Did Jesus Christ really exist?

[Qutb]

I also find it interesting that many of the core Nazis were fascinated by Tibet. The Nazis mounted several (two?)expeditions there. Hitler is said to have admired the convergence of temporal and spiritual power in the person of the Dalai Lama. <p><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:black;font-family:century gothic;font-size:x-small;"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Qutb means "axis," "pole," "the center," which contains the periphery or is present in it. The qutb is a spiritual being, or function, which can reside in a human being or several human beings or a moment. It is the elusive mystery of how the divine gets delegated into the manifest world and obviously cannot be defined.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--><br><br></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=qutb>Qutb</A> at: 9/28/05 1:50 pm<br></i>

[dbeach]

did'nt JC study there <p></p><i></i>

[slimmouse]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What I have tried to challenge is the Tibet myth, the Paradise Lost image of a social order that actually was a retrograde theocracy of serfdom and poverty, where a favored few lived high and mighty off the blood, sweat, and tears of the many. It was a long way from Shangri-La.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br> If this is accurate, (and why shouldnt that surprise me ?) Another organised religion exposed for what it is at the TOP of the tree.<br><br> <br> <p></p><i></i>

[Fogyreef]

As Theists believe in God(s), so Atheists believe there are no gods. It's a stronger statement than Agnostics make, but the fact that no one can prove gods exist or not is not lost on us. You might say Atheism is Agnosticism that just doesn't spend time pondering Theism.<br><br>It's not a matter of convincing ourselves, just as Theism isn't a matter of fooling yourself. On the matter of God or no god, it's pure opinion, and as such belongs solely to the individual. My discussion on did JESUS really exist is meant to shed the light of reality on the Jesus story; that it's all fable, with traceable origins to centuries before his time. It's important to me because of all the sorrow and misery brought upon us by fanatic religious zealots, not to mention the far greater force of moderate to strong believers who push political and social adjendas that effect us all. The problem is that Bible thumpers read the Bible as if it were gospel(sic) and then hit the voting booths and my front door with their OPINION as they seek to impose their values on me. That's bad enough, but to do so without realizing it's all a fraud, a personified version of sun worship, is especially upsetting when one is sent to war over conflicting OPINIONS of faith.<br><br>As for convincing ourselves nothing is going on, it's quite the opposite. We have a strong understanding that much is going on, and rather than make up anecdotes to explain away what we don't understand and then live our lives in ritual based on embelishments of those stories, we seek out tangible truths and build upon those truths with other corroborating peer reviewed and vetted truths.<br><br>In summary; Play nice and don't force me to play your game, and take off that rediculous Jesus suit and focus on the basics of the golden rule. <p></p><i></i>

[Fogyreef]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If this is accurate, (and why shouldnt that surprise me ?) Another organised religion exposed for what it is at the TOP of the tree.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br>Why stop there? You would be hard pressed to find a single religious institution not tarnished by scandal or controversy. Even the great Mother Theresa is a misuderstood beast;<br><br>My prologue: Mother Theresa believed the ultimate path to God was through suffering. What we commonly thought of as her saintly devotion to the poorest of the poor was actually her sick and twisted PERPETUATION of their condition as their plight to reach salvation. She was no saint, she was a beast who subjected her victims to death through neglect as documented by her ex-nuns turned against her. <br><br>Yet another example of the dangers of religion and the blind faith that results from it.<br><br>****************************<br><br>From Christopher Hitchens, author of <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1859849296/qid=1127937699/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2438768-6384030?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" target="top">The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.<br><br>And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go?<br><br>The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been - she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself - and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than 100 countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?<br><br>The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor". People do not like to admit they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions.<br><br>Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity", but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi - that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent - was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.<br><br>One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by His Holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith and the cult of a mediocre human personality.<br><br>Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT. Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[marykmusic]

