What price the truth!!

Subject: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 04:18 PM

This will upset a lot of people BUT it seems to me that not enough people are asking questions about the institutions that control great areas of our life. Crusading journalists such as John Pilger have opened up huge cans of worms regarding the USA's manipulation of world trade etc. ; others have reveal sinister movements within Christiant Churches. And, most revealing of all, there are a number of books available out there which argue the case - very convincingly - that the Jesus Christ of the Bible never existed!!! Read the evidence before you start shouting!! And if you wont read the evidence.....

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 04:23 PM

Am I missing something here? What's the upsetting part?

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 04:44 PM

And? This is nothing new, and I fail to see what I can (or should) do about it.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amergin
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 04:58 PM

actually i thought it was a given that Jesus did exist....whether he was the son of god though is open for debate....

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 05:01 PM

Why is it upsetting? I'm upset that people in power lie to us. That the people who run the media lie to us. That our teachers lie to us - or are just ignorant!! For example, there is an overwhelming body of evidence that clearly points to the fact that the story of Jesus Christ is a myth; a hotchpotch of bits of earlier myths, BUT rather than present/debate this info,. tv networks would rather show endless "In the footsteps of Christ" type programs.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: musicmick
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 05:29 PM

I take it that our Mr. Tunesmith is not a believer in the divinity of Christ. That is his privelage as a rational being. Why he feels a need to announce his lack of faith is, once again, his privelage. I, for one, do not think that Mudcat is an appropriate forum for his cries in the wilderness. Faith and abstract belief are such personal areas and so avid are believers and non-believers in their assurance, that this thread can resolve nothing, succor no one. I hope that Tunesmith finds a philosophy that can comfort and nurture him. I wish the same to us all.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 06:21 PM

Tunesmith, Dreaded Guest...they're all the same...blah, blah, blah...

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Leadfingers
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 06:49 PM

When the two major religions in the world today both accept the existence of Jesus (Christianity and Mohamedannism)as at least a prophet,and there seems to be a reasonable body of historical fact too What is Tunesmith trying to say?
We all know politicians find it easier to lie than tell the truth,and I am sure it was a media man who said Never let the Truth get in the way of a good story.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Leo Condie
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 06:53 PM

oh shit!! you're kidding right tunesmith?!?! i'm going to need do some SERIOUS replanning in my life now.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 07:35 PM

Well, gee whiz! That'll sure take the glow off Chistmas. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 08:34 PM

Therein lies the problem. The evidence is there to back up my statements but who will be brave enough to seek it out! The blind obedience of Christians is so scary!! I wouldn't buy a house without having it checked out by experts, but Christian don't check out the validity of their religion. Such an attitude is very dangerous. Don't forget - the truth will set you free.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: annamill
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 08:57 PM

Tunesmith, how old are you Honey? There is no Santa Claus. Never fear! Time will heal all wounds.

Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 09:04 PM

Annamill: now that does need some explaining!! A) I agree that Santa Claus does not exist- ( with you so far! )- and B) "Time will heal all wounds" I'm not sure about that! Unless, you mean that death ends everything , and I would agree with that. But some clarification on your part would be appreciated.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 09:07 PM

No Santa Claus? No Christ, I can believe...but no Santa Claus???? Next you'll be telling me that there is no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. I know they exist because I see them on TV all the time in commercials. So there.
Why are we encouraging this nonsense?

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 09:17 PM

SINSULL: Clarity, clarity, clarity PLEASE!!!- what are you saying. I've been as clear as I can be, but some of these replies! Please re-post and make your comments very clear.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 09:43 PM

tunesmith-you,started,2,threads,today,already,
and,theyboth,are,stupid!

john

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 09:56 PM

John, John, John, John - please, please explain!!! Saying my two threads are stupid is STUPID!! Clarity!!!! Say what you mean!! Why are they stupid!!!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 10:06 PM

Tunesmith:

You are completely correct, but there is no arguing intellectually on issues of faith and its concomitant convictions. This may take some getting used to, but it is a sad and solid truth about the minds of men. Most of the people around here who are capable of doing this wee analysis have done it long ago (we tend to be long in the tooth in these parts for some reason, with a few brilliant exceptions....). So I think that's why annamill was enquiring about your age. Raising this discovery to the level of Exciting News is kind of like re-opening an old discussion for many of us.

Authoritarian and dogmatic thought is always unpleasant no matter what its purview, but, on the other hand, most Christians are pretty tolerant and those that try to work the Real Deal really do strive to better things. So p'raps mutual tolerance is a good idea in most case...

Most of John's posts are kinda hard to understand, to put it mildly -- don't take it personally.

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 10:47 PM

Amos: I think you're wrong. I think the facts concerning Jesus being a myth are not generally known. You won't find them discussed on TV or radio. No, you have to go digging. Christians have been taught not to dig!! Not to ask questions, "Faith " is the thing. I have a number of well-educated catholic friends but they were not aware of the    " Jesus as Myth" argument. And who's going to tell them - the local priest!!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: musicmick
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 12:44 AM

If there is no Santa Claus, then how did Natalie Wood get that house with the swing in the back yard? Santa Claus is as real as our sense of humanity and as vital as our ability to see beyond our experience.
As for the "realists", whose reality is limited by pride and prejudice, I pity their poverty. Man's grasp is exceded and expanded by his ability to dream. Religion can be a yoke but it can also be a tool of hope and wonder.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:21 AM

Let's be more specific, tunesmith...

Which exact parts of the Jesus story are you suggesting are mythical?

And are you familiar with the concept of allegory in religious tales and parables or do you feel that it all must be taken absolutely literally word for word?

As for "sinister movements within Christiant Churches"...NO! You can't mean it (gasp!). You mean to say that the Spanish Inquisition was not a social service organization devoted to peace and kindness? Well, I am shocked to my very core! :-) I thought that all church people were totally truthful, godly and perfect, and now you have got me very, very nervous (not!).

And the USA manipulating World Trade...hmmm...yes, I suppose there is a tiny little chance that something like that could be happening...sort of like the chance that politicians might sometimes be telling lies. Yeah. Could be something to that allright...

Oh, the angst! I shall not sleep well tonight.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:28 AM

You mean there are some people who think Jesus didn't really exist? I am shocked. Next you'll tell me there are people who still think the world is flat.

Alex

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:50 AM

I thought the world was dangerous place before I started this thread but now I see it is a lot more dangerous than I imagined. The robots are taking over. Again, I will refer you all to my first posting. Before you attack me, read the evidence. You could start with " The Jesus Mysteries" by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 02:00 AM

There are such people, Alex, and it's a hoot hearing them explain it in scientific terms...

Most people believe whatever the other people whom they trust have told them. It all starts with your parents, and goes out from there to other authority figures in the schools, the government, the churches, the scientific community, or whomever you choose to put your TRUST in.

Therefore, most people's beliefs are far more arbitary than they think or are prepared to admit.

To become a free human being you must strenuously question and re-examine every single thing everyone has told you from the time you were old enough to walk...and then freely form your own opinion...and be prepared to revise it in the light of new evidence! This is something that I find most people are quite unwilling to do. They would rather not change.

And at the end of the day it is far less important what a person believes than what his basic intentions are! (helpful or harmful)

In other words, I'd far rather deal with a helpful, friendly person who is either atheistic or religious...than a hostile, dangerous person who is either atheistic or religious. Having a good heart is more important than believing or not believing in some religious idea.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 02:14 AM

What Bible?

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,A. Gnostic
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:09 AM

A *religion* can bring relief to folks in times of stress, bereavment etc.
However, to this day i still don't understand how God can be on both sides during a war!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Leo Condie
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 08:00 AM

this tunesmith is obviously a freak of nature. we should kill him before he finds out more.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 08:56 AM

Tunesmith, if you don't see these sort of things on television or elsewhere, then I'd suggest you change the channel or broaden your reading horizons. Or are you suggesting that a belief system that includes "Jesus is a myth" (and yes, nonbelief is just as much a religion as belief) be officially sponsored and become part of a required public school curriculum?

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 09:20 AM

AW, Nonexistent Jesus Christ! Tunesmith, if the Catholic Church discouraged questioning of its theology and/or administration (and what organization doesn't?), the Protestant Reformation didn't take place. Vatican II didn't happen. The current mess with pedophilia and other sexual abuses doesn't exist.

I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through my bachelor's degree -- unlike you, who must rely upond "friends" I have personal experience within the system. My wife did the same, only her experience extends to her first Master's degree. Both of us have many friends among the Catholic clergy and laity. Listen to this statement and try to grasp it: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MADE A BIG MISTAKE -- IT TAUGHT THE LAITY, THROUGH THE EDUCATION IT PROVIDED THEM, TO *THINK*. TO QUESTION AND TO OBTAIN ANSWERS. TRUE ANSWERS, WHICH DID NOT COME FROM WITHIN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, BUT WHICH WERE AND ARE OBTAINED BY OBSERVATION, RESEARCH, AND OTHER OBJECTIVE MEANS.

One result of the above has been a great decline in the number of priests and nuns. Another has been a decline the amount of money donated to the Church -- voting with the pocketbook, so to speak.

Whether I am a "practicing" Catholic is immaterial (and do not immediately suppose that I am), and my religious beliefs are, frankly, no business of yours.

I strongly urge you to get the non-existent hell out of yourself, turn off your Internet connection, and go volunteer in a soup kitchen or some other such activity. You might, just might, learn something about the world as it is, not as how you want it to be.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Ringer
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:04 AM

"...there is an overwhelming body of evidence that clearly points to the fact that the story of Jesus Christ is a myth" (Tunesmith, 22 Jun 03 - 05:01 PM)

Are you absolutely sure, T/S? If you'd said, "scholarship casts doubt on the veracity of all evidence that Jesus existed", I wouldn't have a problem; but what evidence that the story is a myth could there be, unless they've found and carbon-dated the "Diary of John the so-called Evangelist" in which he says "I made it all up"? (And no, I haven't read Freake & Whatnot: but do, pray, tell me of this "overwhelming body of evidence".)

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Sam L
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:11 AM

Tunesmith, I recall some fairy impartial discussions of the historical reality of Jesus. There's some pretty solid evidence he did exist, and some room for doubt. But according to the idea that Jesus left a gift of freedom, that there would be no miracles or proofs, I think the religion is actually supposed to be perfectly doubtable. The fact that other bits of myth and custom become attatched or co-opted isn't perfectly contrary to what happens with stories based on reality.

   There's also evidence that early christianity was much more diverse and in some cases more inclusive than appears from the aggressive strains that dominated history later. I wish I could remember the woman who had a book based on findings of other texts, some years ago. I'm not a heavy reader in any theology, but if anyone knows what I'm referring to, I'd like to be reminded.

    In the vein of your thread about Tom Paxton, I'd say that the detail in the New Testament about Jesus being unable to perform miracles in his hometown rings with truth. It would be a gifted mythmaker who thought to make that up from scratch. In the Koran the fact that there's no mention of camels adds a lot of credibility too, as I think the writer Borges pointed out.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:31 AM

To answer your question - And the thread title is a question and should have a question mark rather than exclamation mark behind it.

