Was Jesus a real person?

[Pymander]

"I have studied it, and you have not." to quote another. And your authorities are better? Or did you manage to generate your own not very unique set of cloned prejudices all by yourself? JC, EC & AE were in no way anyone's shill, or about anything but the truth, the only foundation that is not quicksand. Yet Aristotle's lies stand, and aliens did all the unattributed work around the planet...without leaving any bones behind before they moved on. That I do not believe. Since the Supernova created our dust, one third of the time was spent solidifying our planet around a star, and life can traverse that kind of space through cosmic rays? Two thirds made us a vehicle that could fashion an axe, the Egyptian hieroglyph for a god. The same creative spirit = consciousness made, or is, the force and its laws. And yet, you can not prove that the universe has an existence independent of our own. Does Einstein's Relativity not consider all things from the point of view of an observer? Is anything physical quantity defined without reference to an observer? SCIENCE DOES NOT HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS, AND PERHAPS QUITE AN ASSORTMENT OF INCORRECT ONES TO BOOT. Remember, knowledge is (material) power. Who finances education? And for what? Is there advantage to be had binding, instead of loosing knowledge? What do we really know? What do we want to know? These last are not unrelated questions. Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, and the light maketh it manifest. JC.

[Acme]

"I have ... blah blah blah

Your posts simply don't meet the standard of either this thread or this forum. Get a blog.

[Pymander]

Do you really even have a standard? And now you are the authority, to pass such a judgement. Yet nothing enlightening has yet proceeded concerning my input but unsupported denials. On what basis? Darwin, Hubble and Freud, back when mankind veered into World War I, maybe? Let's hear something that a parrot couldn't say.

[John Cuthber]

At the risk of sounding like a parrot (because I'm repeating something you have already seen).

Yes we have standards, you read them and signed up to them when you joined this site.

They are the site's rules and, among other things they don't approve of argument by authority, proof by loud assertion, or other logical fallacies.

 

It's not clear why you cite Freud along with Darwin and Hubble.

Freud wasn't much of a scientist (or much of a physician).

 

Science doesn't have all the answers, it knows that,if it did, it would stop.

On the other hand it has a lot more answers than you seem to be able to justify.

 

In short; find some evidence or find anther site.

[overtone]

 

 

Really?

• If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true (John 5:3 1)
• Even if I do bear witness to myself, my testimony is true (John 8:14)​​

No doubt I could find others

Sounds like one guy to me, contradicting himself. That's the kind of thing you get from a single author being quoted by others, that composition by committee or reconciliation of multiple authors tends to eliminate.

[Ten oz]

Sounds like one guy to me, contradicting himself. That's the kind of thing you get from a single author being quoted by others, that composition by committee or reconciliation of multiple authors tends to eliminate.

 

You can get that from multiple people quoting a single source but without knowing who those multiple people are or which source they are quoting very little can be ascertained. Mark is generally believed to be the first gospel written. It's authorship is unknown. Peter is believed to have influence both Mark, John, and to be responsible for the Pauline epistles yet Peter is not contemporary to a human Jesus. There is an arguement to be made that the one source may have been Peter as he was the most influential (Rock of my Church) in forming Christianity.

[John Cuthber]

There is one thing you can certainly get from it.

The Gospels* are not reliable; you don't know what bits are mistaken.

 

*

OK strictly, that one example only shows that john's Gospel is untrustworthy.

I'd have to find 3 more contradictions to show that none of them is reliable.

I doubt it would take me long.

[Ten oz]

There is one thing you can certainly get from it.

The Gospels* are not reliable; you don't know what bits are mistaken.

 

*

OK strictly, that one example only shows that john's Gospel is untrustworthy.

I'd have to find 3 more contradictions to show that none of them is reliable.

I doubt it would take me long.

Unknown origin is enough to consider them unreliable.

[John Cuthber]

Unknown origin is enough to consider them unreliable.

You have no idea who I am; anything I say is of unknown origin.

 

However, if I was to contradict myself you would know that I am unreliable.

[Ten oz]

I do not know you but you are contemporary and responsive to me. The gospels are not.

[Pymander]

"Yes we have standards, you read them and signed up to them when you joined this site.

"They are the site's rules and, among other things they don't approve of argument by authority, proof by loud assertion, or other logical fallacies"

 

Mainstream IS argument from authority, it has specific human authors whom other authorities control. Pounding Big Bang, and denying any universal and absolute power by any name IS loud assertion. "I have... blah blah blah" will do me for a logical fallacy and the other sins as well. Ignoring anything that requires God, Allah, Amen, I AM THAT I AM, etc functionally identifiable by "Ye are Gods and all of you children of the MOST HIGH" (Psalm 82, quoted to like hypocrites by the advanced soul sent as a witness to the truth, we English speakers call Jesus, read it and weep) is your only standard, and far from truth. Do you deny David existed also. What other history explains the Jews? Are they evidence. Do they not control the "free" world according to prophecy handed Abraham?

 

If you did read Psalm 82, written in the time of David by Asaph (the same soul if Micah 5:2 is so interpreted, and Psalms 110 explained, which in Matthew 22:41 the hypocrites could not do), it would be the first time forum sycophants have actually looked at VERY MUCH LOUD EVIDENCE I have alluded to. In fact, where you have a problem with me is that I have studied sciences which is plain, and am also a mystic, a stance that does not suit the imperialistic mind. As for Freud, he and Jung fell out over astrology and much more, because it did not serve the agenda of the "Aristocracy".

 

Thus, anything which requires GOD by any other name, psychics, astrology, prophecy, etc, is not just ignored but loudly ridiculed. Some of this is for the infantile hecklers. The rest is for the benefit of those whose faith they test, and will be thoroughly beyond the competency of sheep with no real shepherd to comprehend. Scripture uses analogy, which would be deemed illogical and unscientific, no doubt. And yes, this information uses Edgar Cayce as a source, an authority which, through much study, I have come to trust. No man is that good a liar.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Pymander

[John Cuthber]

" Mainstream IS argument from authority, "

No, it's based on evidence.

Feel free to present some.

However that's not really the point.

People put forward non-mainstream ideas here. A "mainstream" idea in religion is a rather silly idea. There are simply too many dissenting opinions.

[Pymander]

Quicksand is too good a word for what you are sinking in, ex-spurt.

[John Cuthber]

In what way do you think I'm sinking?

 

Also, when you have finished ranting, do you accept that , if someone contradicts themselves, they must have been wrong either originally, or finally?

[Ten oz]

In what way do you think I'm sinking?

 

Also, when you have finished ranting, do you accept that , if someone contradicts themselves, they must have been wrong either originally, or finally?

In fairness to Jesus had he existed he never wrote anything down. At least not anything we are aware of. So he (Jesus) is possibly not the source of error. The Gospels are post contemporary third party writings that claim to have been inspired from oral traditions. So it is a group of anonymous authors who are contradicting each other. Edited March 7, 2015 by Ten oz

[Pymander]

"So it is a group of anonymous authors contradicting each other."

 

Exactly. Thank you. Good to see common sense, and not the kind AE was talking about when he said "Common sense is that layer of prejudice laid down in the human mind before the age of eighteen". This common sense does not proceed from modern bureaucratic left hemisphere dominated "cover your butt" self serving sycophantic defensive minds. Einstein didn't care about being ridiculed, departing the confines of respectable science dismissing absolute time and space. THAT IS SCIENCE, not science "falsely so called" (1 Timothy 6:20 KJV). The Edgar Cayce quote above, detailing the source of the gospels, gave one source of contradiction - Lucius was presenting second hand reports, but from sources like the Essene community at Carmel, he had much to offer besides - the childhood of "Jesus" (Jeshua ben Joseph). The second source has also been given, much is metaphorical, symbolic, alchemaical, poetic, words with much the same meaning. Such analogy is longer translatable out of Shakespeare's English of the KJV version. This requires training the right hemisphere, a skill bible reading develops and is academically disdained, to our confusion, and subsequent thraldom. As a matter of interest, 1 Timothy 6:16 virtually states the fundamental premise of Special Relativity, especially if combined with 1 John 1:5. Aristotle denied ancient wisdom. Chose for yourself (2 Peter 3:5).

