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Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spatula City
Science doesn't try to 'prove' either one.
They look at the evidence and draw a conclusion based on what can be proven.
The Bible isn't proof of anything.
Saying so is like saying that tales of Greek mythology are proof that Zeus and the Olympians are real.
Well, not exactly. Stories about Zeus are talking about someone who exists in the spiritual realm only, an interpretation of God.
Stories about Jesus are talking about a man who walked on Earth who people saw and touched. Very different. Maybe you don't believe he was God Incarnate -- I don't either -- but that a normal man by that name lived during that time shouldn't be difficult to accept.
Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PeaceOut001
That's where I go. There were many men who were decent and good as there were many men who were crucified. But telling the individual story of all those men would've been difficult to track and understand. The following would not have worked. The men were combined into a palpable myth to represent the mythical life of a great person who had great powers.
I don't see why the great powers aspect requires you to conclude that it wasn't one person. Just because there are myths about you doesn't mean you don't exist.
The only claim historians would investigate is "a normal man named Jesus of Nazareth lived in the Middle East 2000 years ago. He tried to say he was King of the Jews and therefore was crucified by the Romans."
Why is that so hard to accept? The ancient Egyptians believed their Pharaohs were incarnations of God (or their polytheistic interpretation thereof), but no one suggests as a result that the Pharaohs didn't exist.
Well, not exactly. Stories about Zeus are talking about someone who exists in the spiritual realm only, an interpretation of God.
Dunno who told you that.
According to his followers, Zeus was born and raised on the Island of Crete. He also fathered over 60 children with with different mortal women. Sounds like Zeus got out of the "spiritual realm" once in a while.
Well, not exactly. Stories about Zeus are talking about someone who exists in the spiritual realm only, an interpretation of God.
Stories about Jesus are talking about a man who walked on Earth who people saw and touched. Very different. Maybe you don't believe he was God Incarnate -- I don't either -- but that a normal man by that name lived during that time shouldn't be difficult to accept.
But Greek Gods actually interacted with people physically, reproduced with humans, and lived on a real-life mountain.
Jesus Christ as he is commonly regarded by Christians wasn't just a man named Jesus or even an ancient cult leader whose ideas happened to catch on, he was the son of God and he died for our sins. Finding evidence of some guy whose name was Jesus, or even evidence of his having disciples doesn't prove any of that.
Discovering whether or not the Christian version of Jesus really existed is a matter of scientists finding some evidence of miracles being performed, evidence of some major shift in human consciousness or matter around the time of the crucifixion, or I guess finding God, verifying that it really is God and not something that wants to trick us, and then having God tell us that the Christian account of things is really how it went down.
Last edited by Spatula City; 02-27-2015 at 12:18 PM..
Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
4,375 posts, read 4,068,851 times
Reputation: 2158
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spatula City
But Greek Gods actually interacted with people physically, reproduced with humans, and lived on a real-life mountain.
hmm I admit am not familiar with some of these obscure details of ancient religion.
So in that case it would not surprise me if there had been a human with that name. I don't know why it would surprise you.
Quote:
Jesus Christ as he is commonly regarded by Christians wasn't just a man named Jesus or even an ancient cult leader whose ideas happened to catch on, he was the son of God and he died for our sins. Finding evidence of some guy whose name was Jesus, or even evidence of his having disciples doesn't prove any of that.
Yeah but "historical Jesus" has nothing to do with the supernatural, rising from the dead or dying from our sins. If you're looking at it from a historical perspective, you are simply asking "was there a man named Jesus from Nazereth who lived in the middle east 2000 years ago and did something the Romans didn't like, resulting in his crucifixion?". The current consensus seems to be that yes, there likely was such a man.
Quote:
Discovering whether or not the Christian version of Jesus really existed is a matter of scientists finding some evidence of miracles being performed, evidence of some major shift in human consciousness around the time of the crucifixion, or I guess finding God and then having God tell us whether the Christian account of things is really how it went down or not.
No, no, no. You're confusing fundamentalists with mainstream Christians. The mainstream Christians see the stories as allegory.
I guess by your logic, if we find something that appears to be the Ark of the Covenant, but opening it does not turn our faces to liquid, it can't really be the Ark. Or if we find the Staff of Moses, and rise it up over a battlefield and it doesn't result in our side winning, it isn't really the Saff? Let me guess...you think that King Arthur literally pulled a sword from a stone, and no one else could pull it out? You think that George Washington literally never told a lie? You think Ben Franklin really flew a kite into a thunderstorm and took the full current contained in a bolt of lightning and lived?
lmao please, sir, do not confuse myth with the real events upon which the myths are based. It seems like several people on this site seem to think that Roman Catholic Priests believe in a Sunday School version of Christianity. smh. They don't. They believe in science and physics and all that. Maybe people like Rick Santorum and the average fighter in ISIS interpret religious texts literally, but mainstream normal religious people see it as allegory.
"What can we conclude from our look into the account of Jesus's life in the gospels? We see that:
The gospels were not written by eyewitnesses.
The names attached to the gospels are second century guesses.
The nativity accounts are 100% fiction.
The one account of his childhood is more likely a fictional creation by Luke based on Old Testament passages.
There are major problems with all the major events in his life: the Baptism by John, the temptation in the wilderness and even whether there were actually twelve apostles.
None of the miracle accounts seems credible. The nature miracles and the epiphanies are obviously false, while many of the healings are unimpressive and could be explained by non-miraculous means.
Jesus’s teachings were not that much different from the teachings of other major religious traditions and were well within the tradition of various contemporaneous Jewish itinerant preachers.
His personality was probably not that attractive: the evidence points to the fact that he was, like most Jewish preachers of his time, a xenophobic, rather fanatical, Jew.
He never claimed to be God.
Many events surrounding the "passion week" are of dubious historicity.
The account of Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin is obviously fiction as it contradicts everything we know about the procedures of the council.
The trial before Pilate is largely fictional as well.
The accounts of Jesus' crucifixion read like fiction.
The accounts of the burial and resurrection could not be true as they stand for they contradict one another openly.
In short, all we know about the events in the life of Jesus is this:
Jesus hailed from Nazareth, a small town in Galilee. We know nothing of his life before he started his public ministry. He preached initially in the small towns and villages of Galilee. He had some followers, thought the exact number is uncertain. His teachings, while radical, did not seem to involve a repudiation of Jewish laws. He came to Jerusalem with his disciples, was arrested and crucified. His disciples fled after he was arrested.
The above is not a summary but represents all that can be said for certain about his life."
Jesus hailed from Nazareth, a small town in Galilee. We know nothing of his life before he started his public ministry. He preached initially in the small towns and villages of Galilee. He had some followers, thought the exact number is uncertain. His teachings, while radical, did not seem to involve a repudiation of Jewish laws. He came to Jerusalem with his disciples, was arrested and crucified. His disciples fled after he was arrested.
yeah, I'd agree with that. The concept of "Historical Jesus" is just referring to the quoted paragraph above. The rest of it is just myth/allegory. Historians are not trying to find evidence that he turned water into wine, that's silly. smh @ such a concept.
Yeah but "historical Jesus" has nothing to do with the supernatural, rising from the dead or dying from our sins. If you're looking at it from a historical perspective, you are simply asking "was there a man named Jesus from Nazereth who lived in the middle east 2000 years ago and did something the Romans didn't like, resulting in his crucifixion?". The current consensus seems to be that yes, there likely was such a man.
I guess it depends on how popular the name was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by neutrino78x
No, no, no. You're confusing fundamentalists with mainstream Christians. The mainstream Christians see the stories as allegory.
I really don't think that believing Jesus was the son of God is 'fundamentalist' or even an outsider view in Christianity. And the miracles, rising from the dead and all of that seem to be a pretty essential part of being Christian.
I have to say, when I was little my parents took me to one of the more liberal Christian churches out there. This is a church that now supports gay marriage and actively champions gay and transgender rights, offering all kinds of faith-based support groups that are more about self-acceptance than pressuring people to change. It was mostly about doing the regular church/Christian stuff, but without all of the hate that you see in the media (the extended family was more into that stuff).
But even there it was pretty much true that Jesus was literally the son of God, and performed miracles.
Which denominations don't believe Jesus was the son of God, exactly?
Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spatula City
I guess it depends on how popular the name was.
No...there could have been ten million people with that name, and there still could have been a man named Jesus of Nazareth who did something the Romans didn't like and was crucified, and whose followers went on to establish what is nown known as The Roman Catholic Church. This really isn't a difficult concept, man.
Quote:
I really don't think that believing Jesus was the son of God is 'fundamentalist' or even an outsider view in Christianity.
Yes, but how would that effect whether or not there was such a man? If after you die, people say that you were God Incarnate, would we then conclude that you never existed? That makes no sense.
Plus you do realize that (mainstream) Christians believe that when God came to Earth in human form, as Jesus, his body was a normal human body, right? Like if he were sitting next to you and you could do any scientific test you wanted, you would conclude that this is a normal human being.
Quote:
And the miracles, rising from the dead and all of that seem to be a pretty essential part of being Christian.
No, you are incorrect. Mainstream Christians do not take this literally. They do think he came back from the dead and talked to the disciples in spirit form (which of course, no scientific experiment could ever prove or disprove), but the part about his body disappearing, raising Lazarus from the dead, curing people of diseases etc., that is understood to be allegory. A story meant to teach you a spiritual truth. I recommend discussing this with the nearest priest you can find who is a member of the Society of Jesus, that is to say, the "Jesuit" order, instead of basing your understanding of Christianity on what is taught to children in Sunday School. I don't even consider myself a Christian -- I see myself as a Deist -- but even I know that they don't take it literally in the sense that you're implying. This is 2015, dude, not 1615. We know the universe is billions of years old, men evolved form lower forms of life, etc.
I have mentioned it before but a good book on this subject is Brother Astronomer, written by a Jesuit brother who has a PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona and a BS in the subject from MIT:
He explains that yes, he believes that Jesus was God Incarnate, part of the Trinity, God walking on the Earth. However, being a scientist, he also believes in the big bang and human evolution. So he knows that the part about curing people of diseases etc is all allegory. He also says this is the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church; it is what they tell the Jesuits to teach people at Catholic schools. This Jesuit Brother works at the Vatican Observatory where they do mainstream secular astronomy. The Vatican Observatory, for example, has discovered planets orbiting other stars. The Roman Catholic CHurch also paid for him to travel to Antarctica and be part of the team that found the Mars meteorite which was briefly suspected to contain fossilized Martian life. The Roman Catholic Church apparently funds a a lot of secular scientific research.
Yes, SOME Christians take it literally. Like Jerry Fallwell and the 700 club and Bush 43 and Rick Santorum. But the mainstream interprets this as allegory. Just as MOST Jews don't think the Ark of the Covenant would turn your face to liquid if you opened it. And most Muslims do not think terrorism is right or that anyone gets 700 virgins when they die. Some take it literally, the vast majority do not.
Quote:
I have to say, when I was little my parents took me to one of the more liberal Christian churches out there. This is a church that now supports gay marriage and actively champions gay and transgender rights, [...]
But even there it was pretty much true that Jesus was literally the son of God, and performed miracles.
Yeah....that's the religious myths they taught you as a kid, dude. That's not what the adults believe.
Quote:
Which denominations don't believe Jesus was the son of God, exactly?
Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
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A Roman Catholic Jesuit wrote this:
Quote:
Typically, we are quite adept at making the distinction between literal and literalistic speech. If I said, "That was a brilliant sunset" you would not think that I had somehow tested the IQ of the sun; you would, rather, know that I thought there was an arresting beauty to a natural phenomena. Or if I say that it's raining cats and dogs, you are not seized with a fear that canines and felines are somehow dropping out of the heavens. We know how to recognize metaphors. We take them literally - for they are metaphors - and not as literalist statements of what is happening.
When we approach the Scriptures, we shouldn't be surprised to see that it contains very many different literary forms: letters, histories, hymns, laws, prophecies, parables, genealogies, prayers, etc..! Each of these is a different way of communicating a message. The Bible, Catholics acknowledge, is comprised of many different books each of which shares the Truth of God in a variety of ways.
It is in this way that Catholics do take the Bible literally! We recognize that the Scriptures teach us the truth of who God is and what God has been and is doing in our history. Just as we read a recipe differently from a love letter, or a prayer different from fiction, so must we learn how to read the Scriptures in a way faithful to the many ways it communicates the truth of our salvation.
So no, most Christians do not read the Bible as a history book but rather as a book of allegory.
They do think there was a man named Jesus of Nazareth, but no one expects to find historical evidence of him performing miracles. Those are allegories.
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