4 pounds 16 shillings and 4 pence. I don't know what it is in dollars or todays decimal currencies.

Is that clear enough?

Cheers

Dave the Gnowing...

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:48 AM

Yes, tunesmith, the World IS more dangerous than you had realized!

For instance, you have not yet even touched upon the danger posed by gangs of rogue hamsters. Avoid your neighborhood pet store, and do NOT venture out after dark!

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 10:50 AM

How did you smart people let yourselves get dragged into this old battle again?

~S~

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:08 AM

We're not as smart as we look, Susan. Although there is a whole body of opinion that says we do not exist at all;-)

Cheers

John Paul Satre

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:32 AM

Tunesmith, you've got me thinking here, and there are some more things we could all stand to investigate, such as:

Did Elvis really exist? A number of very compelling books suggest that he did not, but was simply manufactured by a clever marketing outfit which has been getting rich and brainwashing millions of people ever since.

Did Reagan have a working brain? I doubt it. The country was effectively headless for eight years! Chew on that.

Do you exist? I frankly doubt it. If Jesus was here in the flesh he might be able to help us decide if you are real or not, and then we would know whether or not to post any more responses to this thread.

And lastly...a really thorny issue...did Robin Hood exist?

These are vital matters, don't you think? What price the Truth!!!?

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:33 AM

DtG-- LOL! Perhaps it is not the humans who are imaginary, but the permanence of whatever we mean in any moment by the catchall term "intelligence." I have suspected for a long time that it is transitory and conditional, if not altogether mythological. That could help account for the appearance of smarts despite functional indications to the contrary.

There's a funny word, mm? "Mythology." To study (as if one can know) what one avers does not concretely exist. Gonna have to work on that one. :~)

~Susan
(".... say you saw me passing through....")

There, now it's a music thread about the existence of Pete Seeger.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:36 AM

LH-- to respond on-topic-- a buck three eighty nine.

~S~

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:42 AM

That's expensive, Susan. Around here you can get the Truth for as little as $1.25 or a piece of a wiener (in the case of our dachshunds).

What is the Canadian dollar equivalent of "a buck three eighty nine"?

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:53 AM

Well LH, I'd tell you, but as Jack Nicholson so eloquently reminds us all, "You can't handle the truth!" :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 12:33 PM

Timothy Freke, the co-author of the book Tunesmith has mentioned, in an interview:

"The Christ story is the foundation story of our culture in the West," he said. "Having said that it's a myth, the next question becomes, 'What does it mean, and can it still be useful to us spiritually?' And for us, the answer is definitely yes."

These authors who favour an all-encompassing gnostic mysticism over traditional Christian faiths as your only source for non-existence of Jesus, that's most curious, Tunesmith.

As much as I am in favour of demystification of religions in general, the arguments of the there-was-no-historical-Jesus faction have always failed to convince me yet. In a variant of the 'let us take absence of hard evidence as evidence of absence' argumentation they show that each piece of evidence (non-Christian writers mentioning Jesus, e.g.) could possibly have another interpretation. That's about as convincing for me as the Biblical Archeological studies from the let-us-believe-every-word Christian faction. You start with a theory and then filter and twist everything you read to fit the theory. Flat-earth-type thinkers and believers whether they come from gnostic mysticism or a more orthodox (in the non-denominational sense) religion will not find me on their side.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:20 PM

Ah, but that's the rub, isn't it? To base a religion or one's religious beliefs strictly upon fact makes it merely a study or even a scientific observation. The basis of most (if not all) religions is on Faith, on believing something that you cannot prove. I am not a fervently religious person by any means -- I am strictly an ECH Catholic (Easter, Christmas, and Home-visiting-my-parents) -- but the life of Jesus (using the example I am more familiar with) can only be discovered to a minimal degree by "facts", since the time he lived was 2000 years ago. One of the stronger tenets of Catholic teaching is of his disciple, Thomas, who (as the story goes) only believed after physically encountering Jesus after he rose from the dead. Whether this actually happened can never be proven by fact -- period. But it is the faith that determines your view of this, either as a believer or as a "Doubting Thomas".

Brian...

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:25 PM

Wolfgang! I wish people would read messages properly! I said that "The Jesus Myteries" would be a good place to start. And, I would challenge anyone out there to read that book objectively and not start to question things. Feke and Gandy do present their info in a dramatic way, for example, who is this a description of ? :-
   a. God made flesh, the saviour and son of God
   b. His father is God his mother a mortal virgin
   c. He is born in a cowshed on Dec 25, Shepherds stood around
   d. He offers his followers the chance to be reborn again
      through the rites of baptism
   e. He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage
      ceremony
   f. He dies a Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world
    g. He roses from the dead and ascended into heaven
   h. His followers await his return as the judge during the
      Last Days
   i. His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal
      of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood.
Who is this a profile of? The Greek god/man Dionysus who, of course, "lived" hundreds of years before Christ was supposed to have lived.
   Now come on.....

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 02:05 PM

"a. God made flesh, the saviour and son of God
   b. His father is God his mother a mortal virgin
   c. He is born in a cowshed on Dec 25, Shepherds stood around
   d. He offers his followers the chance to be reborn again
      through the rites of baptism
   e. He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage
      ceremony
   f. He dies a Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world
    g. He roses from the dead and ascended into heaven
   h. His followers await his return as the judge during the
      Last Days
   i. His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal
      of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood."

a. Claimed by every religion, including that of the Egyptians (Osiris).
b. Claimed by many religions -- look it up.
c. December 25 was selected by the early Christian church in an attempt to offset the pagan Saturnalia. If JC existed, he was (the best historical thinking now goes) he was probably born in April or May.
d. Take a peek at the rites of Mithra.
e. And it is claimed that he also raised the dead, cured the sick, etc. Again, miracles are claimed by many religions.
f&g. These go together. Again, many gods are said to have died and descended into the Underworld, only to rise again to life. Have you looked at any of the stories surrounding fertility religions?
h. Yeah. Folks also await the coming of Odin, the return of Arthur (who may have been a Sun God, according to some theories), and for Drake's drum to beat when England is threatened.
i. Actually, the Catholic church teaches that the bread and wine is transubstantiated INTO the body and blood -- no symbols here! But if you want symbols, consider that wine is the "blood of the grapes" and that bread comes from the earth. If these are the body and blood of the godhead, then Christianity becomes a poorly disguised fertility religion.

Try reading the studies of the Jesus Group. Study the antecedents of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the light of the religions of the Middle East. Look at the proto-religions of fertility. Note how the Christian church adopted and adapted the earlier religions of the Celts, the Saxons, the Vikings, etc. Then come back and talk to me about your hobby-horse.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 02:15 PM

The question is not, "Did Jesus actually exist?" The question is, "Was Jesus a walking, talking human being or an anthropomorphic allegory for the state of consciousness induced by large doses of psylocibin mushrooms?" The other question is, "Why do we need Jesus anyway when 'The Mother of All BS Threads' is well on its way to becoming a religion?" And the other question is, "Why am I posting this foolishness when I could be playing the guitar instead?"

BWL (Bird-brained Witless Loon)

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 02:37 PM

"Myth".

One definition of "myth" is "a story that is profoundly true."

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 03:56 PM

Rapaire, I'm not sure what you are trying to prove. Surely, nearly everything you say screams out, " Jesus Christ is a myth" , a cobbled together god/man story. If the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were around today, they would be sued for plagerism - and they're lose the case! There are none so blind as those who will not see. The bebunking of the Jesus story is sad. There is a lot to admire in the way those ancient writers put the story together, and , of course, what we are discussing on these pages will not make prime-time national tv. It's too hot, to disturbing.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:11 PM

Tunesmith, you are arguing with a certain rather fundamentalist viewpoint on the life of Jesus, that's all, and you are quite correct that a number of those ideas stem from (or are found in) earlier religions. Uh-huh. So? The Bahais believe that many Christs have come, throughout the history of the human race, and that Jesus was one of them. Every consider that possibility?

If you wish to deny the reality of Jesus, then you must also work on denying the reality of Buddha, Zoroaster, Krishna, White Buffalo Woman, and any number of other divine figures or teachers from the past, for whom we cannot presently find irrefutable physical evidence.

Why persecute only Jesus when there are so many others to go after?

It is quite possible that such notions as "virgin birth" are symbolic in nature (it could well mean birth from a spiritually pure individual, for instance, quite aside from whether she was physically a virgin). It is also quite possible that there is a divine component in EVERY human being, not just in remarkable cases like Jesus. That's what Jesus taught, but most of his followers are inclined to make him exclusive. I'm not so inclined.

Are you also aware that the story of the Great Flood is not just found in the Bible, but in numerous other ancient civilizations, who have all described it in their own particular fashion (with or without "Noah")?

There's a whole lot more out there for you to obsess about besides Biblical Christianity, my friend.

Perhaps the reason you find all those symbolic stories in the Bible is not just because they were borrowed from previous religions, but because they symbolize something intrinsic in life which always existed and has naturally found its way into many religions.

For instance: I believe I'm the son of God (but so is every other human male!), so what's wrong with Jesus being the son of God? I believe females are daughters of God. Okay? How do I define "God"? Life itself. All of it. How can I not be the son of Life itself? You tell me.

I believe that any time a human being makes a breakthrough in perception, realizes something fundamentally new, etc...he IS born again. I've been born again several times in this life by that definition. So have any number of other people I know, and they are not necessarily Christians.

I also believe in reincarnation...which is another way of being born again...and so did many of the early Christians. It is probable that a majority of the Earth's present population believes in reincarnation, so why not take that one on?

One is a physical rebirth, the other is a spiritual or psychological rebirth.

I believe that all living things are God made flesh...although they may not be conscious of it.

And so on, and so on...

Literal-minded atheists battle with literal-minded religious fundamentalists, and I watch both of them and just shake my head. Somebody out there has a serious lack of imagination, I think.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:19 PM

GUEST,Tunesmith, I believe that what Rapaire was pointing out is that your comment of 1:25 PM demonstrates poor research.

The basic religious structure into which the early Christians fit their beliefs was the common one in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. It borrowed heavily from other established religions, not just from the Greeks, and all of these had been trading belief and ritual back and forth for the previous thousand years or so. They later incorporated bits and pieces from the religions of Northern Europe. All of this is well known, and is covered extensively in any freshman-level Philosophy 101 or Comparative Religions class.   

Whether or not it is true or not is a qestion for each individual to decide.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:22 PM

I believe I read somewhere that records have been turned up of a Joshua bar Joseph who was crucified by the Romans as an agitator back about the right time. What may make this significant is that 1) Jesus, I am told, is the Greek form of the name Joshua and three of the four Gospels were written in Greek, the fourth in Hebrew (so what would Jesus' disciples have called him in Aramaic?); and 2) this Joshua bar Joseph had a bunch of followers who were avidly devoted to him. This, of course, was not unique at the time. There are records of about twenty-some-odd self-appointed rabbis who wandered the Holy Land either proclaimed themselves the prophesied Messiah come to save the people, or were dubbed so by their enthusiastic disciples. This Joshua bar Joseph was considered enough of a royal pain in the ass by the authorities that they hauled him in and nailed him up in the prescribed manner of execution at the time.

