Did Jesus Exist?

[Mr Walker]

2 hours ago, Sherapy said:

Crikey, your post is a rationalization it doesn’t address the issue of the logical and evidential problem of evil. 

God cannot be infinite perfection and allow for the aforementioned problems. 
 

God cannot be all good and allow for genocide, abuse, terrorism, etc.
 

it is illogical. 

Philosophically, if perfect, god would HAVE to allow for evil, by allowing for free will.

Removing free will, to achieve perfection in a created being,  would be a greater act of evil than allowing humans to behave  badly, or choose to behave In a good way.   

[Mr Walker]

2 hours ago, Hammerclaw said:

Does anyone seriously believe that something that could have created the Cosmos is bound by the petty morals and disciplines conceived by the microbial inhabitants of a nondescript little world circling an unremarkable little star on the fringes of one in a billion billion galaxies?

 

 

Nup, but I do believe that  any evolved sentience, including that of a god, will develop a set of values which are logical, rational, and productive.

Self  aware intelligence enables, and in a sense compels,  the construction of values and beliefs.   If a god has a mind like ours then it will think like us  However wisdom and knowldge also evolve and grow those values and beliefs. 

[eight bits]

5 hours ago, Piney said:

I'm not really dead set either but I would hesitate to guess these folks had something to do with it along with the Nazarenes. 

One of the interesting ideas the guild has is literary "strata" by analogy to geology and archeology's physical layers. When they apply it to the Q sayings, they end up with something like the Koran when its sermons are re-sorted into chronological order: different problems and different approaches to problems crop up depending on where Mohammed was at the time the recital was given.

Putting aside that such stratification is evidence of a collection that was built up over decades (while Q sayings supposedly accumulated over at most three years), the estimated-oldest stratum isn't very distinctively "Christian," but garden-variety Jewish. Elsewhere in the canon, Hebrews and maybe James have that quality: whisk away a few occasional Christly references, and you have a just plain Jewish sermon. And we have a black-letter before-and-after example of such Christian cosmetology in the Nag Hammadi library, Eugnostos and Sophia of Jesus Christ.

Damn there's a lot of smoke there. If only we could get the guild to acknowledge just maybe something might be burning, we might be able to make some game-changing progress together.

[Rlyeh]

7 hours ago, Crikey said:

 

This planet is a "football pitch", God created it and put us (the players) on it

And gives us a bull**** account of how he did it.

God thinks humans can build a tower to heaven for **** sake.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Rlyeh

[eight bits]

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Paul was working to  change judaic christianity to gentile christianity 

Actually, he was working to expand the movement by integrating Gentiles into it. Nothing happened during Paul's lifetime that made it inevitable that Gentile Christianity would someday become the only Christianity. Paul accepted the logic of his position: if his own appointment to the apostolate was valid, then so was Rocky's. Based on Galatians 2:14 ("If you [Peter-Cephas "Rocky"] being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, ..."), the Jewish Christians had already distanced themselves from some traditional Second Temple Jewish practices without Paul's help. Your beloved Acts portrays its Peter as having observance-loosening visions on his own before Paul even shows up in the story.

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

(if you had encountered one or more angels you would be less likely to disbelieve Moroni's existence.  but it would still be a matter of belief) 

I walk with dogs. Of course I believe in angels. It's just that no dog has yet told me that in an earlier life, he was an ancient Jewish Native American.

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

It doesn't explain pre pauline  (judaic) christianity It does not allow for the historical references to christ and the followers of christ 

Um, all sources including himself agree that there was a movement in full career before Paul took an interest in the movement. It follows that his views can't explain what happened before he had any views. And there are no extant "historical references to Christ and the followers of Christ" earlier than Paul's. That's a big factor in why we talk about him so often.

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Basically i think your real problem is that you cant  accept   that paul had a real encounter with a real god on earth as well as later contact with the celestial version

That's all too much for you, so you try to say Pauls contact was an internal lone of some celestial being That then allows you to argue that a physical christ was never necessary .

I can separate the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history hypothesis. If Paul had said he met Jesus or that he had met somebody who'd met Jesus then this thread would never have existed. What Paul said was that he and lots of other people had met the Christ of faith. Whether they really did or not is irrelevant to whether or not there was a flesh-and-blood man behind it all.

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

So whose teachings  did paul alter and adapt, and formalise into ealry  (mid to late  first century)  christianity, and why did it ever become christianity without a christ ?  

Paul has a Christ; what he's short is a Jesus. Paul's teachings draw heavily on the Jewish Bible, and he identifies himself as a Pharisee. Since elsewhere you've identified the received teachings of Jesus as liberal pharisaic, I suggest you read your own posts, and there you'll find the answer to your question.

