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Was Jesus real?


docyabut2

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37 minutes ago, Guyver said:

I would love to believe in God, as I do believe in something, but I don’t know what it is.  It’s not the Bible God, I know that but it took some doing.  For me to actually believe in Jesus, Mary, God, or any other “God” I’m going to need proof that satisfies my logical mind.  I’m not going to believe in something just because it makes me feel good.  I mean, I kinda do believe in happy hour because it makes me feel good, but that’s not what I mean.  I mean spiritually.  Yes, I do believe in happy hour and at this time I practice, prolly too much since I’ve extended my happy beyond one hour.  Anyway, the point is, I would like to believe in God but I’m not going to make it up.  If it wants me to love it, then it needs to show me that it exists, and not just by innuendo. FWIW.

Create your own god. Cultures have been doing that for ages.

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Here's some more about Paul.....

 

"It should be made clear that professions of loyalty to the supreme ideals—the psychic, emotional, and spiritual awareness of God-consciousness—may be a natural and gradual growth or may sometimes be experienced at certain junctures, as in a crisis. The Apostle Paul experienced just such a sudden and spectacular conversion that eventful day on the Damascus road. Gautama Siddhartha had a similar experience the night he sat alone and sought to penetrate the mystery of final truth. Many others have had like experiences, and many true believers have progressed in the spirit without sudden conversion.

 

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37 minutes ago, Will Due said:

 

Ok....

 

"And you, Thomas, who said you would not believe unless you could see me and put your finger in the nail marks of my hands, have now beheld me and heard my words; and though you see no nail marks on my hands, since I am raised in the form that you also shall have when you depart from this world, what will you say to your brethren? You will acknowledge the truth, for already in your heart you had begun to believe even when you so stoutly asserted your unbelief. Your doubts, Thomas, always most stubbornly assert themselves just as they are about to crumble. Thomas, I bid you be not faithless but believing—and I know you will believe, even with a whole heart.”

191:5.5

When Thomas heard these words, he fell on his knees and exclaimed, “I believe! My Lord and my Master!” Then said Jesus to Thomas: “You have believed, Thomas, because you have really seen and heard me. Blessed are those in the ages to come who will believe even though they have not seen with the eye of flesh nor heard with the mortal ear.”

 

 

Oh now I’m Doubting Thomas.  I’m sorry, I no longer consider that an insult.  I don’t just doubt, I know the Bible is whack.  So yeah, I’ll be needing to see those scars before I believe in that mess.  Moses actually said God told him to sacrifice the blood of animals as a sacrifice.  That’s so freaking pagan.  That’s way more pagan than me.  And I’m a tad bohemian, but prolly not in your league of bohemian attire.

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13 minutes ago, Guyver said:

I’m sorry, I no longer consider that an insult. 

 

Good because it was a compliment.....

 

 

In the councils of the twelve Thomas was always cautious, advocating a policy of safety first, but if his conservatism was voted down or overruled, he was always the first fearlessly to move out in execution of the program decided upon. Again and again would he stand out against some project as being foolhardy and presumptuous; he would debate to the bitter end, but when Andrew would put the proposition to a vote, and after the twelve would elect to do that which he had so strenuously opposed, Thomas was the first to say, “Let’s go!” He was a good loser. He did not hold grudges nor nurse wounded feelings. Time and again did he oppose letting Jesus expose himself to danger, but when the Master would decide to take such risks, always was it Thomas who rallied the apostles with his courageous words, “Come on, comrades, let’s go and die with him.”

 

Thomas is the great example of a human being who has doubts, faces them, and wins. He had a great mind; he was no carping critic. He was a logical thinker; he was the acid test of Jesus and his fellow apostles. If Jesus and his work had not been genuine, it could not have held a man like Thomas from the start to the finish. He had a keen and sure sense of fact. At the first appearance of fraud or deception Thomas would have forsaken them all. Scientists may not fully understand all about Jesus and his work on earth, but there lived and worked with the Master and his human associates a man whose mind was that of a true scientist—Thomas Didymus.

 

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16 hours ago, eight bits said:

Of course, you've studied Pliny's Natural History and so you undertsand how much knowledge was available 2000 years ago. In Pliny's culture, formal logic was already centuries old, and philosophy? We're still sorting out the thoughts of Plato, and of those around him.

