How do you reconcile "I want mercy, not sacrifice" with Jesus sacrificing himself?

Who wanted Jesus to sacrifice himself? It seems that Jesus fought a one-man war and that "supporting the war" means refusing to question the value of the sacrifice. However, was the purpose simply to get attention for his message or are we to believe that blood sacrifice appeases the gods?

Christian Theology is rooted in the idea that Jesus was perfect, and therefore the ultimate, end all, one and only sacrifice ever needed for all sins, past, present and future.

It follows that the sacrifices commanded in the Old Testament (Animals, mostly) do not apply and are pointless. Which is why modern Christians do not sacrifice.

His emphasis was on mercy, faith, love for God and doing unto others..

Now that's the real contradiction as I see it - Christian "Leaders" like Pat Robertson, etc, preaching hate, murder and war in Jesus name.

It's the anti-thesis of everything he taught and I do not see an exception to this in the Old Testament (10 Commandments) either.

There's nothing to the the effect of:

"Don't covet, unless you want someone's oil and they are Muslim. Then it's okay."

"Don't murder, unless the people you're killing are Muslims. Then it's okay."

Frankly, if Jesus were taken at his word, Robertson and his fanatical followers should be dropping bibles on Iraq instead of bombs and calling the Iraq war a sinful, evil enterprise.

The fact that they do not is instructive and, imo, the only reason they continue to get away with it is just the sheer stupidity and gullibility of right wingers and their strange desire to morph Jesus, in spite of everything he said, into some kind of vengeful murderer.. Kicking ass in Gods name and so on and so forth.

I'm amazed they don't claim he was a freeper too, and voted for Ronald Reagan. Drove a hummer with a Limbaugh bumper sticker.

Now interestingly, if you study this you will find that God appeared to Abraham and as a "test" told him to sacrifice his son, and he asked him to do it personally. Abraham believed God could bring his son back after sacrificing him. This "faith" was "credited as righteousness" and we see that Abraham as the central figure of Islam, Judaism and Christianity today.

The interesting part is that, as it was a "test" God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son. He wouldn't allow him to continue.

With the death of Jesus, we see God's own son sacrificed. Which is exactly the thing/test of faith fullness he asked of Abraham, but then prevented him from doing.

deed covers a multitude of sins. There is no greater than this to give one's life for one's friends. Love one another as I have loved you. This is true religion: to care for the widows and orphans. Go and learn the meaning of these words (and he said it twice in the gospel of Luke) it is mercy I want and not (temple sacrifice: the offering of the blood of animals) sacrifice. Exactly, he offered himself once and for all that our sins may be forgiven and we may have eternal life.

Jesus was killed by the crowd, not God.

He did not die because of some mistaken notion of blood sacrifice or any crap like that.
He suffered death in a public way and resurrected his body to life to prove to his disciples and followers that life after death was not only possible but real.
You must remember that at the time the Jews did not believe in an afterlife and Jesus spent a good deal of his time trying to teach them that there was.
This point is clear if you read the new testament as you would read a book...to get the story...not to look for commandments from God.
Remember even Thomas one of his close disciples would not believe the others that Jesus had raised himself from the dead until he touched his wounds and seen him in person, even though he was told by Jesus that he would raise himself from the dead.
Had Jesus had not of done that Christianity and the gospel jesus taught would have ended in the first century AD. But because of that dramatic demonstration his followers were convinced that this was the Christ and devoted their lives to the message.

and prove to them that there was an after life? It would have been lots easier.

It's all bs.

He told them "in my fathers house are many mansions and I go to prepare a place for you"
In the Astral world (the term Eastern mystics use) one goes to the place that they believe in, so if you believe that death means you just go to sleep then that is what happens to you.
Jesus created a belief in him and to those that believe in him when they die that is who they see and are attracted too, the heavenly world that Jesus created through faith.

How do you know what you know?
Have you ever studied the subject?
Have you ever contemplated ot sought personal experience?
Or do you just believe what you are told?

My personal experience is that most people make up shit when it comes to religion. How do you even study something religious. You've got one book....one book which all of your study is based on. Then you have hundreds of people revisiting the same stupid book over and over, making up shit about it and thinking their thoughts are the truth.

There are theologians who probably agree with you. There are theolgians who disagree with you. I'm sure there are people who think your interpretation of Jesus's death are utter bullshit.

Me? I don't know fuck all about why Jesus died. In fact, I could care less. If I had to guess, it's because people who make waves and fuck with the powerful often die. Jesus died just like any other rabble rouser. If he ever existed. But who the fucks knows. I don't have a time machine. Jesus or god have never spoken to me. The bible says what it says but gives no real clues. I don't feel the need, however, to make up shit so that I feel better about the universe.

