BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus

Subject: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 11:59 AM

Myths are a collection of stories associated with a culture, institution, or person.

The stories are believed to be true by those people who claim that culture, institution, person as their own.

The stories feature religious beliefs and/or the spiritual world view of that culture, institution, person.

Debating whether Jesus was an historical figure, or 'fact or fiction' rather misses the whole point.

It isn't 'who' Jesus was. It is what he represents to people who believe in him.

Just because Christianity is the dominant religion in the world right now (not the largest, just the most dominant politically, culturally and economically) doesn't make Christian mythology true.

Any more than it makes Maori mythology true.

The facts of mythology--that all religion is myth, for instance-- disturbs true believers, be they Christian or Muslim or Hindi or Buddhist or Sikh or...fill in the blank with any religion you can think of, and all the ones you know nothing about.

The process of constructing religious belief through myth is the same.

That is why the Da Vinci Code isn't the least bit radical. It is quite conventional, actually, because it doesn't question the mythology of Christianity: the belief that Jesus was an historical person, rather than a mythic god, like Zeus.

The only difference between Christian mythology and Greek and Roman mythology, is that Westerners no longer believe Greek and Roman mythology true, as our ancestors did. Now we believe Christian mythology (which usurped the Greek & Roman) to be true instead.

And one day, our descendants will no longer be Christians, because some other belief system will come along and take it's rightful place in the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:12 PM

Actually, Sori... "The Da Vinci Code" isn't the least bit radical because it has virtually no historical refferencing, is an obvious trump up of a 'what if' scenario, and feeds only on the moral slovenliness of a debauched and indolent... entertainment based... democracy of temptations.

ttr

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:18 PM

Yeah, TTR, this is but another piece of troll bait from the Minnesota Monster trying to wind folks up. Must be a slow day in Minneapolis/St. Paul. But the premise isn't bad for a discussion, had s/he not used the inflammatory stuff, and used a novel that freely skewed the available data as the basis for the discussion.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:30 PM

Compare the myths of the life of Jesus, to the myths of the life of the Egyptian god Horus, another divine hero-god representing wisdom, truth, purity, and goodness.

Even those Westerners who don't believe the gospels to be inerrant and inspired by god, still cling to a desire to believe that Jesus was an historical figure, and that Christian mythology is rooted in historic fact.

It is not. The vast majority of religious historians and scholars begin with the premise that Christian mythology will be proven to be historic fact, if they just look long and hard enough, and ignore other equally rational explanations and interpretations of historical evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Dead Horse
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:43 PM

Why post this stuff on Mudcat?
Take it to a religeous site where they give a damn!

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 12:49 PM

Heh!

Mythology if taken literally is, of course, just mythology.

If taken allegorically, however, it can be quite useful in demonstrating valuable moral precepts, valuable philosophical premises, and the other nonmaterial considerations like that which give our lives meaning and conscious purpose.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 01:05 PM

Exactly my point, Little Hawk.

The allegorical Christ myth was destroyed by the Christian institution to serve their earthly interests.

Christian mythological stories that were originally supposed to be regarded as allegory and metaphor were appropriated by the political institution of the church, and transformed into 'historical fact'.

The Christ of myth became a flesh and blood person identified with Jesus. Central to the tragedy of that misappropriation of the Christ myth, is the idea that Christ was originally supposed to come 'in man' because the Christ principle was potentially in every one of us.

Instead, this idea was changed to reflect the exclusivist teaching of church doctrine, which insisted that the Christ had come as a man.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 May 06 - 01:13 PM

Actually, the "fact" you describe (Christ in man as opposed to Christ as man) was hotly contested and debated in the early days. It is a good discussion, but you seem to state that one side is fact as opposed to the other. Cites please?

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 01:20 PM

Well, I think that "the Christ" is an inner potential that is latent in all men and women. When a particular person, such as Jesus, Buddha, Ramakrishna, Gandhi, White Buffalo Woman, Rama, and many others...when a person like that appears somewhere and profoundly impresses many people at the time, it sometimes results in a new religion being formed afterward as a result. In the further development of the new religion embellishments are inevitably added to the tale, and so it goes. That's how myths arise over a long period of time. I think they all have real events at their core, but people add further stuff of their own invention on top of the story of those events, and the story keeps changing.

What you describe the Christian church doing sounds accurate enough to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 01:32 PM

Actually, Gandhi is the only name on the list I consider to have been an actual person.

All the rest are characters in various world mythologies.

I do not believe the man Christians call Jesus, or Joshua, was an actual person.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 01:42 PM

Also, as long as the majority of the post-Christian world remains obsessed with proving the existence of an historical Christ that went by the name Jesus/Joshua, no one need pay attention to writings like Thomas Merton's "Peace in the Post-Christian Era" or liberation theology or Lynn Gottlieb's "She Who Dwells Within" or Rosemary Ruether's "Gaia and God".