3 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Your view on the reference to christ's brother goes against linguistics.  The greek word used is specific to a blood/ fraternal brother, not a comrade or a brother " in christ " 

You can read Galatians in Koine:

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/galatians/1.htm

You don't even have to read Greek to work the electronic concordance. See that little "80" over "brother" in verse 1:19? Click on that and see a slew of examples of adelph- used for both kinship and other kinds of affinity - even simply common humanity (e.g. Matthew 5:22). Then click back to the letter and look for "80" page-by-page. You'll find Paul uses the word dozens of times for non-kinship relationships.

Hells bells, Mr W. He's famous for that. In the future, please put more effort into what you make up.

Edited January 27, 2020 by eight bits

[+Hammerclaw]

1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

Nup, but I do believe that  any evolved sentience, including that of a god, will develop a set of values which are logical, rational, and productive.

Self  aware intelligence enables, and in a sense compels,  the construction of values and beliefs.   If a god has a mind like ours then it will think like us  However wisdom and knowldge also evolve and grow those values and beliefs. 

It is inconceivable, Mr Walker, that anything with the capacity to create a Universe would have anything remotely similar to a miniscule human brain, not even yours, no matter how big an ego.

[Habitat]

40 minutes ago, Rlyeh said:

And gives us a bull**** account of how he did it.

God thinks humans can build a tower to heaven for **** sake.

What a learned discourse ! 

[Horta]

Quote

Did Jesus Exist?

No, the biblical jesus is a fictional character. Even mainstream biblical scholars reject this version of jesus. Whether the character was inspired to some extent by a person or persons who really existed or just a mixture of tall stories (or both), we will probably never know with much certainty. If someone did exist as the seed for the myth, we know almost nothing about him at all.

[+Sherapy]

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

When a person with  terminal cancer is prayed for and is instantly healed (actually happened to friend of mine) When a person lays on hands and physically heals torn ligaments in a shoulder (happened to me )  When a man suffers a heart attack  so severe that all his medical colleagues say he will die or always be in a vegetative coma yet he makes a sudden and eventually complete recovery after prayers for him 

 There is no  scientific  explanation for  such things except luck or coincidence  There are two possible  other alternatives.

A "miracle of god "

A technological intervention using advanced technology. 

Take inoculation. Go back 1000 years and tell people you are immune from  the plague, because you have been vaccinated against it by a magic serum injected into your body   To them it will be a miracle   Cure a person with a hole in their heart, vaccinate against a cancer, use nanomachines to go inside a blood system and unblock arteries 

Do you have (scientific)  evidence for your last  opinion ? You know it does not apply to me.  

Ha ha ha ha ha of course there is a medical explanation. 
 

The first guy could have been misdiagnosed or cancer went into remission depending on the type he had, shoulders routinely feel better after PT physical therapy. 

Rotator cuff tears depending can heal on their own with steroids and PT, physical therapy. 

People with heart attacks make full recoveries all the time. 

[Piney]

8 hours ago, eight bits said:

One of the interesting ideas the guild has is literary "strata" by analogy to geology and archeology's physical layers.

Matthew certainly has that.  I think 3 different people had their paws on it. 

 

8 hours ago, eight bits said:

the estimated-oldest stratum isn't very distinctively "Christian," but garden-variety Jewish. Elsewhere in the canon, Hebrews and maybe James have that quality: whisk away a few occasional Christly references, and you have a just plain Jewish sermon. And we have a black-letter before-and-after example of such Christian cosmetology in the Nag Hammadi library, Eugnostos and Sophia of Jesus Christ.

I think the Q was in one collection somewhere prior to it being attached to Jesus. 

Christianity was originally for Jews by Jews. It was Paul that took it further in his efforts to be a "Greater than". 

[Piney]

9 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

if these conditions are common then life and technology WILL be common.

Our conditions are so uncommon another planet like ours has not been found yet. Which is the whole point of the "Rare Earth Hypothesis". 

 

[Alchopwn]

12 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

not a platitude if it is true and important ie a platitude  is no longer useful, due to overuse.  will' s is a true, and very relevant, piece of advice.  God exists, in part, inside of us, and is capable of connection to the rest of "god" which is external to us. Link the two and you will know "god"   and, in one sense, be god.  This is true not just of god but of all reality. Link with the universe and you become one with it. 