I make no claims regarding the accuracy of this find, or the divinity of this person, or if this is evidence of the historical Jesus, but if this person actually did exist, it would not be unusual for a body of mythology to grow up around him, usually borrowing from religions that have gone before. Unusual arrival into the world, the performance of miracles, and departure in an spectacular manner. These are characteristic stories attached to almost all religiously significant figures.

And a close examination of the basic theology surrounding most of these figures, once you strip away the smoke and mirrors, shows that they are almost identical in advocating a drive toward self-improvement, a deep regard for the welfare of others, and reverence for those things that preserve and protect life. This seems to be a message much needed by humans in general, and heeding and following it certainly helps promote the survival of the species.

The problem comes with the excesses of some of the more benighted and unimaginative followers who are so small of mind that they believe the metaphors expressed in the mythology are actual facts of reality. These people are called "fundamentalists." They try to lead their chosen religion away from those basic principles that give it real merit, and almost invariably give it a bad name, and if unrestrained, often commit real atrocities in the name of the god they claim to worship. Fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians seem to be the worst, at least these days. Fundamentalist Druids don't seem to be much of a problem, except, perhaps, to Weyerhauser.

Lotsa people, both pro- and anti-religion, get all tooted up over the trappings and miss the main point. I believe this is what ails GUEST,Tunesmith.

By the way, McGrath is right. Myth is metaphor. It illustrates a point. Not factual. But true.

End of sermon.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:23 PM

Such wriggling!!! Will all those people who keep quoting things at me please start using their brains!! It's like this ; in life we encounter many doors; doors can lead to knowledge, understanding and enlightenment but when Christians approach the door marked " Religion", they don't try to enter but blindly read the information posted on that particular door and walk away contented - and probably with a smile on their faces.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:24 PM

You hit the nail on the head, LH...literal-minded

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:28 PM

Hmm. Cross-posted. Lotsa good stuff there by Little Hawk. Well said.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:39 PM

Geez wodda crock.

Tunesmith, breathe deep. No need to act adversarial among friends.

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 04:49 PM

Make that some Christians, Tunesmith, and you'd be correct. Make it all Christians and you would not be correct. I have sought enlightenment through science, knowledge, nature, schooling, religions (all of them), meditation, relationships, work, play, and every other possible method I could think of, so I am not particularly afraid of entering doors...nor do I restrict my attentions only to doors that you can break your nose on if you forget to open them. There are some nonmaterial doors out there too, and you will not be able to find any empirical evidence either for or against them.

You are mistaken in assuming that all people who don't see it your way are necessarily wrong, stupid or deluded in some way.

Why not just live and let live? I bet you believe in some stuff that I would consider a religion based upon mythology too. If you were a Republican or a Democrat, for example... :-)

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 05:01 PM

I'm not sure where all these various postings leave us. But I'll try to sum it up - as I see it.
A. The Jesus of the Bible is probably a myth.
B. That which is stated in "A" doesn't really matter because the Jesus
   story is a jolly good one and contains lots of fundamental truths -
   and puts a smile on peoples faces.
C. Everybody out there knows a lot about the various religions
   that were plagerised in the creation of the Jesus myth.
D. " Tunesmith" gets too uptight about things.
E. People assume that "Tunesmith" isn't well-read on above matters.
F.
G.
Please fill in own "F" and "G"

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 05:21 PM

Tunesmith, I like your name. How about a tune to say what you mean, if we don't understand? Isn't music the lingua franca among musicians? Doesn't music trump text every time? You can neither touch nor be touched by the heart of Mudcat in mere text.

~S~

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 06:03 PM

Oh, Suzy, say it ain't so!! :>)

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 06:07 PM

I'd say that pretty well covers it, Tunesmith, save for for C and E. Not everybody out there knows that much of what is attributed to Jesus came from previous myths, but a lot of people do. And I don't assume that you are not well-read on the subject. But I do wonder if you have understood what you have read. As to F. and G., nothing to add other than to ask, what's the problem?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 06:38 PM

As Sue suggests, if you're a tunesmith, give us a tune.

Just because something is a myth doesn't rule out it being a fact. But the truth of a myth need not be dependent on it being a fact, still less a proven fact.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 08:41 PM

Amos, tiz-o, tiz-o. Think about it-- I don't recall we ever had a tangle, a wrangle, or a pole-flingaround over, in, or around a song. Shows how smart we wuz. Ooops!

~S~

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:50 PM

You can neither touch nor be touched by the heart of Mudcat in mere text.

I'd hate to think that the "mere text" of any Mudcatters who have shared their heart, emotions, lyrics, songs and stories with us fell short of the heart of Mudcat. I would say they are the heart of Mudcat.

kat

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 11:59 PM

I have a wonderful idea -- whether or not we are religious, why don't we act like secular humanists. Kurt Vonnegut's definition: "a secular humanist is one who tries to live a good moral life, without fear of punishment or expectation of reward at death."

Easy, isn't it?

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: TIA
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 12:11 AM

Tunesmith - Perhaps I have an inkling of what you're saying. Many religious persons believe things about their religion and it's icons that they wouldn't believe in other facets of their lives (e.g., if one of the girls came in the door and said "Dad, I just walked across the pond", I'd be inclined to think it was in her imagination). There are many claims in the bible and other holy texts that actually are testable in a scientific fashion (and might not fare so well). BUT, given this, do you believe that there is no place in the world or peoples' minds for faith, or that faith is delusional or destructive? In my opinion - absolutely, it can be destructive in the wrong hands (or minds), but I have also seen it used for tremendous good. Seems to me it's more about what you do with your beliefs about the world and the meaning of it all than it is about the details and falsifiability of those beliefs.

For the record, I have tremendous faith that before I die, we will find proof of life elsewhere in the universe.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 12:41 AM

I would say they are the heart of Mudcat.

And I would agree, and I would say that the treatment of these people (and the relationships that are woven among us) as mere text, as Tunesmith seems to me to do, is to miss the heart and to wrestle only with the surface.

It isn't the TEXT-- it's the PEOPLE (especially in their music) that one must engage if one wishes to engage what is real, what is valuable-- what is true-- about anything Mudcat.

~Susan

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: mousethief
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 01:35 AM

Your attention please. Eric Hoffer, please pick up a white courtesy phone. Will Mr. Eric Hoffer please pick up a white courtesy phone. Thank you.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 04:37 AM

to read that book objectively and not start to question things (Tunesmith)

Tunesmith, I am unable to do both things at the same time. If I am reading a book objectively (that is in another state of mind than the one when I'm reading, say, a novel) then I start to question things.

By the way, McGrath is right. Myth is metaphor. It illustrates a point. Not factual. But true. (Don Firth)

No, Don, McGrath has been too careful to state that. He has just cited one of many meanings of 'myth'.
Another definition for instance is: "An ill-founded belief held uncritically by an interested group."

I'm not completely sure what Timothy Freke means when using the word 'myth', but he most certainly doesn't use the word in McGrath's definition.

The definition that may unite most of us goes like that: "A person or thing having only an unveryfiable existence"

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 10:43 AM

I am puzzled about a number of points that have been raised. I'm British and so my perspective of how the story of Jesus is viewed in the States in somewhat limited; however, I'm pretty sure there are millions of Americans who believe every word of the Gospels and would be up in arms - literally many of them, if anyone tried to each their children anything different.
    I'm, also, hugely concerned with the notion of " Jesus as an idea ". By that I mean that, even if Jesus did not exist physically, the ideas embraced in his teaching ( as presented in the Bible ) are such a force for good that they now have a life of their own and so have, in a concrete way, created their own reality.
    Finally, the things discussed in these pages will never be debated on primetime tv. Such a debate has already been vetoed at the highest level. So much for a free society.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 11:32 AM

"The highest level" -- what are you talking about, exactly? And if your concept of a free society is one in which public media must bend to include every topic porposed by every member of the society, I am afraid you're being unrealistic. You think television should broadcast debates on all subjects from colors of underwear to the sexual practices of axolotls? If not, what are the optimum protocols for a "free society"?

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: The O'Meara
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 12:17 PM

I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell, who is considered by many to be a real authority on mythology - including Christianity. It was his opinion that mythology provides people with a guide to how the world works and a blueprint for living their lives. He also suggested we should stop quibbling over small details and pay attention to the message in the myth, particularly those myths that are repeated over and over in many different cultures and times. If Dionysus, Mithra and Jesus all share the same characteristics, what are those myths telling us?
    When he was asked what a culture would be like that had no such mythological guidelines, he said "Just pick up one of the major newspapers."
    As an example of how religious stories can become skewed, soon after WWII the U.S was in the process of rebuilding Japan's economy by encouraging manufacturing. One of the products produced by the Japanese was a Christmas ornament consisting of a lovely cross upon which was hung a white bearded fat man in a red suit. They never caught on, but they are quite valuable now among collectors.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 12:50 PM

No, Wolfgang, I wasn't paraphrasing McGrath, I was agreeing with him. Then I added my own thoughts. I, too, have read a lot of Joseph Campbell, and what I added was derived from those readings.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 01:10 PM

Amos!Amos!Amos! Religion is not just another topic. Religion runs the lives of millions of people's . It has also ruined millions of people's lives. This is not a small subject! The Bible, and the insistance that it is a true word-for-word account, has led to the death of countless thousands. It has been waved high in the air as clivisations have been swept away. It has brought untold misery to millions across the centuries. It has filled children's minds with terrifying fears. No, this is not a small subject. A TV program, at prime-time, where all aspects of this debate were discussed and laid bare, would be watched by countless millions world-wide. And it wouldn't matter who might win or lose the argument, the damage to Christianity would enormous. The West couldn't afford to have its religion so exposed. That is why such a debate will be left to small groups of people - like on these pages.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 01:13 PM

Reading it the way you explain now it was meant, Don, I have no disagreement.
Though I admit it seems curious to me that you did write 'McGrath is right' when all he did post was one lexicon definition for 'myth'. I too agree with McGrath's 23 Jun 03 - 02:37 PM post. Who couldn't?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 01:16 PM

Tunesmith, I would suggest that you look back through the old threads, easily accessed by setting the filter date, and read through some monumental discussions on religion, etc. you may learn something esp. about Mudcat.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 01:46 PM

What's the upsetting part? Amos has asked in the second post in this thread and this is still the question without a clear answer, Tunesmith.

With each new post you change the focus.
not enough people are asking questions about the institutions that control great areas of our life Many here would agree with that sentence who do not at all agree with what you write about religion.

I'm upset that people in power lie to us. Here, too, hardly anyone will speak against you.

Whether there was a historical Jesus or not? That can be debated, but what you have given us so far is a very thin argument and, at least to me, thoroughly unconvincing.

That earlier myths from other people have been integrated into the stories of the Bible? For most Christians I know, such a thought is hardly upsetting, neither for their personal faith nor from a rational point of view, but then we scarcely have any literal-minded Christians over here.

Now, in your most recent post, you come with a comnpletely new argument, namely that The Bible, and the insistance that it is a true word-for-word account, has led to the death of countless thousands.

