"There is heavy evidence that these miracles took place..."
This statement defines the depth of delusory thinking. It is not grounded in your experience, it is a statement based upon an irrational assumption which is no doubt taken to be faith.
"What's disgusting is how anyone would have the audacity to inform me..."
This statement amply defines the inflationary ego of one who imagines that he has great spiritual authority. The use of the word "audacity" is the choice of an ego which feels challenged by another ego because the person is so identified with his egoic-mind, to wit, his 'thoughts.' It also places itself above "anyone," which is to say, that egoic-mind's inflationary state is expression superiority over "anyone."
These two terse statements are more than sufficient to render the poster's entire communication useless in any meaningful, mutually respecting communication. It is not a communication of divergent religious opinion, it is a veritable temper tantrum with inflationary condescension:
"What kind of a statement is this, from someone who calls himself elder and wishes to hold historical criticisms of Christianity."
I call myself an elder by virtue of my chronological years on the planet which obviously exceeds your own by many. As an elder I have had more time, under a variety of trying inner and outer circumstances of life, to come to certain conclusions. I was once taken in by the massive delusion from which humanity suffers, as you still are. I have Awakened from the delusion that mythological and midrashic embellishments were somehow miraculous historical events. Hopefully you too will awaken from the hazy twilight world of unconscious hopes and fears which calls itself 'faith,' and a new adult version of faith will emerge from a mere mental condition of wish-fulfillment. No friend, the graves were not thrown open, and reanimated corpses did not walk again on Earth when Iesus died on a Roman cross. And btw, THIS little passage really overtakes the 'unique' importance of the Easter [Ishtar] Sunday Resurrection in the flesh, if only by shear numbers of Resurrected humans. Resurrection might be illustrated thusly, but it remains a metaphor for THE Transcendental Mystery of Eternal Life, not a grotesquely crude literal event and the inspiration for film maker George A. Romero!
“Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks were split; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that slept were raised; and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." - Matthew 27:51
I'm sorry for you if you live your life believing writings like this as being historical, but Matthew 27:51 (for example), is not an historical event, and if you can not assertain this then your reality testing is severely compromized. It is midrash, or it is visionary or it is a public relations attempt by the gospel writer to win more converts, but it is not recorded history. Neither are the theophanies of the Old Testament: pillars of smoke and fire, parting of the Red Sea as Cecil B. Demille created it with Charleton Heston as Moses.
I am not interested in arguing with you or with anyone whose mind has confused midrash/mthos with historicity. I have been where you are and have matured into an elder human being. Losts of people do not mature, they just get older and retain the same inner development of youth. You still require 'supernatural events' in your mind in order to support your faith in God. I do not. Everyday existence, in the face of non-existence, is miraculous. You do not live in the Present, you live in your thoughts about a magickal past and a magickal future. I hold to a 'Fully Realized Eschatology,' and you hold to a 'Partially Realized Eschatology,' with a fulfillment to occur at some unknown point in future history with all the 'movements' of spiritual life manifesting as historical events (Second Coming, Rapture, Judgement, etc.). I do not hold to these processes as referring to physical reality.
I therefore subscribe to a Gnostic Christianity, a Christianity which is making a comeback after its suppression for two millennia, along with its egalitarian treatment of women and its tolerance for other religious traditions. This is possible because Gnostic Christians identify with Being [Spirit] and not with Mind [Psyche] which is comprised of our sensations, emotions and thoughts, and thoughts are not the basis of Salvation (Illumination, Enlightenment) so it matters little what one 'thinks' (believes). What matters is that one's Awareness of Awareness produces a Compassionate and therefore a tolerant and peace-loving human being regardless of the mere scaffolding of beliefs which the spiritually immature require in the building of life of faith. Gnostic Christianity is a mystical spirituality which recognizes Being [Spirit, God] in other human beings, not only those who wear the same 'thinking cap' as we do. God, friend, is not Christian and Gnostic Christians do not 'believe' that beliefs are a vessel for containing Ultimate Truth. If anything, beliefs are a cage which hold partial truths and worship of those partial truths is idolatry and a false god. Worship thoughts, which is what beliefs are, and you worship an idol.
This then is my position. It applies to my own occasional idolatry which I must become aware of and scrape like an encrustation from the Pearl of Pure Being (the Biblical metaphor is "a pearl of great price" - metaphor). This is the Gnostic interpretation of who Iesus was and what He taught based more on personal spiritual experience than upon the written words of 1st century PR men for Christianity (and not for the Reality which is Christ). I have no interest in converting you, I am only interested in helping someone who requests my help in explaining an alternative and transforming vision of Christianity.
Clearly, mainstream Christianity has done little good and much harm across the centuries. Even today, a bigot in the White House under the guise of being a Christian is the provebial wolf in sheep's clothing, deceiving all the other bigots in the USA and evoking a world-wide hatred that will lead us to Armageddon. Now THERE is one historical event that will earn the Biblical name! THERE is will I will agree with the historical outcome of fundamentalistic bigotry resulting in the Four Riders of the Apocalypse: Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Thermonuclear death to us all. All in the Name of God.
Respond if you wish, but I have little inclination to engage with you in any further dialogue on whose Iesus is the more Realistic, or better yet, on which of us has a better grasp on Reality.
+++ Shalom +++
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (11/18/07 09:16 AM)
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