Do I just believe what I am told? No. My first impulse is to always think that the person I'm talking to is full of shit, and going from there. If they have evidence to back up their claims, I might take them seriously.

I don't, however, take any religious conversations seriously. I don't consider theology a legitimate field of study. History, yes. Biblical history, sort of. Metaphysical bullshit,..no fucking way. It's all bunk.

was like the beta version of God's creation and then we get the amped up version of creation? So where did the angels hang out before there was heaven?

And it's descendants the nation of Israel.
And Jesus did not create the astral world, it has always existed, but he created a place for his believers to go to in the astral world when they pass on.

it's really not a fair argument. If the OT is just a history:
1) it's a pretty shitty history that gets most things wrong
2) why all the god stuff and the commandments?

Do you have any personal knowledge that I don't already know about?
And to understand all the god stuff you must understand the story of the history of Israel. Do you know the story of Israel? How they got to Egypt and how and why they went into the wilderness for forty years? and how the promised land was divided among the 12 tribes and how the government was organized?
I would bet that there is a lot you do not know because you just dismiss it without study.

scientific study has shown that there was no world-wide flood.
I know that there is absolutely no historical record that the Jews were held as slaves in Egypt.
I know that there is no possible way that human life came into being on the plant the number of generations BCE that the bible indicates.
I know that rabbits don't chew their own cud.

The story with Pharoah (if it really happened, why don't the Hebrews know his name?) is all made up. There is absolutely not record of it ever happening, and any time someone moved his bowels the Egyptians wrote it down. Likewise for the 40 years of wandering business. Besides, the walk from Egypt to Canaan, event then, could not have taken more than ten days. It simply is not possible to walk for forty years and never get anywhere.

Nomadic tribes move their camps from place to place as the live stock graze off the land.

If you had, you would know that they did just walk around in the desert. The Hebrews had no livestock after they left captivity in Egypt. God fed them with a food that rained down from the sky, which they named "manna."

See Exodus 16:35 (NIV) "The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan."

NB: None of this actually happened. The story of Exodus is a myth.

Exodis 10;
9. And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the Lord.

Flocks and heards of what then?

It merely shows that they had livestock while they were in Egypt. Moses did not say that immediately before the exodus; in fact if you keep reading it says immediately thereafter that God hardened Pharaoh's heart and prevented the Hebrews from leaving. There are numerous instructions from God in chapters 11 to 15 on what to do with their livestock once they reach Canaan, but it does not say explicitly that they have livestock with them. In chapter 16, it is rather clear that they have no bread and no meat. Exodus does say in chapter 17 that they did have livestock during their time in the wilderness, so I was wrong.

Once again, none of this is to say that the exodus actually happened. The idea that the Hebrews had nothing to eat even though they brought their livestock with them seems to me like a rather large contradiction, though I don't expect you to read it that way. The story only makes sense in the context of an apocryphal test imposed on the Hebrews by God. He has strict requirements for how the manna is handed out, which the Hebrews disobey. This becomes important in later books, in which God talks about how the Hebrews disobeyed his commandments even while He sustained them spiritually and physically. That's what I get out of Exodus, anyway. To me, it only makes sense in light of that metaphor. There is still no evidence that any of it actually happened.

For instance with sheep the prime reason for having them is the wool. you do get meat once a year when the lambs are born but if you try to eat them all the time the heard will decrees. Particularly in a desert environment you would not last long just eating your flock.
But again no amount of evidence that could be produced from so long ago would be enough to prove it to you. If it was written down you would just say it was all made up. if they found a tomb that had a sign on it that said this is the tomb of Moses you would just say that some later day hoaxer put it there.
So it leaves us really just to wonder just what the truth really is.

much less an English word derived from a Latin root.

Further, the concept you describe is not universal to Eastern mystical traditions. Not all mystical traditions believe in an afterlife, much less the New-Agey a la carte afterlife you describe.

Also (and correct me if I'm wrong) isn't there a story in the bible about Jesus going and retrieving the Jewish patriarchs from hell? How could he do that if hell didn't already exist?

No that is an english word but it refers to the first level of the spiritual world that is called by many different names according to their tongs.
The after life I describe may not be universal but most Eastern mystics believe close to the same thing and most believe in re incarnation. In the Tibetan tradition a soul stays close to the earth for 40 days before being re incarnated and the Tibetan Book of the Dean was written to guide the departed soul to a good re incarnation.
I know of no story in the King James version of the bible where Jesus retrieved anyone from hell but it does say he traveled to the underworld. The underworld is a part of creation and has existed as long as the rest of it has.
It is also said in the bible that Jesus traveled throughout the world after his death and the legend of Quasicotal (the white man that the Aztecs believed would come to save them) fits his description. There is also a similar tradition among Native Americans.