If you would be clearer in what you attack and change the main topic of your atteck less often there even might be a debate. You might even get support from an atheist like me in one or two points. The way you do it with sweeping generalisations and an unclear focus of attack you come over as a completely unfair critic of most of Christianity. Such an attack will never have me as an ally.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 02:07 PM

I'm just as suspicious of fundamentalist Christianity as you are, Tunesmith, but it hasn't stopped me from pursuing spirituality or finding spiritual meaning in my life. My suspicion is that Jesus would be about as upset with many of the churches founded in his name as you are...and with good reason!

There are a fair number of Americans who hold fundamentalist Christian views, but I doubt that they comprise a majority. I'll tell you what the majority-held religion is in North America: CONSUMERISM, that's what! Worship of money and material goods. And you will find that that is the key ingredient behind American policy, as well, with religious fundamentalism simply coming along now and then as a handmaiden to the remorseless search for profit, excess, and material gain.

Build a religious shrine, and a handful of people will come there. Build a casino, and twenty-thousand people will pour through its doors every day, in hopes of getting something for nothing. That's what I call FAITH, considering the fact that 98% of them get fleeced.

As for TV...most of it is a spiritual wasteland. People are brainwashed by it every day of their lives for but one purpose: to sell commercial product. An inevitable side effect is the promotion of mind-numbing conformity in society, and mental laziness, and the desire for instant gratification (same principle as a casino).

One way to escape it is to gut the damn TV and turn it into a plantholder. Another way, which I have suggested from time to time, is to take it out into the backyard, execute it with a shotgun, and celebrate the recovery of a large chunk of your waking life! This is frowned on in some municipalities...but, oh, is it ever satisfying. :-)

I would be all in favour of an open questioning of the assumptions of traditional religion, as you suggest, on TV or elsewhere...but you are unlikely to see it, because it wouldn't sell much product. Instead, count on more stupid shows with sex, violence, "attitude", and other marketable stuff like that. Crap sells in America. Serious content? Forget it.

Like I say, consumerism is the dominant religion here. Its main tenets:

1. Material stuff is the only thing that really matters in life.
2. If some stuff is good, a whole lot more stuff is better.
3. Buying more stuff will make you happy.
4. Having more stuff means you are successful.
5. Buying the right stuff will make you sexy and desirable and maybe even keep you young longer.
6. People will love you if you buy the right stuff.
7. He who dies with the most stuff wins. Everybody else is a loser.

All in all, it may just be the most simple-minded, destructive, wasteful religion in history. Maybe. In 500 years it has taken a once pristine continent and turned a very great deal of it into a garbage pile overrun with people who have no idea what to do about their predicament.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 02:30 PM

OK. Where do I start!!
A)I think the evidence for the Bible Jesus being a fabricated story is overwelming! It is a fact, that nearly every major event in his life -as reported in the Bible - mirror events in the lives of earlier God/Men; And to those I listed 23 June 01.25pm a lot more can be added e.g. the King ( Herod in the Bible ) who tries to have the baby god/child killed by the slaughter of the innocence is found in many pre-Christian myths.
B) This idea that the existance of there pre-Christian god/men with a similar profile to Jesus is common knowledge among your average Christian is nonsense! A year ago I was talking to a group of Catholic teachers, one of whom had studied the early- Christian Church at college( a Catholic College ), and they were flabergasted at the parallel lives of Jesus and the pre-Christian god/men. If this educated Catholics were ignorant of such connections, I'm pretty sure your average Christian Church-goer is even more in the dark. It is not in the Catholic Church's interest to encourage its members to start asking questions.
C) And by the way Wolfgang, you are not an atheist!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 03:26 PM

Just because something has happened before, or just because it's been said to have happened before, doesn't disprove it.

But the Joesph Campbell suggestion, passed on by the O'Meara, makes a lot of sense. The fact that certain elements recur in the kind of stories people have told to explain the world implies that there is something in those stories that resonates, to use a word that came up very appositely in a recent discussion about songs.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 03:59 PM

McGrath of Harlow. Give Over! It's not just one element that's reoccurs, it's every element!! Listen very carefully, the story of Jesus is simply a rewrite of earlier myths! If you, and all the others, can't see that then there's only one explanation: you're in denial, and it's not that you can't see it - you simply refuse to see it, because, if you did. it would turn your cosy, safe world upside down and you don't fancy that at all.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 04:25 PM

Tunesmith,

your central error is to assume that there is only one possible interpretation to a set of data presented.
BTW, it is always interesting to learn new things about oneself though I fail to see what puts you in a position to teach me new things about myself.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 04:26 PM

And the more elements recur, the more that in itself becomes the interesting point.

"...turn your cosy, safe world upside down and you don't fancy that at all..."

Stop trying to wind people up, and come up with a tune to match that handle you've adopted.

Of course, if we get other GUEST leap in screaming and shouting and denouncing GUEST,Tunesmith the suspicion will arise that it's the same guy playing with himself. Or herself.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 04:43 PM

Wolfgang: That's a good move. Bring statistics into the debate, that always muddies the water.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Leo Condie
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 04:56 PM

we need to think outside the box here, people, clear blue skies. maybe THIS is the answer.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 04:59 PM

My post has nothing whatsoever to do with statistics.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 05:24 PM

I'm manipulating one of Chomsky's theories here, but it seems to me that there is a certain type who is predisposed to religious belief.
It's as if they have a "religion blueprint" set in their brains. Unfortunately, this excludes them from being one of life's freethinker.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Kim C
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 05:26 PM

The Santa Claus legend is based on the real Bishop of Myra:

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 05:32 PM

So, why not concentrate on the central parts of the message, rather than the "mythology"? That's what is important in the message.

What difference does it make whether someone turned water into wine (most probably a symbol) or various other such things?

What is important is the spiritual philosophy imparted by Christianity.

I think it very probable that Jesus existed, merely because the events of his life had such an enormous and lasting impact on first, a small group of followers...and then, a much larger group...eventually converting the Roman Empire itself from the top down against absolutely collosal odds. Such things are not started or inspired by mythical people, no more than the Buddhist religion or the Hindu religion was...BUT...the followers of such people are very inclined to concoct exciting myths or exaggerated stories or symbolic stories about their prophet AFTER HE IS GONE.

And I think that is a very large part of what happened. It was natural that the followers of Jesus who survived him would come up with stories that fitted the traditional culture they were living in. Thus they borrowed all kinds of religious ideas that they could relate to, and wrote a bunch of books which we know as the New Testament.

To suggest that Jesus himself did not exist is far less plausible than questioning the accuracy of the people who wrote stories about him after the fact.

When a stone is thrown in the water it makes a splash, and the ripples keep spreading for a long time. To suggest there was no such stone as Jesus doesn't strike me as plausible when the ripples are still all around us. Do you know of any completely fictional person now who has that kind of impact on people? Not bloody likely. It takes a real prophet to launch a religion.

There were many, many other would-be prophets and messiahs around at that time, but they are barely remembered, if at all. Jesus is remembered. That in itself is the clearest indication that he did exist, just as did Buddha, Ghandi, Sri Ramakrishna or a host of other such people.

Consider another example: Robin Hood. I doubt that the story of the real man who started it all was much like the one we hear (which had a lot of Celtic mythology woven into it), but a real man certainly must have existed as a catalyst to start the whole thing off in the first place, and he must have been fairly unusual to have that sort of impact on people.

Once people form a belief (religious or not) based on faith or partial information (and what information is not partial?) they also form an emotional attachment to the belief, and defend it tenaciously.

I think, Tunesmith, that you have formed such an emotional attachment to the idea that Jesus never existed. It has become important to you. Other people have equally strong emotional attachments to the idea he did exist. How about you respect their right to their attachments if they respect your right to yours? Why do other people have to be wrong? Why can they not just be different?

If Jesus had never existed, we wouldn't be arguing about this... :-) We'd be arguing about someone else, most likely.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 05:33 PM

Tunesmith...I struggle with the problems presented by organized religion daily, but you are being as careless and slippery in your arguments against a historical Jesus as THEY are in support of him!

It is not likely to be possibly to prove or disprove this point, but the way you are approaching it is likely to more harm than good for your thesis.

You seem to me to have an axe to grind, and you are as willing to skew logic as the fundimentalist Christians are to make some sort of point.

It makes no difference whether the story of Jesus resembles earlier stories or not...that proves nothing either way. If you NEED to 'disprove' classic Christianity for some reason, there are easier roads to travel.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 05:47 PM

You could convert to Islam, Tunesmith, like Cat Stevens...but no, wait! The Muslims also believe in Jesus! Well, geez... (oops!) Okay, how about becoming a Wiglafarian, then? They only believe in Harry Lee Wigley, and NO ONE would dare question the existence of Harry Lee Wigley. Ask Khandu for details.

And if that doesn't pan out, join the WSSBA and worship William Shatner. He is real. I can guarantee it.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 06:44 PM

I'm afraid it's hopeless.

The religious fundamentalist and the anti-religious crusader are the world's two most rabidly closed-minded and pig-headed types in the world. You can't tell them a thing because they already know it all.

Don't waste your time.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 06:59 PM

Absolutely true, Don. I knew a "born-again atheist" in Orillia, and he was an utter fanatic...spent all his time trying to convert the whole world to atheism. For him it was a holy cause. :-)

The same fellow had previously been a born-again Christian, by the way, and had become disillusioned. His method remained the same...harass people until they see it your way, wave your favourite book in their faces and demand that they read it, and simply don't take no for an answer. He could have written a book of his own called "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People".

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 07:02 PM

The predisposition to religion is not genetic, IMHO. It is a response to loss and stress.

Infinite goodness on tap is a great remedy to a painful bout of brick-wall-itis.

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 09:02 PM

So...how come that guy I knew turned to atheism when experiencing loss and stress in regards to his church-based faith?

I think loss and stress can swing people either way. It has been said though, that there are no atheists on a battlefield. Yup, it's been said, but it's probably not quite always true.

I regard people who put their faith in modern political parties to be participating in bizarre cult activity based almost entirely upon faith, given what I have seen in the last few decades.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 09:23 PM

Well, the fundamental is the same, LH -- in the face of confusion, loss, betrayal, people grab for any stable viewpoint, and there are a lot of artificial ones out there which, like cheap plaster agents, look like they will fill the hole or stabilize the confusion. And they do as long as you don't jar them, but not being flexible in the way that self-discovered t4ruth is, they set one up for later avalanches.

In this respect asserted religion and asserted atheism are one and the same Band Aid.

A

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: PeteBoom
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 10:34 PM

Having read this entire bloody thread, I've reached a monumental epiphany.

I suspect Tunesmith is a Uni student (or generally recent grad) who has latched onto an idea from a lecture with all the fervor of a true believer. Anyone asking questions or trying to clarify general points is shot down as blind (if TS was arguing for the existance of Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph and Mary in the popular accounts - "Christ" was, after all, a Greek title accorded to him sometime after his mythical death) he'd be calling all the people asking questions heretics.

I find this remarkably ironic.

I should be practicing. So I will.