It is a platitude because it is no longer useful.  This "god" of which you speak... Were what you are saying true, and not mere platitude, then every child and every adult could immediately achieve unity with this deity of yours easily.  It would be something that we could take for granted.  Instead that is nothing like the truth.  What we get is a bunch of liars claiming to be "priests", "prophets", "god-men" and "gurus", who claim to have magical powers that they cannot demonstrate, and make empty promises.  And when we ask why these promises go unfulfilled, they say "you didn't have enough faith, you didn't pray hard enough, you were unworthy, you were sinful, it was your fault, but put more money on my plate and seek forgiveness and try again."  This is what is known as the sunk cost fallacy.  The narcissistic con artist places the responsibility for their failure on you, and makes you feel guilty so you stop questioning them.  You say you can link the inner and outer god as if it is something that can be accomplished in an afternoon Walker, but you know you haven't accomplished it, and neither has anyone else.  It is an attractive but deceptive story; and a great many people have been coaxed into that trap, but never forget that it is a lie that is bait on a trap.  Stop pretending it is anything else.  Like all good narcissists, you look in the mirror and see god, but it is actually just a reflection of yourself.

[Crikey]

Guys, guys, the "Jesus Never Existed Cult" is a classic example of how minority cults arise; it's a vanity thing where members like to think they know more than the rest of us poor slobs..

Fact is, the vast majority of homo sapiens (Latin for "wise man) fully accept Jesus existed, that's why a kid from a carpenters shop went on to make Christianity the biggest game on the park..

[Alchopwn]

 

On 1/26/2020 at 10:35 PM, Habitat said:

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".

 So as, by your own admission, you can't even describe god or define god, how do you know it is what you think it is?  You just have a meaningless word that you are utterly focused on.  That is an unhealthy obsession.  And really what does this god concept give you that you cannot give yourself if you had a bit more self confidence?  You have fallen for the sunk cost fallacy.  You plow your energy into a meaningless concept that gives back nothing, convinced that it will pay out huge dividends like some one-armed bandit in Vegas that never pays out.  No, worse than that.  You are playing a slot machine that goes straight to filling the change machine, and will never pay out, but you keep putting in  you quarters because you are so addicted to gambling that it never occurs to you to question the game.  In fact you eschew questioning the game, as somehow threatening the lucky streak you are sure is just about to strike.  Oh no, you can't use rational concepts to describe the irrational.  The irrational is beyond all concepts he says.  Yeah? Well so is madness, so why not just say "god is madness" and have done with the matter?

[+Sherapy]

13 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

In my experience he does not .Humans all have the potential to open themselves to direct contact with"god"  Relatively few avail themselves of this in the modern age  

Mostly it is that few people have direct contact with a god, and yet humans are evolved to do better with belief,   and so most follow doctrines established by those who do have such contact experience.  . (or claim they do) 

Better not to  (religiously) follow a doctrine at all, IMO 

Of course, in trinitarian christianity, when you speak with jesus you ARE speaking with god.  Before he became man on earth, christ was the "word" of god  in "heaven" and thus the creative element of the godhood (in christian theology) 

For me, this is an example of phony holy, this is really an opportunity to maintain  the tale of Mr Walker., by the way one is not free because they push  away their human nature, or not accept reality this has more to say about ones coping style and the anxiety that accompanies it more then anything else. 

 Yet, at he same time I appreciate that you respond, what if we changed the question to ask how can we stop Human suffering, what contributes, what could help, what can we keep, what should we change. 

When I read posters who bring up why would an all good creator allow for such suffering and harm, I am hopeful this is compassion and god knows we can never have to much of this.

 

For me, questions like what kind of god would? And why would we espouse or advocate the worship of an ideology that is ineffective as far as getting a handle of suffering what is viable about this and why wouldn’t we seek to refine our religions and our gods  to serve us better. 

 

Why wouldn’t we have these conversations? 

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Sherapy

[+Hammerclaw]

Other than by natural phenomena, most human suffering is that which we inflict on ourselves and by chance or design we are gifted with the ability to deal with and/or ameliorate most such suffering if we choose to. The tragedy is we so often do not so choose. 

It certainly goes without saying that our naïve conceptualizations of deity do no not jibe with the everyday reality of human existence. Be there a God or not, most of what we think such a deity should be, or be like, is stuff we just made up and it is--in itself-- contradictory. How does one reconcile a God of infinite perfection with a God who would allow his only begotten son to be nailed to a tree to die an agonizing death? What was the magnificent perfection in that? It would seem that if this world was God's creation, it wasn't intended to be a perfect walk through Disneyland. 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Hammerclaw

[Crikey]

1 hour ago, Hammerclaw said:

 ..It would seem that if this world was God's creation, it wasn't intended to be a perfect walk through Disneyland. 

 

Right, this Earth is like a gruelling Special Forces selection course to sort the men from the tinkerbells.. 