It is wonderful how much progress has been made since then, but the current issue is whether there was already enough for a mature mind to grasp that material effects have material causes. The basic tools and considerable raw material were available. You think nobody put two and two together? Fine for you to hold that opinion; other views are possible and in this case, well founded in the available evidence.

Quite true, of course, but much reasoning about the real world is heurisitic. Good heuristics properly applied approximate the truth - which is to say produce statements that are false (pi equals 355/113 is false) but close enough to give useful results often enough.

BTW, although I don't know that the ancients used that specific approximation for pi, they did know and use an effective algorithm to generate it and other ratio-valued approximations like it. PLUS they understood that an approximation was only approximate and so literally a false value, but one whose falsehood they overlooked in order to capture the benefit of its application ... a sophisticated thought, IMO.

Actually, isn't that your argument for why otherwise secular people should have religious devotion? Even if the doctrimes are strictly false, there are all those benefits you summon up with Google for those who believe the doctrines anyway and apply the teachings in their lives.

At least in this, the classical ancients were as sophiticated in their thinking as you are. What, then, makes you so sure that they couldn't grasp something else which is simple, comports with observation time and time again, and which you grasp so easily?

 

Almost no knowledge was available (compared to modern times)  There were  some technical practical skills in weapons architecture etc 

However intelligence was the same as now and so some individuals were able to use their minds very effectively both logically and creatively.

   But (for example)  how do you even perceive of bacteria or virus's let alone  be able to work with them unless you  have the abilty to detect their existence  ?

How do you safely give a blood transfusion until you have the equipment to detect blood groups and their effects .?

 I haven't STUDIED that book but I've read it a couple of times 

Pliny of course was a pantheist and ( from memory)  "dedicated"  the book to "mother nature "

Thus his work was influenced by a theistic belief  

It didn't really demonstrate a lot of knowledge of the world, (although much more than the ordinary citizen of Rome possessed)  and some of it was gossip, rumour and superstition  including repeating  previous accounts of strange creatures with dog heads and giant feet.

of course people  realised that material effects have material causes However the belief/understanding was  that the world contained physical/material unknowns, and that some of  these unknowns might have intelligent purpose of their own. Ie gods, spirits, elementals, etc were thought of AS physical elements of the natural world  

It is easy to find a satisfactory solution using heuristic reasoning but satisfactory could be "The gods made it so" if  you  have no evidences to the contrary  Its quote rational logical and satisfactory as an explanation, if you  know no better.  

approximation is a useful tool if you  cant work something out more accurately. 

And no it is not my argument

Which is  

Where a lifestyle practice brings significant benefit, a wise person will consider applying that  practice to gain the benefit  especially if it comes with no, or minimal, "costs" 

Because its not a matter of "grasping" 

its dependent on knowing ie one can observe that certain practices are more healthy than others 

 but its hard to understand that simply believing, without any change in practice,  can bring the same benefits,   until you understand neuroscience ,   psychology and the mind/ body interface 

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17 hours ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Walker

We have evidence that ancient cultures had religion, we also have evidence that before civilization that archaic people practiced rituals with no direct evidence that those rituals had a religious significance. 
You propose that all individuals in a culture shared a same belief which is a tenuous position to support.

We have evidence that people disagreed about a great many things in recorded history both in writing and graveyards full of bodies. I am not arguing that all men believed the same things and you are. Logic or reasoned thinking is that if we have evidence that people disbelieve in some areas of social living then the same would apply to religious constructs. This forum is evidence that people disagree and you have not shown any time or culture that has been in whole agreement ever.

You have argued that people were content with being slaves and that it was a good thing even when it has been shown that there were slave revolts and that many families lost their independent livelihood of farming and providing for their families that was a detriment to that culture because it only benefited the rich.

As I said I am out of town using my phone so will not provide links at this time but will state that you do not have a strong argument based on what history shows us.

Indeed your first comments are correct  (or perhaps the y DID have personal first hand evidences ) 

Second point NO. Actually I propose   that every individual mind has slightly different belief,  but  that  all human minds develop belief structures to explain things they observe but can't explain 

People believed in many things, often different They had many  different gods, religions, customs, traditions etc. 

My argument is tha t almost NO human being ever really had NO belief in gods (including spirits, dryads, nymphs, elementals)    etc  

You slightly misrepresent my argument on slavery But what  you  say is  also true.

