Did Jesus Exist?

[Habitat]

Just now, Will Due said:

 

Isn't it interesting what a religious "education" can do for a person. 

 

 

Well, it is a bit like when an old, well regarded jam-making company out here of long standing was bought out by a corporate raider, who promptly took out half the fruit, but nothing else changed. Must have been the old company's fault ?

[Will Due]

2 minutes ago, Piney said:

I never said I passed in grammar.

Drove my American English teachers nuts actually.  Switched to Tyke just to p*** on em. 

 

[Piney]

1 minute ago, Habitat said:

Well, it is a bit like when an old, well regarded jam-making company out here of long standing was bought out by a corporate raider, who promptly took out half the fruit, but nothing else changed. Must have been the old company's fault ?

Find out what historical Jesus taught yet? Here, let me help you.

Quote

But a further portent was even more alarming. Four years before the war, when the city was enjoying profound peace and prosperity, there came to the feast at which it is the custom of all Jews to erect tabernacles to God, one Jesus, son of Ananias, a rude peasant, who suddenly began to cry out, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the sanctuary, a voice against the bridegroom and the bride, a voice against all the people." Day and night he went about all the alleys with this cry on his lips. Some of the leading citizens, incensed at these ill-omened words, arrested the fellow and severely chastised him. But he, without a word on his own behalf or for the private ear of those who smote him, only continued his cries as before. Thereupon, the magistrates, supposing, as was indeed the case, that the man was under some supernatural impulse, brought him before the Roman governor; there, although flayed to the bone with scourges, he neither sued for mercy nor shed a tear, but, merely introducing the most mournful of variations into his utterances, responded to each lashing with "Woe to Jerusalem!" When Albinus, the governor, asked him who and whence he was and why he uttered these cries, he answered him never a word, but unceasingly reiterated his dirge over the city, until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go. During the whole period up to the outbreak of war he neither approached nor was seen talking to any of the citizens, but daily, like a prayer that he had conned, repeated his lament, "Woe to Jerusalem!" He neither cursed any of those who beat him from day to day, nor blessed those who offered him food: to all men that melancholy presage was his one reply. His cries were loudest at the festivals. So for seven years and five months he continued his wail, his voice never flagging nor his strength exhausted, until in the siege, having seen his presage verified, he found his rest. For, while going his round and shouting in piercing tones from the wall, "Woe once more to the city and to the people and to the temple," as he added a last word, "and woe to me also," a stone hurled from the ballista struck and killed him on the spot. So with those ominous words still upon his lips he passed away. – Book 6, Chapter 5, Section 3 of the historian Flavius Josephus' The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem ^[2]

 

[Habitat]

3 minutes ago, Piney said:

until Albinus pronounced him a maniac and let him go.

Sounds much like the modern mental health system

[Habitat]

14 minutes ago, Piney said:

I have friends who practice mystical, pacifistic Islam but that was a later evolution. 

Then there's that car crash in the Middle East. 

You like Rumi ?

[Piney]

Just now, Habitat said:

Sounds much like the modern mental health system

Me guessin  you scribe to that car crash of Zoroastrian and Greco-Buddhist thought that became Gnosticism.

Sorry Mate, Tis wasn't Jeebus. 

[Habitat]

Just now, Piney said:

Me guessin  you scribe to that car crash of Zoroastrian and Greco-Buddhist thought that became Gnosticism.

Sorry Mate, Tis wasn't Jeebus. 

I don't "subscribe" to much at all. People do have a great penchant for categorization, a quite useless thing in a quest where distinction has to be abolished.

[Piney]

Just now, Habitat said:

You like Rumi ?

My friend at the University of Tehran introduced me to him. He's quite alright.

But since Americans have made them our enemy and he was last heard protesting the government I lost contact. 

Shame, hope he's ok. He gave me a nice mention in his paper on the Andronovo Horizon. 

[Piney]

Just now, Habitat said:

I don't "subscribe" to much at all. People do have a great penchant for categorization, a quite useless thing in a quest where distinction has to be abolished.

Depends on the way it's abolished. Theosophists put a nasty twist on syncretism. 

[Habitat]

1 minute ago, Piney said:

Depends on the way it's abolished. Theosophists put a nasty twist on syncretism. 

When I go to the supermarket, I see an aisle with literally hundreds of types of bread. I think, "this is madness, whatever happened to the days of maybe half a dozen"  Humans have a great penchant for unnecessary diversification and complication.

[Piney]

10 minutes ago, Habitat said:

When I go to the supermarket, I see an aisle with literally hundreds of types of bread. I think, "this is madness, whatever happened to the days of maybe half a dozen"  Humans have a great penchant for unnecessary diversification and complication.

And they also distort things and make add ons, even outright lies.

Jesus was never in India. The man who invented that fiction admitted to it's hoax. Yet it's perpetuated. 

American Evangelicals even justify pious fraud aka "Lying for Jesus". 

[eight bits]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Ok First post of yours for a while with which i entirely agree  

Uh oh.

