Posts by Illyrian

26

i'm in shock!

by Sunnygal41 in

after 13 years with the same car, at the beginning the week i became the proud owner of a 2002 chrysler pt cruiser!

she is the most beautiful car i've ever owned............she's candy apple red, with leather seats that are heated, sun/moon roof, chrome wheels.

when i picked her up from the dealer, i didn't even feel like i should own this car, as she is more gorgeous than i could ever imagine..........anyways, i had to share my deep thanks to the universe with y'all............i am deeply happy to have a reliable, warm, safe, but absolutely gorgeous, car to drive.........perhaps it's also partly because i will be 50 years old in august............another wonderful milestone in my life......... smooches,.

Illyrian

How did you bribe universe? I want one too :)

Glad to hear that, enjoy it :)

71

Has Islam lead to an increase in Atheism?

by nicolaou in

ever since 911 and the subsequent attacks in bali, madrid, and london it seems that everyone feels they have a licence to criticise islam (they do).

fundamentalist and many mainstream christians deride the backwardness of a religion that creates suicide bombers and 'honour' killers.

of course, it was only a small group of hardcore islamist extremists that carried out these attacks but the whole community has been tarred by them, and perhaps in some sense it is only right that the majority of 'reasonable' and peaceful muslims do accept the part they play in providing the soil for these people to grow in.

Illyrian

This is a lie; if you know anything about statistics you can see the ONLY cases of a drop in atheism are cases where the drop would fall within a normal margin-of-error. All the others are clear increases in atheism beyond any possible statistical effect.

Abaaddon, I'm assuming you are questioning my own ability to read statistics report. IF you go back and reread what I wrote you will see I clearly stated I was simply pasting the conclusion from the site itself, word for word. That was not my conclusion. I pasted it because I there were lots of non-tabulated and scattered statistics in there and I didn't have time to go through it all. In any event, I for one, at least provided some statistics unlike everyone so far in this discussion and have called for more statistical investigation on the matter. Didn't expect to be called a lier though. thanks for that :)

37

Was Jesus a Buddist?

by Illyrian in

i started investigating this issue a few months back after seeing a documentary that intrigued me.

some of you may disagree with my findings and that is ok, but hopefully we can have a constructive discussion and hear both sides of the arguments.

i personally was deeply impressed, to say the least, by the apparent cogency and deep correlations of evidentiary materials that survived to this day, which supports this thesis.. there is so much more that can be or should be said here but i will try to keep this text as short as possible so as to keep people interested enough to read it.. buddhism appeared some 500 years before jesus arrival.

Illyrian

Well what do you know, thank you for those links nvrgnbk I never read those two books.

p.s. is that short for never going back? :)

105

DO YOU THINK THERE'S A CURE FOR CANCER?

by Mary in

do you think the scientists, doctors and pharmeceutical companies know of a cure for cancer that they're not telling us?

when you consider the leaps and bounds in medical discoveries that we've made in the last 50 years, it seems incredible that they're still using chemotherapy and radiation as the treatment for cancer.. while i was one of the lucky one who has survived cancer (so far), it's always in the back of my mind that it could return.

we all have friends who died before their time because of this rotten disease, yet the only progress that seems to have been made is that they can now 'detect' it earlier, which of course gives you a much greater chance of survival.. there have been stories of people who have been cured through alternative medicine, yet no one in the medical field seems to be interested in anything other than chemo or radiation.

Illyrian

I think I've heard something about a team of local researchers here who claim to be very close to having a cure for breast cancer as well as melanoma by another team. If you want I can look up for you. There was also something about asthma I think, ok that's not a cancer but many people do suffer from it. Probably more than from cancer

37

Was Jesus a Buddist?

by Illyrian in

i started investigating this issue a few months back after seeing a documentary that intrigued me.

some of you may disagree with my findings and that is ok, but hopefully we can have a constructive discussion and hear both sides of the arguments.

i personally was deeply impressed, to say the least, by the apparent cogency and deep correlations of evidentiary materials that survived to this day, which supports this thesis.. there is so much more that can be or should be said here but i will try to keep this text as short as possible so as to keep people interested enough to read it.. buddhism appeared some 500 years before jesus arrival.

