Jesus--not real?

[CaterpillarGirl]

Originally posted by UCFKevin

I think it's entirely possible that he didn't really exist.

 

He's a historical figure because that's what we're told he is. There is no true evidence that he really existed, other than in a book that a bunch of people wrote thousands of years ago, and some pictures. Granted, yes, there are other cultures who talk about him, but the story of Jesus, or a Jesus like figure, goes back WAAAAY before his era.

 

History isn't always what we think it is. At least that's what conspiracy theorist David Icke says. He's one of these "the world is run by the Illuminati" people, the statements he makes are pretty far out, but some of them indeed make sense. He says that Jesus never existed, that every election is rigged, the world is run by a bloodline that dates back tens of thousands of years.

 

As for what *I* believe, I dunno. It's a matter of believing or not, in my opinion, there is really no fact. I choose to believe that there was a Jesus, whether he did what he's said to have done, I'm really not sure. It's a hard pill to swallow, especially since we haven't seen anything like that whatsoever in two thousand years, which is odd to me. But I prefer to HOPE, rather than believe, that he did exist, and that God exists. There are no true definites in life, other than death. That's my opinion, though.

 

 

Umm...other historians also wrote about him, less than 50 years after his death, in a manner that wasn't, well, flattering. Are they lying too?

 

The best sources to date:

 

Josephus, a 1st century Jewish historian (born 37 AD), references Jesus in his history of the Jews, and states "At this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him many Jews and Gentiles. This was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the instigation of chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him..." (Jewish Antiquities XVIII, 63).

 

Caries Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 100 AD), writes in a pro-Roman fashion, "Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were hated because of their leader Christus, the founder who was put to death by Pontius Pilate."

 

Suetonius (A.D. 75-160) references Christ as an insurgent to Roman authority.

[UCFKevin]

Anything's possible.

 

Question everything.

[End of my rope]

I personally believe that Jesus did walk this earth. He may or may not have performed miracles. I do believe that he is the Son of God. In the true sense of the word.

 

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son..."

 

--John 3:14-21

 

I beleive in the Holy Trinity, but that they are seperate enaties, yet all of God. The father, the son, and the holy spirit. Jesus is the right hand of God and he intercedes for us. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

 

And there you have my beliefs and opinion.

[InmannRoshi]

There were about 40 Roman Historians who wrote during the first two centuries, none stated that Jesus existed in the 1st century. If Jesus was such a great man who had a throng of followers, and his death worthy of the Roman Governor Pontius Pilot’s attention (who many historians of that era wrote volumes of historical biographies about) shouldn't we have some scriptures from contemporary historians mentioning him? Some historians, who were in Jerusalem when Jesus supposedly was there, wrote exhaustive accounts of far less events but did not mention Jesus.

 

 

There are some CHRISTIAN Historians who brought up Jesus long after he was dead and gone, therefore all information obtained about Jeus would have been through early Christians .. hardly an objective source, but even that doesn’t meet criticism.

 

The often mentioned Flavious Josephus was born in 37 CE, so he would have never met the Jesus when he was supposedly alive. He described Jesus' as a wise man who was crucified by Pilate. Most historians believe that the paragraph in which he describes Jesus is partly or completely a forgery that was inserted into the text by an unknown Christian. The passage pops up completely out of the blue, appears out of context and breaks the flow of the narrative.

 

 

Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian who lived from 55 to 120, who again didn’t live while Jesus was supposedly alive, and some Christians accept his writings as a strong indicator of Jesus' existence in the early 1st century CE. However, historians believe the information could have been derived from early Christian material circulating in the early 2nd century.

 

There is some mention of the name Chrestus, which I guess kind of sounds like Jesus, who was supposedly a Jewish agitator of Rome, but Chrestus was a common Greek name at the time.

 

In truth, the figure of Jesus is a likely hodgepodge of mythical gods and a hodgpodge of actual madmen prophets who were abudant at the time. He was likely conjured up by the first writers to become a mythological folk hero for the people of the Roman Occupied Middle East to rally behind. Around 800 B.C. many in the the Roman Empire worshipped the god Mithras, who was commonly worshiped in Persia. Mithras was first introduced into Italy by pirates from Cilicia (Sout-East Turkey) who initiated the Romans into the secrets of the religion. In early Babylon, The Babylonian clergy merged Mithras into Shamash, their god of justice, victory and protection (and the sun god from whom King Hammurabi received his code of laws in the 18th century B.C.E., which is mentioned in the Old Testiment .. and its no wonder the Old Testiment and the New Testiment go together)

The faithful referred to Mithra as "the Light of the World", symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between heaven and earth and was a member of a Holy Trinity. According to Persian mythology, Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God'. The god remained celibate throughout his life, and valued self-control, renunciation and resistance to sensuality among his worshippers. Mithras represented a system of ethics in which brotherhood was encouraged in order to unify against the forces of evil. The worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world to come. They looked forward to a final day of Judgment in which the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness.