Pete

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Hrothgar
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:23 AM

If Jesus Christ never existed, what's going to happen to the bloke over here whose research just proved that he was homosexual?

:-))

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 07:26 AM

All this debating seems to prove one basic point, the church has done its job well. Blind faith in the existance of Jesus in the face of so much evidence to the contrary is, well .... amazing! Brain washing! Indoctrination! Call it what you will, but it can't be healthy.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 10:38 AM

So, how do you explain the fact that I've never been a churchgoer, was raised as an atheist, don't belong to any particular religion, and still believe that Jesus really existed (as a physical human being, I mean, with a whole lot of wonderful spiritual teachings to give)?

You gonna blame the church for that, Tunesmith? Ha. I laugh! I've regarded churches with grave suspicion for most of my life, and as a small child I walked out of Sunday school class on the 2nd or 3rd session, vowing to never come back, because it was all a bunch of fairy tales as far as I was concerned. You don't hold the monopoly on rationalism and objectivity, my friend, you're just a man who's jumped onto a particular bandwagon, and wants everyone else to jump on too. You oughta go into politics and satisfy that zeal to convert others to your own way of thinking.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 10:56 AM

Oh, by the way, voting for the Democrats and Republicans isn't healthy either. Supporting illegal invasions of small countries (as your Mr. Blair did) isn't healthy. And buying into the consumer lifestyle can also be quite unhealthy. All these are more vital matters you might concern yourself with at this point.

Surfing endlessly on Mudcat is unhealthy too, but I haven't managed to overcome that one yet! We all have our weaknesses.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 11:12 AM

"All this debating seems to prove one basic point,...."

PROVE? You have a very strange notion of 'proof'.....you have people agreeing with you that Jesus was likely NOT real, or at least not 'holy', and you can't even take 'yes' for an answer.

Bye

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: The O'Meara
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 12:23 PM

(1)Tunesmith, I suggest you read the famous "Yes, Virginia" response to a little girl's question about the existence of Santa Claus. It applies as well to the same question about Jesus. (it really is worth digging it up and reading it.)
    (2)It's impossible to prove a negative, so there's no way to prove that Jesus didn't exist. If you really believe that, it must be an act of faith just as is believing he did exist.
    (3) I think you mistakenly blame religion for the evil behavior of humans. In the crusades, for example, the Christian religion was the excuse for slaughtering the Moors, who were a really threat to the established economy of europe. If Christianity didn't exist I'm sure the europeans would have used some other religion.
    (4) I, myself, am an ex-catholic who found the true path in Frisbeterianism. Frisbeterians belive that when you die, your soul sails onto the roof and you can't get it back down again.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Kim C
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 01:04 PM

Hey, what happened? Half of my post up there disappeared. Oh well.

Robin Hood is supposedly a real bloke named Robin of Locksley.

I agree with Little Hawk, though - even the most pervasive legends are usually rooted, albeit sometimes rather loosely, in documentable historical fact.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 01:47 PM

I will finish where I began. I want everyone who has posted messages on this thread in support of a " real Jesus" - as presented in the Bible, to read " The Jesus Mysteries". But the problem with that request is obvious; if a person believes in Jesus - and that belief is central to who they are -, why would they want to read a book that could/would shake that belief. They wouldn't would they? If you believe in Jesus, it must be a matter of faith, and surely to read anything that flies in the face of that faith is .. a betrayal of that faith, and a betrayal of Jesus.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 01:47 PM

Tunesmith, you seem to be assuming that everyone who disagrees with your anti-religious tirades do so because they have "blind faith in the existence of Jesus." Or even that they have faith in Jesus at all, blind or otherwise. Some folks here fall into the "unchurched" category and do not center their beliefs on any one person or thing. You're attacking a straw man of your own manufacture. Kinda pointless.

Speaking of "true believers" as someone did above, and also spinning off from Little Hawk's post of 24 Jun 03 - 06:59 PM:— Eric Hoffer, in his excellent book of observations, The True Believer, says that first, the true believer—the fanatic—generally gets that way because he suffers from very low self-esteem and must associate himself with some Cause to give his life meaning. He will always be intensely passionate in espousing that Cause, because that Cause is central to his very life. It is his life. It's his raison d'être. But—second, as passionately as he advocates his Cause, he sometimes does undergo conversion. To another Cause. But no matter what Cause he happens to espouse at the time, he is always fanatical about it. The Nazi becomes a Communist, the Communist converts to fundamentalist Christianity, then he converts to orthodox Judaism, then he converts to a ferocious atheism (or the reverse path, or any combination thereof), and on and on. But no matter what he is at the time, he will beat you about the head and shoulders in the holy name of his Cause. Rational argument has no effect on him. Only something that disenchants him (for some reason it begins failing to feed his sense of self worth) from his Cause du jour, will get him change his mind. To yet another Cause.

Who are you lately?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 02:51 PM

And furthermore:

Go to Amazon.com, put "The Jesus Mysteries" in the search box, wait for a few seconds, then when the book listing appears, scroll down and read the Publishers Weekly review and check the sample pages. This is about all you really need to know about this book.

This sort of book comes along about every five or ten years and then vanishes from sight. I have also seen television documentaries on this theme on Discovery Channel, Nova, the History Channel, and just about everywhere but on the Trinity Broadcast Network (remember Jimmy and Tammy Faye?). I put this sort of thing in the same category as "who wrote Shakespeare's plays?" Hell! I don't even know for certain that there was a real, historical Shakespeare. Do you know for certain!??

The review says, "The authors postulate that Christianity . . . distilled and usurped the greatest wisdom inherent in pagan traditions. Specifically, they charge that Christianity looted the traditions of the Osiris/Dionysus cults, borrowing, synthesizing and domesticating what was most sacred to Greco-Roman civilization."   Well, of course it did! Ever since the first cave man, startled by a burst of thunder and lightning, asked "Who the hell did that!!???" bodies of religious belief have borrowed from previous bodies of belief and modified them to fit. Standard operating procedure.

It goes on to say, "Freke and Gandy assert that Christian history is 'nothing less than the greatest cover-up of all time. Christianity's original Gnostic doctrines and its true origins in the Pagan Mysteries had been ruthlessly suppressed by the mass destruction of the evidence and the creation of a false history to suit the political purposes of the Roman Church.' The authors compare the revolution of the imperial Christian church (which finally suppressed pagan worship) to the Communist revolution in Russia, arguing that both saw enormous bloodshed and suppression of all dissent." Truly deplorable. But secular leaders have always made use of religion in their effort to wield control over the populace. They're still doing it (see Bush administration). And religious leaders have often tried to use their religious position to attain secular power (see Pope Alexander VI, aka Giovanni Borgia, father of Cesare and Lucrezia).

The review concludes, "This kind of polemic detracts from the usefulness of this study. The book's great tragedy is that many of its most scholarly kernels of insight, such as the authors' discussion of Secret Mark or their tantalizing analysis of the Lazarus material, will be lost to responsible discussion. In sum, this is a disappointing, sensationalist polemic." (© Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

I recall an English Literature class some decades ago, when the subject came up about those who question the authenticity of Shakespeare's actual authorship of the plays attributed to him. We kicked the subject around for awhile, and decided that although one could never be absolutely sure, it was most probable the Shakespeare actually did write them. Someone asked, "Why do people keep bringing this up?"

"Well," said the prof, " it keeps them off the streets."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:25 PM

Please, please, please. Will any freethinkers out there read the book " The Jesus Mysteries". Don't leave it at a few brief extracts on Amazon, and a review by somebody whose objectivity, or lack of it, is an unknown factor.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: jeffp
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:35 PM

Such as yourself?

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: TIA
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:38 PM

I'm gonna read - if for no other reason than to see why it has poor Tunesmith so worked up.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:39 PM

Tunesmith, your agenda is a puzzlement to me. More than anything else you come across as a person whose early upbringing was steeped in fundamentalist Christianity and who is still feeling immensely guilty for veering from it. If that isn't the case, I'm curious as to why the historicity (is there such a word?) of Jesus matters to you.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 03:55 PM

hystericity, I believe

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 04:07 PM

I am trying to tell my side of this debate in a staightforward honest way. The people attacking my argument are simply "muddying the water" with trivia: Shakespeare, Robin Hood and the likes. I honestly believe that if any fairminded person read " The Jesus Mysteries" they would come away with - at the very least - doubts about the existence of the biblical Jesus. I'll finish with a little aside. Folkmusic links us all together, but Christianity - the Irish Catholic version - nearly finished off folkmusic in Ireland less than a hundred years ago and so the next time you listen to Altan, Christy Moore ,or your own personal favourite , remember that. And O Yes,I know, we can't blame Jesus for that!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 05:32 PM

Tunesmith, you're not trying to tell your side of an issue, you've set an issue of long controversy loose among a group of people with a history of bitter conflict over it. Its notable that so far, ugliness has not broken out, and it's rather a miracle to have come so far. That's not enough for you-- you seem willing to settle only for complete agreement with your bias. Mudcat ain't like that, and if you don't learn not to do more than simply stir up controversy you'll soon find that very few people want to communicate with you.

~S~

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 05:55 PM

That's a bit of hubris, there, Tunesmith. You seem to be under the impression that you are the only fair minded, free thinking person here. Yet, you seem to put all your faith (yes, dammit, faith!) in a book (Bible: Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin biblia, from Greek, pl. of biblion, book.) you have read(!), insist that others read the book too, and then accuse others of small-mindedness and embracing blind faith when they don't take you as seriously as you would like to be taken. You make a lot of assumptions about a lot of things. I have already read several books on this same subject. They get pretty repetitive after awhile, so I'm not about to waste my time and money reading yet another one.

I can—and, in the past, have—argued from the viewpoint that you are now espousing. I have since matured a bit, and without going into my particular credo, I have learned that in the absence of solid evidence one way or the other, to continue arguing the point is just plain silly. I have also learned that, although much evil has been done by organized religions, is being done now, and undoubtedly will continue to be done in the future, there is a distinct and definite value to be found in religious belief, both on a personal level and in the world at large. Here's a clue: some churches do a great deal of good. I know of several churches of different denominations right here in my neighborhood when the members have adopted as their guiding credo a brief, but all important passage from the book of Matthew.

Brace yourself! Here it comes!

Jesus, whether he existed or not, is reputed to have said:
        "I was hungry, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: I was naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me."
        And they asked him, saying, "Lord, when did you hunger and we fed you? Or thirst, and we gave you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in? Or naked and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?"
        And he answered them, saying, "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."

(You didn't really think you could get away without have Scripture quoted at you, did you?)
These churches take this seriously. They run free meal programs (no accompanying sermon), they seek lodging for the homeless, they visit people in hospitals (not to cram the Gospel down their throats when they are lying there helpless, but simply to see if they need anything), they run an Alternatives to Violence program in the prisons (in an effort to decrease recidivism—and violence), and many other truly meaningful and effective social programs. They don't just practice their religion on Sundays, they carry it over into their everyday lives. They walk the walk, and they live the life. I respect these people very highly for what they believe, and especially the integrity they have in acting on their beliefs. These people to a lot of good in the world.