OK, here's the remaining problem. That defintition I default to (and @Sherapy's related one, too, I think) leaves something out that the guild wants in. Starting with the definition,

The personage whom Paul refers to as the Lord Jesus Christ in his seven accepted letters was a real man whom Paul believed to be a deceased contemporary.

There's nothing in Paul's letters that connects that man's life to the origins of the assemblies which Paul at first persecuted and then aspired to lead and expand. Decades pass before we read about "this man" being baptized, preaching, gathering disciples, sending them out to preach in his place, leading the whole crew to perform exorcisms, healings, mass feedings ... all of that is Gospel Jesus.

If we had only Paul. then we'd probably say that the religion started when Peter and a few others had visionary encounters with a revenant version of "that man." We would wonder how Peter and those others got together in the first place. Paul doesn't say.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind dramatizes one scenario where a collection of unrelated people "find each other" based on a common vision. Or maybe Peter was first and actively set out urging anybody who'd listen to share his vision, and his story shaped the dreams of some of his listeners.

There's little or nothing "mysterious" about like-minded visionaries finding each other, we just don't know the particulars for this case. We frame the question as Did Jesus exist? Like all ontological questions, the less demanding we are about what will pass for what we're asking about, the more nearly certain it is that somebody will pass. What's "at stake" in the question is whether there was a Jesus who set in motion, by overt acts of leadership before he died, the assemblies Paul knew.

"Gospel Jesus" offers a full-bodied myth. If, as Judas sings in Superstar, we strip away the myth from the man, what are we left with? Any man at all? Then the answer to the topic question is still yes. But unless the living man actually played a leading role in launching the religion, a "historical" figure not only in the sense of being flesh-and-blood, but also in the sense of being somebody whose words and deeds shaped subsequent events, then the answer might as well be no, for all the difference it would make.

 

 

[Alchopwn]

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Who says, and can prove, that it is ALL delusional?     

So what is more likely?  That we have a large group of people with mental problems, or we are harboring religious X men with religious superpowers they can't seem to demonstrate?

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

You are in error to believe that all such contact is unreal, non physical, and pure delusion or hallucination.

You are offering so much proof to the contrary.  Present count=0

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

This means that you have a choice to believe or disbelieve 

We live in a free country where you can believe the Earth is flat, but believing doesn't make it so.  I like facts.  I like things that I can clearly demonstrate and evidence I can reproduce independently.  I like peer review.  I like the scientific method.  Science works.  What is religion's excuse?

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

 There is a lot of sense in your post but there are two  aspects to this. Internal mental experiences, and external physical experiences. Both occur to humans

Correct, most people recognise an inner and an outer experience of the world.  Some people however suffer a mental defect where their inner life projects onto the world around them lending it a threatening dream-like quality, and this is part of the basis for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

ps cognitive control of your body is a good thing, compared to using external drugs etc You control and manipulate the chemicals, and the y are produced within your body This is safer than introducing external physical chemicals to alter brain states  Doctors are now using cognitive ability to reduce patient use of, and dependency on, addictive painkillers Perception of pain can be reduced by at least 50% by using cognitive discipline and control.  This can mean not having to prescribe physical opioids etc.

Well, strangely enough, I have managed to achieve a state where I can activate my body's morphine thru meditation.  It takes about 20 min.  It's just biofeedback.  I suspect anyone can do it.  When you get addicted to it and start imagining that you are experiencing a deity, and calling yourself a god-man, priest, or trying to make a buck off it, then we have a problem.  In fact society as a whole then has a problem.

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

It can even be used to greatly reduce chronic pain,  which often becomes predominantly mental rather than physical .    

Or you can become an addict and claim you are having religious experiences, and form a tax exempt all-natural "wholistic" (read totalitarian) meditation drug cult in West Virginia where you systematically enslave members.  It happens every few years. 

Religion sucks.  It needs to end. It certainly shouldn't be tax exempt.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Untrue. Many humans claim direct personal experience or contact with god(s) or their avatars/angels etc

Pics or it never happened.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

For me, scripture is just a  mix of (a little)  history, teaching stories, rules for good living, interwoven with the  presumed existence of a loving god 

Well clearly you don't understand the importance of scripture in Theology.  History from the Bible?  Nope.  Too many contradictions.  Rules for good living?  You must be kidding.  Presumed existence of a loving god?  So how does condemning humanity to the prospect of eternal hell for finite crimes gel with a loving god?  Your god is a monster, plain and simple.  Aren't you glad it doesn't exist?

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Tell me, how can you"disprove" anything in scripture ?  Its relatively easy to"disprove " the creation myth, but even that relies on some beliefs (ps I am a strict evolutionist) 

Well if you accept evolution, you must also understand that the whole story of Adam and Eve is about the origins of Original Sin, and that Jesus' great gift to humanity was to end Original Sin.  When you accept evolution, you dismiss Adam and Eve, as clearly you cannot have a species of 2 people that is genetically viable in evolutionary terms.  So if you don't believe in Adam and Eve, then Jesus literally died for nothing but his ambition to rule Judea as the anointed Messiah.

