Jesus physicaly ascending into Heaven?

Do you believe that he did so?

I believe that he thought that we should essentially be NICE to everyone else, no matter WHO they were. I believe that if everyone followed that teaching, we'd all be better off. I'm also atheist, and I also believe that Jesus didn't think he was the "Son of God", or any such thing, but rather, that we were ALL children of "God". I believe that Jesus was taken out of context his entire life, and thus, Christianity was born.

Also, I must sleep now, so I'm not "posting and running"... I'll respond in the morning after about 10 hours of much needed "catch-up" sleep. :)

(or is supposed to have said...just like everything else in the Bible) that he is the only way. Furthermore, most of the "be nice to everyone else" stories were added to the Bible much later, probably adapted from unrelated stories and attributed to the figure. Also, fig trees can testify to his shortcomings in understanding.

I thought you were satirizing what has become kind of a knee-jerk sentiment here anytime anyone mentions Jesus, which is to claim he was a liberal. I don't think I've ever seen this brought up quite as irrelevantly as on a thread about whether or not he literally ascended to heaven. ;)

The regional authorities didn't like folks stirring up the rabble and Jesus was good at just that, so they killed him.

Paul and the early bishops swarmed in like jackals and distorted the ministry of Jesus and the version we have now is a real mess.

It would be great to unearth some more of those early documents that the early bishops had burned.

Jesus was a liberal. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then I pointed him to some sources and he came to agree. Then he concluded his faith and political beliefs were incompatible. So he decided to abandon......the church.

He worships at the church of the Holy Porgie, now!

And today's RW fundies would do the same--demand the distruction of the one they purport to worsip...

on a DU board if there was a legal disparity between Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and my public-stated hope that someone stuff the old fool into a woodchipper.

Legal experts are meeting at this hour to determine an outcome.

but I can safely say the world is a better place for many because Hugo CHavez is in it.

Pat, on the other hand...

And to get your clear-headed take on things, too.

I hear you on Chavez. And I hear you on Pat.

So.

You know anybody who's got a woodchipper?

According to this:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5348a2.htm

wood chippers are very dangerous and have caused several fatalities.

Do you think they'd believe it was an accident?

We could say he tripped.






Nice to see you, as well, good friend.:hug:
You made me laugh and the day is still young!

Love ya. And you hang in there.

Matthew 10:34 I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

is individual and social.

It suggests that an evolved being, an aware being, a person driven by a deeply-felt ideal, is going to run afowl of the folks at home.

I think that is a fair description of "growing up" and of developing a personal identity and a social conscioussness.

It wouldn't mean that Jesus is or is not "liberal."

and I wouldn't accept the scripture literally.

I think the point is that when we do the right thing (meaning in this case loving thy neighbor, etc)
we will go against the grain.

I like your "I think that is a fair description of "growing up" and of developing a personal identity and a social conscioussness.

It wouldn't mean that Jesus is or is not "liberal."

the excellent point on going against the grain.

Political liberals of all possible spiritual stripes can recognize and honor in the ministry of Jesus that strong, identifiable impulse he has to defy the status quo.

I wouldn't call him a panderer by any means.

Sadly that's not true of his more rabid evangelical following -- the red votin' fundies who believe God's work is realized in the bombing of Baghdad. Talk about a departure from an original text!

'Appreciated your comment very much.

I have listened to my Inner Ashcroft (tm)

Elijah did it too, didn't he?

and disregards the rest" from "The Boxer" Simon and Garfunkle

anyway, that involved directly only christ's apostles/friends, who had to use physical terms to describe it. The same problem (how to describe what happened) appeared in the bible, which is full of impossible to describe things....the poll really asks if 'you believe the hocus pocus' that religion, by its very nature, seems to contain. It's hard to be a left/liberal/progressive and defend a religion that, to speak plainly, is historically so heartless and vile, so damn sneaky and with so much horror on its hands BUT consider that Jesus KNEW they would do that; they already were doing it (peter cutting guy's ear off etc) even as he went among them, and those were his own followers!
the battle is between good (life) and bad (death)....it involves us all, and we are losing it. Jesus Christ is God, and if you don't believe that, then yall can go to(!)...ahem, anyway, anyone who's human knows that there's something going on in our existence that all the books on earth, much less the church, even much less cnnfox news, explains. Being contemptuous of Christ, who the racist/sexist/bullyboys have been using for 2k years it seems to feather their selfish nests plays according to the asshole's rules when 'peace on earth, goodwill to mankind' isn't such a bad idea, though it is as remote today as it was when Jesus was physically here.....
i mean, c'mon, 'welfare' is thought a bad word

I can go to (!). :rofl: Another one of jesus' holy warriors has spoken. :eyes: And I'm not "human" if I don't believe in some unknown, mysterious force pulling the strings of life? :eyes: Thanks, up until now I thought I was just being rational but you've made me see the error of my ways. I'll strive to become more "human" in your eyes. :rofl:

they need their fantasy

Quit hogging all of the Jesus Juice Kool Aid* and pour me a glass!