I can't find it, but it never made it into the bible. Though I can't see any reason why it should be any more or less credible than the tripe that made it in.

Wikipedia has a good article on the subject.

Nobody else seemed interested in remedying my ignorance.

I enjoyed JG's opinion on the subject, though.

of course it is about sacrifice. The New Testament is rich with that imagery. It is the most common usage of Christ imagery today.

And if you read the new testament as a book, then you will see that the myth of Jesus was just to create a better epic hero than those that already existed. Look at the similarities and then see that Jesus succeeded when others failed (even death could not stop him).

and you kind of seem to sway between reading the bible as a book and believing that there actually was dude named Jesus in history.

"off course it is about sacrifice. The New Testament is rich with that imagery”

Can you show me one place in the NT where Jesus talks about sacrifice?
But you are right that it is the most common imagery of Christianity today. Mostly because of the writings of John who never knew Jesus.

“the myth of Jesus was just to create a better epic hero than those that already existed.”

If you do read it as a book you would notice that there are numerous instances where Jesus is very human. Like him sweating blood in the garden and asking god to take this cup away from his lips. And telling hisdiscipless that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. No epic hero shows his weakness like that.
And yes I do believe that Jesus was a real person

The only place where Jesus talks in the NT is in the gospels and those people never met Jesus. So when I give you quotation (by the way, what "cup" do you think Jesus is asking to be taken from his lips? The flesh is weak about what?) that says that, you can just dismiss it. But it cuts both ways. The ONLY written history we have of Jesus is in the NT. There is NO OTHER historical record that such a dude existed (which is odd given the miraculous crap he was doing). So if you are going to dismiss the gospels, then Jesus is out with that bathwater.

Shhhunnnnnnnn.

because I NEEDED the shunnnnnn line on it.

You would be amazed at all the good little Christian boys and girls at my high school who love the video. I really want to break the news to them.

You are wrong about several things and I will try to answer in one post.
But first the part about the flesh being week was just before he was arrested by the Pharisees and he was speaking about his own death by crucifixion. And it says that he sweated blood which any doctor will tell you can happen to someone who is stressed out and fearful. (strange don’t you thnk that the author of fiction in those days would know to put than in)
And the cup is a well known metaphor for death.

And you are wrong about there being only one book. There are thousand of books on spirituality and most of them predate the bible.
And the evidence for Jesus does exist. There is one manuscript found in a Tibetan monastery that describes him as coming to India and later Tibet to study with the masters there. Which also agrees with the lost 13 year out of Jesus life in the bible.
And I guess you do not know that a story of a flood is in every region of the world including the Native American and Aborigines. Did they all make up the same story?

But I do know that none of this makes a difference to you. You will believe what you want and no one will change it but you. But do me a favor and do not assume that all people are stupid because they do not agree with you or your mindset.

The flood story contradicts many of the things we know about the world, so it is almost certainly false. Various mythological traditions happen to include an archetypal story about a great flood, but there are many reasons why it could not have happened. For one thing, why don't all of the various flood stories include Noah and his sons? All of the anthropological evidence we have contradicts the idea that humanity was wiped out in a flood and only one family survived to repopulate the Earth.

The same goes for biology. There is no possible way all of the species in the world could have been included on a ship the size of the one described in the bible. Then there is the fact that there is not enough water on the planet to make such a flood possible. There is no geological evidence to indicate that the entire world was covered with water for a short period 3,000 years ago.

The list could continue. A collection of archetypal myths from different cultures can't outweigh the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence. A lot of traditions have fire being handed down from the gods, but that doesn't necessarily make the myth so.

That reminds me of a actual test that was done. This guy took a picture of the Sphinx and cropped it so you could only see the side of it and not the head. He then showed it to a geologist and asked him what kind of erosion it was and the guy said water and he asked if he was sure and he said yes he was.
Then he showed him the full picture and the geologist said no no that is wind because we know there was no water in Egypt.
So you see sometimes they fit the evidence to match their conclusion.
But the truth is that there is plenty of evidence but it does not fit their theory so they just ignore it and claim it does not exist. And should anyone bring it up they say it is fiction, a fake and that the ones that bring it up are just ignorant and stupid.

