Turning Jesus into God

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Giftedone, Feb 16, 2021.

?

God or Messenger of God .. does it matter ?

  1. Yes - it matters ..

    14 vote(s)
    66.7%
  2. No - it does not

    5 vote(s)
    23.8%
  3. Other - I don't understand the question .. need more information .. @#$% - does not compute !

    2 vote(s)
    9.5%
  1. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What is this fixation with turning Jesus into God ? The "Trinity" doctrine and all this hooey .

    Does it matter whether or not Jesus was "GOD" aka "The Father" aka "The Holy Spirit" or whether Jesus was the divine messenger ?

    I argue not one iota .. who cares what relationship the Gods have to each other ? and in case you were wondering .. Separate Personages = Separate Gods .. Separate and Unique "I Am's" I Think therefor I am - Got it.

    What matters it to me - as I have to go on is Gods Word - as spoken through Jesus - the Logos .. emissary between Man and God ..

    The Logos "IS" God's word - so what do I care beyond this ...the nature of the messenger with respect to the Most High .. from which Jesus proceedith .. "Who Proceeds from The Father" Goes out frim the Father .. hmmm .. sounds kind of like a gnostic emanation to me .. that creed be it from Nicene or Apostle

    But what do I care - who proceedith from whom - and so forth .. This are the affairs of Gods and not men ..

    Our concern is God's word - and what that might be .. OK .. so you believe in God .. Great .. now what .. what are you supposed to do now... is that it .. Just believe .. be saved .. story over ? Or is there something of value in "God's Word" beyond this.

    and if we do believe there is value as such - we come back to the initial question .. What on earth is "God's Word"

    Do we take only what The Logos had to say .. the one who claimed to be God's messenger .. or do we take what Paul had to say as "God's Word" some fellow who knew naught Jesus while alive .. didn't become a Christian until years after the death of the Logos .. and never heard the message directly from the messenger .. not acquainted with Jesus like the living disciples .. living at that time,

    Paul's only acquaintance with Christians was persecuting them ... prior to his "Conversion"

    Should we claim the word of God is represented by the Torah - Levitical law ? or Noahide law.

    Regardless of what we claim - in all of this - it matters not - not one iota - whether Jesus was God - or the Messenger of God...

    So .. why all the fuss ?
     
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  2. Cougarbear

    Cougarbear Banned

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    Do you actually think any of what you wrote makes sense? What is your point? Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He was not a messenger. He was Jehovah of the OT sent by his Father, Elohim to mediate between the Father and his children on earth, you and me. He earned this mediator position through his Atonement. He became our Redeemer. Like an adopted father. It is very clear in the Bible that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one in purpose. Call this the Godhead. It's not the trinity of most of Christianity. But, definitely three separate personages.
    As far as Paul being a prophet, seer and revelator, yes. Why does a prophet (apostle) have to have been alive when Jesus was alive and write Gospel truth? And, no reason to think he didn't know some of the 11 Apostles and was called by Peter the Prophet.
     
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  3. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Jesus started out as the Son of God, but then they realized they wanted him to be more, so they made a way to also make him a God, stories can be changed with time

    when the religion first came out, Jews would have freaked if they said Jesus was God, but to say Jesus was the Son of God was more acceptable at the time, easier to convert others
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2021
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  4. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    To claim to be the Son of God in Judaism is blasphemy punishable by death. That is what it was in the first century and still is today. It was part of the charges against Jesus and it was why Jesus's brother called Saul/Paul the Man of the Lie in the Qumran scrolls because he was denigrating his bother's name after his death.
     
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  5. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I made my point clear - That it matters not if we view Jesus as a Messenger - or as God - that it is the message of God that matters - and that the aforementioned is irrelevant.

    YET - the aforementioned is a cause of huge discord between and within religious communities.

    Your claims are pure nonsense - claiming to know things defacto that you do not - and then contradicting yourself.

    You say "He was not a messenger" then in the next sentence .. you say Jesus was sent by his Father to mediate = Sent to mediate between Man and God - that mediation being Gods message -- the Good news- God's message.