Sure, Jesus really did exist. But what he said, who he was, and how his existence has been manipulated to control the people touched by Western civilization, is up for discussion.<br><br>That said, I believe that starting a thread with such a guaranteed volatility is... disruptive at best, and the sort of thing that can shut down a discussion board (seen it happen) at worst. --MaryK <p></p><i></i>

[Fogyreef]

I'm glad you have found proof enough to explain away the following simularities to the major religions and their Dec 25 virgin birth stories.<br><br>Can you please post your proof so I can be better informed?<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images/madonnas.gif" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>Virgins and their saviors: Maya and Buddha; Isis and Horus; Mary and Jesus; Devaki and Krishna<br><br>(Note Buddah being born through Maya's side abdominal wall. <br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/jesus_similar.html" target="top">Exploring their similarities to Jesus Christ</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i></i>

[ZeroHaven]

well thanks to a thread about Islam I just read a <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.islam-guide.com/frm-ch1.htm" target="top">really good primer</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> on the religion...<br><br>The Quran also mentions Jesus but points out that he's just another messenger rather than some deity with powers. Heck, even in the bible Jesus says not to worship him but to God himself.. and the Quran points this out.<br>So according to the Quran Jesus did exist, and this historic document has (they say) not changed a syllable since it was first recorded. Credible source?<br><br>-------------<br>If you don't know much about Islam that website is a really really good read. It's so reasonable and logical you have to be careful or you might get converted <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a239/ZeroHaven/tinhat.gif"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--></p><i></i>

[Homeless Halo]

Probably the strongest evidence for the existence of Jesus is circumstantial, that is, that his "teachings" are recorded in the bible, but ignored by the majority of the instituions bearing his name. <br><br>If they made all of it up, then why didn't they make Jesus more user-friendly to the kind of system they created? <br><br>And what about his cousin John, and brother James, who are supposedly considered by many to have legitmately existed?<br><br>We suppose his actual followers who died before roman institutioning of Christianity as state sanctioned just THOUGHT they knew a guy named Jesus? Or that they made it all up?<br>I find it unlikely that people died for something they KNEW to be untrue. People often die for lies, but rarely when they know it to be a lie. <br><br>This is not to say I'm a Christian, or that I believe in god, per se, just that dismissing the existence of Christ, out of hand, because his narrators added lots of other myths to his story is like assuming no people got trapped in the superdome in N.O because we know the news media lied about a lot of the events that took place there... <p></p><i></i>

[Rigorous Intuition]

Christianity that isn't. <p></p><i></i>

[Fogyreef]

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/puzzle1.htm" target="top">pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/puzzle1.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/home.htm" target="top">pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/home.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i></i>

[zangtang]

thanks all - i've now got three webpages - one is going to show that Jesus is a rehashed solar king deity Sun thing.....one is going to show that jesus didn't even exist....and the other is going to convert me to islam with its Sharia veracity.....oh dear....<br><br>oh dear oh dear oh dear! <p></p><i></i>

[slimmouse]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Christianity that isn't.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br> Indeed, if metaphorically IMO. Jesus is justice, equality and freedom epitomised. But essentially, his legacy in the NT is LOVE ! Its the learning to love like he is said to that gives us all the potential to be truly "christ conscious"<br> <br> In the meantime, I would suggest there are quite a few budding Jesus figures on here.<br><br> Radical free thinking opponents of the forces of authority ; Those authorities who are also clearly humanitys' oppressors for their own ends for the largest part. Nothing seems to have changed much in 2 Thousand years huh ?<br><br> Was it heath7 who said earlier that the life of Jesus, as recorded in the NT also teaches us what to expect if we live like he did ?<br><br> I find that a singularly breathtaking truth. But better to live a year like a lion than a lifetime like a sheep.<br><br> And BTW, is it not reasonable to suggest that if you break a piece of wood you will find ( a part ) of each and every last one of us there ? <p></p><i></i>

[Jill Burdigala]