Noah and his sons thought they were the only ones to escape the flood I am sure. And the others that did escape thought the same of themselves…except perhaps the Native Americans who in the Hopi tradition were told that 4 races of men were saved, brown , black, yellow and white. And they have long grown the Hopi corn with the colors kernels of that color to remind them of that fact.
And I can assure you that the rest of it is explainable even the question of where all that water came from but an explanation by me would be too long for my poor typing skills.
And would it matter? I think not for you will not see or hear anything that contradicts what you already believe, and I cannot change that.

or are you just making it up? Or are you passing on an apocryphal story the veracity of which you have no idea? Do you even know whether or not wind and water erosion are substantially different in appearance? (I have no idea.) Why would anyone look at a statue in a desert and say it was eroded by water? That's absurd. And even if your story is true (which again, I highly doubt) it doesn't prove anything. No matter how regarded you are in your field, you can still make a mistake. Which is more likely - that all that science has to say on the matter of a global flood, or that one man made a mistake? And backtracking on that analysis (if was ever made in the first place) is the only logical thing to do. Jesus, have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? Which is more likely - that a statue in a desert was eroded by a windstorm, or by a flood? And even if Giza was flooded (which, again, you have presented no evidence for) that does not prove that the entire Earth was flooded.

I was floored by the story of the Hopis. Do you have no knowledge of genetics? Corn kernels get their colors from their genes. The colors are the product of evolution, and in the case of domesticated corn, artificial selection. And which do you think is more likely? That the Hopi are aware of all the world's skin tones because their gods told them about it, or because when the anthropologists came knocking, they found them to be rather nosy and asked them to reciprocate by answering some questions for a change?

You can assure us all you like that there is a perfectly good explanation, but until you provide evidence all your assurances are worth precisely dick.

There is somebody in this discussion that is rejecting evidence contrary to his beliefs, but I'll give you three guesses who it is.

water erosion is so powerful and distinctive that only 40 days of submersion marked the sphinx in a way that thousands of years of wind and sand blasting couldn't erase.

Sign me up as convinced. I'll go see it right after I've visited the half dozen True Remains of the Ark sites. So many things to BELIEVE, so little time....

The flood waters lasted 150 days before they began to recede. You can find that is Genesis chapter 8

I'll believe 4 times harder, then.

And I saw it years ago so don’t expect me to remember all the details, but it was about this guy that had the theory that the Sphinx was older that science believes it to be. And by the way the Sphinx is not a statue but a natural outcropping of rock carved into a statue. And yes there is a big visible difference between water and wind erosion.

The Hopi corn is the product of selective breeding. The Hopi have been growing it for thousands of years and they have a very complicated method of selecting the seed for the next year which includes an ear having the 4 color kernels. It is unique also in that it has a tap root which is necessary for growing in the desert. They still grow that corn there today in the same manner and is a major part of there spiritual life. .

Here is an excerpt from the Hopi prophesy found at’; http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/prophecy/hopi1.html

The Hopi and others who were saved from the Great Flood made a sacred covenant with the Great Spirit never to turn away from him. He made a set of sacred stone tablets, called Tiponi, into which he breathed his teachings, prophecies, and warnings. Before the Great Spirit hid himself again, he placed before the leaders of the four different racial groups four different colors and sizes of corn; each was to choose which would be their food in this world. The Hopi waited until last and picked the smallest ear of corn. At this, the Great Spirit said:
"It is well done. You have obtained the real corn, for all the others are imitations in which are hidden seeds of different plants. You have shown me your intelligence; for this reason I will place in your hands these sacred stone tablets, Tiponi, symbol of power and authority over all land and life to guard, protect, and hold in trust for me until I shall return to you in a later day, for I am the First and I am the Last."

Hint: the Hopis did not have writing before they met Europeans, so it is impossible for their myth to have originated before they met with whites. God handing down his teachings inscribed on a stone tablet - gee, doesn't that sound like something they might have picked up from the Christians?

Okay, so the Hopi have intentionally selected corn to have four different colors. That much makes sense. But because God told them to do it? What of the many other more likely explanations, like, I don't know, one for each of the four seasons, or any other possible significance that the number four could have? And until you can show that the only the Hopi, out of all the world's primitive people were aware of the different skin tones found around the globe before anthropologists told them so can you put forward, credibly, the theory that God told them about it. Even if you've done that, you have to contend with the rather weighty possibility of coincidence.

Although you have cited a (possible) source for that theory, you have done nothing to refute my criticisms of the theory. They still stand.

