Jesus

[ReasonableJeff]

We have better historical evidence for the existence of Jesus of Nazareth than we do for Alexander the Great. The question isn't, "Is Jesus real?" the question is "Was this guy legit?"

What was Jesus about? Was he really just a good teacher? Perhaps...the only problem with saying that he was a good teacher is what he actually taught. He didn't just say, "Now you make sure and behave nicely to other people, like you would want them to treat you," but rather he taught things like, "I am the Son of God, I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying." These claims are outrageous. So you have to come to the conclusion, this guy is either who he says he is, or he's a lying lunatic. Because of his teachings you can't say he's a good teacher, that wouldn't make sense. You are forced to pick a side.

So what do you guys think?

[Marc]

The real question should be 'are you taking heroin?

Bash your bible some where else.

Have a nice day.

[Pix]

I'm not even convinced he existed, and I haven't heard of any real evidence...sure, he gets mentioned by Tacitus and others, but it's like decades after he supposedly died and seems to be based purely on hearsay. There were other figures like Jesus back then, too, and their existences are also doubtful, but they fell to the Christians and Muslims (and probably other groups in places like India, or maybe even the many pagan groups that gave Christians grief back then) so they didn't get to terrorize the populace into accepting their guy as a fact until one day most people stopped questioning the way Christians & Muslims did.

But say he was real...don't believe him. Even if he performed miracles I wouldn't believe because a great many others have miracles to their names as well, including Jim Jones. Now if I actually met the guy, and he magically started speaking my language and knew me intimately and all that then I'd consider it...but I'd also consider other alternatives as well, and oh would we have some discussions about the Bible and those who thumped it...

But tell you what, I'll come back and share an experience you might find interesting of a time my granny prayed to Jesus for me...

[ReasonableJeff]

But tell you what, I'll come back and share an experience you might find interesting of a time my granny prayed to Jesus for me...

Thanks, I'd like that!

[Marc]

I bet you wont!!!!

[ReasonableJeff]

The real question should be 'are you taking heroin?

Bash your bible some where else.

Have a nice day.

Heroin terrified me, never got around to it....I was a pothead for awhile though.

[Pix]

When I was a 15-year-old runaway something truly terrible happened to me (I don't want to talk about it) and I became suicidal and as I moved to do it a guy grabbed me and then it was like I sobbed myself to sleep, or looked at another way like I woke up from a dream to find myself flying in a virgin forest of giant trees and there was wordless song all around me, and I realized I was singing myself. Then ahead I saw a tree bigger than any I'd ever seen before, one that disappeared into the sky, and as I came into contact with it I suddenly cried, "Yggdrasil!"

Then it was like I woke up yet again, and this was especially odd and I don't have words to describe the details, though I recall them pretty well even to this day. The main thing is that I was with the goddess Freya and She was Singing a wordless Song yet I understood it. Essentially I was "told" that She'd Sung me into existence and I must not break, instead I had to allow myself to be tempered and to grow up (instead of seeking to be an eternal child as other gods encouraged) so that I could one day stand at Her side and the side of the others to fight against the giants of Ragnarok.

And then I woke up again, this time back in the mundane world no longer feeling suicidal and utterly exhausted. I fell into a normal sleep not long after.

At this time I had only the vaguest recognition of the Scandinavian myths, but as I looked into it over the next couple of years I found my visions not only fit, but that plenty of people had had similar visions (with Freya or other Vanir and Aesir deities) since the early 70s, what one Asatru Heathen called a "wind through the World Tree." When I was 17 I became a neopagan and accepted Freya as a patron goddess (though I'd drift back into agnosticism years later).

I visited Granny for the first time since I was 14 when I was 21 and Granny said she had once awakened from a vivid nightmare that still haunted her of me in my bed (when I lived with her) choking to death and she couldn't save me. She woke up frightened and convinced I was in terrible danger and prayed to Jesus for me for like an hour until she said she felt that it had helped, that I would be ok. The next morning she called Mom who said I didn't want to talk to her.

I told her Mom lied and I never heard of her trying to call me. I asked more questions trying to figure out when this was and I realized that it was real close--and I believe at the exact moment--to the time I was suicidal and had a vision of Freya. (Meanwhile, Mom never reported me missing out of fear she'd lose her child support, so lying to Granny just makes sense from her point of view as if Granny knew she'd report me and try to find me and Dad's family who lived in the same town as Granny would find out who'd tell Dad who would likely cut off child support and she might lose other welfare bennies without a child in her care, too.)

Eventually we moved on and I described Freya's heaven Sessrumnir (alternately Folksvang), and told her why I thought it was better than the Christian heaven (and if there was one heaven then why not many? The thought that one's religion is real is amazing enough, but to think one's own religion is true while every other religion one doesn't subscribe to is false is the height of epic pretentiousness, IMO), and then asked her if she'd visit me in mine because Sessrumnir sounded a lot more accepting of visitors than the Christian heaven.

And I LOVED how she responded: she laughed and said, "You'll see your trappings and I'll see mine, but we'll still be together and love each other." To her, LOVE was heaven and the rest inconsequential details.

And that got me to thinking that maybe the "God is Love" adage was actually true, and if so, then that could explain the connection between her prayer and my vision: She prayed to LOVE (which she envisioned as Jesus) and that LOVE was sent to me, and manifested itself to me in a form I needed and could understand, and then after it helped she got her feeling that I was going to be ok so that she could stop praying.