You want to throw out the good with the bad. I find your trashing of religion a bit short-sighted. And, I might add, it shows a disturbing trend toward blind prejudice on your part.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: mousethief
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 07:59 PM

There's only so much time in life to do the things that you must, ought to, and want to do.

With all the great and wonderful books I have sitting in my "to read" pile, I see no reason to add to that pile a shrill anti-Christian polemic. Surely I had my fill of shrill anti-Christian polemic in my 13 years of state-supported education and 9 years of university.

Tunesmith, take a chill pill.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 08:17 PM

Give us a fresh tune...

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Jun 03 - 10:07 PM

Curious why you seem so upset about what you read in that book, Tunesmith--Though not much discussed in the mass media, the things you mention are not new ideas to those who have studied history, religion, and literature, and their factuality or lack of factuality really has little to do with the philosophical underpinnings of Christianity--

You never answered the questions about your age, but whatever it is, you seem fairly naive, since you have obviously accepted the truth in what these particular writers have presented, without question--At any rate, most of the people here(even the mainstream Christians) have been around long enough to have much better reasons to question the institution of Christianity than the authors of your book have layed out--

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 07:23 AM

First, it's amazing! Two correspondance have already said that they will not be reading " The Jesus Mysteries". Very interesting. Secondly, I still maintain that if "The Jesus Mysteries" were turned into a primetime tv program it would create worldwide unrest.
Thirdly, I dispute the view that the information contained in " The Jesus Mysteries" is common knowledge. As I have stated previously, I have friends who teach R.E. and they were unaware of the parallels between Jesus and previous godmen. I will agree that the church has conceded that Jesus wasn't born on 25th Dec, but the church will try to keep the lid on all those disturbing Jesus/Pagan Gods parallels.
Your average churchgoer - my wife, my mother , would never dream of questioning the validity of the Bible. But they might watch a well advertised, primetime tv program called "The Jesus Mysteries". But, as I have already stated, it will never happen. Maybe for purely pramatic reasons ( I'm being kind here ) someone at the top has probably decided that such a program would have a devastating effect on the stability of the Western World.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:45 AM

Dear Tunesmith,

I have a minor in Theology, as taught by the Franciscan monks (OFM). Throughout the courses I took, parallels were noted between the Biblical Jesus of Nazareth and other Biblical figures such a Noah (parallel is Babylonian -- go find out for yourself). The parallels to Osiris and others were studied. You have also missed, in your focus on JC, parallels to his mother -- she was not the first to have either a virgin birth OR and immaculate conception! Again, these parallels are not kept hidden away; you should be able to find them in or obtain them from any halfways decent public library.

If your friends are ignorant of these parallels, I can only suggest that they haven't the curiousity or inclination to investigate.

As for your prime time show, it might be made for Discovery or the History Channel, but I doubt that sponsors for the commercial networks would see enough profit in it to back it. I encourage you to try for it, though, because you're correct in assuming that it would be watched. Whether or not it would be believed is another story. I hardly think, though, that it would destroy Western or world civilization -- Erich Von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods?" series certainly didn't, the "Bermuda Triangle" silliness hasn't, the writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and others hasn't, and I strongly doubt that such a show would do so.

I urge you to go read some other books. The Truth is out there, but like most things, it is neither simple nor easily obtained -- certainly not from one book or One Book.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Sam L
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 10:46 AM

Oh come on. You're being kind. Kinda silly. Someone at the top has decided. O, come on now.

There used to be a great t.v. show when I was a kid called Kolchak, the night stalker, about an odd-ball little reporter for a national-enquirer sort of rag. All the weird stories were true, but in the end were covered up by the government, in it's dedication to protect us all from weird information. It was that guy, the dad in A Christmas Story, whatsisname, in a white seersucker suit. Really a funny premise.

   Geez, Tunesmith, a person doesn't have to read any particular book to lack faith, or have doubts about any particular religion. I get my conspiracies mixed up--is it the old Jewish conspiracy maybe that's trying to foist the myth of the existance Jesus on everyone? Wow, that would be a pretty sly ploy. Another way of doubting Jesus requires no other book than the bible itself--the strained cobbling of the new testament story to fit the prophesies in the old testament. Borges once wrote a little fictional story arguing that Judas was actually the messiah, which was mistakenly published as earnest scholarship, I think by Robert Creely.

   I don't know. Kevin Smith made a popular movie in which Alanis Morrisette was God. There was some fuss about Scorcese's Jesus movie, which others of us found merely boring. I guess some people might be upset by such a t.v. special. Is that the point? To upset people like your wife and mother? I don't know if you'll find backers. Most documentaries want to generate a broader interest generally than simply to upset some people.

   That the same stories get retold isn't proof anyone didn't exist, it's proof of how people tell stories, regardless. The New Testament itself suggests that it may be mistold, in the literary tradition of unreliable narrators. Jesus is perpetually surprised by his disciple's lack of understanding, and they are the reporters.

   Anyone who wants to doubt, can. Abraham Lincoln rejected Jesus. Some people will try to impose their beliefs on you, but you can also question the impulse to respond in kind.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:02 PM

Backing Rapaire up on the fact that this stuff is not kept hidden, I have actually heard Fransicans talk about this stuff on the Today Show--As for my own exposure, we learned about all this stuff in Unitarian Sunday School--(Unitarians having broken away from mainstream Christianity after the the Council of Nicea in 326 A.Dwhere they developed the concept of the Trinity and where they decided on which scriptures would be included in the Bible-the 66 books that we now call the Bible were declared to be Scripture by a vote of 568 to 563)--


Check out these sites: The Jesus Puzzle and Messianic Truth for more details on the questionable aspects of the scriptures, but remember that the authors who are debunking Christianity tend to have their own agendas, be it Neo-Paganism, Goddess Worship, Messianic Judaism--and all of these have aspects that are, in turn, highly debunkable--

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:12 PM

You can really see that church suppression has hurt hurt the sales of The DaVinci Code
, too!

.... where the "restoration" of the divine feminine is laid out, and which offers thought son the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene!

No shortage of Mysteries, wherever you look-- we all choose which ones to contemplate. Proselytizing for any one view or belief system, however, is generally not appreciated at Mudcat... Tunesmith, insisting that people follow your idea is, in fact, a form of proselytizing. Otherwise, I might advise you to try Dr. Phil's book (it's on the paperback advice best seller's list)!

~Susan

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 12:21 PM

You can really see that church suppression has hurt the sales of The DaVinci Code, too!

.... where the "restoration" of the divine feminine is laid out, and which offers thoughts on the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene!

No shortage of Mysteries, wherever you look-- we all choose which ones to contemplate. Proselytizing for any one view or belief system, however, is generally not appreciated at Mudcat... Tunesmith, insisting that people follow your idea is, in fact, a form of proselytizing. Otherwise, I might advise you to try Dr. Phil's book (it's on the paperback advice best seller's list)!

~Susan

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 02:46 PM

Tunesmith, how young are you? You sound a bit like me when I was sixteen, discovered the writings of Philip Wylie, and learned that not everything I was being taught in school was necessarily true. I was a real pain in the butt for quite a while.

Churches (not all, grant you, but a fair number of the more liberal ones) have been batting this subject around for years. The adult forums in some of the neighborhood churches I mentioned above have been having discussions along these lines for at least twenty-five years that I know of. Undoubtledly the reason you don't know this is that you wouldn't be caught dead within ten blocks of a church, and this, of course, makes you an authority on religion.

As to the media, there have been several television shows on the historical bases and the evolution of religion within recent years (last five or ten) and they keep coming back. One was a series entitled "The Search for the Historical Jesus" (Discovery Channel, if I remember right). I believe this was where I learned (mentioned above) about the historical records of a Joshua bar Joseph who was crucified (standard Roman method of execution at the time) as a disruptive influence. The Romans kept very good records. There is no "hard evidence" in these records that say unequivocally that this person was the Jesus of the Bible, but the fact that "Jesus" is the Greek equivalent of "Joshua," and that this Joshua had a group of followers is enough for the faithful to latch onto as sufficient evidence. Not really enough to call absolute proof, but it does blow a bit of a hole in the arguments of those who insist that he didn't exist. So it breaks down to a matter of faith, n'est-ce pas?

There was another more general telecast recently, featuring a group of anthropologists and archeologists searching for archeological evidence for some of the various stories in the Bible. The book of Exodus didn't come off too well as an accurate historical record. It seems that, contrary to popular belief, the Egyptians never kept slaves. The assumption was made by archeologists sometime in the nineteenth century that the pyramids would have been impossible to build without slave labor. More recent research (not based on mere assumption) shows that the ancient Egyptians were remarkably enlightened for the times and had learned early on that keeping slaves is not economically feasible over the long run, so they didn't. The crossing of the Red Sea has drawn all sorts of speculation, assuming that the Israelites were ever in Egypt in the first place. Another fact that cast serious doubt on the story is that evidence has been found on the Sinai Peninsula of the remains of shepherds' campfires that can be dated as far back as 6,000 years ago, but no signs of any group of any size wandering the area for forty years. Any group of the size indicated in the Bible would have left plenty of evidence, and archeologists have not been able to find it (maybe it's like WMDs in Iraq?). The conclusion that some of them drew was that the story told in Exodus is allegorical. Like much of the Bible (fundamentalists hate that!).

In addition to a substantial number of television shows (granted, shown on channels watched by the more serious-minded, like Discovery, or the History Channel, or PBS, not the Big Three commercial channels, or MTV, or the Cartoon Channel, or Comedy Central, or Nickelodeon), there is a whole library of books. If you are seriously pursuing knowledge and not just messing around, I would recommend that you start with something solid and scholarly, like A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong. Karen Armstrong was once a nun, but she left the Church. Now, she is a historian, and in her books she deals with various aspects of religion and religious belief. She doesn't mince words. And she's not particularly friendly toward fundamentalism, orthodoxy, and organized religion. She is not trying to sell anything, she's just laying it out for you to look at. This is where religion came from, this is how it evolved over time, and this is what it's all about.

If I wanted to learn about the real nature of the Cosmos, I wouldn't start by watching "The X-Files" and reading books like Flying Saucers are Real. I would start with the writings of people like Timothy Ferris or Stephen W. Hawking. And I would take the same approach if I were seriously interested in learning about religion and its history.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 03:17 PM

... wouldn't be caught dead within ten blocks of a church, and this, of course, makes you an authority on religion...

THANK you, that is exactly the phrase I have been struggling to find for several years! :~)

Scuse me, gotta go oppress, confuse, bamboozle, and swindle some more folks over at church... oh yeah, we're having a picnic to discuss a thinking-person's 4-year ministry course that I co-teach.... scripture, church history, doctrine, ethics, all that jazz-- gotta sharpen up my torture devices! :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 04:12 PM

You're welcome, Susan.

Be sure to use this power for Good, now. . . ;-).

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 04:44 PM

One of the best things about religion (whether it be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American Medicine Way, Judaism, Janism, or any number of others) is that it enlarges one's sense of responsibility to others and to the World and to life itself...it extends the conscious boundaries of life.