Illyrian

Thank eclipse (believe it or not I've tried that nick and system told me it was taken lol)

Thanks nvrgnbk. Personally I'm not a believer either way but I am trying to approach this rationally rather than dogmatically as believers usually do.

I was expecting this to be rather hard pill to swallow for some people but that is why we call these things discussions :), but I'm ready to be proven wrong.

20

What do you think the JWs will be doing on the 4th of July?

by Blindbutnowisee in

jw
friends

tomorrow i plan on sleeping in late and then go to a cookout.

during a day where it seems that most people will be in the yards cooking on the grill, i wonder if more jws will go out in service; and if offered a hotdog will they accept it?.

Illyrian

What do you thing they are going to do?? Same as you doing barbeque and having friends over, they just won't call it 4th of July but "opportunity to get together" same as for Christmas or any other holiday

37

Was Jesus a Buddist?

by Illyrian in

i started investigating this issue a few months back after seeing a documentary that intrigued me.

some of you may disagree with my findings and that is ok, but hopefully we can have a constructive discussion and hear both sides of the arguments.

i personally was deeply impressed, to say the least, by the apparent cogency and deep correlations of evidentiary materials that survived to this day, which supports this thesis.. there is so much more that can be or should be said here but i will try to keep this text as short as possible so as to keep people interested enough to read it.. buddhism appeared some 500 years before jesus arrival.

Illyrian

bluebell, I'm not using that as the basis I merely provided the fact that Buddhism was influential in those parts, henceforth something he could have heard about, the main argument if you go back and read it was about him living in India between ages 14-29. IF that was the truth then do you think it is possible for him to have been exposed to these ideas or not? Also how do you explain apparent similarities between two religions would be another question?

I'd also love if we could talk about facts devoid of personal religious views. Lets talk about this as if this wasn't Jesus and see what we conclude :)

71

Has Islam lead to an increase in Atheism?

by nicolaou in

ever since 911 and the subsequent attacks in bali, madrid, and london it seems that everyone feels they have a licence to criticise islam (they do).

fundamentalist and many mainstream christians deride the backwardness of a religion that creates suicide bombers and 'honour' killers.

of course, it was only a small group of hardcore islamist extremists that carried out these attacks but the whole community has been tarred by them, and perhaps in some sense it is only right that the majority of 'reasonable' and peaceful muslims do accept the part they play in providing the soil for these people to grow in.

Illyrian

The question was if I'm not mistaken 'Has Islam lead to an increase in Atheism?'

I see a lot of personal opinion but no statistics, forgive me for saying that but opinions are like armpits every one has one but most of them smell on deodorant (hopefully)

Anyway, I went to religious statistics website to find for myself and here is a quick run down. There were two surways if I'm not mistaken several years appart and here is the column of only "western" countries with number of atheists. Admittedly last survey was in 2000 but his is so far closest in this discussion to something more concrete other than speculations.

Country	first survey	lastest survey
Austria	5%	10%
Greece	2%	5%
Finland	9%	8.5%
Spain	11.2%	12%
Norway	9%	13%
Luxemburg	n/a	19%
UK	18%	17.5%
Portugal	4%	2.5%
Neatherland	17%	30%
Belgium	23%	23%
Germany overall	23%	27%
West Germany	20%	12%
East Germany	64%	55%
Sweden	12%	30%
Slovenia	16%	20%
Denmark	17%	22%
France	19%	25%
Italy	n/a	n/a

Source http://www.religionstatistics.net/noreleng.htm

In fact a quick look at the list of overall countries gave me impression that so called Easter-European countries were more Athesitics overall but you can go and check everything one more time for yourself.

This is the conclusion from the website:

CONCLUSIONS -

Secularization: Ended... or Stopped ?

