Jesus says....
:D
Then Mr Jesus and I might get along.
I can believe it, too; Jesus was probably more tolerant than any modern Christian. After all, to forgive is divine . . .
(total hijack here): I was just thinking of a couple of things related to Christianity--
1) How very ODD it is that millions of people practice ritual cannibalism every day; regularly eating their god, and no one seems to remark how very . . . odd that is.
2) and how the crucifiction--the sacrifice of a divine being--was a powerful psychic event, affecting us all still for millenia
Human sacrifice is an old, old practice. Interestingly, the view of the practice by modern society tends to be that the weak and infirm were culled to satisfy whatever deity the culture was looking to influence. However, the very nature of sacrifice demands that it actually *be* a sacrifice; in other words, a person or thing that really does hurt to let go of.
Jesus was therefore a *worthy* sacrifice. I mean, c'mon...you don't just go around killing the Son of God everyday.
I'm not saying that I buy Christian dogma...clearly, I do not. However, they got the nature of sacrifice spot on with this part of the tale.
Nice one, Brewster. That's the Jesus I know.
Funny, all one has to do is actually read the Bible...[COLOR="White"] . . .[/COLOR] Where does all the confusion come from[SIZE="3"] ???[/SIZE]
Jesus spoke, then went to practice with his death metal garage band.
Jesus mused, "who shall I bomb?"
~Give all your money to the poor whether you think they deserve it or not.~
That Kicks ass. Thank you virtual Jesus!!
:)
But, if you give all your money to the poor, won't you then be poor and they'll have to give it all back?
I save so much time and effort by just keeping it.
No...I can't really do that, but it's an awesome thought. I'm more of a believer in Ayn Rand's version of "selfishness".
One of the very few thing I like about Ayn Rand that is...
:)
I also believe in helping the poor to sustain theirselves and not just give random money and donations away. (there is a time and place for it in dire emergencies but it's better that they make their own money) New thread idea. Thank you virtual Hung Like Jesus!
Where does all the confusion come from
Top management MBAs.
jesus was a commie? and a canadian? what the christ?!
Where does all the confusion come from[SIZE="3"] ???[/SIZE]
Top management MBAs.
I think you over-heated your brain with the hair dryer.
Which is impossible which you would know if you weren't using your childish emotions instead of scientific proven facts.... writing in English Jesus too...
Virtual Jesus is okay. But I still don't like his Dad much.
Abraham is rewarded by God for being willing to kill Isaac, no questions. God shows his love for the world, not by changing his mind on the whole damnation thing, not by showering us with blessings, but by killing his only son.
God likes a bit of infanticide it seems.
It's much better when you take out the whole divine thing and just look at what he was saying.
If the dark age schmucks had been listening to him when he said religion should never, ever have a place in government, or be used to govern people (basically that the church should never become an institution), they'd have saved the Western world a shitload of historical embarrassment.
The fact that people literally believe him to be the son of God most likely didn't come from his mouth, but those who followed him; he said everyone was a son/daughter of god, divine, etc., and those who didn't know it were lost - heaven was on earth for those who knew they were already divine. Never really said anything about "getting saved" so you wont' "go to hell." That's all retarded interpretation based on Old Testament mythos.
...not that I'm a Christian (tried that cult out for two years, crashed, burned), but Jesus was definitely the man, and ahead of his time in that particular part of the world.
Perhaps he made a visit to
India in that huge span of undocumented life...
Who knows?
Perhaps he made a visit to India in that huge span of undocumented life... Who knows?
From the link....
At this time, an old woman approached the crowd, but was pushed back. Then Issa said, "Reverence Woman, mother of the universe,' in her lies the truth of creation. She is the foundation of all that is good and beautiful. She is the source of life and death. Upon her depends the existence of man, because she is the sustenance of his labors. She gives birth to you in travail, she watches over your growth. Bless her. Honor her. Defend her. Love your wives and honor them, because tomorrow they shall be mothers, and later-progenitors of a whole race. Their love ennobles man, soothes the embittered heart and tames the beast. Wife and mother-they are the adornments of the universe."