Edited January 27, 2020 by Crikey

[Habitat]

3 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

 

  The irrational is beyond all concepts he says.  Yeah? Well so is madness, so why not just say "god is madness" and have done with the matter?

The entire notion of God, derives from the fact that the "riddle of existence" is insoluble, by rational means. Not just in practice, but in principle. It is what has been interposed, where rational thinking leaves only a blank, and it will only ever be a blank, for rational thinking. That is the background. The "mission" of people like JC is to inform that there is a faculty latent in humans, that can transcend this barrier, and apprehend the Ultimate. The "teachings" are an attempt to lead people along that path, if it be  their wont. But the faculty of reason cannot, in the end, help such a quest, it can only hinder it. Naturally, those that are overly lodged in the processes of Reason, are hostile to such ideas. Because they do not credit any other method of apprehension. That is their limitation, but it is not one that cannot be transcended. In the end, it is the true destination of the seeker of Truth.

[Habitat]

7 hours ago, Piney said:

Our conditions are so uncommon another planet like ours has not been found yet. Which is the whole point of the "Rare Earth Hypothesis". 

 

We are in the very earliest days of such investigations. Drawing any conclusions would be premature, to say the least. Though I have always thought the Drake Equation the most simplistic and useless thing, we really don't have enough data to be even doing a reasonably plausible improvement on it.

[Habitat]

5 hours ago, Sherapy said:

For me, questions like what kind of god would? And why would we espouse or advocate the worship of an ideology that is ineffective as far as getting a handle of suffering what is viable about this and why wouldn’t we seek to refine our religions and our gods  to serve us better. 

This is dumb stuff, not dissimilar to religious fanatics who say God was responsible, when something good happens to them. You appear to be saying that when the "bad" stuff happens, it shows there is no God, or else it would have stepped in to stop it. All that, depends on your being an infallible arbiter of what is good or bad. Is there a scale, or a point of neutrality ? What if others don't agree with what is good or bad ? It's a problem ! This is juvenile thinking, accept that any system of perception based on value judgements, will create positive and negative evaluations, if you remove one end of the scale, the negative, then what was "neutral" before, now becomes "bad", or the meter is meaningless. You need a background of "bad", to create the apprehension of "good". This is the age-old "problem" of the opposites.

[Herbert Sanders]

If I were to chip in I would say that Jesus is the embodiment of Jewish thinking, so pure that even his own people rejected him.

He is perfect, an idealized life.

This life acts as a type and was foreshadowed in many biblical events that carry the same kind of narrative. Think Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Elija, Ruth. And all these implicitly point towards the coming messiah.

Imho this should alert the reader that we are not talking in a literal sense. This place, earth, is not the place for ideal forms. However ideal forms can exist in our minds and we can choose to uphold them.

Before we take them down it would also be wise to study and understand these forms to see the validity they hold in our real lives. When you immerse yourself you will see that it is not just by social constructs that we abide to the principles set forth. They are in actuality part of our reasoning.

No mattern if we were to do away with the bible now, sometime in the future someone would write the same principles in a different fashion. Call it 'divine inspiration' It is who we are as human beings living with social norms and finite resources.

I cannot see how Jesus did exist. But I do believe in Christ his annointing, death and resurrection. And also that the word became flesh through him.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Mark Sanders

[Crikey]

1 hour ago, Habitat said:

 The "mission" of people like JC is to inform that there is a faculty latent in humans..

Yes, for example he said about his 37 miracles that they were no big deal because we could do them too, if we believed we could. Hmm...

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Crikey

[Piney]

1 hour ago, Habitat said:

We are in the very earliest days of such investigations. Drawing any conclusions would be premature, to say the least. Though I have always thought the Drake Equation the most simplistic and useless thing, we really don't have enough data to be even doing a reasonably plausible improvement on it.

Just what are the chances of finding a Earth size, maybe .75 or 1.5 larger or smaller for proper atmospheric density, water rich rocky planet with metals planet with a large enough moon to keep the rotation stable and the oceans from tidally locking.

Then fire, which is needed for technology. To much oxygen, you can't control it. Too little, it doesn't happen. There may be life on hydrocarbon atmosphere planet. But there is certainly not tech. 

Venus was just like us.

No big moon, tidal lock, bye bye oceans and atmosphere. Reverse spin due to runaway winds.....

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

27 minutes ago, Mark Sanders said:

I cannot see how Jesus did exist. But I do believe in Christ his annointing, death and resurrection. And also that the word became flesh through him.

How does that work ? 

[Herbert Sanders]

1 minute ago, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

How does that work ? 

You become what you understand. Knowledge incarnates. Annointing/death/resurrection is anyone's quest when he sets out for what he believes in.