If we compare the results of surveys in 1991 with those of 1997-98, we can see that the "religious fall" has been stopped
and even reversed, above all in many Eastern countries, and in these, the believers' numbers increase spectacularly, but it
is necessary to say that many are converted not in Christianity but New Age or somewhat difficult to describe.
Other most recent evolutions that can be seen with the World Values Survey 2000 are the flux from atheism, agnosticism,
Christian deism and neodukhoborism to simple deism which seems that will be the future "religion" of Europe; also
atheism is attracting many deists, agnostics and neodukhobors.

Nowadays

The religious outlook in Europe is as follows: The "hard" atheism, those that have conscience to be atheist and respond so,
really is small ( less than 10% ) except in some countries. Generally, the believers in a god and in another life, whatever
variety, are around a 50-45%; and this is the same percentage that believes in an inspired Bible; otherwise, this Christianity
could be divided in heterodox and orthodox with equal portions. Exceptions of these rules are excomunist countries ( Russia,
Bulgaria, Czech Republic ) and nordics ( Sweden and Denmark ) in the no religious side, and those traditionals countries as
Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus in the religious side.

37

Was Jesus a Buddist?

by Illyrian in

i started investigating this issue a few months back after seeing a documentary that intrigued me.

some of you may disagree with my findings and that is ok, but hopefully we can have a constructive discussion and hear both sides of the arguments.

i personally was deeply impressed, to say the least, by the apparent cogency and deep correlations of evidentiary materials that survived to this day, which supports this thesis.. there is so much more that can be or should be said here but i will try to keep this text as short as possible so as to keep people interested enough to read it.. buddhism appeared some 500 years before jesus arrival.

Illyrian

Thank you poppers, but my question was rather from historical than religious point of view.

37

Was Jesus a Buddist?

by Illyrian in

i started investigating this issue a few months back after seeing a documentary that intrigued me.

some of you may disagree with my findings and that is ok, but hopefully we can have a constructive discussion and hear both sides of the arguments.

i personally was deeply impressed, to say the least, by the apparent cogency and deep correlations of evidentiary materials that survived to this day, which supports this thesis.. there is so much more that can be or should be said here but i will try to keep this text as short as possible so as to keep people interested enough to read it.. buddhism appeared some 500 years before jesus arrival.

Illyrian

I started investigating this issue a few months back after seeing a documentary that intrigued me. Some of you may disagree with my findings and that is ok, but hopefully we can have a constructive discussion and hear both sides of the arguments. I personally was deeply impressed, to say the least, by the apparent cogency and deep correlations of evidentiary materials that survived to this day, which supports this thesis.

There is so much more that can be or should be said here but I will try to keep this text as short as possible so as to keep people interested enough to read it.

Buddhism appeared some 500 years before Jesus’ arrival. After Alexander the Great conquered India, local ruler Ashoka sent Buddhist monks all across this newly created world and they reached all the way to Egypt and Greece. That was around 300 BC. Philo for instance recorded presence of Buddhism in Alexandra (Egypt)
Not only that they spread Buddhism but they prompted creation of local Gnostic communities particularly in Judea who apparently mixed this new ideology with their old traditional texts. One of the most prominent was Essenes, who according to Josephus existed at least 150 before Jesus’ arrival. In fact the very name Essene is likely to have been derived from Indian word ‘Eeshani’ (a Hindu god). Apart from Josephus both Philo and Pliny mention their existence.
By the time of Jesus Essenes were already very strong movements that promoted ascetic lifestyle and whose beliefs were millenarian and about the god who is beyond comprehension of human intelligence, which all bore remarkable similarity with views later expressed by John the Baptist. In fact by the time of Jesus’ arrival such worldviews were not uncommon among the many Jews. The question is was Jesus influenced by all of that in any way?
The remarkable admission is actually in the bible itself in both what it says about Jesus as a person and what it avoids. What we know is that by the age of 12 he was already well versed in religious ideas of his time as recorded in Luke (2:47).[is it unreasonable to conclude that such Essenic ideas have impressed young mind?]

What is furthermore remarkable is that bible remains silent what happened to him from the age of 12 till he was 29, i.e. most of his life is missing. When he finally emerges to be baptized by John the Baptist he is already accomplished teacher. So what happened to Jesus in meantime? Could carpeting profession equip him with extraordinary insight and wisdom he displayed in later years?
Since bible is silent are there any other sources we can consult to get to the bottom of it? Surprisingly yes!