Also, let's talk about firmaments.  The word Firmament is a translation of the word "ceiling" in ancient Hebrew, and the people who wrote Genesis were under the misapprehension that their world had ceilings, and there were great doors that angels controlled to let in the weather (Book of Enoch).  Anyone who has been in an aircraft knows this isn't true.

Now an all-knowing god would know these errors, and a perfect god wouldn't put up with errors, and a benign god would never mislead us, and an all-powerful god would have the power to change these erroneous scriptures without us even knowing.  Errors in the Bible... In god's name... Ergo, there is no god.  Q.E.D.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

However, most of the rest is impossible to disprove, especially given that many humans today have their own miracles and contact experiences.

LOL, the church itself led the charge in dismissing miracles from its enthusiastic but stupid peasants where the use of Occam's Razor was popularised.  Now if I point out that statistically 20% of the population has a mental illness, I think I have gone a long way towards disproving miracles and contact experiences.  Religion means these poor individuals will be less likely to get appropriate treatment as their cult will tell them they are blessed, rather than they are crazy and need help.  Religion promotes ignorance.  Religion actually anthropomorphizes the god of the gaps (the gaps being human ignorance), and worships ignorance incarnate.  What greater sin than this?

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Plus, of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

Take that thinking to a murder trial and see how far you get.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

It is logical to disbelieve, but impossible to disprove, scripture, because such proofs also rely on beliefs eg that miracles do not occur,  or that there are no such entities as "gods " or anything resembling them.

I have already done so.  See above.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

mm !! science is getting there.  But then of course ,it won't be miraculous  

It was never miraculous.  Miracles are something that ignorant people hide behind so they don't have to "do their homework".  Ignorance is weakness.  Ignorance drags you down.  There is far more wonder to be gleaned in understanding physical systems that thru shrugging and saying "oh, it's a just another miracle".  Knowledge is the true enchantment, and always has been.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Gardiner has studied salamander regeneration for decades, seeking the underlying mechanism of the superpower. Human regeneration, he said, is likely still in the future, but not too far off — it's possible one of his current graduate students or postdoctoral researchers will crack it, and limb regeneration will be a part of the medical toolkit.

Exactly.  Science will produce "miracles" that cults never could.

[Alchopwn]

10 hours ago, Habitat said:

That rant has very little relevance to what I said, the fact remains that, at bottom, true religiosity has nothing to do with the adoration of human personalities like JC, in fact being wrapped up in the personality of another, any other, is an effective barrier to what I speak, these people stand as exemplars of the realisation of a potentiality inherent in all, and their message is intended to help others follow the path they followed, not follow them like a pet dog trundles after its master, because it is the master they want to be close to. 

So, you reject religion then?  Good.  

10 hours ago, Habitat said:

The true religiosity is the greatest science of all. It depends on rigorous adhesion to the truth, painstaking preparation of the experimental material , and the consummation of it involves complete dedication of available resources. The experiment, is YOU !

Question:  How can you find any objective truth in an entirely subjective experience?  There are no doubt many subjective truths to be found, but we all know what they're worth.  Also, isn't this all a bit Tony Robbins-ish?  

[Mr Walker]

2 hours ago, eight bits said:

Uh oh.

OK, here's the remaining problem. That defintition I default to (and @Sherapy's related one, too, I think) leaves something out that the guild wants in. Starting with the definition,

The personage whom Paul refers to as the Lord Jesus Christ in his seven accepted letters was a real man whom Paul believed to be a deceased contemporary.

There's nothing in Paul's letters that connects that man's life to the origins of the assemblies which Paul at first persecuted and then aspired to lead and expand. Decades pass before we read about "this man" being baptized, preaching, gathering disciples, sending them out to preach in his place, leading the whole crew to perform exorcisms, healings, mass feedings ... all of that is Gospel Jesus.

If we had only Paul. then we'd probably say that the religion started when Peter and a few others had visionary encounters with a revenant version of "that man." We would wonder how Peter and those others got together in the first place. Paul doesn't say.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind dramatizes one scenario where a collection of unrelated people "find each other" based on a common vision. Or maybe Peter was first and actively set out urging anybody who'd listen to share his vision, and his story shaped the dreams of some of his listeners.

There's little or nothing "mysterious" about like-minded visionaries finding each other, we just don't know the particulars for this case. We frame the question as Did Jesus exist? Like all ontological questions, the less demanding we are about what will pass for what we're asking about, the more nearly certain it is that somebody will pass. What's "at stake" in the question is whether there was a Jesus who set in motion, by overt acts of leadership before he died, the assemblies Paul knew.

"Gospel Jesus" offers a full-bodied myth. If, as Judas sings in Superstar, we strip away the myth from the man, what are we left with? Any man at all? Then the answer to the topic question is still yes. But unless the living man actually played a leading role in launching the religion, a "historical" figure not only in the sense of being flesh-and-blood, but also in the sense of being somebody whose words and deeds shaped subsequent events, then the answer might as well be no, for all the difference it would make.

 

 

Only problem with that is that Paul knew christians and, as Saul, was persecuting them 

There is absolutely no evidence, nor reason to believe, that he saw some OTHER avatar of some OTHER  god on the road to damascus.