No they did not have writing but passed on in the oral tradition with the aid of pictographs on stone. But that would not matter if they did have writing you would still say it is all just made up like the Tibetan books that talk about Jesus. All the so called primitive people lie right? At least the ones that don't conform to how you see the world.
But here I do have personal knowledge because I had a friend that was adopted into the Hopi tribe back in this 60s and was given the oral history and prophesies. and it was done by using pictographs that they have in secrete places in stone. He did for a number of years give lectures on the subject but is now in New Zealand with the native people there sharing the knowledge with them.
But the most interesting thing he related is why the Hopi have been able to resist and avoid the corruption of the white man that other Native Americans have suffered from.
In one of there stories in stone was a symbol of a cross in a circle and he was told that this is the male and female symbol and the Hopi were warned not to trust anyone that displayed ether symbol separately. and so when the saw the Spanish coming with a cross in front of them they new it was a bad sign and retreated into the remote regions to stay away from them.
To me it is a real shame that ancient cultures are so disrespected just because it does not fit with what we "Know to be true" The truth is we don't know shit.

The Hopi can believe things that are not true, and talk about them as if they were true, without lying. JG did not accuse anyone of lying. You came up with that idea on your own. There are numerous recorded instances of anthropologists and missionaries transmitting stories to remote cultures, which then reported them back to later white visitors, creating the appearance of astounding coincidences. Oral histories are particularly susceptible to that kind of syncretism (or outright assimilation of someone else's myths).

The story about the cross circumscribed by a circle is fascinating. It too is likely a coincidence. Are we to surmise from it that the Hopi would have fled from anyone who displayed a circular symbol? They would have had a similar interpretation of the Islamic crescent moon, or the Japanese rising sun, or Mickey Mouse's ears. The two intersecting lines are similarly diverse. That could be a cross, a letter T, a letter X, or two chevrons meeting at their apexes. Anyone with any of those symbols would have fulfilled the Hopi prophesy.

At least the prophesy correctly implied that the X-Men are good guys.

Your last comment is just disingenuous, and needlessly disdainful of human achievement. If you honestly believed that modern people don't know shit, you wouldn't be using a computer, which relies on a series of exquisite advances in both scientific theory and mechanical engineering which were only possible because of the empirical investigation you have so much disrespect for.

I said that we still don't know even some of the basics of this creation. (or non creation if you want)
We can't explain gravity the most basic of all the things in the universe.
And the more we learn the more we learn that we don't know all that much.
And it does not matter whether we study the Micro or the Macro the facts are the same, that it is vastly more complex than we knew or that we can know.

And by the way the Swastika the Nazi symbol is the ancient symbol of the Hopi for the migration after the flood...thy were told to repopulate the earth by heading in the 4 directions and when they had gone as far as they could to turn to the right forming the cross with right legs. Now they did not copy this from the Germans we know because long ago it was seen by white men carved in stone on the Hopi land. They said it was the symbol of the migration then and they say it now.

Taken in context, your remark disparaged what is known by "modern people" in relation to what was believed by "ancient cultures." It had nothing to do with the "basics of this creation" and the discoveries that modern science has not yet made. We had not brought up gravity. You were casting your invective on the standards of evidence used in scholarly history because those standards exclude your beliefs. Now you're trying to massage your comment to mean something that it didn't originally mean.

Who decided that gravity is "the most basic of all things in the universe"? You? Can you quote a physicist saying that? Furthermore, the inability of our current physics to explain the origin of gravity does not give credence to the ideas you are advocating. Your point about gravity skirts perilously close to a false dichotomy.

It is true that science has revealed new phenomena and demonstrated the limitations of human knowledge. It has also revealed that many of the easy assumptions that ancient cultures used to make were unfounded. Again, the limits of our current instruments and methods of observation lend no veracity to the things you are advocating.

It's all well and good that the swastika was used as a symbol long before it was adopted by the Nazi Party. The symbol has been used across a broad range of cultures to represent a number of different things. I'm familiar with it as a Navajo healing symbol, but a quick Google search reveals a dozen other uses by a dozen other cultures. If all the various uses of the symbol had a common origin, that is, if all of humanity was descended of flood survivors, we would expect all of the various cultures to use the swastika in association with that story. This is not what we observe, so the existence of the swastika as an ancient Hopi symbol, once again, does not weigh toward the veracity of their myths.

The overwhelming preponderance of anthropological evidence shows that the Native Americans migrated to North America long before the supposed flood in the bible. This is just another one of the scientific observations which contradicts the story. The flood myth simply does not conform with the evidence.

There is no preponderance of evidence that shows that Native Americans came across the land bridge from Asia or that even there was a land bridge. Only the supposition of such a migration. No evidence at least of the quality and quantity that you demand for proof of a flood.

It was the Anastasie that migrated to populate the north and south american Continent and it was their symbol for that migration. I did not mean to imply it was universal.

Gravity is the force that binds every atom, particle, moon, planet, star, and solar system together. How more basic can you get.