    The first words of John call Jesus "The Logos" emissary between man and God .. "The Word of God" incarnate
    Claiming that "The word of God incarnate" - is not "God's message" is preposterous do you not think ?

    You then make some irrational comments in relation to the Trinity " Not the Trinity of Christianity" and so forth. What is not in the Christian Trinity ? I claimed the Trinity gives 3 different personages .. you then repeat my claim that the Trinity has 3 different personages as if this is new information - but neglecting to address my comment in relation to this premise .. 3 Different Minds.

    Of course these 3 different minds are one in purpose .. this is the point of putting these three personages into a group we call the Trinity.

    The debate over the Nature of Christs divinity was hot and heavy for near 3 centuries after his death. The Debate was then settled by the Sword - by Force - by the will and edict of Emperor Constantine .. but - even after this the debate raged on for another 300 centuries after the Church Got Power.

    Did you not know this ?
     
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  6. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    YHWH also started out as the Son of God - but one who was divine at Birth - and had two divine parents .. both of which were Gods. El being "the Father" The "Most High" "Chief of the Gods - the divine Pantheon"

    YHWH .. as Marduk who was a competing Son of God - usurped the Position of the Most high .. and in fact El had usurped the position of his Father Anu ..

    Jesus is different because Jesus is the "Son of Man" - having only one Divine parent but also a human parent. A fusion of God with Human .. like in Genesis when the Son's of God impregnate humans - but in this case it is the "Most High" doing the impregnating .. rather than the lower Gods.

    Jesus then represents the fusion of Man with God - who then also goes on to Usurp the position of the Most High.

    And that my Friend - "Is the Rest of the Story" :) - well .. some of it :)
     
  7. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Was punishable by death from the Roman's as well - and a whole lot of other Nations. Folks took religion far more seriously back in the day.
     
  8. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick

    Nothing matters beyond that
     
  9. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    A person who states that Jesus is THE son of God or the "mediator" or "messenger" of God, expresses their words. Only words that come directly from Jesus would be his words. Any other words are the subjective opinions of the person speaking them. The fact that someone reads the New Testmanent then repeats what they think what it means, does not make it the words of God, Jesus or anyone else-it makes it their subjective recitation and interpretation of what THEY read.

    Ironically the New Testament is second hand stories. It is not directly recorded from Jews but "according to what Jesus said". According to who? According to ghost writers and editors appointed by King Constantine to prevent a civil war between pagans and Christians in his kingdom by taking a series of disjointed parables from both pagans and various Christians in Constantine's empire, re-writing them to fit the context of justifying a central organization that could keep track of the opinions of all. The confessional was a political creation to be able to find out and keep an eye on what people were thinking and reporting it back to Constantine. Many of the rituals then merged into what is now called Christianity had nothing at all to do with the religion but were pagan beliefs, specifically the concept of a son of God sent to save the world which was not only unoriginal but foreign to Christianity.

    Original Chritianity never mentioned Jesus as THE son of God. It presented himself and ALL OF US as equal humans with the potential to save or harm the world by the decisions we make in life. The Messiah was an allegory to the potential in all of us in our lives as humans to harm or heal, build or destroy. It was an integral concept used to explain the concept of Teekam Olam, the notion we create our destinies by the choices we make and our choices necessarily impact on every other life form negatively or positively as well.

    That concept would have flowed down from the same original concepts of primal ape packs we lived in that learned if we unify as a pack of apes, we had more chance of finding food and surviving against predators so cooperation between us was essential to be able to survive and equally, that when we hunted, if we did not respect the rules of the planet, we would deplete the resources we depended on to live and starve ourselves out as well.

    It aint rocket science. Humans are apes. We we reither learned to create packs to unify, or remain singular and loners.

    If we would survive as a pack, we would need to find a way to repress specific primal urges that prevented unified pack behaviour that would be cohesive and positive. Primal urges we had to learn to repress for the pack to work as a cohesive unit were learning not to murder, rape, eat, steal from each other in the pack.

    To this day we have Alpha males leading packs fighting other packs for the same food or natural resources because we struggle to find unity between packs. We also continue to struggle to find unity within each pack because of our inability to control our urges to kill, still, molest our children, eat each other.