Among the most basic teachings of religion stands this one...It's not ALL about me! There are others here whose rights matter just as much as mine do.

Religion challenges the narcissism of the isolated ego, and suggests that there are greater purposes to life than the little things the ego desires...and that leads directly to a much enlarged intelligence and sense of social responsibility, providing a person accepts the challenge and takes it on.

That sense of the sacred in life is the very thing, in fact, which civilizes us. Without anything sacred in life we are brutes engaging in mere survival tactics.

The fact that religion is also frequently divisive and destructive is largely because that little ego in the brute readily finds ways to abuse religion too. The ego is a clever little monster with entirely selfish concerns...survival, self-gratification, and enlargement of its holdings and power. To the ego only itself is sacred. All else is an opportunity to be made use of...or a danger to avoid.

Jesus' teachings were a spectacular challenge to that kind of narrow thinking, and deserve to be studied with great care regardless of whether or not one is a "Christian" (and there are many definitions of that word out there).

To be human is to recognize the humanity in others and treat them as you would wish to be treated under the same circumstances.

Great religions, great philosophies, and great scientific breakthroughs are not initiated or accomplished by non-existent people. They are accomplished by real flesh and blood humans, and those humans are remembered for a long time.

Somewhere down the line various little raging egos will seek to ensure their own transitory fame and sense of self-importance by writing books "proving" that Jesus or Buddha or Krishna or King Arthur or Robin Hood or Lao-Tse or someone else like that never existed. The value of their puny literary contribution to human development will be easily measured by how long their books are remembered. I give the guys who wrote your book a few years, at best.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jun 03 - 04:56 PM

Dare I say "Amen?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 07:38 AM

Please, you can debate the exixtence of Jesus, but don't tell me that Christianity has been good for the human race. Weighing and pros and cons, I think the negative side wins. Christainity has indeed help shape the Western world, but I'm not too sure that the shape it has produced is one to be proud of.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 09:40 AM

The typical human vices that get in the way of every common endeavour have not been good for Christianity...if Christianity is taken to mean "what Jesus taught". If, on the other hand, you are referring to the historic activities of the bureaucratic institutions called "churches", then I would have to fairly much agree. They have been responsible for a lot of very harmful things. They have also been responsible for a number of good things. Sorting it all out and arriving at a single conclusion now would be almost impossible, unless one was blinded by prejudice, in which case it would be easy.

On the whole, though, I prefer the Native American religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. I have some trouble relating to all three of the Judeo-Christian religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) that arose in the Middle East. They have a guilt-ridden and severe patriarchal streak in them that I really don't like. They tend to be very militant and warlike as well.

I don't particularly think of Jesus as a Christian! :-) I think Christianity was something that others launched later in his name.

I have no problems with the actual teachings he gave (or which were reputed to have been given by him, if you prefer). Those same teachings are found at the heart of virtually all religions...and that suggests to me that the message does not change...only the messenger.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 12:07 PM

Friends who teach at a Catholic college put it very succinctly: "We don't let our church get in the way of our religion."

Statistical studies on American Catholics demonstrate that most feel the same way: their church is NOT their religion. Witness, for instance, the attitudes toward birth control.

From my readings into the religion of the Indians, the Bible, into Hinduism, in the writings of Lao Tzu, the Buddha, and so on, certain basic principles do emerge. LH has listed them.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: The O'Meara
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 01:31 PM

Seems to me that the message attributed to Jesus is pretty simple - treat people the way you want to be treated yourself. This strikes me as a pretty good idea. (Some other people seem to think so too, since that notion keeps popping up in all sorts of religions across the board.) Seems the rest of "organized religion" was tacked on for a bunch of typically human reasons. (Sometimes called the "disciple syndrome.") Jesus may or may not have existed exactly as described in the bible, but that message is still a good one.
   Maybe we should heed Joseph Campbell and pay attention to the message, not the messenger.
   Personally, I'm agnostic - after thinking about it for many years I have to say I don't really know. (Dear sir or madam; you could be right.) I think of myself as spiritual but not very religious, and tend toward the earth-based philosophies like those of the Hindus and Native Americans, rather than the heaven-based philosophies like those of the Christians and Muslims. (Live with nature vs conquer nature.) Makes more sense to me.
    I think one of the problems we're having with Tunesmith's suggestion that Jesus never existed is the presumption that therefore Jesus' teachings are no good either. Maybe?

O'Meara

    ps I was in the U.S. army for several years and I'll bet I'm the only soldier to have "agnostic" stamped on his dog tags. I'm also ex-Catholic so I wondered if they could find an Agnostic priest for me if I were wounded

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 02:44 PM

Tunesmith, your mistake is in your blanket condemnation of Christianity.

Let us assume for the moment that Jesus actually did exist, and that he did say the things that the Bible attributes to him.

Within my fairly considerable experience, the noisiest "Christians"—those who claim to be followers of Jesus and claim that they are acting in his name—are generally people whom Jesus would not recognize as being followers of his. Many of them seem to embrace an Old Testament God, one with lots of laws and no mercy, given to retribution and vengeance, not at all averse to war and the wholesale slaying of the enemies of His chosen people. Either that, or the only book of the Bible they seem to have read is the Book of Revelation and are focused on "the End Time," when they will go to Heaven—but most importantly, those whom they regard as sinners (anyone who does not believe—in detail—as they do) will be dragged off, kicking and screaming, to Hell. Someplace along the line, they seem to have neglected a thorough reading of the Gospels, where one finds the teachings of Jesus. These people usually grab secular power whenever they can (they wish to force their beliefs down the throats of any and all who fall under their power), and the result is almost always intolerance and oppression, sometimes on a grand scale. Historically, though, oftentimes the motivation has little to do with religious belief. Religion is usurped to reinforce secular power (Divine Right of Kings, for example). History is full of this sort of stuff, and if this were real Christianity, then I would have to agree with what you say.

But—Jesus was a revolutionary on a number of counts. He negated all of that. Instead of the vengeful God of the Old Testament, Jesus spoke of a forgiving God. And rather than advocating a theocracy, he drew a strong distinction between Caesar and God. Many who call themselves "Christians" seem to have missed all that. So—do they really believe in Christ? Are they really Christians?

Although it doesn't seem like it because the stir they make is all out of proportion to their numbers, these people are in the minority. They seem to be the majority because they make the most noise, grab the most press, and try to wield the most secular power. And because they make the most noise, people who don't know any better assume that this is what Christianity is all about. It's not.

Again, within a mile and a half of where I live (not a particularly atypical neighborhood), there are about a dozen churches of various denominations that are as I describe in my post above (25 Jun 03 - 05:55 PM). They are not out buttonholing you on the street and shoving tracts into your hand, nor are they trying to dictate to the local schools or take over the local government. They are not agitating about when and where you are supposed to pray, nor are they trying to get books banned from the library. They are, however, hard at work trying to find jobs for the unemployed and housing for the homeless, and providing meals for those in need. One acts as a host to families accompanying patients visiting Seattle for treatment at the nearby Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, providing housing and seeing to their needs. One of them is the national headquarters of the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, a peace activist organization, and several of them host meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and other support groups. At least one of them has two pastors, one of whom is especially charged with coodinating this kind of social outreach. In none of this do they do any proselytizing. They take that passage from Matthew 25 (quoted above) serious, and they feel that the best kind of proselytizing is not by words, but by example.

These, to my mind, are Christians—followers of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The world is a lot better off because of these people.

Whether Jesus actually existed or not is of secondary importance. The message is what matters (but be sure you get the right message!).

How do you tell a Christian from a "Christian?"

Another Biblical quote: "By their works ye shall know them."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 04:56 PM

More, JC said, "I bring you a new covenant...." "I will tear down the temple and in three days build it up again...." "...a new commandment..."

All of it speaks to JC stating that he was making a new beginning, tossing out the old and brining in something new.

Stuff like "Treat other like you'd want to be treated" and "Love the creator and love your neighbor."

What's wrong with that? The medium is the massage, and the massage is the message here. (And yes, the correct phrase is "the medium is the massage", NOT the way it's usually quoted.)

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Gene Burton
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 05:10 PM

May I throw a spanner in the works? A number of people here have made comments to the effect that whilst they agree with and applaud pretty much all of Jesus' teachings, they do not accept that He intended that people worship Him as the one true God (also a number have said that they believe that there are many different ways to the Truth, etc., etc.). Question: How do you reconcile that kind of universalist view with the fact that Jesus is clearly recorded as having stated that He was/is God ("Before the world was formed, I AM"); and that salvation was through Him alone ("No-one comes to the father except through the Son").
The consensus seems to be that Jesus was a great moral teacher and nothing more. But surely his claims about himself, outlined above, do not leave that interpretation of His life open to us? Either his claims were false, in which case He must simply have been a deluded megalomaniac a la David Koresh- that is, hardly a great man by any objective reckoning- or they were true; in which case eternal salvation really must hinge on a saving faith in Him and Him alone. Any thoughts/commenmts?

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 06:35 PM

still at it is he? *sigh*... I am not a religious person, and have a sort of general agreement with Tunesmith, but this sort of hammering and nagging and having an anti Jesus book waved in your face can be just as tedious as having the Bible waved at you when you don't appreciate it!

There are times to debate the issues, and there is much TO debate, but, jiminy! Give it a rest, Tunesmith!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 06:57 PM

Sure. No sweat. When a person achieves enlightenment (or Self-realization, as it is sometimes called) he becomes God individualized in a fully conscious way, rather than just being God individualized in an unconscious way. Everyone is God individualized in an unconscious way...because everything is constructed out of the intelligent energy and various manifested stuff that is an extension of God into what we call Space and Time.

In being God individualized the person can then most certainly be termed the child ("the Son") of God. She could also be termed "the Daughter of God", in such a case (but the Jews had a very patriarchal society, and would not have given much of a welcome to that notion). Meaning, he/she is now the fully fledged Son/Daughter on a conscious level.

I am told that when one achieves that consciousness one cannot help but love all beings and all of creation, and I believe it. I've met such a person and had ample opportunities to see how a person like that conducts himself/herself in regards to the World in general. To put it simply, such a person acts impeccably according to the Golden Rule, and renders profound service unto others, and does it courageously, steadfastly, and with great joyfullness and committment. Such a person can also get tough with others when conditions require it, but not to harm them...in fact, to help them. He can even become a warrior under extreme conditions, and that has happened here and there in the past. The Baghavad Gita gives some interesting examples of such a situation, though they can be interpreted as an allegory for the "inner struggle" within any human being between his own potential for darkness and light.

He then speaks as the consciousness that IS God, and says, "Before the World was formed I AM." What he/she says then is absolutely true, from that level of consciousness. He's not talking about his physical body (which is transitory), he is talking about the eternal living Spirit which he is experiencing on a conscious level.

When he says "No one comes to the father except through the Son", he is again stating a simple fact. You cannot come to the whole God, the One, the Father/Mother except through becoming the Son/Daughter first. Only through individualizing as God yourself can you fully encounter the all-embracing Oneness that is God. You don't do it through Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha (though they could help guide you in doing it)...you do it by going within and finding what Jesus found inside yourself. When you succeed in that you ARE the Son of God. You're like a conscious cell in the body of God. Most of the cells in that body are instinctive and only conscious of their own individual separateness and their own ego drives.