 

If what is referred to as evidence, by some, were the basis of courtroom truth and justice, the foundation of liberty, our jails would be empty, but not as a good thing.

[John Cuthber]

In what way do you think I'm sinking?

 

Also, when you have finished ranting, do you accept that , if someone contradicts themselves, they must have been wrong either originally, or finally?

You seem to have forgotten to answer these

Please try again.

.

[Ten oz]

@ Pymander, in your opinion what makes Edgar Cacye a creditable source of information?

[Pymander]

'"Mainstream IS argument from authority,"

No, it's based on evidence.'

Are you the authority who has presented the evidence and the analysis thereof. Then you are presenting an argument from authority. You also place yourself in the position of deciding who is and who is not to be regarded as an authority. So:

'Feel free to present some'

is sheer hypocrisy.

'However that's not really the point.

People put forward non-mainstream ideas here. A "mainstream" idea in religion is a silly idea. There are simply too many dissenting opinions.'

 

The dissention and its sources I had covered. Is has been reiterated because some seem to have missed it. The fact that the father of calculus, mechanics and the equations of motion of the planets was a mystic, and the father of special and general relativity likewise, that is not authority enough over the authors of "mainstream", who to my mind were their students, (like Aristotle was to Plato), yet you are ranking them how? So that my argument from authority is inferior to your thinly disguised argument from authority?

 

This is BS, smells like BS, and is as reliable as the ideas that come from the psylocibin you can get using BS.

Before you have an opinion, you need all the evidence, not an arbitrary selection. "The Official Edgar Cayce Readings" can be purchased on a 2 DVD-Rom. Albert Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" may be downloaded as a PDF. The Bible KJV may be downloaded likewise. These three form a consistent body of knowledge, in my opinion, and I have studied the last two in their entirety, and used the Cayce Readings to form a consistent interpretation of the scripture, if perhaps too profound for the uneducated or the disinterested. Besides all else, scripture is for everyone young and old, and it can not be the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its meaning increases as one "grows in the faith", which I interpret to mean our individual knowledge and wisdom. This mission may encompass many lives through many worlds. Thus, religion is way beyond science as we know it today.

 

"There is a River" by Thomas Sugrue is a biography of Edgar Cayce 1877 - 1945. Many books have been written using the 86.3 MB of readings he produced over 40 years. Before the bomb, E=mc^2, and the true nature of scientific space and time became public knowledge, on 19 JUN 1941, a reading gave this:

 

"Remember, as given, the earth is that speck, that part of creation where souls projected themselves into matter, and thus brought that conscious awareness of themselves entertaining the ability of creating without those forces of the spirit of truth.

 

"Hence that which has been indicated - that serpent, that satan, that power manifested by entities that, created as the cooperative influence, through will separated themselves.

 

"As this came about, it was necessary for their own awareness in the spheres of activity, that realms of systems came into being; as vast as the power of thought in attempting to understand infinity, or to comprehend that there is no space or time.

 

"Yet time AND space, in patience, you may comprehend." Reading 5755-2

 

The only guarantee of truth we may have is that all our beliefs are consistent, nothing more. Thus, it is a pragmatic growing attribute of mind and soul. Falsehood creates anomalies we must resolve. Wisdom is the knowledge of God. Read John Chapter 3, through to the end, where John the Baptist speaks of Jesus. Note much here may be misunderstood, even "born again", when compared with Job Chapter 1, "Naked came I from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither." This is the transliteration of the original Hebrew, and what Nicodemus wanted to understand.

