LOL< You just keep trying to co opt their demi-god for your own superstitions. Please tell me that you only make the "jesus was most likely" claim to piss off christians....... I hear the mormons baptize people after their death too. Maybe you can get some info on how to properly go about this from them.

(February 26, 2012 at 11:26 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Please tell me that you only make the "jesus was most likely" claim to piss off christians.......

I'm actually offering them a really great alternative view.

Many people demand that Christianity is a totally fabricated myth.

I'm giving the Christians a way to save Jesus as a respectable historical figure.

Sure they'll have to give up the whole "Christ" thing. But most of them don't truly care much for that nonsense anyway. You might be surprised how many Christians would just be happy to keep Jesus and dump the God of Abraham.

In fact, it's the very idea that Jesus spit in the face of the God of Abraham that makes him so attractive to the Christians in the first place. They love the fact that Jesus stood up against the judging of others and the stoning of sinners to death. They love the fact that he renounced the seeking of revenge as in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and instead taught people to forgive others and to turn the other cheek.

Everything they love about Jesus is precisely due to the fact that Jesus renounced all the hideous things that had been associated with the God of Abraham.

So I'm offering them a way to leave Christianity and take Jesus with them.




Surely you're aware that Christians love the "have your cake and eat it too" ideal.

So I'm just offering them what they love the most.

Really great how? Jesus being a buddhist doesn't exactly give him any points on my scale (or the scales of the majority of christians, buddhists being godless heathens and all).

NP, mischief and misinformation in full swing and I can completely appreciate that...as long as you aren't advocating such a position in earnest.

(February 26, 2012 at 11:39 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Really great how? Jesus being a buddhist doesn't exactly give him any points on my scale (or the scales of the majority of christians, buddhists being godless heathens and all).

NP, mischief and misinformation in full swing and I can completely appreciate that...as long as you aren't advocating such a position in earnest.

I have very solid reasons for suggesting that Jesus was indeed a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.

For you that may not be respectable. If you don't respect Mahayana Buddhism fine. Most people aren't even aware of what Mahayana Buddhism stood for. However, the moral teachings attributed to Jesus are very much in harmony with Mahayana Buddhism. In fact, that's precisely why I'm convinced that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist.

The other thing that you are apparently unaware of is that many Christians are looking to leave Christianity, but they would love to take Jesus with them to their new faith.

I see this vividly in action pretty much on a daily basis. I belong to a Wiccan forum. And there is a constant flow of new people moving into Wicca. And many of them start by sincerely asking if it makes sense to bring Jesus into Wicca.

They left Christianity in the dust, but they are standing there with Jesus wanting to become Wiccans and sincerely asking if they can being Jesus with them. These are NOT Christian proselytizers in disguise. These are people who are totally fed-up with Christian hypocrisy, but simply don't want to toss Jesus out with the religion.

I encourage these people to keep Jesus in their new Wiccan pantheon. However, I do point out to them the absurdity of trying to hold him up as "The Christ" in that context. They can't very well hold Jesus up as the sacrificial lamb of the jealous God of Abraham and think that this is going to work in Wicca.

For the most part they fully understand what I'm saying and they have no problem with that. Like me, they accept Jesus in a totally different light.

I personally think it's Great. People want to "save" Jesus from the hypocrisy of Christianity.

I think it's absolutely wonderful. I applaud their efforts.

Jesus is...the hypocrisy of christianity. The jesus myth is not the prettier face of christianity, it's the worst. Christopagans are strange as hell, but there are quite a few.

(February 26, 2012 at 11:57 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Jesus is...the hypocrisy of christianity.

I respectfully disagree.

Jesus is not the hypocrisy of Christianity.

The hypocrisy of Christianity lies in holding Jesus up as the "The Christ". The demigod son of the God of Abraham who was crucified as the sacrificial lamb to pay for the sins of man.

That's where they hypocrisy lies.

So yes, the Christian claims about who Jesus was and what he stands for is hypocritical. But if you renounce that, you can save Jesus from that hypocrisy as a historical figure who was not "The Christ".

Except that he doesn't seem to have been a historical figure, and there are more things we have to remove (more than just the christ claim and miracles claims) before he becomes anyone I would even shake hands with, let alone hold up as an example.

---

By the by, the thought of "helping" christians transition from one con to another by way of smuggling in jesus feels slimey as hell to me.

(February 27, 2012 at 12:18 am)Rhythm Wrote: Except that he doesn't seem to have been a historical figure, and there are more things we have to remove (more than just the christ claim and miracles claims) before he becomes anyone I would even shake hands with, let alone hold up as an example.

Well, that's certainly understandable. That's the "Jesus" that you created.

In other words, evidently you're looking solely at the biblical text, accepting that everything that is said about this man, as well ever quote assigned to him, is indeed a verbatim picture of who this character has to be.

I would tend to agree with you from that perspective. If I had to accept that verbatim picture of "Jesus" then I would no only renouncing him as a lunatic man, but I would even renounce him as a lunatic God.

If you're going to imagine Jesus as a real person, then you are free to realize that the New Testament writings are indeed rumors written about this man long after he had died.

Moreover, if you don't believe the claims of divinity then neither do you need to believe that these rumors should have any "magical merit" of being the absolute truth or 'word of God'.

Now you've got nothing but a collection of extremely questionable rumors written by people who are attempting to make out that Jesus was "The Christ".

But if you've already rejected that claim, then these rumors no longer hold any weight for being a correct verbatim description of this man.

~~~

From here you can take two different paths. You can simply reject the whole thing as being nothing more than entirely made up fables. Many people do take that stance. And that's fine.

However, a second perfectly valid vantage point is to question what sparked these rumors? Maybe there was a man who taught against the immoral teachings of the Torah, called the Pharisees hypocrites, and was indeed horribly crucified publicly on charges of blaspheme.

When I consider this possible scenario, I then go back and re-read these rumors from this perspective. What I see is that a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva could have easily said and done many things that would have been misinterpreted by many people.

• Would a Mahayana Buddhist take the stance that he and the Father are one?

Absolutely. Pantheism is a core belief in Buddhism.

• Would a Mahahana Buddhist point the Torah saying, "Does it not say in your law, I have said ye are Gods?"
  

Sure. He says, "I and the Father are one". He's then accused of blaspheme and points to the Torah showing that this is true of everyone. It makes perfect sense to me.

When questioned he claims that he did not come to change the laws. Yet that precisely what he set out to accomplish.

Does it make sense that an actual demigod would do that? No.
Does it make sense that a mortal man would do that. Yes.

He's trying his best to teach better moral values without blatantly rejecting the accepted religion.
After all, in this culture to blatantly reject the religion is indeed blaspheme! You'd be crucified for that!

Jesus had no choice but to try to work within the context of this religion.
He was trying to improve moral values without coming right out and renouncing the religion.
To just blatantly renounce the religion was a certain death sentence in this culture.
He had no choice but to try to work within that framework.

Obviously it caught up to him in the end and he finally was crucified on charges of blaspheme.

And then the rumors started.

• Would a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva take on disciples? Yes!
  
• Would a Mahayana Buddhist ask his disciples to also become Bodhisattvas too (i.e. teachers). Yes!
  

Everything fits like a glove. Including the fact that Mahayana Buddhism was enjoying it's peak growth at that some time in history.

Could this have been what sparked these New Testament rumors?

Sure. It's absolutely possible.

Did it actually happen this way?

I have no clue. It could be entirely fictional as some people suggest.
All I'm suggesting is that Jesus could have easily been a misunderstood Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.
And that was the spark that gave rise to these rumors of Jesus as the "messiah".

Jesus couldn't have been the messiah predicted in the Bible anyway since he was never handed the throne of the King of David.

So that's not even a viable rumor.

In fact, I hold that if people had made this story up from scratch they probably would have had Jesus becoming the Kind and then being crucified. The idea that they had to restrain themselves to rumors about an actual person makes sense to me.

And I believe that person was a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.

It makes sense to me. If I were a betting man that's where I'd place my money.

But I could lose. It could be entirely made up fiction like many people believe.

That's why I don't bet.

In the meantime I imagine that some real guy, rejected the immoral teachings of the Torah, called the Pharisees hypocrites, and was indeed crucified on charges of blaspheme. It's not a hard scenario to imagine. So I personally feel that it's probably more likely than not.

@Abra- Jesus didn't spit in the face of the God of Abraham according to the Bible, he "spit in the face" of the Pharisitical teachings of the time. As far as the throne of David, check out Acts 2:25-36 if you're interested.

@Abra, ah I see. So, as long as one doesn't just look at the text, and as long as one does not assume that he said what he is supposed to have said...then Jesus is salvageable. What was that you said at the start about creating jesus? Wow Abra...just wow.

What "makes sense to you" and what "makes sense" don't appear to be universally equivalent.