:evilgrin:










*Now with natural and artificial flavors!

what heaven is, and where it is located, this question answers itself.

"If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

Gospel of Thomas, Lambdin translation
http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/gthlamb.html

down again. Looks like the prophets have easy physical access to the other world.

I'm not here to judge or anything but there are Christians on DU that respect the views of others so why can't you respect ours? I'm not here to preach either but it offends me when people start making jokes out of Jesus and Christianity. Whether you believe in God or not, that is your choice but there are people that strongly do. Yes, there may not be evidence that many things in the Bible did not happen but I have faith that they did.

The majority of the Christians are on your side but it is just the crazy religious right that gets all of the publicity/attention. Most don't want to impose their beliefs on everyone else. At least not the church I am a part of.

Now attack away...

We make fun of everything on DU, and I do mean EVERYTHING.

And while I'm normally one of the first DUers who will call out someone who is ridiculing your faith, afaik, when it comes to religion, there are no sacred cows.

If you believe someone is violating DU rules, hit alert and let the mods know.

Of course, you always have the option of ignoring the threads that offend you.




Oh, and forgive me for attacking you,:eyes: but I thought I'd help out that whole persecution thing you've got going on.

I definitely was not sounding like the persecuted. I was just trying to make a point.

I don't go around making fun of Muslims, Atheists, etc. so why does everyone else have to make fun of Jesus or Christianity?

Like I said, I'm not comfortable mocking your beliefs but I find religious humor to be, well, funny.

I grew up with catholics who poked more fun at their religion than any atheist I've ever known.

It's offensive to some, yes, and that's unfortunate, but most of the humor here is not meant to hurt you or insult your beliefs.

Black humor is offensive to a lot of people as well, but it's a great way to relieve tension during really stressful situations.

My Roman Catholic upbringing exposed me to more contempt for religion and the church than I'd even be comfortable hearing from an atheist. The Catholics definitely have some sort of abused spouse syndrome going on there.

before you get the wrong idea about the posts in this forum, check out this pledge made by an atheist:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x58210

We can separate you from your religion but we realize you can't always do that.

Speak up if you think we're going too far! Lots of other theists here do, trust me.

I can't promise you we'll stop doing whatever it is, but at least give us a chance to explain why we're not doing it to hurt or offend you.

Or, if you're right, we may even apologize. I've certainly had to do it more than once.

Santa Clause doesn’t have flying reindeer either, if he himself even existed. Flying Santa Clause, Easter Bunny’s, Tooth Fairies, flying corpses….It’s all the same thing.

It’s a little absurd to even suggest a corpse ccould come back to life after 3 day’s and fly away, unless you’re a child or mentally immature for some reason. Think about it.

Now isnt that a little silly?

and not arrogant enough to think that what I believe will change whatever the true fact is nor naive enough to think it effects my faith as a Christian one way or another.

My husband believes He did; my father believed He did; my mother believed He did. All my grandparents believed He did.

I come by my belief honestly! But I am able to suspend my belief in natural laws to believe He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven.

And I believe that someday I will, too.

And if you DON'T believe it, I still love and respect you as my brother/sister in search of justice and peace.

I am not chastizing anyone for making fun of the concept. It is, after all, illogical. But perhaps sometimes those who make fun think it is just a belief. It is so much more than that for me. I was christened in a church at three weeks old. I was confirmed in the same church 13 years later. I watched my sister marry in the same church. I made vows as godmother to one of her four children; the others I prayed for at their christening. I vowed my life to my soulmate eight years later, at 21. I buried my grandparents from that church and they lie in a Christian cemetery under a cross. My belief in heaven sustained me as I grieved my beloved grandmother, at 10, in my first experience with loss. I was blessed by my priest when I was in labor and prayed for a safe delivery. My own children were christened in that church and my father read the Lesson. First Corinthians. (Love is kind..love is patient...) I sat with my father for 11 days at his death vigil, singing hymns and praying and when he passed away, I placed my crucifix from my bedroom in his warm hands. I held my mother in her extremis and my mouth was next to hers as the breath went out of her body and I wept and recited ""accept thy servant, dear Lord, a sheep of thine own flock..." My parents were buried from a church, their bodies annointed with oil and their caskets with holy water. My father was cremated with his prayerbook in his hands. And they rest together in the chapel at the church where I was married. My grandson and son-in-law were baptized at the same church the day we interred my mother there.