[John Cuthber]

""The Official Edgar Cayce Readings" can be purchased on a 2 DVD-Rom. Albert Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" may be downloaded as a PDF. The Bible KJV may be downloaded likewise. These three form a consistent body of knowledge, in my opinion, and I have studied the last two in their entirety, and used the Cayce Readings to form a consistent interpretation of the scripture, if perhaps too profound for the uneducated or the disinterested. "

 

They may be consistent, in your opinion, but they are not consistent in fact.

 

http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html#contradictions

 

"The only guarantee of truth we may have is that all our beliefs are consistent, nothing more."

Nope, that's a necessary, but not sufficient requirement.

But the fact that the Bible isn't consistent is, as you say, proof that it's not actually true.

 

And, if you wish to be taken seriously, stop citing Edgar Cayce.

[Pymander]

The sufficient condition you speak of, chemistry expert, is beyond us. While we may satisfy the requirement of consistency, evidence may arise that is inconsistent with your thus established knowledge. Our concept of reality may need to change. Our hypotheses, the bases of our theories, may be incorrect, and these hypotheses seen to be drawn from insufficient evidence. Since the imperialist Aristotle challenged the mystic Plato's history of Atlantis, support for that history has steadily increased, but consistently denied by the Aristocracy, and resultant public prejudice. Theories concerning the Great Pyramid of Egypt are continually dashed. Claims like its Post Ice Age (The Flood) origins are blatant shams, like that of the politician who shot to fame and fortune faking Khufu's involvement. His "evidence" holds water like a sieve. And as if you have not had enough of me, cop this. My research into this very mystery lead to Mark Lehner's work, an Egyptologist also not prepared to bend the knee to public or political pressure. His "The Egyptian Heritage - based on the Edgar Cayce Readings" fulfils Cayce's own prophecy quoted therein:

 

"This, then, is the purpose for the record and the meaning to be interpreted by those that have come and do come as the teachers of the various periods, in the experience of this present position, of the activity of the spheres, of the earth." 5748-5.

 

It may be relevant here that I have received qualifications to teach secondary mathematics and computing, and left in disgust, because of the political use of education. Mathematics I could teach without requiring more than a syllabus, which turned out to be extensively eroded since the "brain drain" that nearly caused a revolution (Simon & Garfuncle - "Silent Night", intellectual ferment caused the French Revolution by all accounts). The resultant brainwash has been quick.

 

Now, in the light of the current "scientific" paradigm, incorporating the sell out of psychology regarding psychic powers:

 

"And Poseidia will be among the first portions of Atlantis to rise again. Expect it in sixty-eight and sixty-nine ('68 and '69); not so far away!" 958-3.

 

This reading was given 10 MAY 1932, and its prophetic fulfilment is now history, as was Atlantis, submerged with its knowledge due oppression, translated out of ancient Greek at Oxford by Benjamin Jowett, 1817 - 1893, before the Paradigm shift of "Science" to atheism. EVIDENCE IGNORED DUE CONFLICT WITH HYPOTHESES OR INABILITY TO EXPLAIN IS CONTRADICTION AND DECEIT. Gospel sized reports of witnesses never agree in all matters, upon which the hecklers rest their case. This is especially true as the cited is little more than a sample of EDGAR CAYCE'S PSYCHIC POWERS. This is an encyclopaedia sized psychic report by one man with his eyes shut, explaining the bible, history, evolution, the occult, science, and the hardest of all, mankind. And through 40 years he was being cross-examined, without apparent contradictions.

 

What right do you have to make the demands you do? Forum rules? Are they in the interest of advancing science as truth? Am I breaking any in Religion, or are you perhaps out of place. Hopefully, this is not just a smug elitist version of Facebook! It has much to offer humanity, or I would not be here.

