Does Anyone Else Believe In Jesus Christ ?

[dank]

Humans are capable of measuring very little of all the frequencies of the universe.

It can be experienced.

Religion is man's interpretation of god and has been littered by misinterpretation, intentionally and not.  It is not perfect but it has truths.  Only when one elapses their self with inner spirituality will one find the true interpretation of god.

[pedrog]

Jesus Christ never existed.  http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

Actually Christianity is all fake, all the books have been edited by the Vatican. According to the story there were other followers of Jesus who were female. Vatican took all of them out of the bible.

Genesis is total rubbish, according to the bible. The world was created a few thousands years ago. We all know that is not true.

If Adam and Eve really existed, they should be black and not white. As we all know that all root of human came from Africa.

Sorry, that's bullshit!

The Jesus never existed part, I mean...

There are lots of scripture prior to the existence of Vatican, well, not "lots", but there are enough.

You can search a guy called Bart Ehrman, he is a Bible schooler, and he throws away many myths around Jesus, even the "Jesus never existed" myth.

[Mike Christ]

Jesus may have existed, but it's likely he wasn't called Jesus until later, nor did he perform magic.

Anyway, the fact that Jesus's life revolves around an allegory of winter solstice makes it hard to take it seriously; even if Jesus existed, if he's not the man we know him to be, did he actually exist?

Example: I tell you about this guy who can leap over the tallest buildings, stop speeding bullets, shoot laser beams from his eyes.  So you meet this guy, as I have described, except he cannot do anything I said he could do.  Is it still the same fellow?--he doesn't match the description in the least, but it's supposedly him.

[pedrog]

Jesus may have existed, but it's likely he wasn't called Jesus until later, nor did he perform magic.

Anyway, the fact that Jesus's life revolves around an allegory of winter solstice makes it hard to take it seriously; even if Jesus existed, if he's not the man we know him to be, did he actually exist?

Example: I tell you about this guy who can leap over the tallest buildings, stop speeding bullets, shoot laser beams from his eyes.  So you meet this guy, as I have described, except he cannot do anything I said he could do.  Is it still the same fellow?--he doesn't match the description in the least, but it's supposedly him.

I see where you're going.

A few things about Kim Jong Il:

He had a supernatural birth.

According to North Korean historical literature, Kim Jong Il was born in a log cabin inside a secret base on Korea’s most sacred mountain, Mt. Paekdu. At the moment of his birth, a bright star lit up the sky, the seasons spontaneously changed from winter to spring, and rainbows appeared.

He is a fashion trendsetter

According to North Korea’s newspaper Rodong Sinmun, Kim Jong Il’s iconic style has become a global phenomenon.

The world loves him

According to state-run media, Kimg Jong Il is the most prominent statesman in the present world, and people in countries the whole planet over celebrate his birthday with films and festivals.

He invented the hamburger

He is the best natural golfer in history

In 1994, it was reported by Pyongyang media outlets that Kim Jong Il shot 38 under par on a regulation 18-hole golf course – including 5 holes in one! That score is 25 shots better than the best round in history, and is made even more amazing by the fact that it was his first time playing the sport.


Well, we can separate fact from fiction.

[DoomDumas]

YES, I do beleive in God, it's a personal belief as I'm not participating in any ritual, or wear any sign.  It's between me and God, in my spirit.

Beleving in God and being "science orriented" are not exclusive.  Because science cannot mesure, explain or theorize on the existence of God, that does'nt mean God dont exist.

In my house I use reason rather than religion.  Reason/Science is the true and the way to go.  I still beleive in God.  Both are possible, and I say, science is, God also is.  They are'nt exclusive to each other.


I advocate The Zeitgeist Movement, wich is'nt against any religious belief, it simply promote that religions are'nt not a good way to drive a society, but science is.  The Zeitgeist Movement's train of tought include that if you have religious belief, no problem with it, you can, you are free to, but Science is the very best known way to organize and provide for the need of each human on earth.

So in essence you structure your belief system on something that you yourself readily admit cannot be measured?

Yes.  That's part of the definition of faith

[Mike Christ]

Jesus may have existed, but it's likely he wasn't called Jesus until later, nor did he perform magic.

Anyway, the fact that Jesus's life revolves around an allegory of winter solstice makes it hard to take it seriously; even if Jesus existed, if he's not the man we know him to be, did he actually exist?

