jesus, because they of all people would want to disprove that.
Well, THIS Jewish person "had the guts to leave the temple" ('I'm Free,' The Who), when he was 21 years old. My mother was culturally Jewish, but an atheist. My father was a cultural Jew who help to found a Reformed temple, but he was mostly a Freemason. I had one uncle who considered himself a Zionist (he was a nerdy dentist), and who refused to attend my wedding ceremony in '83 because it was a Messianic Jewish ceremony. I was baptized Catholic, took a Masters degree in a Methodist seminary, but was mostly interested in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (because their theology was the most mystical, and entheogens turned me mystic). Most of my culturally Jewish, but non-religious family turned their backs on me. I was seeking Truth - fuck 'em.
The historicity of Jesus wasn't very important to me then, the [Cosmic] Christ was. Now, 34 years after seminary, I am a Gnostic (which is a stance that predates Christianity), and a 'Mythicist,' which is the position taken by author D.M. Murdock in my above post. The Gnostic-Mythicist position repeats what Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote at the turn of the 19th century in his Quest for the Historical Jesus, and that is, that Jesus/Iesous/Issa/Y'shua, is a composite literary character of wisdom teachers, invented to be the prophesied Messiah of Judaism, and the means to break the exclusivist boundaries of Judaism. Jesus is a composite of Hellenistic myth (i.e., virgin birth, an incarnational demigod like Heracles or Dionysus), the Jewish liturgical calendar (see J.S. Spong's Liberating the Gospels), and Egyptian mystical themes (e.g., death, dismemberment, resurrection, ascension, judgement, reward-punishment). Moreover, Christianity was quickly appropriated by the crumbling Roman Empire to rally around, and it was Constantine who chose Christ over the then-popular Mithras.
That there may have been a mendicant rabbi named Y'shua (Joshua) is completely possible, but in my reading of Murdock, Freke & Gandy, and others, The Pyramid Texts, and the later Coffin Texts apparently reveal much or most of the spirituality of the NT. While the commoner of Egypt probably did believe that the Holy Family of Osiris, Isis-Mery, and Horus were historical people, the priestcraft of Egyptian Mystery Schools apparently knew better. The Jesus myth is understood today in the same ways by people of differing intellectual and spiritual development, from the fundamentalists to the mystics. The Jewish Talmud does recognize a Y'shua, but considers him to be a mamser (bastard), and a magician (see Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician). The Qu'ran recognizes 'Issa' as a prophet, but denies that he was crucified, because a prophet would not be permitted by God to die a shameful death.
All human beings live by myths, but most post-modern people are not even conscious of the myths by which their lives are organized. As for me, Christ, the Son, the Sun, Tiphereth, the Sacred Heart, the Holy Guardian Angel, represents the Higher Self - the central archetype of wholeness around which my life constellates.
My take on Christianity is that when I think about silence while stoned I become aware of energy that makes me sense healing and cleansing, this can be experienced as being washed in the blood of Christ. Getting out of my mind inspires intense imagination, I've had intense sensations that impressed me with the idea that The Christ approves. All is forgiven, all is well for every one and on and on. The story works, but I choose to distrust monotheism and don't mind pitching my tent in a heathen camp. In my dictionary a hypocrite is a christian who can't make friends with the devil, Praise Jesus, Hallelujah, Hail The Dark Lord and Amen.
-------------------- In every winter there's a different cold
in every winter I feel so old
so very old as the night
so very old as the dreadful cold
Well, when I used to use cannabis, I felt my brain awash in a sea of THC. It was good for reducing anxiety and existential angst, but the side effects outweighed the benefits, so I stopped using it and moved to meditation/contemplative prayer. Anxiety, caused by the guilty feelings of one's superego (religious training) diminishes as well. I don't think that religious guilt (e.g., offending God) has a real basis in reality, so guilt over smoking cannabis is neurotic guilt. True, one is 'guilty' of possessing a controlled substance in most places, but I never felt guilty under the laws of the land.
There is a book by Erich Neuman called Depth Psychology and a New Ethic. It calls for an integration of one's 'Shadow' into the greater whole of one's psyche. When people don't work on this process of integration, they project the Shadow (the unwanted aspects of oneself) onto other individuals, tribes, nationalities, or races. They also project those qualities on a presumed spiritual presence called the Devil/DIabolos/Satan/Shaitan, etc. Christians are not certainly alone in this.