It is a backward looking, regressive pursuit that damns us and our descendants to a ruined world.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:02 PM

Yes, well, a thousand years hence there may well be someone like you who doesn't believe Gandhi was a real person... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:10 PM

Anyway, there are always a small number of enlightened beings in the world at any given time. Most of them remain unknown to the vast majority of humanity. Some end up teaching a small group of students. Some end up becoming known merely on a local or regional basis. Some live very quiet lives, and are recognized for what they are by almost no one. Only very occasionally does one end up being the founder of a great religion.

And in that case...he will be ignored, vilified, or in some way attacked by various soreheaded people who are opposed to that religion...or simply...to all religions.

That is the human comedy in all its tawdry display of narrowmindedness.

There are a great many Christs, because a Christ is simply one particular person who has managed to bring forth the highest human potential within him/herself.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:12 PM

By the way, you would definitely believe that Ramakrishna was an actual person if you knew anything about him. He lived in India in recent historical times, and there are a couple of surviving photographs of him. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:31 PM

I recall a fairly interesting conversation between a—well, let's call him what he was—a self-appointed debunker, and a Lutheran pastor. I'd known the pastor for years and knew him to be a pretty sharp fellow. He and I had had many fascinating discussions—philosophy mostly, but some religious. We didn't agree on a number of things, but I found him to be a rational debater and quite a wise man. He was of the more liberal or progressive persuasion as far as pastors go, and he would often use material from "Prairie Home Companion" or "Lord of the Rings" as material for his sermons. Cool guy.

Anyway, the debunker was all hung up on the impossibility of the virgin birth and he was essentially attacking the pastor for believing in something so patently ridiculous. The pastor listened to him rant for several minutes, then when the debunker ran out of steam and stood there smirking as he waited for an answer to his devastating assault on what he considered to be one of the major tenets of Christianity (not), the pastor responded thusly:   

"The idea of the virgin birth is merely the way stories were told back in those times—or in any times for that matter. The legends surrounding major religious figures always contain miraculous elements. That's part of the mythology surrounding the religious figure. But if you focus your concentration on the frills, you miss the main message the religious figure is trying to get across. In the case of Jesus, you're allowing yourself to be diverted by gynecological trivia. Jesus is not about whether or not he was born of a virgin. Jesus is about what he was trying to teach us."

I thought that was a helluva good answer. Most religious arguments I've ever heard (or read) focus on the garnish and miss the entrée.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:44 PM

Seems like when the Christians are backed into a corner on the historicity of Jesus Christ, they resort to "It's not who Christ may have been, it's what he represents to those who believe." COP OUT! The Christian religion CLEARLY hinges on the historicity of their savior because if that is proven wrong, then the Christian religion is wrong. It means no atonement and no Second Coming. It means no assured passage into heaven. It means a lot of time and energy wasted in a useless endeavor. It means going back to the drawing board and redefining the entire meaning and structure of the religion.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:53 PM

Don, you might want to have a look at the book 'The Pagan Christ' by Canadian Tom Harpur. He is an Anglican journalist from Toronto. Former priest, Rhodes scholar, Prof of New Testament at University of Toronto's Theology school.

We seem to mostly agree, except I would not agree that the man now known as Jesus Christ, ever existed.

Little Hawk, I didn't understand you meant the 19th c. Indian mystic, usually referred to in conversations like this as 'Ramakrishna'.

After all, there is 'The Rama'--14th c Jewish mystic, Balarama--Krishna's brother...

So Little Hawk, it seems from what you have written here, that you deeply believe all these mythic characters are actual historic persons? Would I be correct to assume that?

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 02:59 PM

Oh, the tedium....

AR282, I am not a Christian. I have no stake whatsoever in defending the Christian religion.

This, however, does not hinge in any way on my opinion that Jesus was probably a real person. It's the same opinion I have about Buddha, Rama, Krishna, and any number of other such figures out of antiquity.

Why are you not railing against Buddhism? Against Hinduism? Against Janeism? Against Zoroastrianism? Against Sikhism? Against Islam?

It's not really fair that all your misplaced sense of persecution should be devoted to just ONE out of the various famous religions and religious figures out there. It sounds, in fact, a bit arbitrary and irrational to me. Give Jesus a break, poor fellow, and set about disproving and/or vilifying some of the others too, why not? I think you are giving Christianity more exclusive focus here than it may deserve...

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:02 PM

"Jesus is not about whether or not he was born of a virgin"

Your religion is valueless if you treat it like a buffet, picking and choosing which of the doctrines you will and won't follow....

