Do you believe that Jesus really existed? (Other then in the Bible)Historical references to Jesus are scarce, and the most direct reference is thought to be a forgery. Also, I don't think it's a coincidence that Jesus' story almost exactly matches that of ancient egyptian God Horus. What's your opinion?
Uh horus isn't the only one. Jesus is also an exact copy of Mithras, as well as dionysus. Look it up and you will see that christianity is merely a blending of all the ideas at the time, so that it was familiar and people would accept it. If any person does enough research on it, they will easily find how much of a hoax all of christianity is. And if you are too lazy to do your own research, heres a few links to the people that jesus was based off: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithras http://www.unrv.com/culture/spread-christianity.php Probably my favorite thing to do is to ask a christian how Christianity spread. Not a single one of them know, yet they can go on for hours babbling about how good Jesus is. Man its amazing how many people believe fictional stories
It's good to say that there are people watching Zeitgeist. I think everyone should see it, maybe we should show it in school.
Sorry my sarcasm can be a bit dry sometimes. I wasn't serious about showing it in school, I was just being sarcastic. I do think that it presents a lot of important ideas though.
I've never watched zeitgeist, I just read up on stuff before I believe in it blindly also here is a direct quote to all those believers that don't take time to do research, at least read this: And pretty much everything here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Paganism and definately here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_and_comparative_mythology In fact there really is nothing original about the christian Jesus.
Hehe i know, i was just showing you that it goes both ways. I did find Zeitgeist to be interesting, but in no way does it represent the truth. It is merely an opinion, much like bible studies. And actually, yes, I would like people to study the bible, and then watch Zeitgeist in school. Might actually strike a key with these young minds if they are forced to question and think these two opposing views.
no man i believe people use religion to get through life. In other words nobody know's what happens to people when they die (therefore when a friend or family dies...they make themselves think that they are in 'a better place'.) I just think its a way for people to deal with a loss.....im not saying its a bad thing to believe in because it can help people...but when it comes down to it..i strongly agree that religion is false
I think the question that should be asked is this: Could Jesus have existed? The answer is yes. Now, I'm not saying that there was a child born of a virgin who was sent by God and could walk on water and died for our sins, etc. Just because that person didn't exist does not mean that there wasn't a Jewish man named Jesus who lived around the year 0 and influenced an entire religion. If you take away all the Biblical accounts and details of his life, that's all you're left with and I think it's a pretty good starting point. I think most likely there was a minor Jewish leader named Yeshua in the beginning of the first century. He had some influential ideas about religion, people liked him, and who knows maybe he really was executed by the Romans for his beliefs. His teachings probably weren't very widespread, and his followers were probably a small group. The reason this is still a possibility in my opinion is because of the Jewish-Roman Wars of the first century, which destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple, and killed a large part of the Jewish population. Hardly any records from this period survived, and if there really was a Jesus-figure, then it's entirely feasible (if not highly likely) that most evidence of his existence would have also been destroyed. (Especially if he was claiming to be the King of the Jews, a people who the Romans hated.) So what would have happened to the people who followed Jesus? Maybe many of them died, but just a few (or even one) escaped persecution and told the story of this leader to their children. The details got vague after a couple of generations. Then when the writers of the various books of the Bible sat down, they took creative liberty and assigned all of these exaggerations and miracles to this figure, and Christianity was born. I'm not claiming any of this as fact, I'm just saying that it's possible. We will probably never know for sure.
If we look at it as could we find that yes, he probably could of. There were thousands of heretics that were crucified in that age. In fact there were many folk tales told way before that, of heroes being crucifixed for their cause. The story of jesus is honestly nothing new, its just regurgitated folk tales with names, dates, and locations changes
Absolutely! Learning about those things... Inquisition, the heretics, etc... were the first step to me questioning my beliefs. Although they were Catholic time periods I still think it translates to how silly religion can get today.