Example: I tell you about this guy who can leap over the tallest buildings, stop speeding bullets, shoot laser beams from his eyes.  So you meet this guy, as I have described, except he cannot do anything I said he could do.  Is it still the same fellow?--he doesn't match the description in the least, but it's supposedly him.

I see where you're going.

A few things about Kim Jong Il:

He had a supernatural birth.

According to North Korean historical literature, Kim Jong Il was born in a log cabin inside a secret base on Korea’s most sacred mountain, Mt. Paekdu. At the moment of his birth, a bright star lit up the sky, the seasons spontaneously changed from winter to spring, and rainbows appeared.

He is a fashion trendsetter

According to North Korea’s newspaper Rodong Sinmun, Kim Jong Il’s iconic style has become a global phenomenon.

The world loves him

According to state-run media, Kimg Jong Il is the most prominent statesman in the present world, and people in countries the whole planet over celebrate his birthday with films and festivals.

He invented the hamburger

He is the best natural golfer in history

In 1994, it was reported by Pyongyang media outlets that Kim Jong Il shot 38 under par on a regulation 18-hole golf course – including 5 holes in one! That score is 25 shots better than the best round in history, and is made even more amazing by the fact that it was his first time playing the sport.


Well, we can separate fact from fiction.

Right; however, the problem with Christ's life is that is perfectly matches the life of mythological figures before him in other religions, with a spread far greater than any being could live.  As I said, his life is an allegory of the winter solstice, and did not originate in Christianity.

If there existed a man named Jesus Christ who was not the Jesus Christ pictured in the Bible, then who do we believe in, an ordinary man we know nothing about, or an allegory?

[pedrog]

Right; however, the problem with Christ's life is that is perfectly matches the life of mythological figures before him in other religions, with a spread far greater than any being could live.  As I said, his life is an allegory of the winter solstice, and did not originate in Christianity.

If there existed a man named Jesus Christ who was not the Jesus Christ pictured in the Bible, then who do we believe in, an ordinary man we know nothing about, or an allegory?

Well, it doesn't perfectly matches, if you got that information from the Zeitgeist, sorry, but it's bad info.

I don't think that came from the sheep herders in middle east, if you're referring to why Christmas is on 25th December, for example, that and many other Christian traditions came from local European, myths, traditions, celebrations or religions, it was in the "christianization" of the Roman Empire that they had to co-opt the local traditions and insert something christian in them. You can't find a verse in the Bible that says Jesus was born on 25th December.

EDIT: Here's a Bart Ehrman playlist with lectures, debates and interviews, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-1EDrOV89rLHPZGAonMZWOJ8nljVFCN9

[Spendulus]

Jesus may have existed, but it's likely he wasn't called Jesus until later, nor did he perform magic......

If there existed a man named Jesus Christ who was not the Jesus Christ pictured in the Bible, then who do we believe in, an ordinary man we know nothing about, or an allegory?

Look, I'm basically athiest (but not the stupid mechanistic-naturalist 19th century type).  There are a lot of errors in this thread so bear with me for two pp.

Historians mostly agree there was a guy named Jesus.  There are a few written references from the old texts.  Historians mostly agree the 4 books of the new testament "gospels" were written between 200 and 400  years AD - they are not by his disciples.  The older books (like Mark) show more of a straight account of events, the newer ones (John) show much more mythology.  Over time, more and more mythology got added in.

So yes, you are being asked to believe in the largely mythological character.  However, there are a lot of Christians who do not believe in the supernatural aspects of this shit.  They don't think Jesus did miracles and they don't think he rose from the dead.  They simply think something like, there is a lot of wisdom in the bible and much to learn from it, even though it has errors.

[Anon136]

I only believe in things that have good evidence and/or logcally consistent arguments to back them up, i have not yet encountered such evidence and/or logically consistent arguments for any religion. I am however uncompromisingly open minded so if you felt so inclined as to share with me the evidence and/or arguments that convinced you, and if the evidence evidence is good and/or the arguments are sound than i'll certainly climb on board.

[Spendulus]

I'm uncompromisingly open minded. If you can show me good evidence than I'll climb on board. So what is your evidence?

Evidence for what?

If you refer to 'a belief in Jesus Christ' then you refer to a faith based dogma.  Both the terms belief, and faith imply that evidence is not used in the decision process.