This isn't to say that you have to believe he was born on December 25, walked on water, rose from the dead, or did anything else that defies the usual laws of nature; but it's not particularly <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>uncommon</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> for myth, legend, and lies to get attached to historical figures after all. <br><br>Consider the bogus quotes attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Voltaire; the legend of Jesse James; or the personality cults that grew up around Stalin and Hitler in their own lifetimes (to this day a great many phony stories about Hitler in particular continue to be told). We now know that Troy was real, even though it was larded over with fantasy in stories and poems and didn't show up on any map. The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin is based on a real incident (and it had nothing to do with rats, which was a later invention).<br><br>Nor is it particularly uncommon for there no be no physical evidence of people who lived 2000 years ago, unless, for example, Aristophanes was completely insane and just made up all sorts of names for people about whom, editors tell us, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"nothing further is known"</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. If you throw out Jesus because the earliest written documentation does not emerge until several decades after his death, good, but be consistent and discount people and events described by Thucydides and Tacitus.<br><br>There's really no very valid reason <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>not</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> to believe that a rabbi or, more likely, revolutionary named Yehoshua or whatever existed and ran afoul of the Roman occupiers, and that for some reason a whole body of fantastic stories grew up about him after his death. Those who are compelled to insist that he <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>didn't</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> exist seem to say more about themselves than about history, in my opinion. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=jillburdigala>Jill Burdigala</A> at: 9/28/05 9:17 pm<br></i>

[Fogyreef]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Those who are compelled to insist that he didn't exist seem to say more about themselves than about history, in my opinion. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Hello?! You guys aren't reading my posts and links, for you're missing the point. You speak of Jesus as if all morality sprang forth from him. Well, as long as you limit your sensory perception of the world to the space between the covers of the NT and bound the parameters of your thought to the post Jesus era you will forever attribute love and wisdom to Jesus, blissfully unaware that Jesus is just a metaphor, a hand me down myth. Since your universe begins with and is ruled by scripture you live life with blinders on, unaware of the rich pre-Jesus history that defines the rest of us.<br><br>This isn't an anti-Christian thing in principle, though it is a reality check. This thread is about whether Jesus existed or not. You can't keep checking with your NT to see if he's still mentioned inside as your contribution to this discussion. And bringing up the joy of his philosophy does not speak to his supposed existance. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> it's not particularly uncommon for myth, legend, and lies to get attached to historical figures after all. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>It is when the myth comes BEFORE the "historical" figure. You're ignoring that I'm saying that the myth had been well seasoned many centuries before the supposed historical figure was born. There should be no shame in doing the research yourself into the parallel stories of Mithra, Horus, Amen-Ra, Dionysus, Buddah and Krishna and the uncanny similarities once thought to be uniquely Jesus'. Rather than pick Jesus' birth as the lower bound of your studies, try placing it as the upper bound and familiarize yourself with all the other Dec 25-born saviors with virginal mothers that eventually gave rise to the final draft; the Jesus version. <br><br>All the lessons, love and wisdom you find in the Bible was already old news centuries before the year 00. So keep the lessons, just lose the Jesus was real part. Go back, read the links, Google the names, reseach the historical, tangible body of evidence. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>If you throw out Jesus because the earliest written documentation does not emerge until several decades after his death, good, but be consistent and discount people and events described by Thucydides and Tacitus.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I throw out Jesus because of the evidence that proves Jesus is just the most recent of a long list of "Jesus" characters. The gap in documenting the life of the most important being on the planet, or the lack of any documentation lamenting that the messiah failed to fullfill the prophecy and take the chosen people home, and the fact that none of the gospel authors speak of Jesus as if they actually walked with him, these are simply supporting my premise. Jesus wasn't born on Dec 25. Almost everyone has agreed to that now. Ask yourself this: Why do they make such a big deal about Easter as a Christian holy day when it was first celebrated 4000 years ago, 2000 years before Christ.<br><br>Then ask yourself; If they lied to you about Christmas and Easter, what else aren't they telling you? <br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"What profit hath not that fable of Christ brought us!" - Pope Leo X<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=fogyreef>Fogyreef</A> at: 9/29/05 3:25 am<br></i>