Well I'm aware of a lot of the similarities between spiritual/supernatural aspects of Jesus and other gods, which is why I intentionally left all that stuff out. If you take out everything that could have been influenced by other religions (mainly Ancient Egyptian and Zoroastrianism), as well as anything that's realistically impossible, then you're left with the only parts of Jesus' existence that could possibly be true. You could even take out the part about dying on the cross if you want, since that's also been attributed to previous deities. What's left? The story of a Jewish carpenter named Yeshua, who become a religious leader at some point in his life. His message was that man didn't have to live without sin in order to go to heaven, because that was impossible. Because of Jesus, humans can be forgiven for their sins in the afterlife. This is the most basic and essential belief of Christianity. And where does this concept come from? Is it present in any previous religion? As far as I know, it's not. Jews are called "People of the Book" for a reason.... back then, they lived their lives in strict adherence to their religious text, following every detail of every law as thoroughly as possible. Most followers of Orthodox Judaism still live this way now. So obviously Jesus' key message is completely opposite to what Jews considered an essential and everyday part of their religious identity. If someone had come along at the time and claimed that God would still love and forgive you even if you broke the rules, it could potentially cause an uproar. The leaders at the time wouldn't like it so they'd probably try to silence these teachings. That effort, combined with the mass destruction and death of the Jewish-Roman wars could have easily wiped out any physical evidence his teachings/existence. The only thing that might be left are a few embellished stories that got passed down through the generations by handful of followers. There were no first hand accounts or details, so when it got written down, people got creative. They incorporated numerous elements from other religions, etc to make the story sound good, and that's where the New Testament came from. Again, I'm not trying to say this is absolutely true. It just seems a more likely possibility than the entire thing being fabricated to begin with. We'll never know what the truth is, and that's why I'm not a Christian. Either way I don't think he was the son of God or anything.
So what you are saying is that Jesus is just as much myth as Dionisys or Mithra. Afterall, we cannot know how much truth or myth is behind any of those stories? And since they are so similar, the myths, why not do as Occam, razor through it all and just call it wishfull thinking.
Theres too much bullshit floating around within the world of religion that its really hard to say one way or another whats true and what isnt, what actually happend and what didnt. Either way it doesnt really matter to me whether or not he existed.
That's a fair view. I'd agree and then say that it also doesn't matter to me if others believe something happened that I highly doubt lol.
My only point is that just because a story or figure has become a myth doesn't mean that there wasn't originally some kind of factual inspiration for it. Most of these myths that have influenced modern religion originate before written language even existed or was nearly as widespread as it is now. So they were only passed on through oral tradition for quite some time. Myths can be based on historical events, and then over time become imbued with symbolic meaning, transformed, shifted in time or place, or even reversed. What people feel and say about the event takes on progressively greater historical significance while the facts become less important. By the time one reaches the mythical end of the spectrum the story has taken on a life of its own and the facts of the original event have become almost irrelevant. Good examples of this are the events of the Trojan War, possibly Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and many other Ancient Greek myths. It is often hard to distinguish which parts of these stories may have had some factual basis, and which parts were made up. You're right though - as far as all the spiritual connotations go, it can be dismissed as wishful thinking. Despite any possibility that Jesus could have been a real person, it's obvious that the Bible's description of him is mostly fabricated. It's not that I'm trying to defend Christianity or any organized religion, I just think it is interesting to find out where these influential ideas originally came from. To me, it will never be possible to prove for sure whether or not Jesus existed. It happened too long ago, and there isn't enough evidence either way. All we can do is speculate. One thing that also makes me wonder - why would all of these myths and aspects of other religious figures get applied to Judaism and used to create an entirely new religion? What would be the point of that if they already existed separately? It seems more likely to me that someone wanted to write about the historical figure of Jesus, but didn't know enough details about his life so they filled it in with other myths.
Precisely my point with the adjective complexity thread. Damn, do great minds think alike? Or are we just crazy?