Some of the comments are hilarious.
It is possible that everyone is delusional, including you and me. There are many different belief systems represented in this forum, not all of them can be accurate.
'When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.' Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
one secret to success is to follow the example set by previous successful people.
in neuro-linguistic programming this is called "modelling behavior.".
minimus has show himself to be a person of spectacular, virtual "overnight" success, but we all know this is a result of rigorous daily effort and a pathologically high level of self-esteem.. i crave the same rewards - sex, drugs, rock n' roll - that minimus has enjoyed, and to obtain them i am willing to cast off my previously humble reserved nature and indulge in blatant self-aggrandizement.
Your thread title was catching, appearing as it did next to the name of its initiator. Kind of draws in the curious.
Sex at my advanced age and years of marriage falls sometimes under the optional category, sometimes under the duty category, sometimes under the mental health category but never under the hot and urgent category. But thanks anyway. Single malt scotch is my drug of choice. Hope you're ok with that. Rock and Roll, you haven't caught up to me yet.
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
This quote from Christopher Hitchens is apropos - it's a little long, for which I apologise, but worthwhile reading.
"Miracles have declined, in their wondrous impact, since ancient times. Moreover, the more recent ones that have been offered us have been slightly tawdry. The notorious annual liquefaction of the blood of San Gennaro in Naples, for example, is a phenomenon that can easily be (and has been) repeated by any competent conjuror. Great secular "magicians" like Harry Houdini and James Randi have demonstrated with ease that levitation, fire-walking, water-divining, and spoon-bending can all be performed, under laboratory conditions, in order to expose the fraud and to safeguard the unwary customer from a fleecing. Miracles in any case do not vindicate the truth of the religion that practices them: Aaron supposedly vanquished Pharoah's magicians in an open competition but did not deny that they could perform wonders as well. However, there has not been a claimed resurrection for some time and no shaman who purports to do it has ever agreed to reproduce his trick in such a way as to stand a challenge. Thus we must ask ourselves: Has the art of resurrection died out? Or are we relying on dubious sources?
The New Testament is itself a highly dubious source. (One of Professor Barton Ehrman's more astonishing findings is that the account of Jesus's resurrection in the Gospel of Mark was only added many years later.) But according to the New Testament, the thing could be done in an almost commonplace way. Jesus managed it twice in other people's cases, by raising both Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus, and nobody seems to have thought it worthwhile to interview either survivor to ask about their extraordinary experiences. Nor does anyone seem to have kept a record of whether or not, or how, these two individuals "died" again. If they stayed immortal, then they joined the ancient company of the "Wandering Jew," who was condemned by early Christianity to keep walking forever after he met Jesus on the Via Dolorosa, this misery being inflicted upon a mere bystander in order to fulfill the otherwise unfulfilled prophecy that Jesus would come again in the lifetime of at least one person who had seen him the first time around. On the same day that Jesus met that luckless vagrant, he was himself put to death with revolting cruelty, at which time, according to the Gospel of Matthew 27:52-53, "the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." This seems incoherent, since the corpses apparently rose both at the time of the death on the cross and of the Resurrection, but it is narrated in the same matter-of-fact way as the earthquake, the rending of the veil of the temple (two other events that did not attract the attention of any historian), and the reverent comments of the Roman centurion.
This supposed frequency of resurrection can only undermine the uniqueness of the one by which mankind purchased forgiveness of sins. And there is no cult or religion before or since, from Osiris to vampirism to voodoo, that does not rely on some innate belief in the "undead." To this day, Christians disagree as to whether the day of judgment will give you back the old wreck of a body that has already died on you, or will reequip you in some other form. For now, and on a review even of the claims made by the faithful, one can say that resurrection would not prove the truth of the dead man's doctrine, nor his paternity, nor the probability of still another return in fleshly or recognizable form. Yet again, also, too much is being "proved." The action of a man who volunteers to die for his fellow creatures is universally regarded as noble. The extra claim not to have "really" died makes the whole sacrifice tricky and meretricious. (Thus, those who say "Christ died for my sins," when he did not really "die" at all, are making a statement that is false in its own terms.) Having no reliable or consistent witnesses, in anything like the time period needed to certify such an extraordinary claim, we are finally entitled to say that we have a right, if not an obligation, to respect ourselves enough to disbelieve the whole thing. That is, unless or until superior evidence is presented, which it has not been. And exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence."
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
If you are looking for emperical evidence, you will probably have to figure out what the evidence is that will satisfy you, before you start looking.