    Religion has always been a set of rules HUMANS create to try control our primal behaviours that are destructive.

    Now when we do that there are many ways to come up with these rules. One basic construct is we believe all life forms are inter-connected and there is a bigger picture of scheme of things beyond what we think we see that we are not capable of seeing due to the limitations of our minds that would explain many things we think are chaotic and unrelated but may not be.

    Another is to believe there is random chaos and it forms structures then disolves those structures in a rhtym of internal and external movements.

    We can define it using physics, in particular quantitative physics or fractal theory or theory of relativity, or theories as to the creation and constant eternal movement of energy with negative and positive components causing tension between their opposite poles that generates the energy.

    Some take the Bible and read it literally with one meaning. Some believe it can have an infinite level of meanings depending on who reads it and what they see.

    Some read it as a literal code that must be understood in only one manner, others see it as a book of parables or stories to try explain abstract theories of behavipur that would otherwise be too hard to understand without the parables to help explain them,

    When many of us read someone telling us WHO Jesus was or WHAT the Bible says, all we say is thank you, that is your subjective opinion. We can respect your opinion, but respect ours as well. Many of us do NOT read any "holy" book literally. When we do read them, we look to themes we share from it. We don't use it as a weapon or pretext to justify calling someone else immoral, wrong, inferior, mistaken. If we can not use it as a tool to hel[p us cooperate civilly we put it to the side as we do other weapons.

    This is why I agree wirth Cougar.

    By the way as a Jew I would tell you it is impossible to find any 2 Jews who would or should agree on what anything in our religion says. We have a Talmud or code of argument we can use to help us continually debate what everything and anything means. In Judaism no law or rule is constant or fixed or static. The whole point of Judaism is that the meaning of the religion must contantly be challenged though on-going debate so it continues to evolve and take on new meanings, shapes, contexts, depending on the latest situations it is asked to encounter and try deal with.

    Judaism was originally created as a story to help a fractured people facing extinction from enemies unify to survive. It then mutated in meaning and shape and still does.

    The God of early Judaism was angry, jealous, violent. Those depictions of "God" were created by humans as to their interpretation of "God". Judaism however is a complex thought process ranging from one spectrum where there is no "God" in the formal sense, to an all powerful independent overseer on the other side of the spectrum.

    In fact spiritual Judaism defines God as energy and define it as a physicist would. It would not have a beard or angels so to speak. It would have no human form. It is an abstract concept of absolute nothingness and absolutely everything that was, is or could be being one and the same as absolute nothingness, i.e., absolute nothingness and absolutely everything would be one and the same creating a paradox from which this abstract concept may have chosen to want to experience singularity as opposed to plurality so allowed pieces of itself to emerge and create their own paradoxes in an infinite process to share life as we call it.

    It would be a process of cascading energy. It all depends who you ask.
     
  10. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    to some, but it also made it easier for some Jews to convert, thinking Jesus was the prophesized Messiah - Judaism was not the nicest religion back then, people wanted an excuse to believe something else, they could still believe in their God, but like a part 2

    but yes, to those in power, Jesus was a threat to their power
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2021
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  11. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    yep, and that was how you take a share of the believers of one religion and make them your own... that is my point

    the new is often built on top of the old

    Christians did a good job, the religion still exists and has many believers
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2021
  12. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sophisticated mind control techniques employed by the purveyors have improved over the Millennia .
     
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  13. Cougarbear

    Cougarbear Banned

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    Your response shows little knowledge of Christianity and the history as well. When Christians talk of the "Trinity" they believe there is one being that manifests itself into three personages but is just one. See, it's very confusing but that sort of confusion makes God seem mystical and makes those ministers lots of profit. There is but one Godhead made up of three separate and distinct personages. Not with the mysticism of mainstream Christianity is what I wrote about. Hope that clears some up.
    As far as Constantine, you and I weren't there. The Holy Ghost was. And, I can testify that what we have from this, the Bible, is true as it is translated correctly. Those writings that didn't make it in from "so called" Apostles like Thomas and Mary's gospels, are false and were in fact, made up. Constantine and those who worked on this had influence from the Holy Ghost.
    Jesus is not a messenger from God. He is one of the Godhead who agree in one. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He is the "Mediator" between the Father and the children born into this world. The Savior and called our Redeemer. The Redeemer of Israel. Not messenger. Messengers from the Godhead are called "Prophets and Apostles." Hope that helps.
     