He knew that christ had supposedly ascended back to heaven after his death and resurrection on earth. But until he had his gnosis he simply didn't believe this  

Indeed he adapted judaic christianity into Pauline christianity, rather than creating it form his own experience   

You are really imagining a whole new hypothesis which contradicts known history. 

It is certainly a way of accepting the undeniable  historical existence of paul, while denying  that this means that christ was a real person; and i suspect this is why your version appeals to you

Doesn't paul  (in  galatians somewhere)  speak about meeting with Cephas(Peter) and  James(the brother of christ) ?      

I know that some mythicists claim this just meant brother in the spiritual sense but the term is used more precisely than that  (In the greek it means fraternal brother)   And even if not so, how are you the spiritual brother of a man who never existed? 

This was the physical man we call jesus, who was the initiator of the jewish theology (call it a "reformed judaism" for the first 20 years or so) which paul adapted to become  early christian theology  Christ never intended a new religion. He wanted to reform judaism. But after his encounter, paul saw a wider theology that could be followed  by any person .

In a sense i agree with you 

"the religion" began after christs death when peter paul and others (hate to say  "and mary")  began organising an existing cult following of christ's  followers into a new divergent theology.  Christ was born, lived, and died as a jew. Christianity evolved slowly in the decades after his death  i doubt that, if he returned today, Christ would recognise much of current christian teaching, or church structures, although some of the most basic and important beliefs remain embedded, both in biblical christianity and in judaism   

Edited January 26, 2020 by Mr Walker

[Mr Walker]

2 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

So what is more likely?  That we have a large group of people with mental problems, or we are harboring religious X men with religious superpowers they can't seem to demonstrate?

You are offering so much proof to the contrary.  Present count=0

We live in a free country where you can believe the Earth is flat, but believing doesn't make it so.  I like facts.  I like things that I can clearly demonstrate and evidence I can reproduce independently.  I like peer review.  I like the scientific method.  Science works.  What is religion's excuse?

Correct, most people recognise an inner and an outer experience of the world.  Some people however suffer a mental defect where their inner life projects onto the world around them lending it a threatening dream-like quality, and this is part of the basis for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Well, strangely enough, I have managed to achieve a state where I can activate my body's morphine thru meditation.  It takes about 20 min.  It's just biofeedback.  I suspect anyone can do it.  When you get addicted to it and start imagining that you are experiencing a deity, and calling yourself a god-man, priest, or trying to make a buck off it, then we have a problem.  In fact society as a whole then has a problem.

Or you can become an addict and claim you are having religious experiences, and form a tax exempt all-natural "wholistic" (read totalitarian) meditation drug cult in West Virginia where you systematically enslave members.  It happens every few years. 

Religion sucks.  It needs to end. It certainly shouldn't be tax exempt.

Pics or it never happened.

Well clearly you don't understand the importance of scripture in Theology.  History from the Bible?  Nope.  Too many contradictions.  Rules for good living?  You must be kidding.  Presumed existence of a loving god?  So how does condemning humanity to the prospect of eternal hell for finite crimes gel with a loving god?  Your god is a monster, plain and simple.  Aren't you glad it doesn't exist?

Well if you accept evolution, you must also understand that the whole story of Adam and Eve is about the origins of Original Sin, and that Jesus' great gift to humanity was to end Original Sin.  When you accept evolution, you dismiss Adam and Eve, as clearly you cannot have a species of 2 people that is genetically viable in evolutionary terms.  So if you don't believe in Adam and Eve, then Jesus literally died for nothing but his ambition to rule Judea as the anointed Messiah.

Also, let's talk about firmaments.  The word Firmament is a translation of the word "ceiling" in ancient Hebrew, and the people who wrote Genesis were under the misapprehension that their world had ceilings, and there were great doors that angels controlled to let in the weather (Book of Enoch).  Anyone who has been in an aircraft knows this isn't true.

Now an all-knowing god would know these errors, and a perfect god wouldn't put up with errors, and a benign god would never mislead us, and an all-powerful god would have the power to change these erroneous scriptures without us even knowing.  Errors in the Bible... In god's name... Ergo, there is no god.  Q.E.D.

LOL, the church itself led the charge in dismissing miracles from its enthusiastic but stupid peasants where the use of Occam's Razor was popularised.  Now if I point out that statistically 20% of the population has a mental illness, I think I have gone a long way towards disproving miracles and contact experiences.  Religion means these poor individuals will be less likely to get appropriate treatment as their cult will tell them they are blessed, rather than they are crazy and need help.  Religion promotes ignorance.  Religion actually anthropomorphizes the god of the gaps (the gaps being human ignorance), and worships ignorance incarnate.  What greater sin than this?

Take that thinking to a murder trial and see how far you get.

I have already done so.  See above.

It was never miraculous.  Miracles are something that ignorant people hide behind so they don't have to "do their homework".  Ignorance is weakness.  Ignorance drags you down.  There is far more wonder to be gleaned in understanding physical systems that thru shrugging and saying "oh, it's a just another miracle".  Knowledge is the true enchantment, and always has been.

Exactly.  Science will produce "miracles" that cults never could.