The existence of Jesus of Nazareth and his alleged divinity is to me a subset of a much larger conversation about the existence of God, whether He be the terrifying god of the Bible or some not-yet-perceived creator of the universe. Evidence that Jesus of Nazareth actually walked the earth could be in the form of contemporary secular accounts of his activities written independently but which are generally collaborative. Evidence of his divinity would take a form that is in keeping with the extraordinary claims made on his behalf. What would convince me of the existence of God, and possibly the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, would be a miracle witnessed by a multitude of people including myself. Multitudinous miraculous events are, after all, what are cited time and time again in the Bible as evidence. But if there once was an age of miracles, it is apparently past. While once God manifested his power and glory for the world to see, He is now silent and requires that we simply believe that He even exists at all.
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
My mind and heart were set at ease, except that I felt bad for having doubted Him to begin with.
There is no doubt that faith in Jesus (or Mohammed or Buddha or Khrishna) provides comfort, hope and reassurance for millions, Tammy, and it would be wrong of me to try to wrench that away from anyone who really needs religious faith in order to go on living their lives. My wife said to me once, if there is no God, then why bother? Why don't we just get it over with and shoot ourselves? Point taken. But comfort, hope and reassurance do not in any way indicate that what one holds in his or her heart to be true is in fact true. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and where such evidence is lacking the claims are at best cast in shadows of doubt.
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
There are quite a few books out there about that, with variosu themes.
I can suggest "Jesus and the Victory of God" by NT wright, but itis a long read, over 700 pages.
There are a few out there about the historical reliablity of the gospels too.
I had a similar conversation to this one perhaps five years ago with a fundamentalist Christian from Mississippi who was at the time a business associate. I was struggling with my faith and he said he had an outstanding book, not the one you are recommending, that put forward a compelling argument for not only the existence of Jesus of Nazareth but also for his divinity. It was called "The Case for Christ", 300+ pages written by Lee Strobel. I devoured every word with great anticipation that a light would go on but it didn't happen. I was frankly disappointed. The book presented itself as a journalist's personal investigation of the evidence for Jesus, but there was no evidence to be found. There were logical arguments, certainly, but most were rhetorical, none of them irrefutable and none of them could be construed in the strictest sense as evidence.
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
Are you angry?
No Tammy, not at all. I respect your perspective even if I do not subscribe to it any longer. If I might use a crass comparison, freeing my mind from the belief that Jesus was devine was something like when I quit smoking, only much more difficult. My body ached for nicotine and my mind was afraid to let go of Jesus - the corollary to "whomever believes in me will be saved" and all that. I still haven't decided that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, because I haven't investigated the evidence, or lack thereof, thoroughly enough, but I no longer see the possibility, if he did exist, that he was more than a man with great charisma. It was a little frightening to come to a conclusion that Christianity is founded on a series of myths, some of them common to other cultures and other religions. Perseus was the son of the god Jupiter after Jupiter visited the virgin Danae as a shower of gold and impregnated her without penetration. Buddha was born through an opening in his mother's side. The virgin Nana laid in her chest a pomegranate soaked in the blood of the slain Agdestris and then gave birth to the god Attis. The virgin Catlicus stuffed a little ball of feathers from the sky into her bosom and conceived the Aztec god Huitzilopochtii. A virgin Mongol princess awoke one night and found herself bathed in a great light and later give birth to Genghis Khan. Krishna was born of the virgin Devaka. Horus was born of the virgin Isis. Mercury was born of the virgin Maia. Romulus was born of the virgin Rhea Sylvia and Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. There are a number of other reported virgin births of deities you need only research to find out about. It appears to me, getting back to the conversation at hand, that the Christian movement was conceived by Saul of Tarsus and was later embellished by others.
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
Yeah. Thanks.
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
I also don't think a fraud or forgery would have any discrepancies. In fact, I think the discrepancies prove that there were many different sources and many different people believing and influenced by Jesus' life.
I'm unsure of what you are saying, because there are important discrepancies of omission in the accounts of the four gospels which are easily itemized. Are you saying the story is true because there are discrepancies or true because there are no discrepancies?
mary had to make up a story for why she was pregnent after cheating on joseph and it ended up seriously getting out of hand.. -sab.
Thanks, Tammy. If you have a fundamental belief that the story is true, you may be more inclined to accept the testimony of non-eye-witnesses (the legal definition of heresay) on the basis of your faith that the testimony of the unidentified original writers must be true. But what is the basis of your faith? If the chroniclers of Christ's life were quoting the credible writings of others then why did they not cite their credible sources? If nothing else, the New Testament is usually careful to cite references (from the Old Testament) to legitimize events it records. We come full circle. If this is the Word of God, why did He make it so ambiguous if not to test our faith in something that one cannot prove to be true? It all demands faith, which is belief without evidence. The New Testament itself says it is Truth, so it must be telling the Truth, this is a circular argument.