A Chinese text preserved in Tibetan "Glass Mirror" talks about Yesu, who was "a teacher and founder of the religion who was born miraculously, proclaimed himself the Savior of the World," and who was incidentally following Buddhist principles
.
The Persian Kamal u-Din by Said-us-Saddiq also talk about Jesus

The Kashmiri Hindu text "Bhavishya Maha Purana" speaks about king Shalivahana meeting a foreigner calling himself Ishvara Putaram (Son of God)

Then in 1894 a Russian journalist Nicholas Notovitch travel India and Kashmir then wrote a book about coming across the Tibetan documents that spoke of the child called Issa who came to India at the age of 14 and returned back to Judea at the age of 29. While in India he was taught the ways of Buddha. When Notovich wrote his book it sparked immediate controversy and denunciation by leading scholars of that time. However, new research into his findings reveal that dismissal was largely based on fear of what such revelation would to do established order of that time. [ref]

But the most remarkable evidence is in the bible itself. Here are just some and you judge for yourself
JESUS: "A foolish man, which built his house on sand."
BUDDHA: "Perishable is a city built on sand."
JESUS: "Therefore confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed."
BUDDHA: "Confess before the world the sins you have committed."
JESUS: "In him we have redemption through his blood, the foregiveness of sins."
BUDDHA: "Let all sins that were committed in this world fall on me, that the world may be delivered."
JESUS: "Do to others as you would have them do to you."
BUDDHA: "Consider others as yourself."
JESUS: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also."
BUDDHA: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon all desires and utter no evil words."
JESUS: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."
BUDDHA: "Hatreds do not cease in this world by hating, but by love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good."
JESUS: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."
BUDDHA: "Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world."
JESUS: "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her."
BUDDHA: "Do not look at the faults of others or what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done and have not done."
JESUS: "You father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
BUDDHA: "The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low."
JESUS: "If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven."
BUDDHA: "The avaricious do not go to heaven, the foolish do not extol charity. The wise one, however, rejoicing in charity, becomes thereby happy in the beyond."

Need I mention that there are also striking similarities in their lives as described through survived document.
*Born as an incarnate god.
* Born from a virgin mother.
* Birth claimed as a divine event and prophesied as the same.
* Birth attended by singing angels.
* Birth attended by wise men bearing gifts.
* Prodigious childhood.
* As a child astounded teachers with knowledge.
* Fasted in the wilderness for forty days.
* Tempted while alone by the devil.
* Resisted the devil successfully.
* After the devil left, supernatural events occurred.
* Were vegetarians (fish excepted).
* Began ministry at thirty years of age.
* Attract large following mostly from lower classes.
* Attracted disciples who traveled with him.
* Attracted one disciple who was treacherous.
* Changed disciples' names.
* Encouraged celibacy for their disciples.
* Consecrated in a holy river.
* Itinerant ministry instead of at a fixed place.
* Performed miracles such as curing blindness.
* Renounced worldly riches and required the same of their disciples.
* Ministered to outcasts.
* Advocated universal love and peace.
[ref]

One may ask now, if that were the case why there wasn't any mention of possible infulence directly in the bible. Actually, there were at last in a number of so called Apocryphal books that were violently opposed by the estublished church who in my humble oppinion sought to extinguish any possible connection with this religion from the east.

In fact when Catholic missionaries came to India in early 1660 they were so astonished by the similarities between christianity and Buddism that they thought it must be an imitation devil himself divised in order to spoil pure teachings of Christ.

Some of you may dismiss this as a pure coincidence and that both Jesus and Buddha were teaching values that were universal. The nagging question however is why don’t we find such a remarkable correlations between Jesus and Zarathustra , Jesus and Lao Tzu, Jesus and Confucius, Jesus and Mohammad. Could all of that be just a coincidence?

I will leave each reader of this to decide for themselves. And I do not expect everyone to just accept this out of hand. After all as German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer puts it “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident