History of Christianity

[Thomas]

Hi Amergin —

Christianity is the syncretism of several religions into one.

That's a common and oft quoted misconception, entirely understandable if one does not proceed beyond external appearances.

Scholars of comparative religion however, all agree on a number of unique aspects that fundamentally define Christianity. The Christian doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation within the context of a monotheist Godhead, and the subsequent doctrines of Grace, Salvation, Eucharist and so forth form a unique and original organic and interdependent whole that is entirely its own.

What is often overlooked is the religious impulse in man is universal, and so there will be a certain universality of symbolism accordingly, but what matters is how those universal symbols are treated, and what they signify.

The cross, for example, is a universal along with the circle, square, triangle, etc. But the Christian doctrine of the Cross presents in a profound, 'mysterious' and exemplary fashion the principles contained therein, in an unsurpassed manner, and is recognised as such by spokemen of all the world's spiritual traditions.

In fact more than one source has noted that, rather than being a derivative and syncretic religion as you suppose, Christianity offers a complete presentation of the principle of religion as such, in which case it should be no surprise to see aspects of all religions reflected therein, as the point is that they reflect their Eternal Source to a greater or lesser degree.

It started out as a Sect of Jewish followers of the Prophet Jesus of Nazareth. However, it was in an Empire where all religions were tolerated. Some Jews raised in Hellenic culture began to deviate in their beliefs but still held on to the teachings of the real Jesus.

Not true. Nowhere in Scripture is Jesus ever presented as a Prophet, this is a late attempt refute the Revelation in Christ and reduce it by Judaizing it.

Christianity was not tolerated in the Empire; it was abhorrent to the Greeks, and both Jews and Romans were killing Christians, Christ first, then St Stephen and then St James ... the Persecutions had begun before the New Testament was complete, so your comment is way off the mark.

These Romans of Pagan culture transferred elements of Celtic, Roman, Egyptian, and Greek into the dozens of Jesus Cults in the first two centuries.

Something popular will always be copied.

Paul and Arius taught a version of Christianity in which the Christ was a created God by JHWH, not equal to God but divine.

Tosh. You really don't understand Paul at all, and to say that Paul and Arius taught the same Christology is laughable.

Arianism almost became the dominant Christianity.

Almost ...

European Pagans generally had many gods, but often a high Trinity.

No. Triunes are universal, by the way, not just European ... but when one says Trinity, with a capital 'T', then comparative religion recognises the Christian Doctrine, which is utterly unique, and not at all reflective of the cosmological and agrarian triunes in European paganism which reflected natural cycles and fertility ...

Mithraists had Ahura Mazda (Father), Mithra (Son), and Spenta Maingu (Holy Spirit).

This is post-modern syncretism collating various gods into a triune with which to counter Christianity ...

Celts had Dagda, Lugh, and Brigit.

Again this is your syncretising of various mythologies out of all proportion to make a point.

Dagda's father was Elatha and his mother Ethlinn ... Dagda had various lovers, and numerous children, and the various mythologies evolve accordingly.

It seem to me the rest of your post is just more fabrication to mask your prejudice.

Thomas

 

[Amergin]

Hi Amergin —

That's a common and oft quoted misconception, entirely understandable if one does not proceed beyond external appearances.

That is why I read about critiques of Christianity. I studied early Christian history when I was in college, and found that much of it contradicted to traditional beliefs.

Scholars of comparative religion however, all agree on a number of unique aspects that fundamentally define Christianity. The Christian doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation within the context of a monotheist Godhead, and the subsequent doctrines of Grace, Salvation, Eucharist and so forth form a unique and original organic and interdependent whole that is entirely its own.

Baron d'Holbach, George H. Smith, Antony Flew, Michael Martin, William L. Rowe, Richard Dawkins, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Ethan Allen rejected the Christ mythology of Christianity. Scholars of Comparative Religion like Gerald Massey, Robert Price, Robert Schermer, Robert G. Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, Voltaire, Christopher Hitchens, are all brilliant thinkers plus many I fail to recall at the moment. I should add the smartest man in the world, Stephen Hawking, Physicist Steven Weinberg, J. J. C. Smart (Scottish scholar), and Will Durant. They have all pointed out faults in the story of Christianity.

What is often overlooked is the religious impulse in man is universal, and so there will be a certain universality of symbolism accordingly, but what matters is how those universal symbols are treated, and what they signify.

Humans do have a religious impulse but most of it is not to Christianity. As many pick Allah, or Brahma. That religious impulse has gone back probably 40,000 years if we consider the carved figurines and cave art.

What created God(s)?

As humans evolved, with expanding brains of greater complexity, they began to think. They wanted to know the cause of mysterious phenomena such as springs, rivers, rain, wind, fire, earthquakes, human death and animal actions. But they lacked modern science in the middle Stone Age. They observed that we moved our arms, thought, walked, animals ran, birds flew, fish breathed water, volcanoes belched fire. Why? What caused it. Since whatever caused phenomena was invisible humans made the logical jump to conclude that there were invisible things that made things work.

They assumed all the invisible phantasms were similar and called them spirits or pneuma. Over time they further personified them (a classical human trait is to personify things.) They merged them into gods, and eventually in Egypt humans made the first monotheistic God, Aten.

They designed the personalities of the gods. JHWH was designed likely on an earlier human War Lord, hero, or some natural phenomena like fire, volcanism. I personally think that fire and volcanism were influential in JHWH from the Semitic Fire God, but his personality more likely was based on typical Stone Age War Lords. These traits included fearsomeness, cruelty, power, jealousy, vindictiveness, capriciousness, demand for worship, severe punishment for disobedience. Thus "fear of God" occurred thousands of years before the odd "Love of God."

The Jews had a nasty, killer God called JHWH who killed humans by the thousands or millions according to the scriptures. He commissioned Israelites to attack defenceless towns murder men, women, children, and babies. JHWH allowed the Israelite soldiers could take the virgin girls as sex slaves. The Mythical World Flood involved God magically producing 2.5 billion cubic Km of water to cover the world 8 km (Everest). Why? Some adults sinned. So JHWH killed millions of men, women, children, babies, pregnant women plus a million million non-human animals. Crikey! What did squirrels and rabbits do to share humanity's punishment. It sound like a God out of control, off his rocker. However, that kind of God makes people shake in fear and fear to utter his frightening name. It is no mystery why the fastest growing and numerous followers religions have the meanest God.

Why Jesus? Was Jesus really a new God? Cathars felt that Jesus was the Good God while JHWH was really Satan. That satisfied the Killer God of the O.T. with the gook and kind god of Jesus. The process of turning Jesus, a rabbi or teacher into a prophet, a messiah, a minor god (Arianism), to a full God but the pagan Indo-European love of Trinities led to Christianity.

The cross, for example, is a universal along with the circle, square, triangle, etc. But the Christian doctrine of the Cross presents in a profound, 'mysterious' and exemplary fashion the principles contained therein, in an unsurpassed manner, and is recognised as such by spokemen of all the world's spiritual traditions

The Celtic Cross goes back to about 400 BCE. It had the cross and a circle around the central cross. Most did not have a human body on them. They like the symbol of Sol Invictus, represented the Sun with rays going out. This is likely what Flavius Valerius Constantinus saw at the Milvian Bridge. The Egyptian Atenists had a Solar Disc. Mithraists (Roman branch) also had a cross and circle, plus a Eucharistic meal of a bread wafer shaped like the Solar Disc. Is that just coincidence that the later Christians invented a similar solar disc to represent Christ? Mithraists had "saving grace" before it was plagiarised by proto-Christians.

In fact more than one source has noted that, rather than being a derivative and syncretic religion as you suppose, Christianity offers a complete presentation of the principle of religion as such, in which case it should be no surprise to see aspects of all religions reflected therein, as the point is that they reflect their Eternal Source to a greater or lesser degree.

You are saying that because Christianity contains bits and parts of many other older religions that gives it credibility? I do not think so. If I write a song, "You aint nuthing but a hound dog," and claim copyright to it, you might grunt. "An American named Elvis Presley wrote it. I would answer, that only shows my song is more credible because it contains Elvis' words. Therefore, my song, "You aint nuthing but a hound dog," must be mine.

Not true. Nowhere in Scripture is Jesus ever presented as a Prophet, this is a late attempt refute the Revelation in Christ and reduce it by Judaizing it.

Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus claim to be a god. Nowhere in Scripture does anyone else call him a god. Paul implies that Jesus is a subordinate to God. Gospels say that Jesus stated that He was sent by God to do God's work. Jesus says, "I am not good, only God is good." Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "I ascend to my God and your God, to my Father and your Father." Jesus claims equal humanity with Mary Magdalene. Jesus on the cross talks TO GOD saying, "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?" Several other verses uttered by Jesus (the red words) indicate a subordinate status to God and no claims to be God. Christianity is a heresy to the Gospels.

Christianity was not tolerated in the Empire; it was abhorrent to the Greeks, and both Jews and Romans were killing Christians, Christ first, then St Stephen and then St James ... the Persecutions had begun before the New Testament was complete, so your comment is way off the mark.

Rome was the first well known government to have freedom of religion. It did not persecute the early followers of Jesus but Orthodox Jews did. Christians only got in trouble because they refused to pay homage to the Emperor who had legal divine status. Christianity's crime was not being another of a hundred religions. It was a political misconception that failure to bow to the emperor was treasonous.

When Flavius Constantinus under the influence of his Christian convert Mother, removed that problem. The way was open to spread Christianity. Once the flood gates were opened, Emperor Theodosius I made Trinitarian Christianity the only legal religion. The Roman Empire became a Theocracy in 393 CE. Rival Christianities were persecuted first and then they turned on the Pagans (any other religions). Centuries of mass persecutions, the greatest in history were carried out by the Christian Roman Empire and its Eastern and Western halves. Ancient Pagan shrines were demolished and some converted into churches. Learned philosopher-scientists like Hypatia of Alexandria were brutally tortured and killed. 412 CE was the date of onset of the Dark Ages.The Age of Faith (Story of Civilization) Vol 4. by Will Durant.

Something popular will always be copied.

And Christianity was already popular in older religions before Christianity itself was invented in the 4th Century.

Tosh. You really don't understand Paul at all, and to say that Paul and Arius taught the same Christology is laughable.

I read them and clearly Arius was a Paulist. Paul taught this before the term Christian was invented.

[qupte]No. Triunes are universal, by the way, not just European ... but when one says Trinity, with a capital 'T', then comparative religion recognises the Christian Doctrine, which is utterly unique, and not at all reflective of the cosmological and agrarian triunes in European paganism which reflected natural cycles and fertility ... [/quote]

Now you have me laughing. You say that the Christian Trinity is superior to other Trinities because it has a "capital T"? Ha, ha. That is bloody hilarious. It sounds like the kind of thinking of Louis Farakhan.

This is post-modern syncretism collating various gods into a triune with which to counter Christianity ...

Again this is your syncretising of various mythologies out of all proportion to make a point.

I do not need other triunes to disprove Christianity. I have the Bible.

Dagda's father was Elatha and his mother Ethlinn ... Dagda had various lovers, and numerous children, and the various mythologies evolve accordingly.

What is the bloody point?

It seem to me the rest of your post is just more fabrication to mask your prejudice.

I did not fabricate a single thing in this post. Smarter scholars deserve the credit for exposing a false religion based on a human idol who may or may not have even existed historically. The real disproof of Christianity is the irrational concepts, the failure to logically prove false assumptions.

You can start with the two contrary genesis myths, the world flood that never happened, the black immorality of a God who orders Israelite storm troopers to murder the residents of undefended cities (the Egyptian Army had gone.) That black immorality is disgustingly evil. Your god ordered the murder of men, women, children, and babies but take young girls "for yourselves.) Then the unnecessary human sacrifice of Japhtheh's daughter, the unnecessary human sacrifice of Jesus if he did die on the cross. More on the Crucifixion Fantasy.

Amergin

 

[Amergin]

Jesus was crucified in the middle of the day or afternoon. He was taken down before sunset. It means his time on the cross may have been anywhere from one to five hours. Victims of crucifixion often lingered an agonising death on the cross for up to three days. Death in a couple of hours is fishy. So he was supposedly placed in a tomb/cave much like Mithra had been placed. If sundown was 7 PM, and he was in the tomb, at that time, then he spent 5 hours on Friday, 24 hours on Saturday, and 7 hours on Sunday when he walked out. That is 36 hours. Three days, or Three nights is misleading. The number three was picked because it is a magic number and applied to Jonah, Mithra, Apollonius, and most of the other virgin born god-man resurrecting redeemers.

If the couple hours on the cross produced hypoxia, and brain ischaemia, with acidosis so severe as to kill Jesus, how do we know he really died? He may have dropped his blood pressure so low or suffered cardiac arrest to lose consciousness. In this case his brain was getting no oxygen and no blood flow. He not only had anoxia. He had lack of blood perfusion with O2 and glucose. There was no venous blood removing CO2 and other toxins of metabolism. The build-up of neurotransmitter amines and glutamate plus the destruction of calcium channels in the neurons led to Calcium influx, potassium out flux, water permeation and cell swelling.

After a couple hours in this severe state the neuronal nuclei would break up. Mitochondria would burst and cease cellular metabolism. Swelling cells would rupture. In a few more hours his brain, axons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes would necrose. His capillary network would fragment with clots in the stasis of blood flow. Then the brain would turn into a semi-liquid mush. All fibre circuits would be erased. All memories, language functions, learned motor skills (walking), cognitive processing, emotional circuits, vision, hearing, and autonomic regulation. That rather multi-modal autonomic network would control temperature regulation, sweating, cardiac rate regulation, blood pressure control systems, sexual accessory sequence programmes, and the conscious on-off ARAS switch. All of this would have already been lost.

If Jesus truly died, the necrotic brain can produce no electrical saltatory transmission. No synapses would be left anyway. This is "Brain Death" which I am compelled to determine to my great sadness in patients about once per week. True Brain Death is determined by:

1. Loss of pupillary reflexes,
2. Loss of reflexive eye movements (Doll's eyes and caloric reponses,)
3. Loss of corneal responses,
4. Absence of any spontaneous breathing trigger with measured hypoxia/hypercarbia,
5. Loss of patterned motor responses (flaccid paralysis),

Today we have the following:

6. Flat lined EEG done twice 24 hours apart, or non-flow on MRAngiography.
7. In the 24 hour period, blood tests showing zero sedative drug levels.
8. Then that is the final form of death, irreversible Brain Death/necrosis.

None have EVER recovered if the first five criteria are met, in multiple different studies. Since there are no shortages of people dying, the numbers in studies summated are 5 digits. Unfortunately the Gospel writers never mentioned the following:

No one noted a carotid, radial, or femoral pulse on Jesus.
No one noted pupillary reactions, (size, symmetry, light, and accommodation.)
No one noted his ocular motor reflexes (Doll’s Eye, Cold water calorics)
No one checked his patterned motor responses that may persist in some reversible comas.
No one recorded total flaccid paralysis, decerebrate or decorticate rigidity, myoclonus.
No one noted listening to his heart.
No one noted listening to his lungs with an ear or stethoscope.
No one noted presence or absence of corneal reflexes.
No one noted muscle tone.
Naturally no EEG was done. So we don’t know if he was flat-lined.

So we can’t say with certainty if he died…on the cross. Until very recent times and in many substandard medical care facilities, determinations of death or brain death prove to be incorrect when the patient awakens screaming in the Morgue. Did Jesus actually die based on the written narrative? We may never know. And if did not die, the rest of the story would be different. There would not have been a resurrection. And we would be celebrating Mithra’s birth on 25 Dec, Mithramas.

So if Jesus really died, and was dead 36 or 39 hours, his brain was a featureless mush. No blood flow meant no oxygen, no removal of glutamate, no prevention of open Calcium ion channels, and no maintenance of membrane stability of neurones. Then apoptosis (cell death) occurred. There was nothing with which to activate the cortex for consciousness, no perception, no awareness, no vision, no hearing, no tactile sensation, no motor neuronal firing along axons to activate muscles, no circuits to think, or circuits to talk. There would be no neurons, no axons, and no synapses to transmit data.

To truly resurrect as the person Jesus, his entire brain would have to be remade from scratch with 100 billion intact neurons, axons, myelin sheathes, synapses, ample concentrations of neurotransmitters at pre-synaptic nerve endings, and normal transmitter receptors on healthy dendrites of neurons. The new brain would have to be an EXACT COPY of his original brain down to each synapse in the original place. And the trillions of circuits (and million billion synapses) of the individual person would have to be exactly re-duplicated in the pre-death patterns. That has never been known to occur. One must postulate very special magic, and magic has yet to be proven to exist. The burden of proof that Jesus died and resurrected is on the person making that extraordinary claim. What is the proof that he died? And how can they explain the rewiring of the most complex computer ever known aside from magic.

So a truly dead Jesus resurrecting would not be possible outside of the realm of fantastic magic and fantasy thinking. Believers would say nothing is impossible with the excuse...miracles (i.e. magic). But that is unprovable. It is trying to explain the impossible with the unknown.

So either Jesus died end of story: OR he resurrected (awoke from shock-trauma coma), did not die, but not both. And we will never know.

Humans still cling to magic and superstition and will likely do so for the future. Only people with strong reason, analytical skills, and intact sceptical brain circuits will be able to understand why backward humans invent magic and invisible phantasms. I love being free of ignorance and superstition.

Ingersoll's Love of Freedom will follow.

Amergin

 

[Amergin]

The Joy of Freedom


When I became convinced
that the Universe is natural,
that all the ghosts and gods are myths,
there entered into my brain, into my soul,
into every drop of my blood, the sense,
the feeling, the joy of Freedom.

The walls of my prison crumbled and fell.
The dungeon was flooded with light
and all the bolts, bars
and manacles became dust.
I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave.
There was for me no master in all of the wide world,
not even in the infinite space. I was free.

Free to think, to express my thoughts,
Free to live to my own ideal,
Free to live for myself and those I loved,
Free to use my faculties, all my senses,
Free to spread imagination's wings,
Free to investigate, to guess and dream, and hope;
Free to judge and determine for myself,
Free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds,
all the "inspired" books
that savages have produced,
and all the barbarous legends of the past.

Free from popes and priests,
Free from all the "called" and the "set apart,"
Free from the sanctified mistakes and holy lies,
Free from the fear of eternal pain,
Free from the winged monsters of the night,
Free from devils, ghosts and gods.

For the first time I was free.
There were no prohibited places
in all the realms of my thought:
no air, no space,
where fancy could not spread her painted wings.
No chains for my limbs,
No lashes for my back,
No fires for my flesh,
No master's frown or threat,
No following another's steps;
No need to bow, or cringe, or crawl,
or utter lying words.

I was free.
I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously,
faced all worlds;
And my heart was filled with gratitude,
with thankfulness, and went out in love
To all the heroes
and the thinkers who gave their lives
for the Liberty of hand and brain,
for the freedom of labor and thought;
Free from popes and priests,
Free from all the "called" and the "set apart,"
Free from the sanctified mistakes and holy lies,
Free from the fear of eternal pain,
Free from the winged monsters of the night,
Free from devils, ghosts and gods.

For the first time I was free.
There were no prohibited places
in all the realms of my thought:
no air, no space,
where fancy could not spread her painted wings.
No chains for my limbs,
No lashes for my back,
No fires for my flesh,
No master's frown or threat,
No following another's steps;
No need to bow, or cringe, or crawl,
or utter lying words.

I was free.
I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously,
faced all worlds;
And my heart was filled with gratitude,
with thankfulness, and went out in love
To all the heroes
and the thinkers who gave their lives
for the Liberty of hand and brain,
for the freedom of labor and thought;
To those who fell on the fierce fields of war,
To those who died in the dungeons with chains,
To those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs,
To those whose bones were crushed,
whose flesh was scarred and torn,
To those by fire consumed;
To all the wise, the good, the brave of every land,
whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom
to the sons and daughters of men and women.

And I vowed to grasp the torch that they held,
and hold it high,
that light might conquer darkness still.

--Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)

I love this poem because it expresses my happiness at being freed from the shackles of ignorance and the chains binding the minds of theists.

Amergin

 

[Thomas]

Hi Amergin —

That is why I read about critiques of Christianity. I studied early Christian history when I was in college, and found that much of it contradicted to traditional beliefs.

Depends who's 'tradition' you're talkiing about ... if it's the Catholic/Orthodox Tradition, then modern opinion might differ from tradition ... but that's purely someone's opinion, not fact. All the arguments have sound responses.

I was for many years a follower of the Sophia Perennis and a believer in the 'Transcendent Unity of Religion', until I saw the flaws in the philosophy. I do enjoy comparative religion as a subject however.

Baron d'Holbach ...

You missed some important ones, like Reimarus and Strauss, who started the whole 'historical Jesus' shebang. Then there's Albert Schweitzer, a keen supporter until he saw through the fallacy of the pursuit, then there's the 'second quest' under Bultmann, who has now been shown to be erroneous regarding his assertions (some of which still hold, regardless), and finally the whole 'Jesus Seminar' debate ...

The point is I could oppose your list with an equally long and impressive list on the other side of the coin ...

Scholars of Comparative Religion like Gerald Massey...

Who's rather fantastic claims were refuted by serious Egyptologists.

The rest is a list of the opinions of those who choose not to believe. Each follows his or her own line of reasoning, But they don't all follow a single line, which shows it's their conjecture only.

Nor does intellectual capacity have any bearing on faith.

And again, you're mistaking an opinion for a proof or a reason not to believe. I can equally compile lists of scholars, brilliant minds, artists, scientists, etc., who see otherwise.

So this kind of list-making gets one nowhere, and proves nothing.

Humans do have a religious impulse but most of it is not to Christianity. As many pick Allah, or Brahma. That religious impulse has gone back probably 40,000 years if we consider the carved figurines and cave art.

Quite. The impulse calls man to union with the divine. I don't disagree with that, and nor does Scripture. St Paul actually refers to it, more than once.

The process of turning Jesus, a rabbi or teacher into a prophet, a messiah, a minor god (Arianism), to a full God but the pagan Indo-European love of Trinities led to Christianity.

I admire you for continuing to peddle the same line even after its been demonstrated to be false.

What you appear not to do is look at what the doctrine says, you simply assume, by the name, that it must be the same as, or a derivative of, every other doctrine which bears some nominal resemblance.

I can also argue how triunes occur in nature religions as partial and vestigial signifiers of the Eternal Truth as it is accessible to human reason, which in no way detracts from the data of Revelation which, by its nature, transcends the penetrative gaze of the intellect and reveals the interior life of the Deity.

The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is all about the interior life and 'movement' in the Godhead. The pagan triunes are all about the process of the seasons.

The Celtic Cross goes back to about 400 BCE.

Really? Until I see some evidence, I'll regard that with some skepticism. However, that's not the point. What matters is the understandings attached to the symbols.

The Christian Cross offers a unique insight into the possibility of Divine Union between creature and creator that far surpasses any other doctrine.

... Sol Invictus ... a Solar Disc ... Mithraists (Roman branch) also had a cross and circle ...

Quite ... but they were solar cults, Christianity isn't a solar cult, the very thing you miss.

Is that just coincidence that the later Christians invented a similar solar disc to represent Christ?

No. Rather the Christians saw the transcendent meaning of the symbol that is largely, but not entirely, absent in paganism.

Mithraists had "saving grace" before it was plagiarised by proto-Christians.

No, I think the odds suggest that the Mithraic similarities were taken from Christianity, not the other way round.

You are saying that because Christianity contains bits and parts of many other older religions that gives it credibility?

No, I'm saying the 'bits and parts', or rather the insights and inspirations of older religions find their ontological home in Christianity.

Christianity explains them, they do not explain Christianity.

Nowhere in Scripture does Jesus claim to be a god.

Actually He does, often ... you're reading Scripture with a skeptical, post-modern (in)sensibility. If you read it as a 1st century testimony, within the context of Hebrew monotheism, the claim to deity is inescapable.

Nowhere in Scripture does anyone else call him a god.

Er, besides Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, d'you mean ... and Paul, and the author of Hebrews ... again, it's not that it's not there, it's rather that you lack the hermeneutic keys.

Paul implies that Jesus is a subordinate to God. Gospels say that Jesus stated that He was sent by God to do God's work. Jesus says, "I am not good, only God is good." Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "I ascend to my God and your God, to my Father and your Father." Jesus claims equal humanity with Mary Magdalene. Jesus on the cross talks TO GOD saying, "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?" Several other verses uttered by Jesus (the red words) indicate a subordinate status to God and no claims to be God. Christianity is a heresy to the Gospels.

Or Paul implies the Trinitarian Mystery of Perichoresis (Gk) Circumincession (Lt).
A Jew would never describe anyone as 'a subordinate to God' so that argument is nonsense. Nor, if Jesus was not God, would a Jew offer prayers, sacrifice, or anything in His name ... only because the first Christians were in no doubt that Jesus was the Son of God, the Word made flesh, the Spirit incarnate, does Scripture and praxis make any sense at all.

Rome was the first well known government to have freedom of religion.

Was it? Not the Greeks, then? Nor the Egyptians? Nor many other cultures in the region?

It did not persecute the early followers of Jesus but Orthodox Jews did.

Absolute tosh. Christians were still allowed in the Synagogue up until the 70s or thereabouts ... Romans were persecuting Christians much earlier than that, and the Jews had no authority to persecute outside of Judea.

That Nero chose to blame the Christians for the fire in Rome is a case in point, and in the 60s Christians aflame were used as street lighting. And it was Rome who killed Peter and Paul.

Christians only got in trouble because they refused to pay homage to the Emperor who had legal divine status.

No, that's an aspect, but not the totality. That was the test ...

412 CE was the date of onset of the Dark Ages.The Age of Faith (Story of Civilization) Vol 4. by Will Durant.

And almosty every historian now agrees that the term 'Dark Ages' is a misnomer.

I read them and clearly Arius was a Paulist. Paul taught this before the term Christian was invented.

Well you clearly haven't understood it. Arius was a Platonist, too influenced by Origen.

Now you have me laughing. You say that the Christian Trinity is superior to other Trinities because it has a "capital T"? Ha, ha. That is bloody hilarious. It sounds like the kind of thinking of Louis Farakhan.

Actually it's the commonly agreed nomenclature of the scholars of Comparative Religion. When one talks of 'The Prophet' one immediately understands Mohammed; when one talks of 'The Enlightened One' one immediately thinks Buddhism; when one talks of 'The Trinity' or 'Incarnation' one thinks of Christianity.

The point being that Mohammed was enlightened, for example, and Christ made prophecies ... so when one is using a term generically, one uses the lower case, but when one is referring to a specific and accepted doctrine, one uses the capital.

So laugh all you like ... I side with the scholars.

I do not need other triunes to disprove Christianity. I have the Bible.

What is the bloody point?

The point, as I am sure you know, is that you're throwing things together, often fictitious, which have no real relation outside of your head, and presenting them as 'evidence'.

I did not fabricate a single thing in this post.

OK. Then you need to widen your sources and read not only those whom you accept, but the arguments of those whom you don't.

Just stop for a moment and think ... Do you really suppose, after some 2,000 years of study, meditation, contemplation and insight, that no-one would have thought of any of this before, and worked it out?

Origen and Clement, for two, Alexandrian philosophers, Platonists, and Christians, had answered most of your objections by the 2nd century.

Irenaeus knocked the old 'gnostic' debate into touch a century before ... it's just that modern pseudo-gnostics never bother to read critically, so tend to make the same mistakes all over again...

Smarter scholars deserve the credit for exposing a false religion based on a human idol who may or may not have even existed historically. The real disproof of Christianity is the irrational concepts, the failure to logically prove false assumptions.

Tosh ... they've 'exposed' nothing, they simply offer their own theses. My 'smarter scholars' deserve credit for exposing the fallacies in the arguments of your 'smarter scholars' ... so you're back to picking sides again.

I don't care whether you choose to believe or not believe, but please don't try and fool others into thinking there are 'proofs' and 'reasons' not to believe ... there's just faith, or the lack of it.

If you want a serious philosophical heavy-hitter on the side of the gods, check out Denys Turner on youtube.

Thomas

 

[taijasi]

The esoteric doctrine teaches that Jesus never died at all on the cross, but practiced the same abilities of the eastern yogins and slowed all of the usual signs of life to a minimum. The occupant of the body may well have been required to withdraw temporarily, yet the Sutratma (see below) remained intact, and Jesus survived the same crucifixion ordeal ... which ordinarily kills.

Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. (Ecc. 12:6)​

There is a tradition that for thirty years Jesus taught in the subtle form, for even if/though he may have survived the ordeal of the cross, it was not possible or convenient for him to continue to teach outwardly and openly as he was able to do - for a briefly sustained THREE year ministry. These numbers - the first 12 years of his life, the first 30, the 3 of his ministry (making 33 total), the 30 years in the subtle body ... even the 18 `missing' years (and their curious sets of mathematical factors) - all have a meaning which is more or less clear to Masons, Kabbalists and numerologists. Not much sense denying this; one may either smile and be a part of the mystery (or seek it), or simply be none the wiser.

There is nothing miraculous in the least about the aforementioned yogic abilities, whether Jesus learned them from the Essenes, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Hindus or the Buddhists (or a combination of several of these). The Initiation experience - like such obvious universal themes as the TRIUNE manifestation of both God and Man - can be expressed, taught and understood in a variety of ways, yet each echoes the same Inner (or certainly Innermost) Reality(ies).

The great tragedy is that some men feel obliged to puff themselves up by pretending that their tradition hatched all of this somehow, rather than contributing yet further to a World Tradition which may only rightly be considered as existing ... since the very dawn of life on Earth, even before time began. Really now, can't we stop with the "my penis is bigger" braggadocio and move on to somewhat more mature considerations?

 

[Thomas]

Jesus was crucified in the middle of the day or afternoon. He was taken down before sunset. It means his time on the cross may have been anywhere from one to five hours. Victims of crucifixion often lingered an agonising death on the cross for up to three days.

That's why, as the story says, the Jews asked for their legs to be broken, so that they would be dead before sundown.

Death in a couple of hours is fishy. So he was supposedly placed in a tomb/cave much like Mithra had been placed.

Or vice versa.

If sundown was 7 PM, and he was in the tomb, at that time, then he spent 5 hours on Friday, 24 hours on Saturday, and 7 hours on Sunday when he walked out. That is 36 hours. Three days, or Three nights is misleading.

Oh dear ... d'you suppose this is a new argument? Or one that hasn't been adequately answered already?

The number three was picked because it is a magic number and applied to Jonah, Mithra, Apollonius, and most of the other virgin born god-man resurrecting redeemers.

And why did they pick the number three?

Apart from the point that 'Jonah, Mithra, Apollonius' et al, are not 'virgin born, god man, resurrecting redeemers' are they?

And does it occur that three is a magical number for a reason? And if so, why would not 'the real deal' also not express itself through sacred numerology? I would have been surprised if it didn't ... the truth is one, after all.

That the supernatural expresses itself through the natural seems entirely reasonable. That the supernatural explains the natural seems reasonable to me also.

If the couple hours on the cross produced hypoxia, and brain ischaemia, with acidosis so severe as to kill Jesus, how do we know he really died?

Well that's a question of faith, isn't it? I mean, excuse me for pointing out the bleeding obvious, but that's the whole point of faith, innit?

But really, as the only testimony we have is that He did survive, what reason, apart from incredulity, have you to suppose He didn't?

He may have dropped his blood pressure so low or suffered cardiac arrest to lose consciousness...

He may have been a spirit and not flesh. He may have been Judas and not Jesus. He may have been someone else altogether. He may have been taken down fully conscious as part of a conspiracy. He may have been an alien ... there's a load of 'may be's', so take your pick.

None have EVER recovered if the first five criteria are met, in multiple different studies.

No one is claiming that Jesus recovered ... the clue is in the word 'resurrection'.

No one noted a carotid, radial, or femoral pulse on Jesus.
No one noted pupillary reactions, (size, symmetry, light, and accommodation.)
No one noted his ocular motor reflexes (Doll’s Eye, Cold water calorics)
No one checked his patterned motor responses that may persist in some reversible comas.
No one recorded total flaccid paralysis, decerebrate or decorticate rigidity, myoclonus.
No one noted listening to his heart.
No one noted listening to his lungs with an ear or stethoscope.
No one noted presence or absence of corneal reflexes.
No one noted muscle tone.
Naturally no EEG was done. So we don’t know if he was flat-lined.

Dang! What were they thinking of?

Then again, the soldiers of the Legion were there, and they were pretty expert in making sure that people who were supposed to be dead, were dead ... especially trouble makers ... and that spear thrust to the side, 'the legionnaire's cut', was usually conclusive.

And we would be celebrating Mithra’s birth on 25 Dec, Mithramas.

No chance. Mithraism was a man-only cult, and never really caught on in the popular consciousness, did it? And we all might now be Moslem, as the kingdoms of Europe would have toppled one by one to the Moslem expansion.

To truly resurrect as the person Jesus, his entire brain would have to be remade from scratch with 100 billion intact neurons, axons, myelin sheathes, synapses, ample concentrations of neurotransmitters at pre-synaptic nerve endings, and normal transmitter receptors on healthy dendrites of neurons. The new brain would have to be an EXACT COPY of his original brain down to each synapse in the original place. And the trillions of circuits (and million billion synapses) of the individual person would have to be exactly re-duplicated in the pre-death patterns. That has never been known to occur. One must postulate very special magic, and magic has yet to be proven to exist. The burden of proof that Jesus died and resurrected is on the person making that extraordinary claim. What is the proof that he died? And how can they explain the rewiring of the most complex computer ever known aside from magic.

Or the work of the Logos.

So a truly dead Jesus resurrecting would not be possible outside of the realm of fantastic magic and fantasy thinking.

Not quite. A dead Jesus resurrecting would not be possible inside the realm of your closed, rationalistic, empirical thinking that assumes that if you can't see it, it must be nonsense ...

What stands out is your faith in the empirical sciences, a faith which claims for more than the science on which it is founded ever would. As such, it's a blind faith, the blindness in this case meaning that not only does it not question, it doesn't even realise it's a faith.

Believers would say nothing is impossible with the excuse...miracles (i.e. magic). But that is unprovable. It is trying to explain the impossible with the unknown.

A bit like Quantum Theory then ... Or any kind of scientific speculation.

So either Jesus died end of story: OR he resurrected (awoke from shock-trauma coma), did not die, but not both. And we will never know.

Or, He died, and He resurrected.

Humans still cling to magic and superstition and will likely do so for the future. Only people with strong reason, analytical skills, and intact sceptical brain circuits will be able to understand why backward humans invent magic and invisible phantasms. I love being free of ignorance and superstition.

Oh, you poor deluded you! You've traded one set of 'superstitions' for another!

A couple of centuries ago, people like you claimed that science had discovered everything, and no more mysteries remained. When the inventor of the phonograph demonstrated his device, he was accused of being a charlatan, of throwing his voice!

Think: How often will 'reason' and 'analytics' be obliged to tear down their edifices and go back to square one! How many times have we (as believers) been told "That is scientifically proven to be impossible" only for the archeological evidence to turn up and make a nonsense of all your infallible claims?

Don't you see that, by all that's reasonable and logical, you're the one with the closed mind?

I grapple with my faith all the time. I question all the time. There's not a day go by when part of me doesn't think, 'this is ridiculous, isn't it?' D'you not think, in the cool of the night, that I sometimes wonder, "Can this really be true?" Unlike you however, I don't set the benchmark at the limit of my own credibility. I review the data, and keep my options open.

Nor has, in 2,000 years, Christianity been required to re-invent itself and its doctrines to 'keep pace' with our growth in understanding, unlike your own sciences, which are thereby demonstrably far more fallible and uncertain than mine.

+++

Why, d'you think, if the idea of bodily resurrection was so important, does Scripture say that those who saw Christ did not recognise Him? I mean, if it was faked, or fabled, or invented, it would have made more sense to say 'And there He was, good as new!" But no. Mary, one of his closest, doesn't recognise Him.

Why, d'you think, if the idea of bodily resurrection was so bloomin' important, did the Gospel scribes cast doubt upon their own story by having Him appear suddenly in locked rooms?

If you really want to understand, you're going to have to look beyond the surface and the superficial.

Thomas

 

[iBrian]

On the importance of the Resurrection - it would be interesting to see how claims of Mark 16 being a later addition stack up, because if true as claimed, it would mean the Resurrection story itself was a later addition to early Christian beliefs.

Ironically, what we have is a god-like figure attributed with the typical main symbols of agriculture (bread and wine) who dies and is then risen again - a pretty common theme, which would have been very common across the Roman Empire in various guises.

In which case, is the Resurrection really so crucial to Christianity, and if so, how does the Mark 16 issue affect it?

Mark 16 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Thomas]

The esoteric doctrine teaches that Jesus never died at all on the cross, but practiced the same abilities of the eastern yogins and slowed all of the usual signs of life to a minimum.

It seems to me that such a response is not esoterism at all, is it? That's patently the rational mind explaining the esoteric away, that's someone saying: 'this can't be true, there must be a rational explanation! I know, it's a trick!'

What's so esoteric about being able to hold one's breath? If that were true, David Blaine would be a high priest in your order.

And the little fact that if what you claim is true, then your 'Jesus' is, by any standard, a liar and a cheat hiding behind tricks and deceptions, and I would have thought you'd be the first to decry the dreadful karmic fate for his deception ... so I can't think why you make so much out of the teaching, if the founder is, by your argument, a fraud.

- all have a meaning which is more or less clear to Masons, Kabbalists and numerologists. Not much sense denying this; one may either smile and be a part of the mystery (or seek it), or simply be none the wiser.

None at all, as for the most part Masons, Kabbalists and astrologers delight in the glamour of their 'mysteries' ...

... far greater is the mystery in plain sight. There is a Zen saying: "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water" ... far too mundane for the likes of the above ... nothing can ever be simply what it is.

There is nothing miraculous in the least about the aforementioned yogic abilities...

Ergo nothing esoteric either.

The great tragedy is that some men feel obliged to puff themselves up by pretending that their tradition hatched all of this somehow...

All I claim is what is rightly, and uniquely, mine.

... rather than contributing yet further to a World Tradition which may only rightly be considered as existing ...

Actually it's quite easy to demonstrate that the 'world tradition' is an intellectualist construct ... as without the data transmitted by the various Spiritual Traditions, there's nothing to it.

The World Tradition is nothing but a Wizard of Oz like voice saying 'yes, we gave you that ... yes, and we gave you that, too ... ' to all the great traditions of the world.

since the very dawn of life on Earth, even before time began. Really now, can't we stop with the "my penis is bigger" braggadocio and move on to somewhat more mature considerations?

Whatever you choose to do in yourt own time is down to you, dear chap ... but please don't assume we all amuse ourelves by playing the same games as you.

So, here's a mature consideration for you:

There is a tradition that for thirty years Jesus taught in the subtle form

This is the third unsubstantiated claim you make for Christianity in this thread and thus the third time I will call you to substantiate it, and no doubt there will be a third time you will appear unable to do so.

Thomas

 

[bananabrain]

They designed the personalities of the gods. JHWH was designed likely on an earlier human War Lord, hero, or some natural phenomena like fire, volcanism. I personally think that fire and volcanism were influential in JHWH from the Semitic Fire God, but his personality more likely was based on typical Stone Age War Lords. These traits included fearsomeness, cruelty, power, jealousy, vindictiveness, capriciousness, demand for worship, severe punishment for disobedience. Thus "fear of God" occurred thousands of years before the odd "Love of God."

the word you translate as "fear" would be more accurately translated as "awe". so why, amergin, do you suppose G!D Decided not to have abraham go through with the sacrifice of his son? why do you suppose that G!D Saved noah? why did G!D Allow abraham to argue over the fate of sodom and gomorrah? why did G!D Bring forth the jews from egypt? or, if you prefer, why would we have wanted these traits included in our "myths"? isn't it at all possible that we might have thought something else than war and conflict was worth aspiring to?

The Jews had a nasty, killer God called JHWH

that must be why we became so influential in the world. no, there can't have been anything positive about it. i notice you're not having a go at the greeks or romans whose deities (as well as themselves) indulged in far more capricious and unpleasant behaviour.

It did not persecute the early followers of Jesus but Orthodox Jews did.

"orthodox" jews? the term orthodoxy wasn't used till the C18th.

the black immorality of a God who orders Israelite storm troopers to murder the residents of undefended cities (the Egyptian Army had gone.) That black immorality is disgustingly evil.

is that really the best you can do? i don't even know where to start with such a tendentious, bigoted position. look, either you think the Torah is an accurate record of what actually happened, or you don't. if you do, then on what basis do you say that the flood didn't happen, but the slaughter of the midianites did - why is the text not trusted in one place, but trusted in another to mean exactly what it says? if you don't, then on what basis do you think the text can be used as evidence to accuse G!D of genocide? you're trying to have your cake and eat it. suffice it to say that this is not how *we*, the people who live the Torah, understand it. all you are doing is the equivalent of some evangelist wingnut claiming that richard dawkins wants to have all religious people shot. you clearly don't understand how the text works, how to read it or how to interpret it. i don't see you accusing the greeks of ethnic cleansing during the sack of troy! what absolute superficial nonsense.

b'shalom

bananabrain

 

[Thomas]

On the importance of the Resurrection - it would be interesting to see how claims of Mark 16 being a later addition stack up, because if true as claimed, it would mean the Resurrection story itself was a later addition to early Christian beliefs.

I think that might be over-stating the case. It is agreed that if we exclude Mark 16:9 et seq Nothing substantially changes, as no doctrine stands on these verses alone.

It is generally agreed that Mark's gospel is Peter's testimony, then we have evidence to show that Peter was a witness to the resurrection, and preached as much ... from what evidence we do have, the resurrection was a known message before Mark's gospel was written.

Paul/Luke, for example, draw on other traditions than the Markan for the entire Passion account. And it's obvious from Paul, writing in the 50s, that the Resurrection was part of the Christian message, before Mark wrote in the 60/70s.

Ironically, what we have is a god-like figure attributed with the typical main symbols of agriculture (bread and wine) who dies and is then risen again - a pretty common theme, which would have been very common across the Roman Empire in various guises.

But not in Judaism, and the idea would be unacceptable to those who formed the early Christian community.

The idea that in dying and rising, all die and rise in Him, was, I think, unique and startlingly original. So while there are external aspects common to many traditions, there are internal dimensions that are genuinely Christian, and Christological (and, indeed Trinitarian).

What is rarely contemplated is not 'just' that Christ died for all as a sacrifice for sin, but that in the Resurrection, all rise in Christ to the Father ... that it is not Christ who rises, but in His resurrection and ascension, the whole cosmos is taken up into the Deity ... the Body offered up in the Eucharist today is not the Body of the Person of Christ, the Corpus Natum, but the body if the whole Church the Corpus Eucharisticum or, in another sense, the Corpus Mysticum.

The Early Community, the koinonia, firmly believed in the idea of Christ's presence among them at the Eucharistic Table ... an idea that receded as time went on, and is absent in this rationalistic and anti-mystical age and ego-centric age.

They profoundly believed themselves in Christ. This idea has now been inverted to mean 'Christ in me' which posits the egoic 'I' as the senior partner in this somewhat suspicious and self-justifying arrangement.

In which case, is the Resurrection really so crucial to Christianity,

Yes. absolutely central.

1 Corinthians 15:
"For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures: And that he was seen by Cephas; and after that by the eleven. Then he was seen by more than five hundred brethren at once: of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time ... But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."
This was written some time between 53-57 ... before Mark's gospel.

and if so, how does the Mark 16 issue affect it?

It doesn't.

Thomas

 

[Quahom1]

I think Bruce Shelley's "Church History in Plain Language", is a pretty accurate description of history for Christianity. It is well researched and approved of by scholars of various religious beliefs (besides Christianity). Mark Noll even thought to add a Forward to the book, which is saying alot for the credibility of the book.

v/r

Q

 

[iBrian]

Amergin, didn't you make a point earlier about gods being essentially a projection of their environment, not least the rulers and physical conditions they faced?

In which case, if interpreting the OT literally, then how would the actions of an "angry god" for the Jews different from the plain malicious gods of the Greek pantheon, for example? Or any other late Bronze Age/early Iron Age people?

The idea that in dying and rising, all die and rise in Him, was, I think, unique and startlingly original.

I think you'll find agrarian belief systems were pretty tied up to the concept of the world and all life dying and then being reborn - that in itself does not seem terribly unique.

What Christianity, I find, does that no one else does, is promote a sense of equality and justice that none others do - from what agrarian systems I've read, there was no difference between life and death - everything was essentially the same.

You carried on your same labours, at the same social level, whether you were in this life or the next. This is still pretty common among existing agrarian systems, from what I've read about NDE's.

That's what I meant about Christianity introducing a form of "spiritual communism" in an earlier post - in a world divided between "free men" and "slaves", and with patriarchal bias among genders, suddenly anybody, from any background, social position, etc, could be equal. That was truly revolutionary.

I personally find that the more interesting as the syncretic nature of Christianity otherwise seems a given outside of faith sources, but that one idea is a powerful one - be equal, or be damned.

Maybe for a new thread, though.

 

[bob x]

Then again, the soldiers of the Legion were there, and they were pretty expert in making sure that people who were supposed to be dead, were dead ...

No, that's not true at all. NOBODY had a good concept of where the borderline between life and death was, back then-- or for a very long time afterwards. Burial alive was still common until frighteningly recent times. They didn't even know how to check a pulse, back then. We are told that Jesus "gave up the ghost" as King James puts it, that is, uttered the characteristic "death rattle" sound of a final breath-- and people back then thought of the soul as going out with the breath. But did his heart stop? We don't know. Did brain waves cease? I would think that brain was very very active, but my time machine is busted, so I can't get an EEG scan.

and that spear thrust to the side, 'the legionnaire's cut', was usually conclusive.

Actually, what it proves is that the heart was not stopped yet, else blood would not still flow; but of course the spear thrust itself might have punctured the heart, and made it stop. The heart would be a good target for the legionnaire to aim at, you would think. But you are assuming facts not in evidence when you say such a cut was "usually conclusive": oh? how many other cases like it do you know? The text makes it plain that this was not the "usual" procedure at all, maybe not something that had ever been done in a crucifixion case before. Clear fluid came out along with the blood: fluid accumulation in the lungs, impairing the breathing, is thought to be what probably killed, in a crucifixion; maybe this spear thrust actually helped him, by draining the fluid.

Mary, one of his closest, doesn't recognise Him.

What did she see?

She saw a naked, dirty man crusted in scabs, barely able to stand, awkwardly trying to cover his privates with hands that didn't quite work, hungry and thirsty, but mostly in need of a long hot bath, which he wasn't likely to get for the two pennies he had taken from his eyes.

She was very confused. What was a naked dirty man doing way out here, this hour of a Sunday morning? She asked...

Oh Lord have pity, she asked him, "Are you the gardener?"

 

[Amergin]

On the importance of the Resurrection - it would be interesting to see how claims of Mark 16 being a later addition stack up, because if true as claimed, it would mean the Resurrection story itself was a later addition to early Christian beliefs.

The Church's story is quite suspect because it was edited and compiled 400 years later. Many other gospels were omitted because they did not fit Church mythology. What originally bothered me was that other than the scriptures Jesus escaped notice of the Romans. Romans advertised across the empire when a rebel, insurectionist, or usurper was executed by crusifixion. Romans kept compulsive records but Pilate's records do not mention one Jesus of Nazareth. Apologists point to Josephus and later Roman writers mentioning Christianians. The two sentences in Josephus have been shown to be a fraudulent insert long after his death. The other historians simply recorded that a Christ Cult existed. If the sign on the cross was "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" it would mean Jesus was a political prisoner and usurper not a god or prophet. However even that is absent in the records.

Ironically, what we have is a god-like figure attributed with the typical main symbols of agriculture (bread and wine) who dies and is then risen again - a pretty common theme, which would have been very common across the Roman Empire in various guises.

Excellent point.

In which case, is the Resurrection really so crucial to Christianity, and if so, how does the Mark 16 issue affect it?

Mark 16 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personally I think that if there were a Yeshua or someone like him (Honi, Simon Bar Cochba, Hinara ben Dosi, and John the Baptist) his death was largely ignored. Only much later Paul and the Evangelists made up his biography based on a number of previous virgin born saviours killed and risen. Mithra was probably fictional like Jesus or an exaggerated and deified human who did good. In its competition with the mixes of Triune Cults in the Empire the competition with Mithra may have been a factor in the persecution of the nearly identical Mithraism. Christianity won because it wised reached out to women.

It is sad that after the full Roman Paganisation of Christianity women were oppressed to servant status, leading to 1700 years of brutality to women.

Tha thu Albannach, Brian? I was born in a small town near Inverness, Inverness-shire a few decades ago more or less. After the Falklands, I gave up a military career. I had served in the Royal Highland Fusiliers and later Scots Guard in the war and Ulster. That was enough for me. I opted for science and medicine at U. of Edinburgh.

A few years ago I moved to Donegal for the Gaelic speaking area and lower taxes. Is duine ana-creidmheach mise. An e Críosdaidh a tha annad? Is ball mise dhe an Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba.

You might check this site from Scotsman.com on the Stone Age village of Skara Brae where I worked as a tour guide during college. It is in the Orkney Islands.

Feicfidh mé arís ar ball tú. Air do dheagh shlàinte!

Amergin (Amhairghine)

 

[bob x]

The Church's story is quite suspect because it was edited and compiled 400 years later.

Gross exaggeration. The gospels are well attested in the 2nd century.

Romans advertised across the empire when a rebel, insurectionist, or usurper was executed by crusifixion.

No they didn't.

Romans kept compulsive records but Pilate's records do not mention one Jesus of Nazareth.

You have an extraordinarily exaggerated notion of how much we have surviving from Roman times. The sum total of official output that we have from Pilate's administration, for one example, is one building dedication: that survives because it was cut in stone.

Apologists point to Josephus and later Roman writers mentioning Christianians. The two sentences in Josephus have been shown to be a fraudulent insert long after his death.

One paragraph has obviously been reworked by a Christian hand, but it is unlikely it was a blank in the original text of Josephus. The other mention is clearly genuine, and hardly anyone even tries to argue otherwise.

Personally I think that if there were a Yeshua or someone like him (Honi, Simon Bar Cochba, Hinara ben Dosi, and John the Baptist) his death was largely ignored.

Yeah, yeah, hardly anyone's even talking about it anymore....

Only much later Paul and the Evangelists made up his biography based on a number of previous virgin born saviours killed and risen.

Name me one single solitary example of a "virgin born savior killed and risen."

Mithra was probably fictional like Jesus or an exaggerated and deified human who did good.

No, he is the Sun.

In its competition with the mixes of Triune Cults in the Empire the competition with Mithra may have been a factor in the persecution of the nearly identical Mithraism.

Mithraism, so far as we can reconstruct, had very little in common with Christianity. And your "Triune Cults" are just arbitrary constructs where you grab three, any three, out of largish pantheons and proclaim them a triune.

It is sad that after the full Roman Paganisation of Christianity women were oppressed to servant status, leading to 1700 years of brutality to women.

And prior to Christianity what was their status?

 

[Amergin]

.

Actually, what it proves is that the heart was not stopped yet, else blood would not still flow; but of course the spear thrust itself might have punctured the heart, and made it stop. The heart would be a good target for the legionnaire to aim at, you would think. But you are assuming facts not in evidence when you say such a cut was "usually conclusive": oh? how many other cases like it do you know? The text makes it plain that this was not the "usual" procedure at all, maybe not something that had ever been done in a crucifixion case before. Clear fluid came out along with the blood: fluid accumulation in the lungs, impairing the breathing, is thought to be what probably killed, in a crucifixion; maybe this spear thrust actually helped him, by draining the fluid.

The fluid flowing from the spear thrust into the abdomen was described as a mixture of blood and water. That fits with ascited, fluid accumulation in the peritoneal cavity (not the heart or GI tract.) Jesus was hanging in a position that leads to partial heart failure. The longer it lasts Cardiac Failure leads to fluid accumulation in the legs and abdomen with insufficient pressure left to send blood to the brain.

We have no idea if Jesus' cardiac failure led to that kind of shock but it is medically likely. The longer he was in cardiogenic shock, the more fluid in the abdomen. Also the less and less Oxygen to the brain and removal of cellular CO2.

The Soldier's spear could have helped relieve the shock but unless Jesus was taken down soon, his brain cells became anoxic. Such a state can only be tolerated for a number of minutes before irreversible damage occurs.

So the question is two.

Did the spear thrust buy Jesus some time?

Was Jesus taken down before the brain became totally anoxic? If so, he might have had blood flow restored to the brain when he was taken down and placed in supine position. That does not mean he would regain consciousness immediately. Such cases of Cardiac hypovolemic shock I have seen in my hospital practice. They can wake up quickly or remain comatose for weeks.

Could Jesus have been in Cardiac Shock with Brain hypoxia, taken down, with restoration of blood flow? Then when taken to the tomb he had 36 hours or so for restored flow to permit restoration of consciousness. Many such cases of prolonged brain hypoxia leave residuals of severe short term memory loss, severe amnesia, and even loss of memory for events before he went into shock.

So on Easter Sunday, did Jesus awake from Brain hypovolemic shock due to Cardiac failure. If so was he aware of what happened. Would he have recognized Mary Magdalene? Or would he be a staring stiffly walking man with a vacant facial expression? Could he even talk?

The alternative is that he was not taken down quickly enough and suffered irreversible brain death. After a few minutes his brain neurons would swell and rupture the cell contents. Ca++ ion channels would fail. All electrical transmission would have ceased. After 10-30 hours his brain loses all histological microstructure. The Cortex and white matter turn to a mushy mass. No circuits are preserved. If this happens it is called Brain Death which I have to evaluate once or twice a week. No patient ever awakens from true death (brain death.)

If Jesus had real brain death, he could not have resurrected. He would have needed an entire rewiring of the entire brain of a hunded billion neurons, glial cells, regrowth of nerve axons followed by remyelinating of the axons (myelin is the fatty coating of nerves (axons) without which the nerves cannot conduct.

This is an emense job. Imagin trying to replace trillions of circuits to billions of neurons, with trillions of different neurochemical synapses, and receptor dendrites. It took 30 years for genes and experiences to form the brain of Jesus. I can't believe that magic could restore the exact brain in a resurrected Jesus.

If Jesus walked out of the tomb, he never died. He was in transient coma and awoke with restored blood flow to the brain. Humans have never recovered from true breath which means Brain death and decomposition.

You choose.

I personally belief the story is entirely fictional and debate is entirely rhetorical.

Amergin

 

[bob x]

Amergin: while I am not a doctor (and do not play one on TV), all the literature on crucifixion that I have seen says that the fluid accumulation was in the lungs (you seem to want to put the fluid almost anywhere else except the lungs) and that the cause of death was a slow strangulation. Fluid drainage from the lungs may have helped.

I personally belief the story is entirely fictional

It is particularly that line about Magdalene asking "Are you the gardener?" which persuades me that the story must be, in all essential respects, true. What a STUPID, utterly HUMAN thing to say at such a juncture! Who would make that up?

Now, if you flogged me and beat me, nailed me to a cross for hours, and then speared me, I think I would react, like most humans, by dying. That Jesus managed to stand up again, after all that, is thoroughly remarkable, and his disciples can certainly be forgiven for thinking it was the most miraculous event they had ever heard of. We do not really understand the whole topic of "faith healing" but remarkable recoveries from dire conditions do often seem to depend on a particular state of mind: Jesus already had a reputation as a faith healer, and met the challenge "Physician, heal thyself!" in a most astonishing way. I do not feel the need to change my whole metaphysical outlook on the universe to accommodate this one case, but a dismissive attitude is entirely inappropriate.

 

[Amergin]

My main point is not to deny some kind of a God or Creator but not one with consciousness and personality. I have seen no proven revelation.

Kersey Graves reports 16 resurrected saviours prior to the controversial Jesus. Mithra in the Roman branch of the cult was male only, but Mithra was born of a virgin, slain (not crucified, and resurrected in three days. The similarity is unmistakable. There have been other redeemers who were sons of God. Lugh and Baldur were similar. Osiris, Horus, and many others contributed to the story. I believe Jesus was a composite of those older resurrected saviours. The Catholic Church adopted the Mithraic bishop's Titer (hat), the solar disc bread tablet, the eucharistic meal, and baptism all from Mithraism.

The irrational stories of JHWH and the Jesus story simply make no sense. I am reasonable sure they are false. JHWY was simply the image of a Stone Age War Lord or Chief. Jesus was perhaps an attempt to reform the Evil acts of God in the Old Testament.

The early followers were a mix of people some following John the Baptist, Hinara ben Dosa, and others, even a possible Jesus (Yeshua). Many wanted something to redeem the evil god of the Old Testament. Others viewed Jesus as overthrowing the Evil god. Ultimately they came up with the screwy Jesus and JHWH joined at the hips. Two was not magical. They needed Three. So they borrowed from the Persians a god called the Spenta Maingu (Holy Spirit). They added Spenta Maingu to the new Christian Trinity.

But they had to pretend to be monotheists. Then they came up with the rather daft idea of a Trinity that is a Triune. One God who is three persons who are also each other. 3=1, 1=3, 3+1=3, 1+3=1. Twilight Zone math.

That convinced me that the Christian God was imaginary. There may be a God but it is not JHWH, Trinity.

Amergin

 

[bob x]

Kersey Graves reports 16 resurrected saviours prior to the controversial Jesus.

I don't know who this "Kersey Graves" is, but he is as full of absolute tripe and rubbish as Acharya S, the founder of this brand of pseudo-lore.

Mithra was born of a virgin,

Rubbish. Mithra had no mother at all (sprang from a rock at the Beginning of Time as God's first act of creation)

slain (not crucified, and resurrected in three days.

Tripe. There is no basis for this whatsoever.

There have been other redeemers who were sons of God. Lugh and Baldur were similar.

They WERE gods, of course their parents were gods. Lugh is the Celtic form of the Wolf-Sun, an exceedingly ancient deity associated with wisdom and also trickery; must go back to caveman times as the word is found as far apart as Basque luki "wolf" and Tungusic luki "wolf" (furthest west and east in Eurasia). The Norse equivalent is not Baldur but Loki, the trickster god and father of the wolf (but not associated with the sun); the Greek is Lukios Apollo (Apollo "destroyer" is a taboo-substitution, since uttering the name Lukios would invoke him) associated to the sun and wisdom (and lukos "the wolf"); the North American equivalent is Wily Coyote. Nothing very Jesus-like here.

Osiris, Horus, and many others contributed to the story.

Osiris at least was resurrected, although the story of him being chopped into pieces and painstakingly reassembled by his widow is not very Jesus-like. His avenging son Horus was conceived when Isis finally found his penis: no virgin birth here.

The Catholic Church adopted the Mithraic bishop's Titer (hat)

Mithraism had no "bishops" and no "miter". The miter is derived from an old style of royal crown similar to the Phrygian cap of Midas, the "white crown" element in the Pharoah's double crown, and crowns seen in many pictures of Hittite and Mesopotamian monarchs; in Judea it became associated to the high priest when the Hasmoneans combined the royal and priestly offices.

, the solar disc bread tablet, the eucharistic meal,

If the "bull-slaying" was actually a communal meal (our information about Mithraism is really too scanty even to know if that was the case), the menu was BEEF, not bread.

and baptism all from Mithraism.

The ritual bath (mikveh) is a Jewish custom. Mithraism certainly had nothing of this kind.

The irrational stories of JHWH and the Jesus story simply make no sense. I am reasonable sure they are false.

Your personal incapacity to make sense of the stories is of no evidentiary value.

So they borrowed from the Persians a god called the Spenta Maingu (Holy Spirit). They added Spenta Maingu to the new Christian Trinity.

The Zoroastrian name Spenta Mainyu occurs nowhere in Judeo-Christian literature, but the Hebrew ruach ha-qodesh "holy spirit" is in texts from before Zoroaster was even born, before Jews had ever even heard of Persians.