 

Were you to read Mark Lehner's "The Egyptian Heritage", your task of believing such things as Christ's rising from the dead would only be made worse. I believed it because I had first studied EA Wallis Budge's guarded academic works on Egypt first. There is no contradiction, rather, we have an explanation of the Great Pyramid from this remarkable source, which is almost absent from credible Egyptology, but for a vague allusion in Chapter LXIV of the Book of the Dead (a poor translation of "The Book of Manifestations in the Light", downloadable as PDF). Its near total absence sent me to research leading to Edgar Cayce.

[John Cuthber]

"The sufficient condition you speak of, chemistry expert, is beyond us."

Yep, so why did you say "The only guarantee of truth we may have is that all our beliefs are consistent, nothing more." when you know that we have no such guarantee, and that what we do have falls short?

"It may be relevant here that I have received qualifications to teach secondary mathematics and computing, and left in disgust, because of the political use of education"

I can't see how. It's not got much to do with the reality or otherwise of someone said to have lived 2000 years ago. For what it's worth, I agree that the erosion of educational standards is shameful- but it's got nothing to do with the issue.

 

 

It's also barely relevant to the topic, but can I just check on something.

Do you realise that Atlantis never rose; not in 68 and 69 or at any other time?

 

Are you joking when you say "And through 40 years he was being cross-examined, without apparent contradictions." or don't you realise that Atlantis didn't rise; and that rather contradicts any claim that it would?

The most charitable thing you can say about him is that he's clearly wrong, so he's not reliable.

Edited March 8, 2015 by John Cuthber

[Pymander]

I can continue to dissect you misconstructions of my statements:

 

"Do you realise that Atlantis never rose; not in '68 and '69 or at any other time?"

 

If you are speed reading, you are getting half of it. At least you missed the word "portions" and its identification of a part of Poseidia. Now, expert, take the trouble to Google "The mystery of the Bimini Road". What do you see, and how easily are qualifications passed out in the USA, if your ability to research matters before you form an opinion is so dwarfed? National Geographic has published an article on the "Bahamas Blue Holes". So try "National Geographic Bahamas Blue Holes". Do you see stalagmites and stalactites? Does your chemistry explain their formation from Calcium Hydrogen Carbonate, by the evaporation of the water from this unstable compound? So how did they form under sea water, my learned friend?

Edited March 8, 2015 by Pymander

[Acme]

My sleeping closed-eye Mystic can beat up your closed-eyed sleeping mystic when it comes to proving Jebus was real.

 

Proof Positive follows.

 

The Urantia Book @ Wiki

Authorship

...

As early as 1911, William S. Sadler and his wife Lena Sadler, physicians in Chicago and well known in the community, are said to have been approached by a neighbor who was concerned because she would occasionally find her husband in a deep sleep and breathing abnormally.[11][12] She reported that she was unable to wake him at these times. The Sadlers came to observe the episodes, and over time, the individual produced verbal communications that claimed to be from "student visitor" spiritual beings.[13][12] This changed sometime in early 1925[13] with a "voluminous handwritten document," which from then on became the regular method of purported communication.[13][14] The individual was never identified publicly but has been described as "a hard-boiled business man, member of the board of trade and stock exchange."[12] ...

 

Full Text Free Online: >> The Urantia Book

 

The Urantia Book

Paper 119

The Bestowals of Christ Michael

 

(1308.1) 119:0.1 CHIEF of the Evening Stars of Nebadon, I am assigned to Urantia by Gabriel on the mission of revealing the story of the seven bestowals of the Universe Sovereign, Michael of Nebadon, and my name is Gavalia. In making this presentation, I will adhere strictly to the limitations imposed by my commission.

[John Cuthber]

Are you saying that two structures that are under water are (parts of) Atlantis that have been raised?

The problems there are

1 there is no reason to imagine they are really Atlantis

2 They are not raised.

 

There's no reason to imagine the stalactites forming under water

So, that's a complete red herring.

In fact, since neither I nor anyone else said they did, it's yet another logical fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Are you aiming to collect the full set?