Indeed in many cultures slavery was common and people were well treated Given that even non slaves had few rights of movement or personal liberty  etc  there wasn't such a big difference  

Slavery is preferable to death unless the conditions of slavery are very poor( Which is when the revolts occurred)   

It can be a" good"  thing when the alternatives   are worse for everyone such as starvation or death There is no need for it in the modern world and thus no excuse for it, today but this was not the case in the past 

Ps talk to a descendant of an Irish or Scottish person who was dispossessed from  their rented  land during the time of enclosures, and aggregation of farming land  for  wool growing 

Many starved, and  many more left home for the new world in order to survive.  

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5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

There were  some technical practical skills in weapons architecture etc 

Seriously, read Natural History.

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

   But (for example)  how do you even perceive of bacteria or virus's let alone  be able to work with them unless you  have the abilty to detect their existence  ?

You don't. We know more now than we did 2,000 years ago. It doesn't follow that we knew litle or nothing 2,000 years ago, nor that little or no progress had been made compared with 10,000 years ago.

5 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Pliny of course was a pantheist and ( from memory)  "dedicated"  the book to "mother nature "

The book is dedicated to Titus, the son, co-ruler and heir of Vespasian.

Pliny didn't pimp his religious views in the surviving works. He appears to have been a Stoic.

If your point is that Spinoza drew on much earlier Stoic ideas to create in modern times pantheism (what other people called Spinoza's views on the Question of God), then fine. BTW, another of the terms Spinoza's contemporaries called his views was atheist.

6 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

approximation is a useful tool if you  cant work something out more accurately. 

And sometimes even when you can, but the computational cost isn't worth the marginal increase in accuracy.

We seem to have drifted away from the topic. The relevance of all this was, at the outset, whether there was enough knowledge available to the learned in Jesus's time and surrounding culture for the concept of atheism to have been entertained as a serious posssibility. You settled that several posts ago when you acknowledged that there were ancient agnostic writers. You can't be agnostic unless you can conceive of both thiesm and atheism as serious possibilities.

How the cognates of the term atheism were used back then, whether modern-sense atheism was popular, how atheism might or might not be reconciled with acceptance that miracles occasionally occur ... all these are fascinating, but none are especially relevant to ths thread.

 

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Having religious beliefs does not a religion make, furthermore, when those folks say "father of my father or all father" I believe they meant it literally rather than figuratively... 

~

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1 hour ago, eight bits said:

Seriously, read Natural History.

You don't. We know more now than we did 2,000 years ago. It doesn't follow that we knew litle or nothing 2,000 years ago, nor that little or no progress had been made compared with 10,000 years ago.

The book is dedicated to Titus, the son, co-ruler and heir of Vespasian.

Pliny didn't pimp his religious views in the surviving works. He appears to have been a Stoic.

If your point is that Spinoza drew on much earlier Stoic ideas to create in modern times pantheism (what other people called Spinoza's views on the Question of God), then fine. BTW, another of the terms Spinoza's contemporaries called his views was atheist.

And sometimes even when you can, but the computational cost isn't worth the marginal increase in accuracy.

We seem to have drifted away from the topic. The relevance of all this was, at the outset, whether there was enough knowledge available to the learned in Jesus's time and surrounding culture for the concept of atheism to have been entertained as a serious posssibility. You settled that several posts ago when you acknowledged that there were ancient agnostic writers. You can't be agnostic unless you can conceive of both thiesm and atheism as serious possibilities.

How the cognates of the term atheism were used back then, whether modern-sense atheism was popular, how atheism might or might not be reconciled with acceptance that miracles occasionally occur ... all these are fascinating, but none are especially relevant to ths thread.

 

Ive read it cover to cover a couple of times 

I dont get what you seem to do, from  it

I see an intelligent man restricted by his superstitions and lack of factual knowldge and understanding.

Most children today would have a better understanding of their world than he did  

 

its only  wiki but this  is about how i read and understood his writing 

 quote 

Nature for Pliny was divine, a pantheistic concept inspired by the Stoic philosophy, which underlies much of his thought, but the deity in question was a goddess whose main purpose was to serve the human race: "nature, that is life" is human life in a natural landscape. After an initial survey of cosmology and geography, Pliny starts his treatment of animals with the human race, "for whose sake great Nature appears to have created all other things".[8] This teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History.[9] The components of nature are not just described in and for themselves, but also with a view to their role in human life. Pliny devotes a number of the books to plants, with a focus on their medicinal value; the books on minerals include descriptions of their uses in architecture, sculpture, art, and jewellery. Pliny's premise is distinct from modern ecological theories, reflecting the prevailing sentiment of his time.[10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_(Pliny)

Yes the book was officially dedicated to Titus, but one can see that, for him, nature was the goddess   who inspired him and for whom he wrote his works 

 

quote

Pliny claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work, in his prayer for the blessing of the universal mother:[4][5]

Hail to thee, Nature, thou parent of all things! and do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, thus made known thy praise.

In a sense, then, his works were a paean  to the goddess whose approval he sought 

 

Ps of course you can be agnostic without recognising the other choices 

ie agnosticism simply chooses not to believe or disbelieve in gods 

it is a position independent of belief or disbelief 

Certainly most people philosophically under stand all 3 concepts (although apparently they are not well understood by all )

but its not necessary  to recognise the other positions to hold any one of them 

And of course an ancient could be agnostic 

However i suspect that any  out and out atheist would be held to be insane or mentally incompetent

There simply was no logical or rational reason to believe that NO gods existed, when everything in life suggested that the y did,   and when the human mind uses belief to construct answers to unanswerable questions 

However, as always, I include  many forms of life as gods, including nature spirits, elementals,    the Sidhe etc 

Back then there were many more gods, and many more choices of belief for people.  

 

quote

In retrospect, Pliny’s influence is based on his ability to assemble in a methodical fashion a number of previously unrelated facts, his perceptiveness in recognizing details ignored by others, and his readable stories, with which he linked together both factual and fictional data. Along with unsupported claims, fables, and exaggerations, Pliny’s belief in magic and superstition helped shape scientific and medical theory in subsequent centuries. 

 

 Perhaps the most important of the pseudoscientific methods advocated by him was the doctrine of signatures: a resemblance between the external appearance of a plant, animal, or mineral and the outward symptoms of a disease was thought to indicate the therapeutic usefulness of the plant. 

 By the end of the 17th century, the Natural History had been rejected by the leading scientists. 

 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pliny-the-Elder/Legacy

 

 

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On 9/21/2021 at 9:04 PM, Mr Walker said:

Indeed in many cultures slavery was common and people were well treated Given that even non slaves had few rights of movement or personal liberty  etc  there wasn't such a big difference  

Hi Walker

Back home now and will give some links.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/slavery_01.shtml

n Rome and Italy, in the four centuries between 200 BC and 200 AD, perhaps a quarter or even a third of the population was made up of slaves. Over time millions of men, women, and children lived their lives in a state of legal and social non-existence with no rights of any kind. They were non-persons - notice that in Plutarch's story the slave does not even have a name - and they couldn't own anything, marry, or have legitimate families.

 

... slavery was a brutal, violent and dehumanising institution ...

 

Their role was to provide labour, or to add to their owners' social standing as visible symbols of wealth, or both. Some slaves were treated well, but there were few restraints on their owners' powers, and physical punishment and sexual abuse were common. Owners thought of their slaves as enemies. By definition slavery was a brutal, violent and dehumanising institution, where slaves were seen as akin to animals.

Few records have survived from Roman slaves to allow modern historians to deduce from them a slave's perception of his or her life of servitude. Rome produced no slaves-turned-abolitionist such as the African-Americans Frederick Douglass or Harriet Jacobs.

Instead the evidence available comes overwhelmingly from people such as Plutarch, who represented the slave-owning classes. But that evidence does show that Roman slaves managed to demonstrate their opposition to slavery in various ways.

Yup sounds like they were well treated.:rolleyes::whistle:

https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/12/18/slave-revolts-ancient-rome/

The second century BCE saw many Roman slave uprisings, all brutally suppressed. In 196 BCE a revolt in the province of Etruria (Tuscany) was suppressed before it was fully set in motion, and several of its leaders were crucified, a cruel method of execution borrowed from the Carthaginians. In 185 BCE more than seven thousand rebelling cattle herders in southern Italy were quickly subdued. In 176 BCE, thousands of slaves were killed after a rebellion on the island of Sardinia. A 132-129 BCE revolt inspired by the Stoic philosopher Gaius Blossius in Rome’s province of Asia Minor (Turkey) was also quashed.

Slaves assigned to the empire’s mines, who worked under extremely harsh conditions and suffered high mortality rates, managed to rebel despite being carefully guarded. An uprising at the Greek silver mines of Mount Laurium in 134 BCE, and another at the gold mines in Spain in the year 50 BCE, were both brutally suppressed.