Anyone who says differently is just making excuses for the failures of their own religion

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:07 PM

I believe we are all divine cosmic beings, having a human, earthly experience. So I don't need to 'believe in' Christ or Buddha or prehistoric matrilineal societies of goddess worshippers or Gandhi as Christ figures (in drag, perhaps, in the case of belief in a prehistoric Goddess/Earth Mother married off to a God/Sky Father?)

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:10 PM

So? Who says one has to have any "religion" to believe that Jesus was a real person? Who says that Jesus would want anyone to belong to the Christian religion, as it has evolved in the last 20 centuries? Who needs religion as an excuse to admire someone like Jesus? Who needs any religion at all in order to be spiritual?

And if they do, why harass them for it? If you want people to leave YOU alone, then leave them alone too.

And if the beliefs of those you would term "religious" people do not turn out to be quite as primitive and stupid as you would like them to be in order to fuel your argument...

Tough shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:12 PM

I agree, Sori, you don't have to believe in any such figures. Who said you did?

I also believe we are all divine cosmic beings, having a human, earthly experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:13 PM

. . . and ain't it neat to be entitled to your beliefs? Gotta love it, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:14 PM

Yup. And to hell with those who make it their mission to convert.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:17 PM

Exactly, Hawk. I have always wondered why folks have this need to attack Christianity to the exclusion of others. What is it to you what I believe? Attack the excesses of the church, fine. As long you attack the excesses of all such institutions. That is why I find the Minnesota Anonymizer to be so laughable. S/he sets up this bogus predicate just so she can come in later and tell us we are all cosmic beings. Boy, could I have fun with that one. Talk about an easily attacked belief system. But, quite frankly, I don't have a problem with that type of belief system. I don't care where someone says their prayers, or who they say them to, if anyone. What I care about is how they act, and interact with their fellow human beings. All I expect is the same back. It is this type of intolerance that is at the root of most religious conflict

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Amos
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:20 PM

Well, in my opinion, there is nothing in the world
Beats a '52 Vincent, and a red-headed girl.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:22 PM

Damn, but you have good taste, buddy. Add a properly drawn pint o' the vile, dark stuff and life is perfect.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:23 PM

Muh man!

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:24 PM

Right! Muscatel.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:28 PM

Not sure what put that bee in your bonnet, Little Hawk. I apologize if it is something I said.

BTW, 'rama' in Hindi simply means 'a deified hero worshiped as an incarnation of Vishnu'. Ramakrishna wasn't the first rama, though in the post-Hindu era, he may well be one of the last.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:33 PM

Well, Sori, even if you convince someone here that Jesus never existed and that Christianity is a trumped-up thing, etc., you'll be busy for the rest of your life workin' on the other 2,000,000,000 Christians kickin' around this ol' globe.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:38 PM

All I attempted to do with this thread, BTW, was change the context of the discussion from the Julius Caesar/Jesus thread for the purpose of taking a new track.

I didn't attack anyone. I didn't demean anyone or anyone's religion. I merely stated my beliefs.

I'll leave the job of attacking others to the perpetually paranoid posters of Mudcat, who have found their way to this thread and now seek to piss all over the messenger by making specious claims about my identity or that I am merely posting to attack Christians.

This thread sprang from a related thread about Christianity. That shouldn't be all that difficult to suss out, now should it?

Seems some of you need to chill.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:39 PM

"why folks have this need to attack Christianity to the exclusion of others"
Who's excluding others?


"What is it to you what I believe? "

Absolutely nothing at all... but when you want the myths of those beliefs to be taught as science... or you wish to use those beliefs as the basis to make laws that interfere with what I can or cannot do in the privacy of my own home with another consenting adult....   Or when you feel the need to inflict your beliefs on children who do not have the antibodies necessary to fight off such an infection.... Or that you are justified in bilking poor, lonely or ignorant people out of their hard earned money....

Then I have an issue with what you believe


"to believe that Jesus was a real person?"
Believe what you want... it won't make it fact.... I can close my eyes and believe that I can hover all I want.... or that I can walk on water.... It won't make it so....

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:41 PM

"Your religion is valueless if you treat it like a buffet, picking and choosing which of the doctrines you will and won't follow...."

True, Clinton. But you have to take into consideration who came up with which doctrine. And why. There are certain aspects of Christianity that most people these days assume are essential to the religion and were from the start. But not so. The whole idea of the virgin birth ascribed to Jesus was what amounted to a piece of "boilerplate." As my pastor friend said, it was a standard part of the story-telling surrounding religious figures at the time, and back then most people understood that these frills were pure hype. But not so today (where did we lose our smarts about this kind of thing?). The earlier texts said that Mary was "young woman," which, later on, got translated—whether as an unintentional mistake or deliberately, who knows?—but later religious leaders, trying to pre-empt the pagan virgin cults that existed at the time, picked it up and ran with it.