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  14. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What a joke - Lacking the ability to address the content of my post - you try to belittle and demonize the messenger. I have more knowledge of Christianity and History - particularly religious history - in the pimple on my backside than ye have in sum total :)

    Thank you for repeating what I just told you the trinity was.

    Now what was it that you felt showed little knowledge of Christianity. ?
    .
    The rest of your post is complete nonsense .. showing no knowledge of Christian history .. complete fail .. and thus you are now guilty of projecting your failings onto others.

    "The Holy Ghost was there" and worked his magic on Constantine... ROFLOLOLOL This is your solution to the problem.

    Where was the Holy Ghost in the first 300 years after the death of our Lord .. sleeping ? What preposterous nonsense .. demonstrably falsifiable in so many ways it is not even funny .. just like the "Every word in the Bible is God Breathed" nonsense. Book in the OT do not even purport to be "God Breathed" and many of these "God Breathed" books were stricken from the Bible.. ..

    Where was the Holy Ghost during the 1000 year abomination that was initiated by Constantine's act.... You know .. Church history and all.. I am sure you are familiar with at least a little.

    But - what does any of this have to do with turning Jesus into God ? .. You are claiming the Holy Ghost turned Jesus into God .. is that what happened .. just took him 300 years ..

    Oh ..yeah .. we are all good with Praising the Holy Ghost when things are going well .. but do you equally criticize the Ghost when things are not ?

    You realize that the vast majority of Christianity does not accept that all scripture is God Breathed do you not... and no self respecting theologian believes this - Mr. expert on Christianity.
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2021
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  15. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    My guess is that each and every one of us can be traced to one of the Seven Spirits of G-d..... but they are twins so there were FOURTEEN ELOHIM speaking in Genesis 1:26 and 27.


    Some near death experiencers were shown that the Word - Logos was like the Eldest brother of the fourteen Elohim.......... and so the soul of the Word Logos went into Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus at conception....... then my guess is that Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus met Himself during his Matthew chapter four near death experience where he had been fasting for forty days.........


    I believe that there are many, many, many similarities between what former Skeptic and near death experiencer Rabbi Alon Anava was shown during his seven minute brush with death...... with Matthew chapter four.

    All of us have a spark from one of the Fourteen Elohim..... but I do believe that there is importance in Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus .... Messiah the Passover Lamb....... knowing that he was the incarnation of the Word - Logos................ but in a way....... something extra was given to him when the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove???????

    The following is from a Chassidic Jewish website.....

    https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/101679/jewish/The-Personality-of-Mashiach.htm





    The Personality of Mashiach
    By J. Immanuel Schochet

    Rabbi Alon Anava does not speak until four minutes into this video....... you can skip the intro.....

     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2021
  16. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good stuff - Consider the idea that the "I AM" - not as in the name of God - a name that is really not a name (hearken back to OP - what does matter a name :) -- but, as in "I think therefor I am" - the soul being the essence of the Godhead !?

    Consider that the book of Enoch - is in fact Cannon - in the Ethiopian Church. Why do you figure this book is not included in every cannon?

    This book explains the stories - of the Older Gods .. the ones who came down and impregnated earthly females - and did all kinds of other deeds - as recorded not only in the Bible - but elsewhere - other religious texts .. Tells about other things as well - extraterrestrial encounters.. which makes sense of Ezekiel ..

    It is no longer a secret who the Sons of God - referred to in the Bible were .. You can read all about these sons in Sumerian/Assyrian and other lore .. the acts of YHWH - son of El - being no exception. Gods battling each other - YHWH vs the Baal being just one example ... but Baal was YHWHs primary arch enemy .. being the main war God of the Cannanites. One State had one God - the other had another God.