Both are true  

Its not about presenting proofs or evidences to you. It is about  the existence of such proofs and evidences in OTHER humans' lives  

Sorry but where you lack knowldge only the capacity for belief (including disbelief) remains. You can choose either  and should do so based on what produces the most positive and constructive outcomes for you.  

LOL belief/faith, and the organised form of those, (religion) works  very effectively, a s modern science and medicine testify.

A prudent and intelligent man would make the most of BOTH systems of thought.

I am not sure you can technically become an addict to natural chemicals which you call upon your body to produce. ie it requires conscious thought skill and will power to do this, which reduces the chance of addiction  Unlike when you take an external chemical  However if these caused harm i would agree with you. 

after many years of effort i basically manged total control over my body through my mind Ive been doing this for 50 plus years without any problems 

Its true that any and every personal and unwitnessed  experience by anyone should be reality checked  check. I reality check  consistently  every day and night    However most of us don't habitually check to see if we are dreaming, hallucinating, or experiencing the real world accurately. I do, and have done since pre school

One specialist in Hospital after a major heart operation was staggered that i could not only recognise and understand drug induced hallucinations from powerful painkillers   but could consciously construct barriers to them, to dismiss them, and to maintain a true sense of perception.

At first this just meant recognising the hallucinations, getting p***ed a t them, and ignoring them, but after a couple of weeks of practice and disciplined mental control   i was able to compartmentalise my mind and shift the hallucinations into a section which i then closed off   He had never met anyone capable of doing that but i explained  that i had bee experimenting with my mind for over 65 years. 

 

lol religion will never end.  It is the formalised structure representing evolved human cognition including belief and faith It is basically good for people and both liberating and empowering. 

However religions are conservative, slow to adapt and some have harmful practices I dont have a religion but i live by a set of principles which are good for me and those around me   They began as secular humanist principles in my atheist years but many biblical principles are identical  I use bits of, buddhism jainism christianity judaism  Gaeism and humanism  

My personal  advice  (generic) would be not to join a religion, but connect directly to "god" and adapt your life to suit yourself and your perception of god 

Your interpretation of the bible is not biblical but theological (ike i said that can be one of the problems of religions) the bible promises eternal life to believers and death to those who do not believe It does NOT promise hell.  It says that, at present, all dead humans are sleeping in their graves not in heaven or hell  

But anyway that is just theology  

I live by biblical principles including diet because modern science and medicine says this is the healthiest way to live, to be happy, well adjusted, and long lived. 

My "god does exist and it is not a monster. it is loving protective  caring and wise

I am a person of the 21st century not the first  I  stopped keeping slaves, and beating my wife, many reincarnations ago    (i must be doing something right My wife and i have had a loving and loyal relationship for 47  years, and been married for  44,  from last week. ) 

genesis is a creation myth.

Personally, i think it was written as humans were first transiting from  a hunter gatherer lifestyle requiring  a close spiritual connection to the world, to an agrarian lifestyle where knowledge and skills were important.

The story of the tree of knowledge is an analogy of how we can lose our spiritual  selves if we become reliant on material things and is about the transition from a natural pardise to a world created by man.

It also seeks to explain something ealry peole recognised.

We know good from  evil and the consequences of both. Yet still we often choose evil. Why ? Without a modern understanding of psychology and evolution from a primate past,genesis explains this dichotomy 

All powerful all knowing entities are physically impossible, hence they dont exist.

However the beings we know as gods DO exist  Hence they maybe wise and powerful, buthe y are not all knowing all present or all powerful.

The y are either evolved beings like us OR  artificial intelligences designed with specific purposes   

 

LOL miracles and interventions by the cosmic consciousness are real and physical, as is the power it can give people. If it was NOT real my wife and i would be dead a few times

Non belief is logical unless oyu have personal experience Then, both belief and disbelief are impossible, and are replaced by knowledge  

And NO these are not delusions or hallucinations they are real (Ie physica) witnessed interventions by a powerful entity 

(but of course you have no reason to believe me and thus, logically, will not   )    

Ps i am one of the 13 or 17 percent of humans who seems to be immune from  depression anxiety or mental  illness (based on a big longitudinal study of peope in New zealand)   I am 68 years old and have never experienced any of those things in my adult life, for even a moment.     

Miracles are simply real events or occurrences for which we currently have no scientific explanation In my opinion, if the y are  real then the y have a physical explanation For m that is the application of advanced "alien" technologies  which appear as miracles Today we can begin to see the science behind them but for all of human history they have been inexplicable and thus miraculous  They include mind to mind communication, instantaneous  teleportation of things and people,   advanced  skills in non invasive   healing, and the abilty to record and store a person's  memories and thus identity.   Given current advances in human science we will be using all those technologies ourselves  before the end of this century   

Edited January 26, 2020 by Mr Walker

[Habitat]

1 hour ago, Alchopwn said:

So, you reject religion then?  Good.  

Question:  How can you find any objective truth in an entirely subjective experience?  There are no doubt many subjective truths to be found, but we all know what they're worth.  Also, isn't this all a bit Tony Robbins-ish?  