Is the virgin birth of Jesus an essential tenet of the Christian religion? No. It undoubtedly is to the fundamentalists, but they're—well, I'll just shut up for now.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:41 PM

Religion has NEVER left us alone!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:41 PM

Yaeh, but you didn't live through the 1960s, Clinton.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Peace
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:47 PM

"I'll leave the job of attacking others to the perpetually paranoid posters of Mudcat, who have found their way to this thread and now seek to piss all over the messenger by making specious claims about my identity or that I am merely posting to attack Christians."

Keriste on a crutch: who do you think is attacking you?

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:48 PM

Therein lies the problem, Clinton. You lump all Christians together as doing the things you suggest. It ain't so, bro. It is why the basic premise of the thread is bogus. This isn't at all what Matriot Mama Sori says it is. It is an attempt to attack something and cloak in the "intellectual" act s/he is so well known for.

It ain't paranoia when its true.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:49 PM

"The whole idea of the virgin birth ascribed to Jesus was what amounted to a piece of "boilerplate."

There's good evidence that the whole thing is, as you put it, boilerplate.... Now if you wish ot believe such, that's up to you and no one else.... But if you wish to try to claim that your boilerplate is historical fact, then well, you're going to have to provide some pretty compelling evidence....

Currently there isn't a single shred of such evidence....

If you don't need evidence to be a believer, bully for you....

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:50 PM

There have been so many Ramas by now, Sori, that to list them all would be a fruitless project. Hell, I even know a couple of ordinary people right now with "Rama" or "Ram" in their name. ;-)

I know a fellow named Ram Das (not the famous one). He's a superb yoga practitioner down in Trinidad. I know another one, a Mr Ram, who runs a gas station near here. I know another one in Toronto. They're all over the place.

It's aggressive, prosyletizing, fanatical people who don't leave other people alone. Some of them are religious, some are atheists, some are cultists, and they all amount to the same thing...a great big pain in the butt.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:52 PM

"You lump all Christians together as doing the things you suggest."

One must employ generalities when one is speaking in general....

And well, if you show me where I said that ALL X-tians did any of the things I listed....

Cause I never said that did I???

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:52 PM

We will never be liberated or enlightened or redeemed or saved or whatever it is you seek in being a religious believer--as long as we keep looking to the violent past of religious history for the answer.

There is a whole cosmic universe out there, but it ain't owned and operated by any human invented deities.

Try reading 'Turbulent Mirror' and 'Seven Life Lessons of Chaos' and you might get some sense of the connection between science and spiritual yearning that will propel us forward into the future the majority of humans will experience on this planet, rather than constantly dragging humanity kicking and screaming back into the ruins of the relatively short, historic, and prehistoric past we have been busily screwing up with religion and superstition, for the sole beneift of a handful the religious feudal and corporate masters.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:55 PM

But, Clinton, who said I'm a believer?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:55 PM

"There is a whole cosmic universe out there, but it ain't owned and operated by any human invented deities."

Absolutely. Agreed. The deeper levels of many religious teachings make that quite clear too. Ever read anything by Sri Aurobindo?

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 06 - 03:56 PM

It doesn't really matter to me if you are or aren't Don......

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 04:00 PM

The list of things that do matter to you, Clinton, seems to be very small... ;-)

(at least when it comes to anything anyone else cares about)

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 04:01 PM

No Little Hawk, I haven't. Only studied comparative myth & folklore. My own interests still lean heavily in the Catholic vein of writers, to science and spirituality, and post-religious freethought.

I'm of the Christ as 'in man' school, not Christ 'was man'.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 May 06 - 04:05 PM

Ah. I see. I've read very little material from the Catholic vein. My interests ran more to the Eastern religions, some mystical stuff about Chrisitianity, and the North American Native religions. I started out the whole process in my teens as a 100% atheist, but that changed after awhile.

You might find Sri Aurobindo interesting. He was a man of absolutely enormous intellect and education. He's as comfortable with science as with spirituality, and he also was a confirmed atheist in his youth.

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 28 May 06 - 04:09 PM

"The list of things that do matter to you, seems to be very small..."
It only seems that way to you LH, because you and your blatherskite are part of what I do not care about.....

Subject: RE: BS: Jesus as mythic god like Zeus
From: GUEST,Sori
Date: 28 May 06 - 04:10 PM

"Keriste on a crutch: who do you think is attacking you?"

So far it's been Little Hawk, Big Mick, and you.

Thanks for the suggestion Little Hawk. I'll see what I can find about him in my books.

I don't much care for atheism. Never looked like anything except oppositional defiance disorder to me. Much too rigid an ideology for my tastes.

'The Pagan Christ' is by an Anglican guy, but what the hell. Anglicans are practically Catholic anyway.