Human genomics, as well as genomic studies of flaura and fauna in Asia and North America strongly support a migration from far Eastern Russia into Alaska. Archeology shows cultural similarity between early American inhabitants and Asian groups. The dating of archeological artifacts conforms with geological evidence showing when sea level was low enough to allow migration over the land bridge. The idea that humans moved from Siberia to Alaska is not a tenuous assumption; it is well-supported by a variety of independently collected evidence.

There is no double standard in practice between the flood theory and the explanation of human migration accepted by science. I do not set the standards of evidence; science has been practiced for centuries and standards of evidence are well-established. The same evidence which supports the land bridge hypothesis weighs heavily against the flood hypothesis. Considering the biblical story, which is in some ways incompatible with other iterations of the flood archetype, we see that the current worldwide distribution of animals is not consistent with the migration described in Genesis, and that paleontological evidence of migration over millions of years likewise contradicts the biblical account. As I have said, the evidence against the flood story is overwhelming. Modern science has very good reasons to reject the story and does so with a very high degree of certainty.

I didn't read the implication that the swastika was a universal symbol in anything you said. I suggested that it should be a universal symbol if it is linked to a common human experience after a global flood. If the swastika symbolizes the migration of humanity in all directions from the site where flood survivors landed, it follows that it would be shared at least by most cultural groups in that context.

Gravity is not the force that holds atoms and other tiny particles together. The interactions between subnucleonic particles such as quarks are dictated by the strong nuclear force, and interactions between nucleons such as protons and neutrons are governed by the weak nuclear force. These two forces, along with gravity and the electromagnetic force, are the four basic forces in physics. Scientists have a more complete understanding of the other forces than they do of gravity, and gravity cannot be considered any more fundamental than the other three.

Like I said it is all supposition. We suppose that the migration went from Siberia to Alaska when it is just as possible that it went from Alaska to Siberia, and the descendants of the Anasazi that landed in North America and mingled with the descendants of Noah in Siberia?
And flora and fauna have no weight as evidence because they have always been able to cross the sea. The wind and birds do the job well.

But the certainty by which you say science has this all worked out is only possible if all the evidence of a flood is rejected. So when Homer said that there was an Atlantis that sank into the sea and the world was destroyed by a flood and it agrees with the Bible and the Native American tradition as well as other cultures that has to all be rejected as fantasy because ???

And just remember the context of time we are talking about if you are to accept Homer is 10-15,000 years ago not millions.

And while the flood was a common human experience the people did not have a common after the flood experience. The spiritual guide of the Native Americans (if memory serves me correct) was called Spider Woman and she was the one that gave them the symbol.
Noah’s experience after the flood is recorded in the bible and is different.

Whether it is the strong force or the week one it is all part of the same force that binds all of creation together…It is a basic manifestation of the creation and without it this creation would return to a great void. It has been said that if you can understand gravity you will understand God…and I agree with that. I believe it to be a profound truth that man will one day really understand.

That's some crazy shit there. And it makes nice science fiction but it has no basis in fact. Sorry.

And by the way, Homer wrote FICTION, not history.

Do you prefer your history "Normal"
And there may be some truth to the saying that the truth is stranger than fiction.
And sorry about saying that Homer spoke of atlants...he was of course a bard not an historian. However it was believed by some that his poems were based on historical accounts like the Trojan war.

Disappointed that such blather can pass as fact.

Disappointed that anyone would believe such nonsense.

Disappointed that there are still people who are gullible enough to believe your sci-fi interpretation of reality.

That is all you got?
At least you could have criticized my spelling punctuation and grammar.

Gullible blathering nonsense.

I think that last one was more than I can handle. Being an editor, the spelling alone is starting to wear me down. I know I shouldn't let the notion that bears and deer and such freely cross the Pacific Ocean go unchallenged, but I only have so much patience.

I misspoke it was Plato not Homer that recounted the story of Atlantes. I was too late to edit it directly.
Sory....

You have rejected scientific inquiry in favor of a hodge-podge of ancient myths and New Age ecumenicism. You seem to have made the astonishing assumption that all myths are true. You have taken two stories that were made up by people that lived thousands of years apart from one another, had no intercourse, and experienced completely different histories, and crammed together their myths like a child crams together pieces of a puzzle he can't figure out. They are not the same story - they are made up. You seem to be trying to mash all religions into one. When faced with the many different religions in the world, I came to the realization that they must all be of equal truth value. You seem to have done the same thing, only decided that that value is positive, not negative. Instead of all being equally false, they are all equally true.