To find what animated the people that were the spark of all the great religions, there is no other way. They all trod that same path. The divergence into the multiplicity of interpretations that people have put on these God-illumined beings, that comes after them, is another matter entirely, but largely attempted rationalizations of that which is really beyond the rational.

[Alchopwn]

37 minutes ago, Habitat said:

To find what animated the people that were the spark of all the great religions, there is no other way. They all trod that same path. The divergence into the multiplicity of interpretations that people have put on these God-illumined beings, that comes after them, is another matter entirely, but largely attempted rationalizations of that which is really beyond the rational.

Umm... Buddha didn't believe in God, at least, not as a moral authority, but rather as an ignorant butcher.  Lao Tzu certainly never described a loving personal god.  And Confucius wasn't even much interested in asking such questions.  It is really only the monotheists who get hung up on the need for gods.   As for rationalizing the irrational, yes, we have done it, it is called psychology and it is very good for treating mental disorders.

[Mr Walker]

1 hour ago, Alchopwn said:

So, you reject religion then?  Good.  

Question:  How can you find any objective truth in an entirely subjective experience?  There are no doubt many subjective truths to be found, but we all know what they're worth.  Also, isn't this all a bit Tony Robbins-ish?  

Philosophy 101 If you  stub your toe on a rock is real.

if a fellow philosopher  claims that nothing is real, all is subjective, throw the rock at him.    for a human ONLY subjective truth is real but in a mentally well person, subjective truth is a good match for objective truth.  Ie you feel the pain  While the painisinpart subjective it   indicates that  the rock has an objective existence  You can't prove the rock is real, and that you  are in pain, based only on your  subjective experience, yet you know it to be so    But when you hit   your fellow philosopher with the same rock, his response is both telling and evidential.  

[Habitat]

1 minute ago, Alchopwn said:

Umm... Buddha didn't believe in God, at least, not as a moral authority, but rather as an ignorant butcher.  Lao Tzu certainly never described a loving personal god.  And Confucius wasn't even much interested in asking such questions.  It is really only the monotheists who get hung up on the need for gods.   As for rationalizing the irrational, yes, we have done it, it is called psychology and it is very good for treating mental disorders.

I use the term "God" without qualification, because any concept is bound to be totally inadequate. If you have any kind of pre-conception, you won't be communing with God. I am amazed that seemingly intelligent people cannot move beyond moronic God conceptions, let alone "any".

[Mr Walker]

16 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

Umm... Buddha didn't believe in God, at least, not as a moral authority, but rather as an ignorant butcher.  Lao Tzu certainly never described a loving personal god.  And Confucius wasn't even much interested in asking such questions.  It is really only the monotheists who get hung up on the need for gods.   As for rationalizing the irrational, yes, we have done it, it is called psychology and it is very good for treating mental disorders.

Buddha may not have believed in a personal  god as found in abrahamic ic religions But He believed in a  being/entity   we could also describe as  a god Similarly early humans had lots of gods and saw them as interwoven into the material world eg the dalai lama rejects evolution because he sees intelligence in the universe not just random chance   Buddhists, maybe wisely,  tend to avoid cerin contentious issues as distractions  While the y dont believe in either evolution, or creationism in the sense that christians do, the y believe the universe   is constantly being recreated One might argue tha t buddhism cliams tha t gods exist in human minds 

quote

In the Aggañña Sutta, the 27th Sutta of the Digha Nikaya collection that can be found in the Pali Canon, the Buddha gives a highly detailed answer to this question of evolution. The Buddha, speaking to the monk Vasettha, a former Brahmin, states the following:

‘There comes a time, Vasetha, when, sooner or later after a long period this world contracts. At a time of contraction, beings are mostly born in the Abhasara Brahma world. And there they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self luminous, moving through the space, glorious—and they stay like that for a very long time. But sooner or later, after a very long period, this world begins to expand again. At a time of expansion, the beings from the Abhasara Brahma world, having passed away from there, are mostly reborn in this world. Here they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious— and they stay like that for a very long time.

At that period, Vasetha, there was just one mass of water, and all was darkness, blinding darkness. Neither moon nor sun appeared, no constellations or stars appeared, night and day were not yet distinguished, nor months and fortnights, nor years and seasons; there was no male and female, beings being reckoned just as beings. And sooner or later, after a very long period of time, savory earth spread itself over the waters where those beings were. It looked just like the skin that forms itself over hot milk as it cools. It was endowed with color, smell, and taste. It was the color of fine ghee or butter and it was very sweet, like pure wild honey.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_evolution

The bolded bit sounds a lot like "god beings", and indeed like the "beings of light"  which preceded christianity then reappeared in it as angels.  

Edited January 26, 2020 by Mr Walker

[eight bits]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Only problem with that is that Paul knew christians and, as Saul, was persecuting them 

Why is that a problem? Paul doesn't call them Christians of course, but assemblies of God whose leaders have had the same type of visionary experience as he eventually had.

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

There is absolutely no evidence, nor reason to believe, that he saw some OTHER avatar of some OTHER  god on the road to damascus.

