Knowing everything and allowing evil

[Abracadabra]

Abracadabra wrote

So I respect Jesus in the same way that I would respect Tenzin Gyatso (the Dahai Lama). Jesus was just a mortal man in the same way as Tenzin Gyatso.

I am open to the idea of a Gnostic Jesus who may have traveled to India while in his 20's as a mortal man who became "enlightened" (for lack of a better term) and eventually taught his wisdom throughout the Mediterranian for the common good. But in comparison to the Daliai Lama, whom of course we all know is real (and really endearing), I personally do not think that Jesus Christ ever existed in history. From all the in-depth info that I have gathered, esp. concerning Greek, Roman and Jewish historians who lived in and around 0-100 A.D., there is no real evidence of Jesus ever existing except outside the Bible, which I think we can all easily discredit as a very unreliable source. Although some 'debunkers' have claimed that this video clip is inaccurate, I think it gets the main point across. Jesus is basically as mythological as Zeus or Dionysus. Not to mention very entertaining!

Thanks for posting the video Bgood. I'll have to wait until I can get over to the library to watch it though. I only have dial-up here.

I'm inclined to agree that the Jesus character described in the New Testament is indeed a totally fictitious character.

When I suggest that the "real Jesus" may have been a Mahayana Buddhist, I don't mean to imply that we should take the New Testament Stories verbatim and just try to view "that Jesus" as being a correct description of the Mahayana Buddhist who may have sparked these rumors.

I think that clearly there are a lot of false stories, extreme exaggerations, and even totally made up events and conversations contained within the New Testament rumors.

In that sense they are totally fictional. (or at least many parts of them are totally fictional), just like the parts that claim that God spoke from a cloud saying, "This is my beloved son, hear him", and the parts of Jesus raising from the dead along with a multitude of other saints, etc.

A lot of it is just totally made up outright lies. That much we can be certain of.

Just the same, I feel that the overall story may still have been sparked by someone who did the following:

1. Claimed to be "One with God" (i.e. the Buddhist view)
And being a Jew he probably would have referred to "God" as "the Father".

2. Was of blaspheme for this.
That's reasonable. Especially if pharisees didn't like what he was preaching.

3. He may have very well defended himself by pointing out that even the Torah says, "Ye are gods".
That too makes sense. May as well use the Torah to support the Buddhist pantheist view if it fits. Why not?

4. He probably did renounce the judging of others and the stoning to death of sinners.
He probably recognized that the Torah contains a lot of immoral garbage and tried to get people to move away from those teachings.

5. He probably did teach people to forgive and not to seek revenge.
Again, trying to get them to move away from the "Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth" mentality.

6. He probably did proclaim that he didn't come to change the laws.
After all he was clearly rejecting teachings of the Torah so he would need to defend that he's not exactly changing the "laws".

He was no doubt trying to work within the religious culture the best he could.

7. He probably did have many run-ins with the Pharisees and probably did publicly call them hypocrites.

8. The Pharisees probably did finally incite a mob to have him brutally crucified on charges of blaspheme.

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Had all of that happened without any miracles of turning wine into water, or any other such nonsense. That alone would have been enough to spark extremely hot and controversial rumors.

Just like I said, imagine someone as nice as the Dalai Lama being convicted by Abrahamic Pharisees who incite a mob to have him crucified.

After having someone like the Dalai Lama nailed to a pole, there would be much controversy and rumors that would not easily settle.

And many of those rumors would have been focused on 'Who was this man', and what did he stand for?

That would have been the crux of the controversy and rumors.

Once it was recognized by religious authorities that a case could be made that this guy was the messiah, the Son of the God of Abraham, that idea was jumped on, and the rest is history.

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Do I know that this was what actually happened?

No, of course not. The whole thing could have been made up from total scratch as pure fiction, as you suggest. I personally completely rule out the possibility that it could have anything to do with a God who planned out this whole ugly scenario. That is totally unacceptable to me. Such a God who would plan this whole thing out from a virgin birth onward, would be one sick puppy.

So the idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of the God of Abraham isn't even remotely reasonable to me, in any way imaginable. Jesus clearly didn't even agree with the teachings of the Torah.

I also have difficulty believing that someone would have made up a fictional story precisely like this either. Why bother having Jesus renounce major teachings of the Torah if you're just going to make the story up from scratch?

This is the main reason why I feel that it was probably sparked by actual rumors of someone who taught things that could not easily be dismissed.

Most many people of the time may have already been aware that this guy taught against various things in the Torah. That's why he was crucified by the Pharisees.

So those things had to be incorporated into the story to keep the story convincing.

This is why I feel that stories were sparked and partly driven by some actual event. Some guy renounced various teachings of the Torah, called the pharisees hypocrites, got himself crucified over it, and that's what sparked these rumors.

To me, that just makes the most sense of all.

But that in no way means that every 'quote' in the Bible that is being attributed to "Jesus" necessarily refers back to the actual person who may have sparked these rumors. Clearly after he was dead they could put any words into his mouth that they wanted to. Save for perhaps some of the things that he rebelled against, like the stoning of sinners to death, the seeking of revenge, etc.

But they were free to shove new ideas into his dead mouth via their rumors all the wanted.

So yes, the "Jesus" of the New Testament would not be a verbatim copy of the "Jesus" who might have sparked these rumors. In fact, the "Real Jesus" probably would object to most of what was written about him in the New Testament as being totally made up lies.

So in that sense, the New Testament Jesus is a work of fiction.

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I'll watch that video the next time I go to town.