    The Israelites were in fact "Canaanites" - just in the neighboring city. What is really interesting though is if you look at Abraham in relation to the battles of the Gods .. Why was Abraham given a retinue of men when in Egypt ? .. how did he get a reception from the Pharaoh to begin with .

    This is a really good one on Abraham - .
     
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  17. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Interesting!

    Your question got me wondering as to why in our time period so many are shown that they are connected to ancient Beings...... from a different NDE I suspect we are all connected to members of the fourteen Elohim of Genesis one verses twenty six and twenty seven.


    http://www.allaboutchristian.com/spirituality/
     
  18. Ravenhawk

    Ravenhawk New Member

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    I believe that it absolutely matters (who Jesus is). The whole concept of salvation and redemption wouldn’t work any other way if he wasn’t GOD. One main idea that runs through the Torah is the act of sacrifice. It took 1500 years to ingrain that idea into the Jewish mindset. Everything in the Bible was leading up to this one event, Jesus entering Jerusalem during Passover. Jesus comes through the gates as all other sacrifices did. I.e., it’s symbolic. Jesus’ mission was to be a man. Experience man’s existence. The happiness, the anger, the arrogance, the fear, the anguish, the love, all of it. No other god has sacrificed himself to get close to his creation. If that is not great love, then what is? He had to do this so that Redemption would be possible. It wouldn’t have meant a thing for GOD to sacrifice himself if the sting of death was not experienced. Without that, there would be no victory over death. And none of this would have happened if Jesus was subordinate to GOD.

    Paul made the connection that Jesus was GOD (Homoousion – of the same stuff) in his writings. Paul was the “missing” Apostle that tied everything together. I don’t think he was correct on everything; some writings were still influenced by his xenophobia. But in 325AD, all the knowledgeable Bishops gathered to hash out a Canon. Athanasianism is what prevailed. It wasn’t until after Nicaea that Arianism got traction. But it was labeled as heresy. Many cannot comprehend what the Trinity is. Like in Islam, Mohammed couldn’t get past polytheism. But the way to think of it is one entity but three different hats. Each with a separate function. Our understanding is inadequate to fully explain what it is, but we do our best.

    Doing a thought experiment here, let’s say you have a cube. This cube represents Yahweh. Now if you use a light source to cast a shadow of the cube on a wall, place the light straight on to form a shadow of a square. This square represents GOD. Rotate the cube 1/8th turn on either axis, the shadow morphs into a rectangle. This shadow represents Jesus. Now, rotate the cube 1/8th turn on the other axis. You now have a hexagon. This is the Holy Spirit (watch animation below). Again, one entity, but three forms. One could say that the cube begot three different shadows. The shadows could be considered subordinate to the cube, but the shadows (Trinity) are all the same. And it is the shadows that we interact with. What does it mean for GOD to be subordinate to Yahweh? We cannot comprehend the cube in the natural world, so the shadow fills in. That shadow becomes the burning bush, the Finger of GOD writing out the Ten Commandments in stone, or even a booming voice from the sky. GOD is loud, the Holy Spirit is subtle, and Jesus is real.

    anim_cube.gif
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2021
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  19. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is a perfectly valid hypothesis - Forget the stories for a moment - and let me talk pure science - and some philosophy - which is also science -but of a different sort - and I am a bit of a nerd - having a chem degree but specialize in microbiology - stuff like getting bacteria to eat hydroccarbons "bioremediation" - saving the world .. that sort of thing.

    1) Way many worlds out there - probability is that life has arisen in many places.. and hey ..we may even find it on mars with the latest really cool rover.
    2) Philosophically -- "I think therefor I am" - if matter/energy assumed a configuration that "gained knowledge of itself" - here on earth .. and thus this is a mechanism built into the system .. meaning - there is a finite probability of Matter/energy achieving this - which there must be -as we exist brother..

    Proven - finite probability of matter/energy - gaining knowledge of itself .. in who knows what form !? (do learn chess notation por favor)

    Now - Assume - Time is infinite - in an infinite amount of time .. all finite probabilities repeat - infinitely.

    My guess is that there are many different life forms out there .. purely from a scientific perspective.

    Now for story time

    3) - Assume one of these lifeforms came here - The legends - stories from the ancient Sumerians describe these beings as looking pretty much like us - and behaving similarly - and it is detailed - in a number of versions - that humans were created from mixing some primitive human - with those that came from the sky. Watch a few more of that fellows videos if you want the long version but the purpose was to be do labor that the God's were too lazy to do.

    This of course makes perfect sense -- I would perhaps do the same had I the capability .. and the opportunity. Perhaps some other lifeforms have a prime directive of non intervention (which does seem to be in the background of some of the stories - but clearly was violated)

    Then we consider that these "Folks came from the sky" stories exist in near every culture .. from way way back .. all having the same basic plot line .. .combined with having advanced stone technology .. ability to move and manipulate stone.

    Consider Baalbek - Stones thousands of times heavier than the pyramid stones - a long long time ago..

    It is not like these are not logical hypothesis - to the contrary .. they make a fair bit of sense.

    And there are just way to many alien stories - that are way too credible.






    .
     
  20. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This was alot for one post - so apologize if I just highlight a few things for now. ..

    The real Jesus is quite obscured - that much is for sure. But - the earliest story about him that we do have - and the one with the most claim to legitimacy - as in the highest score relative to the other stories. - is the Jesus of Mark.. - tradition holding that these came from a pupil/interpreter of Mark.

    In this story - contrary to your suggestion - Jesus is presented as the Son of God.

    In this story - Jesus is deified not at Birth however - but as a man of 30 .
    In keeping with numerous man becomes a patron of some God stories of the day - a ritual of some kind is undertaken - prior to the deification to be completed - a testing of sorts.

    The Pharaohs had to undergo testing prior to being considered divine. This ritual did not involve 40 days in the desert but other rituals did. ..
    During the Ritual of Jesus -- The tester .. the advocate as per Job - who came to be associated (rightly or wrongly) with Satan .. was a different son of God . a divine being with tremendous powers.

    Jesus then goes out and does some amazing deeds .. and preaches a message.. but in Mark - there is no physical resurrection stories - no Jesus wandering around in the flesh after death..

    Jesus of course preached of the resurrection - but this was a spiritual resurrection. and even Paul - who I do not like too much - likens the stories of Jesus appearances to his vision - aka - a spiritual resurrection .. akin to the appearances of Mary.

    At the end of Mark the reader is left to wonder - what happened .. the tomb is empty - and an some young man in a white robe says Jesus has risen .. and gone ahead of you go galilee - where you will see him.

    And that is it.
     
  21. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    The Gospel ACCORDING TO MARK was not written by Mark. It was a series of stories sewed together by people long after Mark died and Jesus died and these ghost writers NOT Mark, added most of the references to Jesus as THE son of God not A son of God.

    The pivotal debate between modern and traditional Christians is on your singular reliance of gospels ACCORDING TO Mark which you assume are 100% what he wrote and were not re-written.
     
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  22. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    I wish to clarify the above. I actually did but it was cut off not getting edited in quick enough. I would argue as do many Christian theologians that the final passages of Mark were added on and others deleted. I would argue as they do that the gospel was intended to explain to Pagans the Jewish traditions of Christianity which explain the ceremonies of the Coptic Christian Church today which are much different than other Christian sects.

    I would argue that if you read the passages "according to Mark" they do not refer to Jesus as the "Messiah" and in fact warn against doing so.

    It comes down to whether one believes the passages in Mark or anywhere else in the BIBLE and for that matter Old or New Testament were first hand stories or in fact the result of ghost writers putting together a patchwork of stories based on many oral and written sources, all second or third hand or even more remote from that and then further distorted in translations from Armaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin back and forth.

    To rely on third hand "according to" stories translated via religions that had numerous gaps in equivalency when translating makes no sense.

    I would as many theologians do that the original gnostic scriptures of Christianity which were the source of the Christianity in Rome at the time of Constantine would not have been that different from Judaism-the only real difference being the rejection of the hierarch of the synagogues and Priests as having been corrupt in an attempt to decentralize Judaism into an individual internal dialogue that needed no one else to tell anyone how to pray to their "God".