And where in Paul's letters may I find anything about an unusual happening on the road to Damascus? That's only in Acts which to my mind is often-overlooked evidence in the case surrounding the mythical-or-historical Jesus.

"Luke" is visibly doing for Paul in volume 2, Acts, what he did for Jesus in volume 1, the Gospel. He's inventing a backstory for the characters he found sketched in Paul's letters. It's a lot easier to make up travelogues and speeches for Paul, since the letters already include some of those, but miracle stories, trouncing of enemies in debate, trial scenes, a dispute with merchants about temple commerce, drawing big crowds - even being proclaimed a god... Yup: Acts : Paul as Luke : Jesus.

It's interesting evidence, too, because Acts doesn't just add to Paul's letters, it also removes other things, and "smooths over" still other things (e.g. how Paul and long-time companion Barnabas went their separate ways). That's what movie people do today when they make a "biopic." It sheds light on what the evangelists did when they invented Gospel Jesus.

And it is dead-mouse-on-the-kitchen-floor evidence that at least one evangelist did invent improvements on his primary sources.

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

It is certainly a way of accepting the undeniable  historical existence of paul, while denying  that this means that christ was a real person; and i suspect this is why your version appeals to you

The logic of this statement escapes me. I am morally certain that Joseph Smith existed in the 19th Century United States and its territories. I am equally certain that the angel Moroni did not exist, neither as the celestial being Smith envisioned, nor as the earlier human being Moroni revealed to Smith that he had been. Same deal for Mohammed and Gabriel (speaking of characters in Luke whom "Luke" added to what's in Paul's letters).

Why would a historical Paul and a celestial Jesus give anybody pause?

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Doesn't paul  (in  galatians somewhere)  speak about meeting with Cephas(Peter) and  James(the brother of christ) ? 

Yes, the first two chapters (if I spot you the differences among brother of Jesus and brother of Christ, which you have been repeatedly asked to respect here, and brother of the Lord, which is the religious title Paul used for the James in question).

And ...?

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

I know that some mythicists claim this just meant brother in the spiritual sense but the term is used more precisely than that  (In the greek it means fraternal brother)   And even if not so, how are you the spiritual brother of a man who never existed? 

Caligula believed himself to be a brother of the gods, maybe he can answer your question.

In very brief compass, my personal view is that the phrase the brother of the Lord  is a distinction within the ranks of apostles, which by the time of the letters ranged from subsidized emissaries appointed by the assemblies all the way up to Peter and Paul themselves, personally appointed by the risen Christ Jesus to serve huge designated portions of humanity for life. (I'm happy to record my disagreement with Carrier on this point, that in his view, the James of Galatians' first Jerusalem meeting wasn't an apostle at all, and that Paul's phrase tboL meant "rank-and-file Christian" of no special interest to Paul or his reader, except that he happened to be onsite when nobody else was except Peter.)

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by eight bits

[+Sherapy]

9 hours ago, Piney said:

I never said I passed in grammar.

Drove my American English teachers nuts actually.  Switched to Tyke just to p*** on em. 

Grammar is not my strong suit either, and with that being said this doesn’t take away one ounce of your intelligence or your ability to articulate.

How many languages do you speak, Piney? 

[+Sherapy]

6 hours ago, eight bits said:

Uh oh.

OK, here's the remaining problem. That defintition I default to (and @Sherapy's related one, too, I think) leaves something out that the guild wants in. Starting with the definition,

The personage whom Paul refers to as the Lord Jesus Christ in his seven accepted letters was a real man whom Paul believed to be a deceased contemporary.

There's nothing in Paul's letters that connects that man's life to the origins of the assemblies which Paul at first persecuted and then aspired to lead and expand. Decades pass before we read about "this man" being baptized, preaching, gathering disciples, sending them out to preach in his place, leading the whole crew to perform exorcisms, healings, mass feedings ... all of that is Gospel Jesus.

If we had only Paul. then we'd probably say that the religion started when Peter and a few others had visionary encounters with a revenant version of "that man." We would wonder how Peter and those others got together in the first place. Paul doesn't say.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind dramatizes one scenario where a collection of unrelated people "find each other" based on a common vision. Or maybe Peter was first and actively set out urging anybody who'd listen to share his vision, and his story shaped the dreams of some of his listeners.

There's little or nothing "mysterious" about like-minded visionaries finding each other, we just don't know the particulars for this case. We frame the question as Did Jesus exist? Like all ontological questions, the less demanding we are about what will pass for what we're asking about, the more nearly certain it is that somebody will pass. What's "at stake" in the question is whether there was a Jesus who set in motion, by overt acts of leadership before he died, the assemblies Paul knew.

"Gospel Jesus" offers a full-bodied myth. If, as Judas sings in Superstar, we strip away the myth from the man, what are we left with? Any man at all? Then the answer to the topic question is still yes. But unless the living man actually played a leading role in launching the religion, a "historical" figure not only in the sense of being flesh-and-blood, but also in the sense of being somebody whose words and deeds shaped subsequent events, then the answer might as well be no, for all the difference it would make.

 

 

Excellent post.

