"The Jesus Mysteries" - Democratic Underground

progressoid

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Fri Jul-29-05 12:17 PM
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"The Jesus Mysteries"

Anybody read this? I picked it up at the library but I haven't had time to get beyond the first chapter. Now someone else has a hold on it so I can't renew. It's the only copy in the system for an area of about 700,000 people.

I'm working 12-16 hour days for a while but maybe it's worth buying for winter reading. Waddya think?

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BurtWorm

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Fri Jul-29-05 01:44 PM
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1. It's at least worth putting another hold on it yourself.

Edited on Fri Jul-29-05 01:45 PM by BurtWorm

Have you read Earl Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle? You can read that one on line. Same with Joseph Wheless's Forgeries of Christianity. Both are excellent.

PS: But The Jesus Mysteries is a very good book as well. It's worth owning, I'd guess, if you're very interested in the question of the factuality/fictionality of Christianity.

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progressoid

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Fri Jul-29-05 06:17 PM
Response to Reply #1

2. Yeah, I probably won't have time for any serious reading again until

snow falls anyway. By then it may be available again.

Will look into the others too - THANKS!

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Arianrhod

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Sat Jul-30-05 02:33 AM
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3. I liked it.

I don't agree with the author's closing conclusions, but it makes for an interesting read.

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onager

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Sat Jul-30-05 10:29 AM
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4. Another great one free and on-line

Edited on Sat Jul-30-05 10:29 AM by onager

"The Story Of Stupidity" by James F. Welles.

His point of departure was Barbara Tuchman's "March Of Folly," where she asked why nations so often pursue idiotic policies that are clearly against their interests. (How the British lost the American colonies, how the Popes provoked the Reformation, the U.S. in Vietnam, etc.)

One of my favorite Welles bits, from Chapter VI, "Stupidity Reformed:"

As theologians, the Protestant reformers replaced the authority of the Catholic Church with the authority of the Bible, which they opened to the public.

The inevitable but unforeseen result was that every individual who could read thought God could communicate directly with him. Unfortunately, as recorded in the Bible, the voice of God often rambles incoherently like that of a slightly schizoid manic-depressive with delusions of grandeur.

Worse yet, his Protestant readers promptly splintered into numerous sects which agreed only on one point—they wanted to be separate. By 1650, there were 180 sects, all based on the Bible and each more dogmatically intolerant than the next...

http://www.stupidity.com/story1final/

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Doubting Thomas

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Sat Jul-30-05 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #4

5. I love it...

Thanks for the reference.

"As theologians, the Protestant reformers replaced the authority of the Catholic Church with the authority of the Bible, which they opened to the public.

The inevitable but unforeseen result was that every individual who could read thought God could communicate directly with him. Unfortunately, as recorded in the Bible, the voice of God often rambles incoherently like that of a slightly schizoid manic-depressive with delusions of grandeur."

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