Jesus was suggesting that people follow his example, not worship him. They have mostly chosen to worship him. Why? Because they are lazy, in all probability, and would rather have someone else do it all for them like a magician doing a magic trick...or because they just don't understand the principles involved...and the traditional churches (mostly) have not done very much to clarify that situation. In fact, they have obscured it in order to increase their power over people.

Now I realize, Gene, that you may scoff at this explanation, and that's your right. But give it some consideration. It is one possible answer to your perfectly reasonable question.

You see, merely worshipping is a simple, child-like process. Self-realization is a tremendous challenge, and very few people take it on, let alone achieve it in a single lifetime. Maybe one in ten thousand does, if that. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. I doubt that I will manage it in this lifetime. But I've seen it. And it's quite simply the most beautiful thing I've seen, along with the grand beauty of Nature itself.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 07:02 PM

Guest Gene Burton, at least you are brave enough to post your name.

What we have is what the Evangelists say was said. The Jesus Seminar
has identified various sayings, and rather than go into that here I suggest that you investigate their work.

In effect, what we read in the New Testament is whatever someone says was said, and then the work filtered through various editions in the early Christian Church until we get what we have today as the definitive Word.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Sam L
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 08:11 PM

I was wondering again if anyone had read about fairly recently discovered texts which suggested that very early christianity was broader and more inclusive than appeared later.

   I tend to agree that later the christian church has been rather soft on sins that Jesus was rather hard on, like greed, and the church has been conversly quite strident on subjects about which Jesus apparently said very little at all, like sex. And so on, blah blah.

   I tend to think the teachings in the New Testament are pretty strikingly heroic and difficult to live by, and my experience with the religion seems always to easy it up a lot, water it down, interpret it into whatever suits what one can actually hope to live up to. You know the camel passing through the eye of a needle? well, turns out "camel" most likely meant a kind of twine, so, it's hard, but not THAT hard, if you're rich. And turn the other cheek? well, see, that was a kind of insult, back in the day, so it really means you have to put up with some teasing, sometimes, but you can pop open a can of christian whoop-ass when you need to. Maybe the softening of the meaning is a form of kindness to the weak, though, I don't know. The text is mind-boggling to me but I've usually found the religion a chore.

But if David Koresh, god or man, preached a coherent body of seminal moral thought comparable to the New Testament, I missed reading it. Probably the government covered it up. If he faced his persecutors in quite the same way, well, he didn't, I think. It's merely facile to compare things that aren't quite alike. Jesus being the son of god seems a little muddied by references to everyone else as the children of god, and I've always found the all-or-nothing argument a little unfounded in light of the story as we have it.

There are more precise condemnations one would make if they were taking the question seriously--that the crucifixion looked like suicide, or whatever. But I object to pretending to take the question seriously when one is obviously possessed of a particular sense of it.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 09:59 PM

I would say that Little Hawk seems to have a pretty good grasp of the general idea.

Consider that the Gospels, from which we derive our notions of what Jesus said and did, were written decades after his death, and by men who were not there at the time and did not actually see him, know him, or hear him speak. Many conservative Christians—and definitely the fundamentalists—are not dismayed by this. They believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and of the Gospels. It's all true, they maintain, because the men who wrote the Bible were inspired directly by God.

I would be drummed out of the corps for saying so of course, but I don't believe this. The Bible was selected and compiled by men, inspired or otherwise, from a bloody-great stack of material, and there is plenty that was left out (I'm almost tempted to say that there is "nothing sacred about it," but discretion cautions me to refrain). I believe that there is a lot in the Gospels that is attributed to Jesus that he never actually said, or at the very least, is distorted. I have a number of reasons for taking this position. First, I am instantly suspicious of the idea that any particular individual was "inspired by God." Much evil has taken place in the world because of people who claimed to have been inspired by God and by the hordes who believed in them (think up your own historical examples; there are a lot of them). Dangerous assumption. Second, for some decades after Jesus' crucifixion, these stories and sayings were relayed by oral tradition. Now, I think those who frequent this web site have some knowledge of the vagaries inherent in the oral tradition. Comprenez-vous "folk process?" I rest my case. It was many decades after Jesus departed that the Gospels were written, by men who decided (quite probably noting that the fish kept getting bigger every time the story got told) that they had better write this down before it gets screwed up entirely. Four of these men were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

But they weren't the only ones. Alan Millard, in Discoveries From the Time of Jesus said, "Today we know of just over thirty papyrus manuscripts of New Testament books which can be dated before the fourth century. Each copy has its own oddities and mistakes: no two are completely identical, or the same as the Codex Sinaiticus [ca. 350 C.E.] or other later manuscripts. . . . In the Gospels there are about seventy places altogether where scholars are doubtful about the original reading—that is to say, are unsure whether one group of manuscripts or another has the correct words."   

Also, there is considerable evidence of the one-time existence of a manuscript containing the actual sayings of Jesus that someone took down at the time he said them. It didn't talk about Jesus' birth or his death, or any miracles he is alleged to have performed, it was strictly a collection of quotations. The manuscript no longer exists (or, at least, has not been found), but it is believed by a number of theologians and historians that the first Gospel written was Mark's, and that Matthew and Luke, unaware of each other's writing, both borrowed from Mark and from a copy of the lost manuscript. By going through the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew's, Mark's and Luke's) and making an exhaustive comparison of similar statements reputed to have been made by Jesus, a group of hard-nosed theologians have put together a list of Jesus' quotes from these three Gospels and rated them in terms of "Quite probably said it," "May have said it," and "Doubtful that he said it." There are a number of books on the subject, and there is a great deal of information and discussion of this on the internet. Put "Q Gospel" into the search box in google, and cyberspace with cough it up for you. HERE's one, for openers.

Whether Jesus ever actually claimed to be God is in the "Doubtful" column. And whether Jesus actually said that he was the only way is also in the "Doubtful" column.

Of course, conservative Christians and fundamentalists shriek, wail, stamp on their hats, and tell you that you are buying a one-way ticket of Hell whenever you mention the Q Gospel (the three way breakdown), but considering the inconsistencies and contradictions contained in the Gospels, this kind of analysis makes a lot of sense to me. Whether our brains evolved out of a primitive clump of ganglia, or they were given to us by God, they are there for us to use, and I think we should use them.   

Don Firth

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 10:35 PM

Rapaire, (4:56 PM) I have to get it out of my system so- I hadn't stopped to think that massage comes in small, medium and large or perhaps, light, medium and heavy? I like to give massages but don't particularly like to receive them so I'm not aware of the distinctions...:)

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 02:50 PM

Jesus also is also reputed to have said to his disciples on another occasion "Ye are all gods, and sons of the most high". Therefore, that indicates that he did not think he was the ONLY son of God, but he extended that position to others as well.

It was his followers who chose to give him the "one and only" status. Their mistake, not his. His closest followers were also guilt-stricken (understandably) that they had run away and abandoned him at the time of his arrest and crucifixion, and I think that is a major reason why we find so much guilt and sin consciousness embedded in the Christian religion to this day, because it was those followers who put together the Christian religion. They stamped their own guilt upon all of humanity. I do not get the impression Jesus was into guilt in the least. He was into transformation. He said "Go thy way and sin no more"...not..."Go thy way lamenting over how bad thou wast in the past and beating thyself silly over it."

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Sam L
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 06:45 PM

LH, that wast funny as hell!!

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 08:20 PM

Glad you liked it. I bet Jesus had a great sense of humour, but you don't hear much about that side of him now.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,native
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 12:02 AM

As a godless man, doughters should realize that the Roman Goveners were very capable when it came to records of people and events

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,God
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 12:38 AM

Godless? Don't be foolish. Everyone worships someone or something. It may not be me, my friend, but you have your own pantheon of chosen divinities, be assured, and by them you are governed, whether you realize it or not.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 07:17 PM

"The Medium Is The MAssage" was a book published in the '70s by Marshal McLuhan. In it he posited that the medium by which a message was sent affected the message itself (this is very, very simplified). His works are still germane and I suggest reading them.

The title is usually misquoted as "The medium is the mEssage" which is ridiculous on the face of it.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 12:12 AM

Your chosen view of what you think life is, and what you think life is about...is your religion. A religion does not require a church, a supreme being, a priestly order, a holy book or an organized set of written doctrines...it simply requires a belief structure about reality, and everyone has their own unique belief structure about reality...most commonly acquired from their parents, their culture, and their particular set of growing-up and living experiences.

If they are flexible, their belief structure will change and become enlarged through various experiences in the course of time, and they will become wiser, and their religion will become more realistic and tolerant of other religions. If they are inflexible, then they will remain in their accustomed rut and deteriorate in it until they die...and likely cause a good deal of misery in the World while they are at it.

Everyone, including the most passionate atheist and the most literal-minded and mundane materialist has a unique religion all his own, although he may categorically refuse to recognize or admit that he does, because his definition of the word "religion" is too narrow.

The most gifted in religious awareness are willing to recognize the value in another's religion, and seek to understand it better. The least gifted despise another's religion, fear it, deny it, and may even take up arms against it.

It's all a matter of free will.

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 07:37 AM

Certain groups have had very good reasons for fearing other regilions. The Jews, for example, have suffered terribly because Christians blamed them for the death of Christ - even though he had to die to set mankind free. It's very sobbering to realise that a work of pure fiction has caused so much devastation.

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 06:05 PM

Darn right it's sobering, tunesmith, although I don't consider it to be all based on fiction. It's also very sobering to note that the Jews' own sense of having been persecuted has led to them doing much the same thing to a great many other people in the Middle East. Clearly, they have much to learn about tolerance and humility (as do those who are fighting them).

Anyone has good reason to fear a religious group who have assured themselves that they are morally superior to everyone else around them, and have the right to assert that superiority through violent force.

That is why most of the World fears the USA, which has invented its own myth-based cultural religion of "liberty, freedom, and the American Way", which amounts to nothing more than grand imperialism in search of material profit.

One last comment. Christ didn't set people free. He demonstrated to them how they could set themselves (and others) free. Most of them would rather leave the job to him, because they are essentially too lazy to do the spiritual work required to free themselves. It's much easier to just make a ritualistic statement of blind faith ("I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ"), and dump all the work on "the Lord"...

You don't get to the top of a mountain without moving your own feet and shedding your own blood, tears and sweat (if I may paraphrase Churchill).

- LH

Subject: RE: What price the truth!!
From: PeteBoom
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 09:53 PM

I can think of no major world religion whose adherents have not launched its own barbaric actions upon folks not sharing the same religion/sect/precise form of worship.

I can also think of no major religion whose adherents have not done incredible good works for the benefit of their felow beings - simply because they could do something to help them.

Doesn't this whole balance thing just stink?

Maybe we should have simply responded by saying "OH! Entity that probably does not exist as popularly described, if at all - you're absolutely right! It must be a conspiracy they dreamed up the last time they met at The Meadows, just before the Colonel went 'tets up'".

Back to practicing...

Pete