Purification through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred.. After the earthly mission of this god had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his 12 companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.

 

However, it would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the single forerunner of early Christianity. Aside from Christ and Mithras, there were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected similar to Jesus. Many classical heroic figures, such as Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, were said to have been born through the union of a virgin mother and divine father. If you read the works of Joseph Campbell, you'll find many of man's religious stories and myths are very similar ...which suggest they stem out of a common pathos of human nature, rather than real events.

[UCFKevin]

Precisely!

 

Where'd you get all that from, though? Is that cut and pasted or all you? Might want to mention a link.

[Sundaymorning]

sometimes i truly believe in him, when amazing things happen, such as my healthy family and amazing boyfriend, but other times, like 9-11, i just struggle to believe in him. but i suppose thats normal.

i feel like he must hate this world- all the hating of gay people, murder and crime. its all going downhill, so if he is real, he must be getting really pissed off. someone had said that it says somewhere that He will come back (what is that word, starts with an A?), when the world gets at its worst. i feel that it could be soon!

so yes, and no.

[End of my rope]

In truth, the figure of Jesus is a likely hodgepodge of mythical gods and a hodgpodge of actual madmen prophets who were abudant at the time.

 

And if you're wrong? When you stand before him and receive judgement, how will you justify your beliefs then? That it didn't seem possible for him to have existed? That there wasn't enough evidence to justify his existance?

[InmannRoshi]

Originally posted by End of my rope

And if you're wrong? When you stand before him and receive judgement, how will you justify your beliefs then? That it didn't seem possible for him to have existed? That there wasn't enough evidence to justify his existance?

 

Well, since you put it that way. Okay, I'm a Christian now. I'll just stand before your Christian God when the fatefull day comes and say "I got to be honest with you ... I never TRULY ever believed you existed in my heart of hearts and rational mind, but I thought "oh well, better to be safe than sorry. Boy, now I'm glad I did". I'm sure that mindset will get me into heaven. Good to know God is accepting half assed believers.

 

But just in case, I'm hedging my bets. I'm also believing in Mohammed, Buddha, The Sun God, Aliens, Unicorns, Wizzards, Dragons and whatever else someone else might believe in ... because I don't want to face their version of hell might be if they turn out to be true either.

[InmannRoshi]

Precisely!

 

Where'd you get all that from, though? Is that cut and pasted or all you? Might want to mention a link.

 

I sincerely hope people aren't copyrighting work so crudely written with so many grammatical and punctual errors. But then again, I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

[UCFKevin]

And if you're wrong? When you stand before him and receive judgement, how will you justify your beliefs then? That it didn't seem possible for him to have existed? That there wasn't enough evidence to justify his existance?

 

And if YOU'RE wrong?

 

What if Muslims are the right ones?

 

Or Jewish folks?

[End of my rope]

Well, since you put it that way. Okay, I'm a Christian now. I'll just stand before your Christian God when the fatefull day comes and say "I got to be honest with you ... I never TRULY ever believed you existed in my heart of hearts and rational mind, but I thought "oh well, better to be safe than sorry. Boy, now I'm glad I did". I'm sure that mindset will get me into heaven. Good to know God is accepting half assed believers.

 

No. God does not want "half assed believers". I couldn't find an exact quote and don't have bible handy...but there is a scripture that tells us that Jesus wants us to be either hot or cold because he will spit out those who are lukewarm.

 

 

And if YOU'RE wrong?

 

What if Muslims are the right ones?

 

Or Jewish folks?

 

If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. I myself have questioned God's existance, and in turn if Jesus was a real man. In my heart I believe. I have faith that He exists and that someday I will have to atone for things I have done in my life. Maybe He isn't real, maybe He is "hodgepodge". I personally don't want to take that chance. I just can't bring myself to believe that it will all simply end one day. No divine anwsers, no afterlife, no coming back in another life, that we will simply cease to exist.

[sonofhud]

Thats Revelation 3:16......how can you halfway believe in something? Its not possible....its either all or nothing. Kids either believe in santa or they don't. There is no in-between.

 

You can't just say....ok I'm a Christian. It's hard to for a believer to explain to a non believer; however, I'm not gonna preach to non-believers by telling them that they will go to hell if they don't believe. That is not how Jesus did it. You can't scare someone into believing or bribe them with eternal life.

[quankanne]

interesting presentation on the deities, Inmann, but even with all the similarities you've pointed out, there is still one thing that has Jesus stand out above all the other leaders and prophets: even though he knew that to accept God's will meant being killed and even though he didn't want to die, he still offered up his life so that we could be ensured that relationship with God.

 

Is it a fairy-tale, a feel-good morality play? I don't know. But I do know that none of the others who have claimed or have had a certain godliness bestowed on them have willingly given up their lives for bunch of people who continue to hate, kill and hurt their fellow man.

 

What Jesus did, what he offered, to me is the proof of the pudding: there is no greater love than that for someone to embrace certain death if it meant ransoming another. That is the message Gibson is trying to share with the world with his movie about the Passion, not point fingers, not gross people out, but to say "here's one man who embraced a gruesome, horrific death because he loves you so much."

 

How can I not put my trust in someone who's made that kind of commitment to me, long before I ever arrived?

 

If I'm wrong, fine; I choose to "err" with my believe in what he offers, even though it's taken me a long time to "see" in my belief.

[Kingko1234]

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This is how simple Jesus is. He is the son of God and came to earth 2000 years ago. He lived a sinless life so that his sacrafice would quech the wrath of God that is meant for the human race because we are sinners. (thats what we call grace) He rose from the dead three days later (over 400 people saw him in a 40 day period) And now who ever believes in him will get eternal life with God in heaven. If you reject him you spend eternity in Hell not because God hates you but because you hate God and reject His Son. If you think this isn't fair, let me remind you that God created us! He created the earth, he decides the rules of life. So don't be mad at Him. Look to Him and he will give you peace. But remember this, God wants whats best for you so living the way he designed for us really is better than what we think is best for us.

[sonofhud]

Originally posted by Kingko1234

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This is how simple Jesus is. He is the son of God and came to earth 2000 years ago. He lived a sinless life so that his sacrafice would quech the wrath of God that is meant for the human race because we are sinners. (thats what we call grace) He rose from the dead three days later (over 400 people saw him in a 40 day period) And now who ever believes in him will get eternal life with God in heaven. If you reject him you spend eternity in Hell not because God hates you but because you hate God and reject His Son. If you think this isn't fair, let me remind you that God created us! He created the earth, he decides the rules of life. So don't be mad at Him. Look to Him and he will give you peace. But remember this, God wants whats best for you so living the way he designed for us really is better than what we think is best for us.

 

well that about sums it up....now lets tell everyone in the world what you just said and get it over with all ready.

 

BTW, I have oftened wondered about this.....God all ready knows everyone's fate, right? He all ready knows if they will choose to accept and love his son or not.....so why doesn't he just snap his fingers and make everyone go where they are going to go in the end anyways?

 

Kinda reminds me of the matrix....

[quankanne]

so why doesn't he just snap his fingers and make everyone go where they are going to go in the end anyways?

 

because he's a loving and compassionate God who believes in forgiveness and giving endless "second chances"?

 

Go read the parable of the prodigal son ... there's a lot of good stuff in there about second changes and forgiveness and reconciliation with God, even though on the outset it just sounds like a bratty kid sucking up to his dad.

[amerikajin]

I believe there's about as much historical evidence available to point to the existence of Jesus as there is for some of his contemporaries or, say, Julius Caesar. I don't doubt the fact that Jesus existed.

 

What I find hard to accept is that he is the son of God, or part of the Trinity. I think that's a very ethnocentric view of the world, that a person who for much of last 2000 years has been known almost exclusively in the West represents all of humanity. Don't you realize that many Asians feel the same way about Buddhas, that Muslims feel the same way about Muhammad, that Indians feel the same way about Hindu gods?

 

Christianity and Islam didn't traverse continents because of some set of self-evident truths that appealed to the logic and sensibilities of the people who inhabit these areas. Their spread has been largely the result of sometimes brutal wars in the name of their God. And if you ever wanted any evidence of that, I've got two words for you: Al Qaida.