I would note here that a personal stand based on faith/belief can be much, much stronger than one based on 'evidence'.

IIRC Jesus himself scorned those who demanded 'proof' and who could not or would not take matters on faith.  Not in the mood to go look it up, but the question posed was not his nature as 'son of god or man/god'.  Rather the question would have been related to 'the Creator' or such.

[Anon136]

I'm uncompromisingly open minded. If you can show me good evidence than I'll climb on board. So what is your evidence?

Evidence for what?

If you refer to 'a belief in Jesus Christ' then you refer to a faith based dogma.  Both the terms belief, and faith imply that evidence is not used in the decision process.

I would note here that a personal stand based on faith/belief can be much, much stronger than one based on 'evidence'.

IIRC Jesus himself scorned those who demanded 'proof' and who could not or would not take matters on faith.  Not in the mood to go look it up, but the question posed was not his nature as 'son of god or man/god'.  Rather the question would have been related to 'the Creator' or such.

if he did that than i could just counter by saying that he should disbelieve in jesus and that he should accept that claim on faith. If he believes that faith is a good justification for believing something than he should also believe my faith based claim. Meaning that he should both believe in and disbelieve in jesus at the same time.

also is there anything wrong with this statement? -> "i believe that i am". if not than, using the socratic method, i think it could be used to break your claim "Both the terms belief, and faith imply that evidence is not used in the decision process."

[Spendulus]

I only believe in things that have good evidence and/or logcally consistent arguments to back them up, i have not yet encountered such evidence and/or logically consistent arguments for any religion. I am however uncompromisingly open minded so if you felt so inclined as to share with me the evidence and/or arguments that convinced you, and if the evidence evidence is good and/or the arguments are sound than i'll certainly climb on board.

Sure I will explain my point of view.  For the largest part I hold to be an atheist, and I am not particularly interested in the 'jesus christ was he real, etc' issue of western philosophy.

Today many think we approach a technological singularity, and some style of intelligent machines.  I think this is reasonable if we give it 50-100 years, instead of the 2025 date that's often quoted.  We know some of the consequences of that type of an event.  They may be summarized as, after the initial spark of consciousness, growth of that entity's knowledge and understanding and capability in terms of doublings per millisecond.  The generally accepted statement is that "We don't know what the world will be like 24 hours later."

Having noted these ideas, I would conjecture that we're not the first or only intelligent species to have existed in the several cycles of stellar evolution in the universe.  And there would have been other, prior technological singularities.  This implies that the universe is what might be called 'intelligence and consciousness rich'.  I think that's a reasonable view - if you like, consider it faith based.  But it doesn't have much to do with religions as they have existed historically, does it?

The opposite end of the spectrum, and what I would call the "19th century mechanistic atheist view", is that man is alone, as far as the evidence shows.  This viewpoint reminds me of what Galileo fought against.

The universe DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THE EARTH.

lol...

[Spendulus]

....is there anything wrong with this statement? -> "i believe that i am". if not than, using the socratic method, i think it could be used to break your claim "Both the terms belief, and faith imply that evidence is not used in the decision process."

I think Christians might look at things such as the wonders of life as 'evidence', but with exceptions of some of them who are idiots and misunderstand their own faith, they are basically, 'the faithful'.

Faith, and belief, are central issues.  "evidence", is secondary or tertiary...

Yes, there is a lot wrong with the statement "I believe that I am."  Let me correct it to "I am."

[Anon136]

I only believe in things that have good evidence and/or logcally consistent arguments to back them up, i have not yet encountered such evidence and/or logically consistent arguments for any religion. I am however uncompromisingly open minded so if you felt so inclined as to share with me the evidence and/or arguments that convinced you, and if the evidence evidence is good and/or the arguments are sound than i'll certainly climb on board.

Sure I will explain my point of view.  For the largest part I hold to be an atheist, and I am not particularly interested in the 'jesus christ was he real, etc' issue of western philosophy.

Today many think we approach a technological singularity, and some style of intelligent machines.  I think this is reasonable if we give it 50-100 years, instead of the 2025 date that's often quoted.  We know some of the consequences of that type of an event.  They may be summarized as, after the initial spark of consciousness, growth of that entity's knowledge and understanding and capability in terms of doublings per millisecond.  The generally accepted statement is that "We don't know what the world will be like 24 hours later."

Having noted these ideas, I would conjecture that we're not the first or only intelligent species to have existed in the several cycles of stellar evolution in the universe.  And there would have been other, prior technological singularities.  This implies that the universe is what might be called 'intelligence and consciousness rich'.  I think that's a reasonable view - if you like, consider it faith based.  But it doesn't have much to do with religions as they have existed historically, does it?

The opposite end of the spectrum, and what I would call the "19th century mechanistic atheist view", is that man is alone, as far as the evidence shows.  This viewpoint reminds me of what Galileo fought against.

The universe DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THE EARTH.

lol...

oh sure, and we will probably simulate universes on computers in the future, and those universes will probably develop life and that life will build computers that simulate universes on into infinity and that is a pretty good argument for the fact that our universe was probably simulated in such a manner. if you want to call the scientists who created our universe gods, than yea ok there is a reasonable chance that god or gods are real. That doesn't meet my criteria for god though. And of course none of that is faith based, i think its a pretty decent and logically consistent argument. if you want to call such beings gods, than it sure as hell is a better argument for the existence of gods than, "well i just have faith".

[Anon136]

....is there anything wrong with this statement? -> "i believe that i am". if not than, using the socratic method, i think it could be used to break your claim "Both the terms belief, and faith imply that evidence is not used in the decision process."

I think Christians might look at things such as the wonders of life as 'evidence', but with exceptions of some of them who are idiots and misunderstand their own faith, they are basically, 'the faithful'.

Faith, and belief, are central issues.  "evidence", is secondary or tertiary...

Yes, there is a lot wrong with the statement "I believe that I am."  Let me correct it to "I am."

as far as wonders being evidence, its not a bad argument really, i sympathize with it. unfortunately it is flawed, because we have NO idea how large the sample set is for initial conditions for universes. there could be *insert graham's number here* total universe out there, each with random laws. if this were the case than there would almost certainly be some with wonderful properties and with no need for an intelligent creator. and honestly an intelligent creator doesnt solve that problem, it just begs the question because it would be a wonder its self.

What is wrong with the statement "i believe that i am", is there some reason why i should not believe that i am?

"i am" is also a true statement but it does have a slightly different meaning from "i believe that i am". granted you could say that there is never any good reason to chose the statement "i believe that i am" over the statement "i am" but that doesn't make it wrong.

p.s. sometimes epistemology breaks by brain. so if what i wrote up there is totally insane, and it might be, i apologize for that.  

*edit* perhapse one might argue that at this point we are delving so deep into the bowels of epistemological thought that the Socratic method is no longer valid since the Socratic method is built on top of such structures.

[Magazine]

No,


I'll prob find a lump in my ball sack now for dissing the almighty holy jebus.

[DobZombie]

I believe there was a bloke named Jesus.

I believe he was overloaded with charisma.

I don't believe he was magical tho

[spooderman]

Juses Crust

[rampalija]

i do Belive

[Spendulus]

....

oh sure, and we will probably simulate universes on computers in the future, and those universes will probably develop life and that life will build computers that simulate universes on into infinity and that is a pretty good argument for the fact that our universe was probably simulated in such a manner. if you want to call the scientists who created our universe gods, than yea ok there is a reasonable chance that god or gods are real. That doesn't meet my criteria for god though. And of course none of that is faith based, i think its a pretty decent and logically consistent argument. if you want to call such beings gods, than it sure as hell is a better argument for the existence of gods than, "well i just have faith".

It does not follow that 'universes can be simulated on computers', because there you encounter the problem of resolution of the simulated universe.  Perhaps you might use a granularity of 1 centimeter.  But that wouldn't resolve a person very well, and would not give him much of a brain.  So ideally, you'd use a resolution of a subatomic particle.  You'd need as much memory for your computer as the total sum of subatomic particles....at that point the particles clearly have the advantage, as opposed to the simulation.

If we argue for the existence of a consciousness-dense universe, then using the prior assertions it is required to recognize that all of that consciousness came to be after the big bang.  Another common concept for a god is something/someone that stands outside the process of the creation of the universe, who was there 'before the big bang'.  This to me is a question that does not have to be answered since dimensionality and the arrow of time did not exist before the big bang.  The question is improperly constructed.