Why Freya instead of Jesus or God or even Mary? Well when I was 5 I learned not to depend on Mom and Dad who were neglectful & abusive when I tried to get them to take care of me (so don't ask for help or it will get bad), but to depend on myself because I had a quick mind that figured things out. An early memory was I was too scared to wake the hungover 'rents to feed me and I ended up making my own Cheerios through a plan involving a chair, spatula, and wooden spoon, and as I ate a positive feeling coursed through me that while adults were temperamental, fickle, and even scary at times, I could take care of myself. And I WANTED to take care of myself rather than have the adults take care of me. I also didn't like fairy tales where princesses were saved because it just didn't sound right (Disney's The Little Mermaid was the closest to what I could accept on that) and I instead read stories of girls (from Pippi Longstocking to Dorrie the Little Witch) who saved and took care of herself, and even wrote my own fairy tales where the girl got away from monsters and curses on her own.

And the lesson repeated to trust in myself but don't depend on the adults, the schools, and the courts. When I was 13 a popular preacher in my Granny's town turned the town against me and I came to view the churches most cynically. And finally I was on the streets as a runaway, couldn't trust adults (and the Christians at Covenant House tried to screw us, even if they did hand out sack lunches), and endured a terrible sitch I don't wish to discuss. So with that in mind, it would make no sense for Granny's LOVE/God to take a Christian form as it touched me as I'd not only learned to distrust Christianity but the general attitude of Christianity I'd learned--to look to a parental God and trust in Him to take care of you instead of taking care of yourself, the whole "letting go and letting God"--didn't fit with my "don't trust the parents, don't ask for help, instead believe in yourself" or "don't wait for the prince to save you, save yourself" so perhaps that's why the Love she prayed to manifested as Freya, because that was what I could understand, and more importantly, it was what I needed at that time.

Just to be clear on that, I don't think Freya was impersonating Jesus (or the Virgin Mary as some associate her with) or Jesus impersonating Freya, and I think both archetypes (I'm too agnostic to say with any certainty just how much objective existence might be attributed to the gods, though even Jesus as an archetype or astral presence wouldn't "prove" Jesus was ever in physical form) have multiple manifestations (just like the weather, they can be pleasant or hostile) and perhaps both represent a transcendent divine reality that is above them both, and though Granny is a Christian she prayed to God/dess and thus I got the manifestation I needed as God/dess was best able to touch me (of course it could just be a coincidence, too).

[Blue]

Not a debate I usually get into but, here goes.

First, I don't consider myself a Christian, I am Pagan. Does that mean I don't believe Jesus is the son of God? No, though I interpret my higher powers (yes a pantheon) Great Spirit, Lady and, Lord. So how is it that I can say I believe Jesus is the Son of God and mean it?

Call Him God, Allah, Great Spirit or whatever other name you wish, I believe it's the same higher power. How you interpret Him/Her/It is a human convention because out minds need to assign a tangible identity if we are to have faith in a higher power and the divine agents of that higher power. I chose Lady and Lord, maybe you Chose Jesus and The Holy Virgin, maybe Goddess and Father.

Any way you look at it - Do as ye will and in it harm none. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Honor all things for they are all a part of the same circle of life you are a part of. It all boils down to trying to be a good person, having faith in the unseen higher power.

To me, it's all just different human interpretations of the same being, same power.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Actually Jeff, outside of the bible there really isn't much historical documentation about Jesus. Most is written well after the fact and in some cases the mentioning of Jesus appears to be what amounts to after thought, perhaps even added in the centuries following the original document.

In seminary we had a 'debate' trying to prove and disprove Jesus' existence based on works outside of the bible itself. The evidence is compelling in either case depending on who does the argument. The same evidence however can be used either way.

There is far much more historical documentation and artifacts to tell us that Alexander was a real man. His greatness however can be a matter of some dispute.

The legitimacy of the claim that Jesus was a prophet or messiah is one that can be argued either way, but largely exists as a matter of faith and only faith.

Jesus as a matter of faith has a lot in common with Horus.

http://rishyrich.hubpages.com/hub/Parall...esus-Horus lists the similarities.

Horus, for that matter, has far more historical documentation for 'existing' outside of a single source than Jesus. So we could be asking the same of Horus.

It all boils down to individual faith and belief. From the general trend of God in the Bible, evidence of God (and Christ) is against the whole need to have faith. Once you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt something exists, it no longer requires faith to believe it.

Faith is one of the main foundations of the whole Judeo/Christian belief system.

The reality is that Jesus was a protestor who was smart and who was dealing with both the Roman Authority and the Priest Class of Israel. His main mission was to target and discredit the Priest Class, thus why the priests wanted Him dead, and thus why so many of His lessons focus on 'false' religion and the acts of a man who is truly righteous not being those of a hypocrite.

I suspect that after his death the remaining apostles sort of changed his life history to meet certain prophecies, then later when the Roman Church was given such authority as to create a bible (a mere 10% of the sacred texts were used) a heavy hand in editing and carefully picking and choosing the right writings to meet the goals of the Church took place.

No doubt much of what Jesus did and said is good and wholesome, but I do not believe that his intent was to be deified, nor to take the place of God as later Christians would insist.

[Rainbowmum]

I am sure he existed and have nothing but admiration for him , as I do any one that has brings love and non judgement to people.

I have no problem with what he preached ,not his apostles , not the doctrine of the church , that some will put above his words ,But him and his words.