[+Sherapy]

4 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Both are true  

Its not about presenting proofs or evidences to you. It is about  the existence of such proofs and evidences in OTHER humans' lives  

Sorry but where you lack knowldge only the capacity for belief (including disbelief) remains. You can choose either  and should do so based on what produces the most positive and constructive outcomes for you.  

LOL belief/faith, and the organised form of those, (religion) works  very effectively, a s modern science and medicine testify.

A prudent and intelligent man would make the most of BOTH systems of thought.

I am not sure you can technically become an addict to natural chemicals which you call upon your body to produce. ie it requires conscious thought skill and will power to do this, which reduces the chance of addiction  Unlike when you take an external chemical  However if these caused harm i would agree with you. 

after many years of effort i basically manged total control over my body through my mind Ive been doing this for 50 plus years without any problems 

Its true that any and every personal and unwitnessed  experience by anyone should be reality checked  check. I reality check  consistently  every day and night    However most of us don't habitually check to see if we are dreaming, hallucinating, or experiencing the real world accurately. I do, and have done since pre school

One specialist in Hospital after a major heart operation was staggered that i could not only recognise and understand drug induced hallucinations from powerful painkillers   but could consciously construct barriers to them, to dismiss them, and to maintain a true sense of perception.

At first this just meant recognising the hallucinations, getting p***ed a t them, and ignoring them, but after a couple of weeks of practice and disciplined mental control   i was able to compartmentalise my mind and shift the hallucinations into a section which i then closed off   He had never met anyone capable of doing that but i explained  that i had bee experimenting with my mind for over 65 years. 

 

lol religion will never end.  It is the formalised structure representing evolved human cognition including belief and faith It is basically good for people and both liberating and empowering. 

However religions are conservative, slow to adapt and some have harmful practices I dont have a religion but i live by a set of principles which are good for me and those around me   They began as secular humanist principles in my atheist years but many biblical principles are identical  I use bits of, buddhism jainism christianity judaism  Gaeism and humanism  

My personal  advice  (generic) would be not to join a religion, but connect directly to "god" and adapt your life to suit yourself and your perception of god 

Your interpretation of the bible is not biblical but theological (ike i said that can be one of the problems of religions) the bible promises eternal life to believers and death to those who do not believe It does NOT promise hell.  It says that, at present, all dead humans are sleeping in their graves not in heaven or hell  

But anyway that is just theology  

I live by biblical principles including diet because modern science and medicine says this is the healthiest way to live, to be happy, well adjusted, and long lived. 

My "god does exist and it is not a monster. it is loving protective  caring and wise

I am a person of the 21st century not the first  I  stopped keeping slaves, and beating my wife, many reincarnations ago    (i must be doing something right My wife and i have had a loving and loyal relationship for 47  years, and been married for  44,  from last week. ) 

genesis is a creation myth.

Personally, i think it was written as humans were first transiting from  a hunter gatherer lifestyle requiring  a close spiritual connection to the world, to an agrarian lifestyle where knowledge and skills were important.

The story of the tree of knowledge is an analogy of how we can lose our spiritual  selves if we become reliant on material things and is about the transition from a natural pardise to a world created by man.

It also seeks to explain something ealry peole recognised.

We know good from  evil and the consequences of both. Yet still we often choose evil. Why ? Without a modern understanding of psychology and evolution from a primate past,genesis explains this dichotomy 

All powerful all knowing entities are physically impossible, hence they dont exist.

However the beings we know as gods DO exist  Hence they maybe wise and powerful, buthe y are not all knowing all present or all powerful.

The y are either evolved beings like us OR  artificial intelligences designed with specific purposes   

 

LOL miracles and interventions by the cosmic consciousness are real and physical, as is the power it can give people. If it was NOT real my wife and i would be dead a few times

Non belief is logical unless oyu have personal experience Then, both belief and disbelief are impossible, and are replaced by knowledge  

And NO these are not delusions or hallucinations they are real (Ie physica) witnessed interventions by a powerful entity 

(but of course you have no reason to believe me and thus, logically, will not   )    

Ps i am one of the 13 or 17 percent of humans who seems to be immune from  depression anxiety or mental  illness (based on a big longitudinal study of peope in New zealand)   I am 68 years old and have never experienced any of those things in my adult life, for even a moment.     

Miracles are simply real events or occurrences for which we currently have no scientific explanation In my opinion, if the y are  real then the y have a physical explanation For m that is the application of advanced "alien" technologies  which appear as miracles Today we can begin to see the science behind them but for all of human history they have been inexplicable and thus miraculous  They include mind to mind communication, instantaneous  teleportation of things and people,   advanced  skills in non invasive   healing, and the abilty to record and store a person's  memories and thus identity.   Given current advances in human science we will be using all those technologies ourselves  before the end of this century   

I think you need a vacation, get out and see the world. It would be good for you. IMHO.

“Miracles are simply real events or occurrences for which we currently have no scientific explanation” ( Mr Walker).  

Do you have an example?
 

A common obstacle of most with any kind of mental is illness is to refuse to get help and argue  they don’t have anything wrong.

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Sherapy