My first reaction is that all claims are false until proven true. It's called the "null," as in nothing. In a logical argument, you assume that all phenomena do not exist until they can be proven, and all explanations likewise false. If I claim to have a dragon in my garage, do you assume this to be true, or do you ask me for some proof? The problem here is not that I assume everything I hear to be false, it's that you assume everything you hear to be true.

The scientific explanation of history and the world are not based on whim or caprice. They are based on proper weight and consideration of the evidence. They are based on logical analysis of facts, and utilization of tools like Occam's Razor. Science is not just made up. It involves observation of duplicable experiment. And it involves peer review. When somebody makes up bullshit, other scientists call it.

So you see we do actually know quite a bit, and it's the result of science.

Of course the ancient people knew you could sweat blood. Why wouldn't they know about it? If it is possible now, why wouldn't it be possible then? And if it used to happen to people, why wouldn't anybody ever notice it? All you have to do is look at somebody in order to tell whether or not they're bleeding through their pores, so why wouldn't anybody be aware that that was possible?

Of course every civilization has a flood story - everyone needs to drink, so all civilization arise near water. So of course they know what a flood is. I can have a story about being bitten by a dog, and Goblinmonger can have a story about being bitten by a dog, but that doesn't mean it was the same dog.

Why would Jesus go to India? He repeatedly states that he only cares about Jews, and he states that Gentiles are to Jews as dogs are to humans, and are not deserving of salvation. If he spent time in India, why didn't he ever mention it to his disciples?

And what book is this, that mentions Jesus? Are you just going to say it, or are you going to back that up with evidence?

"He repeatedly states that he only cares about Jews, and he states that Gentiles are to Jews as dogs are to humans, and are not deserving of salvation."

I find it interesting yet perplexing.

"Go not into the way of the Gentiles" in Matthew 10:5, when he is instructing his followers whom to preach to. He implies in Luke 22:30 that only Jews go to Heaven. He comes right out and says "For salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22) He refuses to heal the sick child of a Samaritan woman until he forced to (!?) "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs." Children are the Hebrews, and the dogs are the Goyim. Then he later contradicts himself after his resurrection and says to preach to all people.

This is all taken from Ruth Hurmence Green's "The God From Galilee." I'm reading it right now, and she has some very interesting observations about what Jesus had to say in the Gospels. I haven't finished it yet, and some of her stuff is a little off, but I would definitely recommend reading it.

He seems to crop up all over the place, but that's to be expected. Christian missionaries took the Jesus story all over the world, and in the telling and re-telling, in order to give the story more local relevance, presumably people did what the religious so often do: they made stuff up. Who wouldn't want to believe that the saviour of mankind learnt from your own local ancestors?

Actually, I take that back: I'm not surprised. It's no more tenuous than a lot of other things Christians believe. When you're taught that believing stuff without evidence is a virtue, weird shit happens.

The point I was making about sweating blood is not that they did not know about it but why if they were writing an heroic epic would they reveal such weakness in their super hero? It is not really a weakness because the body has it’s own desire to live and that is what he meant by The sprit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Here is the reference for Jesus in India;
http://reluctant-messenger.com/main.htm

The Lost Years of Jesus:
The Life of Saint Issa
Translation by Notovitch
Ancient scrolls reveal that Jesus spent seventeen years in India and Tibet From age thirteen to age twenty-nine, he was both a student and teacher of Buddhist and Hindu holy men The story of his journey from Jerusalem to Benares was recorded by Brahman historians Today they still know him and love him as St. Issa. Their 'buddha'


But to contend that just because He sent his disciples to the Jews AT THAT TIME that he was only interested in giving the gospel to the Jews is a real stretch. But that is how all hit pieces work they extrapolate and expand every little word to make something out of noting

Odysseus is an epic hero, and he is often called the most complete character in all of literature. He's astoundingly three-dimensional. There's no reason why an epic hero can't have human characteristics.

Are you saying that Odysseus was not a real person? And that the Trojan war never happened and that Homer made it all up?
That was the opinion of scholars before Shulman (I think that was his name) Found the ruins of Troy and the treasure of Priam hidden under the walls of the city.

:rofl:

He found a city in Turkey - actually five cities all built one on top of the other, on a hill called "Hisarlik." He claimed that the second one from the bottom was Troy, and he found gold. But doesn't mean anything. It's just a city, and finding gold there doesn't prove anything. Any city can have gold in it.

I'm absolutely floored that you should think that Odysseus was a real person. He's a myth - he's not real.

Archeologists make historic discovery

Saturday, August 27, 2005

By Thomas Elias - The Madera Tribune
POROS, Island of Kefalonia, Greece - The tomb of Odysseus has been found, and the location of his legendary capital city of Ithaca discovered here on this large island across a one-mile channel from the bone-dry islet that modern maps call Ithaca.

