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The interim ethics of Jesus have become kidnapped by the Church and the religion of Jesus has fallen by the wayside, while the religion about Jesus has taken center stage, eh?
Aftter Jesus left, the movement became a religion, and then that religion sold out harder than anyone has ever sold out before. Christianity became a horible satanic parody of itself. It didn't really stand much of a chance because Satan is the god of this world.
I have heard that religions was made up and put in place to keep people in line and that Jesus was the icing on the cake, I can see how that is plausible. I do know he was an historical fact and he and many others walked the earth telling great stories, others like him had claimed to be and were hung on a cross, so I keep hearing this is not unique to just the Christian religion, Just wondering outoud
Sounds like Karl Marx's economic theory of religion - an institution put in place by a society to control it's people. His famous "the opium of the masses" quote is fairly well known in this regard. His theories, however, have long fallen out of favor because of their generalizations, among other things.
I'm not sure whether he posited that religions arose as forms of social control, or whether the religions were usurped by societies for this purpose eventually. Any Marx experts know the answer to this one?
I don't think any bunch of people sat around and came up with a Jesus, conspiracy-style. The way I've always seen it is: there was a man who went around preaching a concept that felt new to the people he was teaching it to (we know from history that there were typically a handful of these in Roman-occupied lands at any given time), and just like the game of "telephone," when the story got passed from one person to the next to the next to the next, it kept changing. That happens easily when stories are passed orally, especially if people are excited about their subject matter.
By 50-ish years after the death of such a person, there would have been tons of urban legend-y stuff going around. Jesus is like the religious King Arthur. A bajillion incredible things that had probably already been heard in mythology and in the current religion were attributed to him.
People were seriously repressed. Life was hard. They needed something to believe in and the messiah just wasn't coming along to take freedom (from the Romans) with the sword. This guy gave an alternate way of being "saved" from the harshness of life; it just happened to be after death. People must have been just bowled over and amazed. They wanted and needed something new to believe in.
It's kind of like, for example, George Washington and the cherry tree story. That urban legend was already floating around while he was still alive. Certainly such stories about the uber-goodness of a person could crop up in 30, 40, 50 years. And certainly stories can change to something unbelievable and gasp-worthy in just one retelling...let alone hundreds of retellings.
By George Washington's time, with the advent of newspapers, with many people being able to read, things being reported at the time they happened, etc., etc., obviously nobody could really have written "George Washington walked on water" and have it be believed, so his own urban legends were somewhat more believable than Jesus' (though still not true). But in the time of the development of Arthurian legends, which was close to half a millennium after the time of Jesus (we spot Arthur in literature first around 900AD...I think) , people were still willing to believe, at least in an allegorical way, in magical and otherwordly stuff taking place on the earth. So certainly 900 years earlier people were willing to believe in magical occurrences (like the water and wine, loaves and fish and even, perhaps, reanimation of the dead).
I can't really believe in anything coming close to a conspiracy regarding the Jesus story at least until the Council of Nicea. At that point, yes, it was a conspiracy. Even the similarities in certain quotes (and exactness in certain quotes) from Gospel book to book don't say "conspiracy" to me, at all. That was simply someone reading one Gospel and copying it but trying to change it a bit to make it seem unique or possibly to make things flow better (sentence-structure wise), to add a bit of poetic feel, etc., etc.
My thoughts EXACTLY!!!
An itinerant preacher of the day, a little ahead of his time, champion to the poor and downpressed (who were taught all their lives that their lot in life had to do with some disfavor from god) who pissed some people off and was strung up. But poor folks don't let go of their hopes so easy even if they die. The rest became religious fantasy called Christianity.
Aftter Jesus left, the movement became a religion, and then that religion sold out harder than anyone has ever sold out before. Christianity became a horible satanic parody of itself. It didn't really stand much of a chance because Satan is the god of this world.
Ah yes - we agree on this, then? Good!
I'll excuse myself from the observation on Satan, but I agree that the very nature of organized religion tends to take religious experiences and truths that were highly individualized and turns them into cookie-cutter maxims and laws that quickly lose their original meaning, and become bland unseasoned gruel - rather than tasty treats of the soul.
If Jesus does come back, he will be a bit angry, I think.
"Forgive them, Father - they know not what they have done."
I wonder if forgiveness will be forthcoming?
I have been on a search for a while for the truth...which only brings more questions than answers it seems...some say he was created to keep people in line, to be productive moral citizens who would keep order. Some say he was really a Buddhist and he actually trailed to various lands preaching the same story.
all my life I believed he was gods son...but something just seemed off, I always denied that cause of the fear of hell...so I always just accepted it. As I got older, started to read more, did searches on the internet, did deep studies in politics and religion, esp reading about zeitgeist...well I am more confused than ever.
I now am agnostic and wish I weren't.
He is God. No one created him. He took on human flesh to die on the cross as a propitiation for us so that we don't have to face God's wrath.
You, me, everyone has sinned and stored up wrath for us on the day of judgment. You disagree? Read the 10 commandments and tell me you've been perfect your entire life. I haven't.
I don't doubt that there was a person called Jesus walking around the middle east teaching about God, given the political climate at the time. As for all the wonderful myths about him, well, I think they are made up stories to sale the idea of Jesus. If you look at the area where Jesus lived it was conrolled by Rome at the time and most Roman soldiers held to the belief of Mithras. It became very easy for the followers of Jesus to create an mystic about Jesus using the Roman god Mithras as a model. If the Roman soldiers believed in Mithras, then surely they would believe in Jesus if Jesus was like Mithras, therefore, Mithras attributes became Jesus, with all the stories of his birth, miracles and even the resurrection.
He is God. No one created him. He took on human flesh to die on the cross as a propitiation for us so that we don't have to face God's wrath.
Myth unless you can prove it.
Quote:
You, me, everyone has sinned and stored up wrath for us on the day of judgment. You disagree? Read the 10 commandments and tell me you've been perfect your entire life. I haven't.
Sorry, my slate is clean. A ME deity plays no role in my life as I am not a Jew.
I don't think he was made up. Maybe some of his actions were, and the philosophy of who he was, but the man himself I beleive did not only exist, and at the very least was a waterfall of wisdom, knowlege and charisma.
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