Glory and hallelujah to that. Praise that devil Jesus. Everybody get stoned, this is the day the lord made. You know this religion is a lie, it's a forgery that's an excellent reason to love it and make use of it. Jesus speaks to me. Now angles fuck off so I can talk to my ancestors and hail the Old Gods. Hail to Wotan, Thor, Freyja and Heimdal. I'll take the pentagram and the hammer and raise it up beside the cross. Drinc-heil.
Uh...sure. Whatever. I think I'll just begin to read The Masks of God series that I collected a couple of years ago. Meanwhile, the central archetype of the Self is symbolized by Christ in the West and Buddha in the East. They both transcend the passion of our animal proclivities.
I've read Thomas Moores Re-Enchantment Of Everyday Life several times these last few days, in which he discards all notions of a literal transcending of anything, yet the book is a treasure of intriguing mystery. Odin is a divine entity with an enthusiasm for obtaining inspiration and wisdom (enlightenment), in Norse myth all things are impermanent. Eternal life is a psychedelic experience though, when I feel (know) that I am eternal and will never die. This feeling always reminds me of Christianity... Hmmm and now I have eternal life.
-------------------- In every winter there's a different cold
in every winter I feel so old
so very old as the night
so very old as the dreadful cold
I used to enjoy Moore's books. He writes well. But in person, in front of a church with no one but his female 'secretary,' me and my girlfriend, he was an arrogant prick ("I'm not signing autographs tonight"), while leering at my ex-girlfriend. I wouldn't take whatever he has to so say about transcendence. He reminded me of one of those legendary renegade monks who leaves the monastery and becomes as worldly as he can.
The aloof spirit of Marquis de Sade at home in his temple of domination. What are books and autographs but people and things? Fact is that the Moore (Most Subversive Potentate) is right, while many seem to have ass about face. What is the shroomery but a place to interact with people using the computer (thing)? It is not my purpose to literally transcend anything. What lies beyond that last thought? The next thought and the next, each new thought a vision to see beyond.
I noticed that I am having regular Christian experiences, strange how they happen so often with no belief. Instead of staring at plants and stars, I'm staring at a Church all night long. Voluntary keeping an eye. I fully believe in a variety of religious beliefs one at a time in a random sequence. The multiculturalism of it is difficult because I am sensitive to folk diversity and kind of feel that I should be loyal to something.
-------------------- In every winter there's a different cold
in every winter I feel so old
so very old as the night
so very old as the dreadful cold
Perhaps you're confusing loyalty with stability. It is my purpose to transcend, and to bring transcendental insights back down to share. It's the vertical and the horizontal movements of unity and then communication, in compassion. OM-AH-HUM.
Simple enough statement, but nevertheless pregnant with meaning.
There are many Christ concepts throughout Christendom, and everyone likes to think that their take is the correct view (orthodox). During the course of my own life, Christ has been in the form of a childhood story taught to me by my oldest friend, and illustrated by those Catholic Sacred Heart pictures, in unconscious doodling in high school, as a memorable dream from my freshman year in college, as a few powerful psychedelic experiences in my late teens/early 20s, as an intellectually recognized central archetype, as an overwhelming psychedelic-contemplative experience of "unbearable compassion" that pierced the center of my heart, as a subject of study during two years of Christian seminary experience, as the object of countless hours of speculation and contemplation. And once in a while, Christ may have been perceived as conjoined in mysterious fashion with a 1st century Judean peasant. But, only for brief periods in my lifetime have I believed the mythic Christ to have been a historical Y'shua ben Miriam, or Issa ben Miriam, or "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum," or Iesous, or Jesus.
The midrashic writings of the NT was the "milk," introduction in story-form, whereas the experienced Reality of Christ is the presence of "unbearable compassion" in one's Heart Center, or else Christ is nowhere at all. That is the "meat" of the matter. The metaphysical Logos of the author John which is translated as "Word," (and which John took from the writings of Philo of Alexandria), open up a whole other pre-Christian era of what Christ - 'anointed' - meant in antiquity. It is a far more profound metaphysic than any Christian literalist would care to grasp, even if they could. It means abandoning the sentimental attachments to Bible stories and subjecting those stories to the scrutiny of biblical hermeneutics, scriptural demythologizing, and a history of Judaism and Egyptian astrotheology. These are not the pursuits of the average Christian, it is the sole pursuit of the Christian Gnostic (or a Gnostic of any other persuasion, since Christ, 'anointed,' goes by different names in different traditions).
I also trust Christ. Jesus, on the other hand, either died long ago, or never existed as a historical person as described by midrash.
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It is my purpose to transcend, and to bring transcendental insights back down to share. It's the vertical and the horizontal movements of unity and then communication, in compassion. OM-AH-HUM.