I start every day with a prayer and I end every day with a prayer. My life is a prayer. And I pray that you all have a joyous season of renewal, no matter what your faith, your lack of it, your logic or your illogic. It is spring and the season of new life.

"I know that my Redeemer Liveth and that He shall stand at the last day upon the earth....and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh, shall I see God."


A Grannie in Tallahassee

I respect your beliefs and you for being secure enough in your faith to not be threatened by those who don't share it.

Happy Easter, spring solstice, season of rebirth and/or whatever else applies!
:hug:

He who laughs last, laughs best!


Happy Easter!

"Worship me or I will torture you forever"

--God

while people are burning and suffering in hell. That's a fucked up wish anyway.

He wouldn't be laughing at everyone, just us.

Your faith isn't better or worse than anybody else's, is it?

The joker can be a holy entity, by the way.

Shakespeare's jesters and fools are not merely so.

And there's a hint of the trickster in your Jesus of Galilee as well, if you'd but look.

from the cold, the lack of oxygen, and the sudden decrease in atmospheric pressure if he had physically "ascended up into the heavens".

in the sky

if one is talking about another dimension, then the possibilities increase

maybe "heaven" is just another dimension that we aren't aware of?

who knows

in the end it either happens or it doesn't

I hope it does

I'm gonna go with "doesn't". Here's why:

Your choice of phrasing implies that "happens" and "doesn't" both have equal weight. A more accurate statement would be something like this:

Either Jesus ascended bodily into heaven OR he went to the moon OR he just evaporated OR he never existed OR he died and decomposed OR the apostles were on drugs OR they were crazy OR they just made up the whole story OR a dog ate him OR they forgot where he was buried OR he's still alive and in the witness protection program OR the Romans killed the wrong guy and HE ascended into heaven OR THAT guy went to the moon OR....ad infinitum.

Jesus ascending into heaven is just one of an infinite number of assertions for which there is zero evidence. Even so, the above statement STILL grants the "ascended" position far too much weight since we actually DO have overwhelming evidence that people do not rise from the dead and ascend bodily into heaven or anywhere else.

or somewhere out in the sticks?

Who the hell knows?

nobody is around today to tell us what they saw

the written accounts are not by eyewitnesses that I'm aware of

it is something that may or may not be true

and it is a fundamental foundation of some folks faith

but only a piece of my belief system.

If it isn't true, that doesn't negate the teachings of Jesus.

If Jesus wasn't real, that doesn't negate the wisdom of those teaching, or their validity, especially to the audience that they were written to. (First century folks)

So, maybe it is, maybe it isn't a "stupid poll", but it isn't that important to me

The moon? Pluto?

The actual account in Acts does not imply that heaven is "up there" - unless of course one wishes to poke fun at the easy target of Christian beliefs (which is quite a common sport round here).

"And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight." Douay Rheims Version.

What happened to him following the cloud hiding him is the important point - it was once he was hidden from them by the cloud that he was taken into heaven.

The Gospel accounts of the Ascension merely describe him being taken "up into heaven". Does this automatically mean that Christians are supposed to believe that heaven is somewhere at a high altitude? of course not, it's just a commonly used phrase - if I travel to London, I say that I'm going 'up to town' despite the fact that it's lower than my house up in the Chilterns. When students travel to university they also call it "going up".

by George Ricker <snip>

"A Christian does not have to believe that Jesus' physical body was resurrected from the dead and later levitated, moving from earth up to heaven.

But Christians can believe that physical bodies are important; humans do not become disembodied spirits; Jesus' physical body and ours have spiritual significance; and the life of Jesus has been raised up over all lives as the exemplar."

Chapter 10 - The Resurrection and the Ascension

Delusion sure is a tricky thing to overcome.

I saw Elvis float in the air...:sarcasm:

The Christ of Faith crowd is diverse, but heavily laden with fundies. They claim the same 'Christ' Paul Tillich talks about.

I like A.N. Wilson's Jesus of History a lot better. And followers in this group are more cool-browed and clear-headed, IMO.