 

It would seem that some preferred death over slavery.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1544&context=nchcjournal

Turning to the status of slavery during Late Antiquity, most scholars since the 1960s have argued that slavery experienced a major decline in Late Antiquity until it manifested itself in a different form of labor, the coloni. M. I. Finley demonstrated that the decline of slavery, particularly after the second century CE, resulted not from a rise in the price of slaves but from a gradual decline in slave numbers, and he simultaneously argued for a shift in the characterization of the labor force, thus the rise of the coloni, labor that emerged in the form of tenancy; according to Finley, the degradation in status of the free poor created an entirely new labor force (124–42).

https://books.google.ca/books?id=ijkKEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=how+many+roman+free+men+lost+their+independence+to+slave+workers&source=bl&ots=yQDWA53hSA&sig=ACfU3U3erV4EQVUwK2MirZif898B9_cSZw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTnrTovpbzAhXVKH0KHW31DEUQ6AF6BAgZEAM#v=onepage&q=how many roman free men lost their independence to slave workers&f=false

The last link won't copy paste any of the text

On 9/21/2021 at 9:04 PM, Mr Walker said:

Ps talk to a descendant of an Irish

You mean like my dad, yes we have a family history.

PS

didn't have a rum friday the last couple of weeks so if you quote me later this evening one of two things might happen

A. I will wait till tomorrow before responding or

B. I will be in a fun mood and, well,.. have fun.:lol:

 

 

 

 

Edited by jmccr8
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Im Scotch/Irish German.  That means I like beer and whiskey.  I like whiskey more than beer, so I guess I’m more Irish than German.

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39 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Im Scotch/Irish German.  That means I like beer and whiskey.  I like whiskey more than beer, so I guess I’m more Irish than German.

Hi Guyver

 My family was originally from Scotland and deeded land in Ireland for service to the crown onb my father's dads side his mother was a Scot whos family was exiled to Germany because of some infraction don't remember if it was the agreed battle with a hundred horses and we showed up with 2 men on each horse other the swooping down on another clan during religious service and killing everyone but we got invited back when things went to s##t.

 Booze is like movies I like all kinds of entertainment.:lol::tu:

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14 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Guyver

 My family was originally from Scotland and deeded land in Ireland for service to the crown onb my father's dads side his mother was a Scot whos family was exiled to Germany because of some infraction don't remember if it was the agreed battle with a hundred horses and we showed up with 2 men on each horse other the swooping down on another clan during religious service and killing everyone but we got invited back when things went to s##t.

 Booze is like movies I like all kinds of entertainment.:lol::tu:

How do you know so much about your family?  It must have been passed down which means you had a good family.  I had a good family, but they were also a bunch of lovable wacky folks.  Anyway, the one person I trust with facts from our family was my grandmother and she was a really amazing woman.  She said on my mother’s side we were Scotch, Irish, Indian, and mt birth father was German.  I don’t know since I never met my real father, but I later learned he was a hero in Viet Namn who died of his wounds and his name is on the memorial in DC.  I’ve never done the dna testing, andmi don’t know how reliable that actually is….but I’m pretty sure I’m basically a white Mutt ******* who got some good genes.

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And, I will say for the record, that the man who adopted me as a child and raised me my whole life, is who I consider my Father and my best friend, so in my mind that makes me really fortunate.

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1 minute ago, Guyver said:

How do you know so much about your family?  It must have been passed down which means you had a good family.  I had a good family, but they were also a bunch of lovable wacky folks.  Anyway, the one person I trust with facts from our family was my grandmother and she was a really amazing woman.  She said on my mother’s side we were Scotch, Irish, Indian, and mt birth father was German.  I don’t know since I never met my real father, but I later learned he was a hero in Viet Namn who died of his wounds and his name is on the memorial in DC.  I’ve never done the dna testing, andmi don’t know how reliable that actually is….but I’m pretty sure I’m basically a white Mutt ******* who got some good genes.

Hi Guyver

 Both my mom was and my sister is heavily involved in researching family history and much of what I know I can find in a google search to check on. There was a time in my youth when I wondered why I had some other the reactions proclivity that I have and for some reason think that in part we are raised through certain mental images of our ancestors and not some much influenced by a genetic predisposition.