This could be the most important archeological discovery of the last 40 years, a find that may eventually equal the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann’s 19th Century dig at Troy. But the quirky people and politics involved in this achievement have delayed by several years the process of reporting the find to the world.

http://maderatribune.1871dev.com/news/newsview.asp?c=167178

Zeemike, if that could be proven that would be one of the greatest discovery ever. Why do I say this? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all have a link to Jesus. If it can be proven Jesus has ties to the Eastern religions...THEN THAT TIES ALL OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS TOGETHER. AMAZING STUFF!! Someone should make a movie about this.



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the world's of politics, religion, and self-improvement all topped on one mystical pizza: http://spiritual-political-self-help.blogspot.com /

Just as we see here the bar will always be raised every time proof is offered.
It is central to the teachings of Jesus that by your faith will you be saved, because faith is the belief in things unseen and the hope in things to come.
But it is only todays christianity and Islam that maintains that there is only one true religion and if you do not believe in it you will perish. Most Eastern religions believe that there are many paths to enlightenment and reject none of the worlds religions that promote the light of god. The Native American religions are more christian like and believe and practice the teachings of Jesus than do most of the churches. And most all of them accept Jesus for what he was and have no problem with his teachings.

>>You must remember that at the time the Jews did not believe in an afterlife and Jesus spent a good deal of his time trying to teach them that there was.<<

Sorry, I think you are mistaken. The Romans and their Sadducees Jewish allies did not believe in an afterlife in the time of Jesus but other Jews most certainly did. See the concept of sheol. http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/skepticism/afterlife.html . Also, Josephus speaks of the Essene belief in an eternal soul that never dies. The Sadducees were a small elite political party that did not represent the majority of Jews on this issue.
http://www.spiritual-wholeness.org/faqs/reincgen/essrein.htm

No.

Go see the first Chronicles of Narnia movie. It explains the whole thing!


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the world's of politics, religion, and self-improvement all topped on one mystical pizza: http://spiritual-political-self-help.blogspot.com /

Chronicles of Narnia is FICTION, right?

That is to say, it is not true.

In other words, it is made up.

Really, it is the author's fantasy.

You do understand the meaning of "FICTION" don't you?

Maybe - explain the metaphor?

Matthew 5:17. "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill."

As the ultimate sacrifice--the sacrifice of the Word; of the flesh of Man and God--Jesus repaid in full mankind's old-testament debt of sacrifice, and fulfilled the old covenant (and the old laws deriving from such) completely. In its place, Jesus established the new, pure, and everlasting covenant. Jesus did not replace the old law simply by explaining what the new laws were to be; he fulfilled the old laws completely and eternally, leaving only the purified code of ethics of the New Testament.

"the crowd", as the Gospels put it. Rene Girard writes extensively on this (I'd recommend his _The Scapegoat_, or _Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World_; also S. Mark Heim, _Saved From Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross_).

Jesus was an example of religious scapegoating, what Girard calls "mimetic violence". In most cases of scapegoating, the victim is forgotten in the sense of still being named and remembered as an individual. The victim, which may be an animal, an individual human, or a group of humans, is killed (or driven out of the community) as a way to relieve communal tensions. The community then lives with a sense of relief, until the next time such tensions arise. Girard says that they then re-enact the sacrifice, the first few times as actual sacrifice of a victim similar to the first instance, but later in ritual form (he believes this is the basis for all religion).

So, sacrificial victims are NOT killed by God, or the gods, or whatever. They are killed by the mob. In the passion stories, even Herod and Pilate are overcome by the power of the mob, and give in to it ultimately. Girard says that for some reason Jesus' followers refuse to simply write him off as another nameless, faceless victim of communal mimetic violence. They insist on remembering him, the way he himself spoke against sacrificial violence, and the way he was killed as a scapegoat. They also believed that God was grieved, not pleased, by this sacrifice (read Moltmann _The Crucified God_). This is a change from other sacrificial cults.

It is this remembering of the victim as a full human--with his teachings and work, not just his victimage--that makes Jesus different from other victims of mimetic violence.

Girard takes strong issue with substitutionary atonement theory, which blames God for the violence. This theory is not Biblical. It doesn't make an appearance until the work of the medieval scholastic Anselm. Since then, though, it is central to most Christianity. In this, most Christianity is mistaken.

So, Jesus didn't sacrifice himself. He was sacrificed. Not to appease God, but to appease the crowd.

Jesus is, first and foremost, about questioning the value of sacrifice, and violence in general. This is the very heart of what Jesus was doing.