[End of my rope]

Originally posted by sonofhud

 

BTW, I have oftened wondered about this.....God all ready knows everyone's fate, right? He all ready knows if they will choose to accept and love his son or not.....so why doesn't he just snap his fingers and make everyone go where they are going to go in the end anyways?

 

I don't believe we are pre-destined. I think that God knows which way we are most likely to lean but he gave us free will to make our own choices. We can choose to follow him or we can choose to shun him. He gives us that choice. Otherwise, like you said, why bother? Why even have us deal with life? Why doesn't he just snap his fingers and put us where we belong?

[dyermaker]

Originally posted by amerikajin

Muslims feel the same way about Muhammad

Muslims also believe Jesus was the divine Messiah.

[sonofhud]

If you think about it from a parents prospective though....

 

Sometimes my parents would tell me not to do something, knowing full well the choice I would make, yet they still allowed me to make the wrong choice to learn. I think its probably the same way with God.....but I do believe he is all knowing. The Bible says he knows the number of hairs on our heads.

 

I also think about the movie "Bruce Almighty".....

 

Bruce has Godlike powers yet he can't the girl he loves to love him back once he screws up and hurts her. God(Morgan Freeman) says he has the same problem with getting everyone to love him. God created us, he knows us better than we know ourselves, and the one think he can't make us do is all he wants us to do.

[End of my rope]

Originally posted by sonofhud

Sometimes my parents would tell me not to do something, knowing full well the choice I would make, yet they still allowed me to make the wrong choice to learn. I think its probably the same way with God.....but I do believe he is all knowing. The Bible says he knows the number of hairs on our heads.

 

God created us, he knows us better than we know ourselves, and the one thing he can't make us do is all he wants us to do.

 

I think you've hit the proverbial nail on the head there. He knows what we'll do but out of love give us the chance to make a diffrent decision...

[dyermaker]

Yeah, it's called free will. That's the reason that we're human, and not robots. That's also the reason that there is good and evil, for without free will there is no evil, and without evil, there's no frame of comparison for determining good.

[amerikajin]

>>>Muslims also believe Jesus was the divine Messiah.<<<

 

Muslims believe he was THE divine messiah or A messiah?

 

I don't pretend to know much about religion, so I have to confess a great degree of ignorance on this subject. What I do know is that there are many non-Christians out there, and I for one think it's foolish that they're all going to hell or that they're going to be somehow separated from the rest of humanity after this life just because they believe in something other than the teachings of Christ. You don't even need religion to be moral. Look no further than the teachings of Hippocrates and his simple axiom: first, do no harm. How much better this world would be if we'd all just follow that one simple piece of advice and throw all of the dogma out the window.

[amerikajin]

>>>I don't believe we are pre-destined. I think that God knows which way we are most likely to lean but he gave us free will to make our own choices. We can choose to follow him or we can choose to shun him. He gives us that choice. Otherwise, like you said, why bother? Why even have us deal with life? Why doesn't he just snap his fingers and put us where we belong?<<<

 

You see, that's what I don't get. Why did God create us and why is he going to judge us if he already knows which way we're going to lean? Do we exist for no purpose other than the amusement of some bored God who's sitting above watching this unfold and laughing his ass off: "Yeah, I knew Lee Harvey Oswald was gonna whack JFK but s***, had to give the boy a chance, you know?"

 

Sorry, I just don't buy any of it.

 

I think God created the Universe long ago and left things to unfold on their own. I don't think the Universe or humanity or everything in God's creation is perfect, it just is. It was created by a Creator - we know that much. But we're no closer to knowing who or what that Creator is than we were at the time of Christ's existence.

[amerikajin]

>>>No. God does not want "half assed believers". I couldn't find an exact quote and don't have bible handy...but there is a scripture that tells us that Jesus wants us to be either hot or cold because he will spit out those who are lukewarm. <<<

 

And what about those non-European cultures who weren't "fortunate" enough to have been conquered by a violent Christian army during the Middle Ages? Would Jesus spit them out as well? I think that's fanatical thinking. It sounds like something that Usama Bin Laden is telling his holy warriors in one of his caves.

 

I'm usually the kind of guy who believes in the idea of "live and let live", and I respect the fact that people need their faith. But sometimes, honestly, I think the world would be a much better place without religion. The only thing that prevents me from thinking that is my belief that if we didn't always fight over God, we'd find something else to fight about.