"As light divides itself from darkness, so does woman possess the gift to divide in man good intent from the thought of evil. Your best thoughts must belong to woman. Gather from them your moral strength, which you must possess to sustain your near ones. Do not humiliate her, for therein you will humiliate yourselves. And all which you will do to mother, to wife, to widow or to another woman in sorrow-that shall you also do for the Spirit."
:thumb:
AND, some of them are`sexy as all hell!
I think Jesus left out divorce for spousal abuse, it was either that or a shotgun blast to the head for my ex :mad:
It doesn't seem odd to ya'll that every generation remakes Jesus in their own image, deciding which of his words they think he "really said" based on the socially acceptable values of the time? To get the nice warm and cuddly eastern philosopher Jesus, you have to leave out huge swaths of the written record of his words. The same thing if you want to end up with the Republican Jesus.
It's much more complex, and I think compelling, to deal with the whole thing, rather than performing literary surgery to arrive at a Jesus in our own image. What could be more useless, really, than a spiritual teacher who already agrees with us?
~snip~ What could be more useless, really, than a spiritual teacher who already agrees with us?
The debil agrees with me more than Haysoos does:eek: !
Damn debil.
I just don't "get" the whole spiritual leader thing anyway. Jesus seems to have been a cool bloke who said some sensible things. There are other such people in history. I try to live my life according to the principles I believe to be good rather than the the set of principle laid down by a specific person. Mostly, I fail, but dammnit , try. :D
I just thought it was interesting is all. The whole domination of Western thought throughout most of the rest of history thing.
Yes, damn that western thought for giving us such horsecrap as logic, science, medicine, musical harmony, democracy, the enlightenment, the concept of "rights" ...
... such oppressive assholes, us "western thinkers".
I just don't "get" the whole spiritual leader thing anyway. Jesus seems to have been a cool bloke who said some sensible things. There are other such people in history. I try to live my life according to the principles I believe to be good rather than the the set of principle laid down by a specific person. Mostly, I fail, but dammnit , try. :D
perhaps you've never met someone truly charismatic?
if so, you're lucky!
Yes, damn that western thought for giving us such horsecrap as logic, science, medicine, musical harmony, democracy, the enlightenment, the concept of "rights" ...
... such oppressive assholes, us "western thinkers".
ACTually, that's a list of most of the things I love about western thought. I guess I didn't mean western thought so much as western religion. Oops.
I wonder what internet Jesus thinks of this representation of the last supper.
Wow.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=4604392&page=1Probably rioting, looting, and threatening to murder people... no, wait, that's another group.
Jesus didn't like it, he told me.
He said it was very cold in that room, but the painter must have been short sighted or something.
It doesn't seem odd to ya'll that every generation remakes Jesus in their own image, deciding which of his words they think he "really said" based on the socially acceptable values of the time? To get the nice warm and cuddly eastern philosopher Jesus, you have to leave out huge swaths of the written record of his words. The same thing if you want to end up with the Republican Jesus.
It's much more complex, and I think compelling, to deal with the whole thing, rather than performing literary surgery to arrive at a Jesus in our own image. What could be more useless, really, than a spiritual teacher who already agrees with us?
Ouch. That's brutal.
Here's my take on "what Jesus really said" ...
#1 He didn't write anything, so we have no direct records of his teachings.
Therefore #2 we have his message filtered through the minds of the authors of the texts we do have.
So #3 to arrive at what his message actually might have been, we have to strip away the artifact of the interpreters, based on our knowledge of what their "spin" might have been, based on the culture they were a product of.
Just as you say, we shouldn't apply our own cultural filter, we also should not apply the cultural filter of the times at which these texts were written. Also, take into account he was/was claimed to have been fulfilling a prophecy, so some of what he said/was claimed to have said was hard-coded.
As a measuring tool, one can also apply an average of the many different messages he was claimed to have had by the many different authors. Weigh that against the average of all of history's other spiritual teachers, to get a feel for what a responsible "enlightened" person is likely to say, and further weed out the cultural artifacts of homophobic goat-herders.