There are things I could tell you but the would be deleted for one reason or another and a PM is not all that private so will not discuss this in detail, My family was a warrior class of people and very detached in some ways with taking life but then we are speaking in terms of the 200 plus years ago and some things have changed since then to a degree. I have never killed anyone but have given them reason to be thankful that they are alive.:D:innocent::whistle:

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10 minutes ago, Guyver said:

Sorry, I take that back.  He’s my second best friend.  My wife is my best friend.

Hi Guyver

I will never know if the man who raised me was my father and tough as he was I love him for what he gave me and he was a tough love men. I could take a test but I don't want that out there and it doesn't change who he and my sibs were to me.

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I played a show tonight I was not happy with.  It’s not because I did t play well, because I did in my mind, I don’t have an explanation for it, but though it seems I have a rather bit hen life, I’m still not satisfied with it.  I can’t explain it, but no matter how good it gets, I’m still not really happy all the way.  I think this might explain the myth of Jesus.  But I could be wrong because I’ve been drinking tonight.  So, peace be with you.

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27 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Hi Guyver

 Both my mom was and my sister is heavily involved in researching family history and much of what I know I can find in a google search to check on. There was a time in my youth when I wondered why I had some other the reactions proclivity that I have and for some reason think that in part we are raised through certain mental images of our ancestors and not some much influenced by a genetic predisposition.

There are things I could tell you but the would be deleted for one reason or another and a PM is not all that private so will not discuss this in detail, My family was a warrior class of people and very detached in some ways with taking life but then we are speaking in terms of the 200 plus years ago and some things have changed since then to a degree. I have never killed anyone but have given them reason to be thankful that they are alive.:D:innocent::whistle:

Fricken nice!  I wonder if big brother will delete that?!

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41 minutes ago, Guyver said:

You should pm me anyway cause I don’t even care anymore.  Seriously.

Hi Guyver

Little brother why would I put you away if I lose part of my life.:tu:

Stick around some fun can be had.;):whistle:

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58 minutes ago, Guyver said:

I played a show tonight I was not happy with.  It’s not because I did t play well, because I did in my mind, I don’t have an explanation for it, but though it seems I have a rather bit hen life, I’m still not satisfied with it.  I can’t explain it, but no matter how good it gets, I’m still not really happy all the way.  I think this might explain the myth of Jesus.  But I could be wrong because I’ve been drinking tonight.  So, peace be with you.

Hi Guyver

I laughed when Jon Voigt played Noah and he and god were talking when he was  having a few and said god I don't drink on the job to paraphrase. I guess I could look up a link. Oh okay I did.:D

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/01/arts/television-review-a-most-unbiblical-noah-rocks-the-ark.html

The irreverent script with its contemporary language (''I wouldn't exactly call Lot righteous,'' Noah's wife, played by Mary Steenburgen, says in a tone that wouldn't be out of place on ''Friends'') is not without its odd charms. Late one evening, when Noah (Jon Voight) complains to God that building the ark is just too big a job for one man's family, the Lord has a suggestion: ''Stop drinking, Noah. You'll get more done.'' Noah defends himself, saying, ''I don't drink when I'm working.'' And God sees his point.

:lol:

 

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On 9/18/2021 at 9:59 AM, Abramelin said:

Docy, as the un-believer I am, I can tell you that the most convincing book about Jesus being a real living person was Patrick Tilley's "Mission".

It is a kind of scifi story for those who have reading problems, but in reality it is crammed full with gnostic ideas. And lots of other 'inspirited literature'. (I wrote a long list on a blanc page at the end of the book; all books I possess).

Thank you for that link. I read the book. I am unsure how it would help @docyabut2 with her topic question.

It seems to me that Jesus's best shot at having been a real man who actually lived is that he was a more-or-less ordinary wandering wonder-worker who managed to get himself killed, but was fondly remembered by his surviving friends. A multi-dimesional time traveling cosmic field marshall sent earthside to free fragmented ancient aliens trapped in human bodies? That's Urantia Book meets L. Ron Hubbard, not anything especially credible, IMO.

I see testimonials on the author's website, for example:

https://www.patricktilley.co.uk/mission/letter1.html

I think that such a reaction is testimony to the proven power of the underlying myth and the appeal of the Jesus character(s), not that this telling does anything to discourage the sinking feeling that it all is, indeed, a myth. Other views are possible, and i accept that you liked the book better than I did.

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