    I would argue as to many that the gnostic Christian tradition comes from the central lesson of teekam olam-that each one of us in this sense, choice to be born in this material world full of physical distortions that challenge are ability to see certain things so that we could learn to confront these distortions and see through them and in so doing make positive not negative choices as we learned that all life forms are attached and each thought we make can heal or harm ourselves and all other life forms simultaneously. I believe central to this theme is that it was taught all humans have the potential to be messiahs in that the most simple of positive deeds causes a tidal wave of positive consequences that help others heal and in reverse if we choose negative choices, a tidal wave of negative consequences is triggered.

    Central to this discussion was not that a miracle was created by a superpowered human, but by frail, weak humans learning to believe in their own powers to do good things.

    So with respect I would argue like the modern theologians do that an over-reliance of themes of superhumans saving others is not and was never the point. I also would argue as many do the superhuman sent by God to save the world was in fact a theme presented at least in 80 pagan or non Christian religions long before Constantine ordered 120 or so Ghrost writers to re-write Christianity to fuse it with Pagan beliefs to avoid a civil war in Rome.

    I and many others argue. The New Testament is a series of patch work edited stories and which ones came from who and when is not known and can not be known.

    That said I respect anyone's right to believe anything if they believe it helps them do positive things and respect others.

    If its used to define two sets of people, one going to hell for not believing what the others do and believing those who believe differently are wrong, then I have a problem.

    For me and modern interpreters of religion, say we argued Jesus was just a human, it would not dettract from the lessons just make them more powerful in the sense that the way Jesus is depicted today, he was a superhuman and so others can not do what he did. I would argue the exact opposite, that if anything Jesus was a human and so everything he did, anyone could do. I believe in another sense we are all equally children of "God". I do not myself use that word. I believe the concept of "God" is an abstract one trying to explain the origins of various levels of life or energy that we call life and so using words lkike "God" overly simplify it otherwise we could not understand it. This too is why we create personifications of "Goid" and give in human qualities. Our brains can't conceive of it as an abstract concept unless we dumb it down into human references.
     
  23. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I assumed no such thing and certainly did not claim that Mark defacto wrote the first gospel. What I said - was that this is as close as we have.

    You don't know which parts came from Mark (if any) and which did not so your statement is erroneous. We simply don't know.

    What we do know - is that Jesus is depicted as the son of God - on the very first page of the Bible - and throughout the rest of the Mark and the other books that came later.

    What we also know is that Matt - used Mark as a source document - including all of Mark except a few passages that this author felt were derogatory to Jesus and/or the deciples. - aka "Pious Fraud"
     
  24. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    Then if you do not take it literally why do you refer to it literally? The fact that you or I do not know who actually wrote anything in the Bible does not make what I said erroneous just the exact opposite. You do not know what parts came from anyone, Mark, Matthew, anyone. You are relying on a book "according to". You do not know who wrote anything but you assume. What I do know is that the first pahe of the Bible starts with the Old Testament not the New Testament. What I also know is the New Testament and Old Testament are written by a collective of writers and no one knows their names or whjat they wrote, added, edited, deleted. What I also know is there are over 80 "religious stories" depicting a human as THE son of God not just the New Testament. I also know "according to" does not make it a literal translation. I also know translations from Armaic and Hebrew to Greek and Latin just in that transfer would distort meaning.

    The fact you find passages depicting Jesus as THE son of God does not mean it originated in Christianity in fact it shows it was added once the Bible was written and in case you did not notice, Christianity as a following existed before the New Testament was written.

    Here is what I also know-in Judaism the Old Testament is not written as literal world. Each sentence in its books can have infinite meaning and the Talmud was created as a guide to debate its meanings so as to come up with more than one meaning. It is that very Talmud, a code to debate meanings that Jesus if he did exist would have used and so to think he would have insisted on only his words literally as the only words to believe make no logical sense particularily when he rebelled against a set hierarchy of Priests trying to impose precisely that on followers.

    Feel free to dictate back literal interpretations of whatever you think justifies your preconception that the Bible is the beginning of Christianity and is proof of anything other than parables written by humans.
     
  25. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    where do you people come up with this nonsense? religion is a condition its not someting that 'came out'
     

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