Somewhere in this process, once you realize that simply reading the text verbatim is of questionable value (by the way, which texts are we reading, is the Gospel of Thomas in or out?) you realize that about all Jesus is good for is a frontman for some amalgam of various belief systems.
We don't know what he said, we don't know what he meant, and all we can do is make educated guesses. And when we do that, he invariably
will reflect our biases. This is the danger of religion, that it can stand for stupid and dangerous things.
There's another tool we have at our disposal.
In addition to Jesus being a teacher in a culture, in a tradition, there is good evidence that whatever he said or did while he we walking around Judea had a transforming effect on some people within that culture.
The earliest records of the church indicate an egalitarianism, a disregard for class and wealth, an inclusion of both men and women in worship, an idea of spiritual life as separate from political life ... all of these things are changes in the cultural current, departures from both Judaism and Roman Hellenism as they were practiced in that period. All happened very soon after the life of Jesus, in the communities of those that self-identified as his followers.
So, in addition to doing some critique on what cultural baggage the authors of the various texts might have brought to their task, we should also consider how those early church communities stood in contrast to their surrounding cultures, and consider how that might match up with some of the teachings left behind in the written record.
I got the best example of the oddity religion can be last week... a friend who is jewish is wanting to marry an islamic girl (whos mum is christian and dad is muslim) but his dad is against it because he says he can only marry a jewish girl, even though my friends mum was christian! They all belive in the same god, why can't they just get on?
Hope that made sence
calling him/her by the same name does not mean they believe in the "same god." They believe very, very different things about the nature of God, the character of God, and the commands of God. Altogether, that adds up to some heavy duty problems to resolve.
Merc said - "WWMD" ... too funny! ROTFL :D
As for the original post... sorry, I don't see Jesus saying a lot of it.
Some of it is simply illogical, and pretty much all of it is promotional to a specific bias looking for support because its "how Jesus feels".
Parasite mentality... as I see it.
Highlight at your peril
Jesus loves you.
[COLOR="LemonChiffon"]But I'm his favourite.[/COLOR]
Jesus does not really love you.
[COLOR="LemonChiffon"]He's just using you for sex. [/COLOR]
I've decided that I would prefer it that no one dies for my sins. This sounds like a terrible idea, and I would prefer to die for my own sins, and if warranted, go to hell myself.
I have decided to be responsible for my own sins and if someone has made the mistake of dying for my sins, I am offering an apology, because there is no need, I have them handled, and I am also very sorry for the mix-up in spiritual procedure. Some say that it is obligatory and too late, but I will talk to god and maybe god will make an exception.
I am willing to bare the burden of my own sins. If anyone in the future would like to die for my sins, the answer is no. No thank you, that is awesome of you! Thanks, but no thanks. I will try to handle this myself, maybe poorly, but I think I should be the responsible party here....I think a little self-responsibility is in order. I do that poorly too, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't attempt it as much as possible.
:)
I am willing to bare the burden of my own sins.
I've never heard it called
that before!
A little extra for, you know, fetish...
;)
If anyone is really interested in Jesus and what he may or may not have taught or said, I highly recommend Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus" or his lecture series "Lost Christianities" available from the Teaching Company.
It will clear a lot of things up.
Interesting article about him on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._EhrmanI have an audio recording somewhere around here of Ehrman debating William Lane Craig at Holy Cross on the topic of the historical probability for the resurrection. It's like watching a one-armed man fight Mike Tyson.
Craig develops a very rigorous framework for understanding probability, one that treats historical probability in the same way that statistical probability functions in every other field of study, one that accounts for both field of observation and potential background knowledge, and proceeds to roll out a very compelling argument for why the resurrection is a probable explanation for four different historical data points.
Ehrman then proceeds to do the academic equivalent of shouting "Nuh-uh, you dumb dumb poo poo head!" He ignores the argument itself, as Craig laid it out, and instead says, "Well, of course you would think that, you're a Christian. Why should we listen to you?"
That's some nice intellectual work there, Lou.
I'd love to hear it. how can I get a copy?
If anyone is really interested in Jesus...
...I'd recommend the Bible. It will clear a lot of things up.
Sorry, I couldn't help it. Such as easy shot. I'm just a little devil, I am...:devil: