Did Jesus REALLY exist?

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WELL..unfortunately there are fundamentalists in both camps..so called Christians and so called Atheists...

But human beings have common sense..and it is a little ridiculous in my opinion..to suggest that a human being cannot read a friggin book like the bible..and separate the bull..away from the truth...

I never had a problem with that..if it does not ring true..i discard it immediately..

And if ya ask most people who go to church..pulling them to the side..to get their real interpretation of the bible..and their beliefs..

They are as varied as they are..in any group of atheists discussing this on the internet..

But to understand this one must participate..at least like a participant observer...

i've been doing this for decades..and it is crystal clear to me..and my friends at church..as well..

This is not a black and white issue at any church...

There is always tons of disagreement..for potential wherever two minds may meet..on almost any issue in life...

But yes...there are plenty of folks with the same type of common sense as Thomas Jefferson who simply separated the BS from the truth..
and he even made the time..to write a separate copy..to make it easier..for him and folks that tend to agree...

Church works for some folks..GOD works for some folks..Jesus works for some folks..the TAO..the TAI CHI..the DAO...QI..Dharma..great spirit..allah..or whatever .. vehicles or vessels of human language used as a tool..to get to truth...

Humans are rarely perfect..in their ascertainment of truth..
and if they were..it would kind of BE a boring life..in my opinion...

It is the seeking that is fun..
The destination..is just that..destination...not a verb..
a place...
but .. just in my opinion.. of course.

Revelation 2:23

I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Well there is certainly nothing destructive in that. It's such a nice kind message.

You are right though, it does separate Jesus from from L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith and David Koresh. I don't think any of them advocated killing children.

Last edited by Max000 on 12 Feb 2014, 5:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I question whether you are parsing that poll accurately. Agnostics won't be siding with a believer majority. I can be both an agnostic and atheist depending on how the question is phrased because there is cross over between the two depending on the precise form of each. And of course If majority opinion mattered then we'd all need to accept that aliens are visiting Earth without any evidence.



Lets bring some facts to this point. Fewer that 98% of Americans or Europeans have faith and that number is decreasing. I doubt there is accurate polling for the world as a whole. "Doing" is relative as a minority in the United States attend church regularly which also undermines your religious socializing point. People in the US rate family as more important than religion and most people can socialize in any environment and they don't require the solicitous local church group to meet those needs.

The utility of belief and the veracity of belief are two entirely different things. Muslim and Mormon charities do good work and also provide social outlets. That has nothing to do with the veracity of their religions. Scientologists say Narconon works. Okay, Hubbard was still nuts.

Conflating the benefits of positive attitudes and stress reduction with faith healing just doesn't seem reasonable to me. If you point is that religion lowers stress then you'd need to factor in the times when it increases stress before drawing any conclusions. Catholic guilt comes to mind or Afghan girls trying to walk to school. And that would be utility anyway, not veracity.

And for every point favoring its utility a point could be raised highlighting its darker aspects. That's not an easy equation to solve.

Last edited by simon_says on 12 Feb 2014, 5:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Sure.. if ya read it literally..but most people would agree that Karma can be a real b*8*H

it's not any different really than trying to understand my style of writing..when i go all abstract and poetic..

The bible is a giant book of poetry..it is was never meant to be taken literally..

And it is amusing ..seriously amusing..the way that SOME fundamentalist atheists..view it the BASIC same way ..Christian fundamentalists view it...

The only difference..i can
see...
is the house ..location..and family
they were or are brought up
to
be....in overall religious persuasion.. per intensity as such...

A fundamentalist..is more or less..
a personality type..
and definitely in the realm of
somewhere near and or about..
INTJ...in the Jungian..Briggs Meyers..spectrum..
of personality types...

But the bottom line is..
it is a little more difficult for SOME OF them to read between the lines..
of life..
Autism spectrum or no Autism spectrum..
per official diagnosis...of the disorder..rather
than personality type....

Call it what ever you like. I call it BS.

AND THE reproduction rates of the non-believing folks continues to decrease while most others who believe are doing the wild thing..
to actually produce a human life...

So it's not looking too Good for any substantial rising numbers of nonbelievers in the world..

My point was on atheism..i was not disputing anything about agnosticism..and included that in some consideration in the belief in GOD...

The world IS a big place..Europe and America is a relative small portion of the whole dam thing..

No one has been able to dispute the finding of the peer reviewed research i provided on the 98 percent..so i guess we'll go with that..
unless ya got another source..refuting it..

Religion fosters positive beliefs and positive beliefs..reduces illness and does heal individuals through the placebo and illness increases with negative beliefs and the nocebo effect..

It's real ..it's scientifically proven..and no hell no..of course ya cannot parse it out of all the positive things that might lead to this in a whole human day...

But the point is..positive beliefs work..and religions are all about that..to suggest it ain't making a positive contribution..is seriously totally uncommon sense..and overall non -sense..per the research that exists on this issue...

Friendships are the number one element of human happiness..and this more than anything is what folks talk about after church..
Their friggin friends..and that is what makes 'em happy campers in life..overall...

Church is a social event moreover than anything else..but that should be no surprise at all..as it was designed precisely for this real common sense human benefit..that..anyone with any common sense would understand that any social animals would benefit from...

Connection ..social animal connection..it is the bread of life..for all social animals...

All the metaphors..and abstract language in the world..
is not going to change the basic social animal nature..and absolute requirement to connect with other social animals..overall to thrive in life....

And sure there are negative issues with most everything in life..

But to thrive overall..is to connect..above and beyond..all other human attributes....

This makes religions overall..simply indispensable...for the overall human condition..

But no of course not for everyone..folks do deviate from the norm..and even other social animals...

Last edited by aghogday on 12 Feb 2014, 6:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well..religion is not a place conducive to rigid thinking..there is some BS and there are some nuggets of gold...
but only for those who CAN discern it..

So yah.. you are correct in some way...as far as the BS goes...

Birth rates are correlated to wealth and living standards. As societies advance economically they gradually move toward fewer children for various reasons including better family planning. That has changed for many nations and will continue to change. And once developing nations become developed and increasingly educated they will likely go through similar patterns as the West. People are people and not even 2,000 years of raging world-spanning evangelism could protect the West from their current trajectory.

You seem to believe that the Western loss of faith is an aberration and I believe that we are the canary in the coal mine. We'll see.

Well, most of us mainline Protestants as well as Catholics don't put much stock in Revelations. In fact, both Luther and Calvin felt the book was not authentically inspired.

Well, I'm a Lutheran, and from my own religious tradition's opinion, the OT is primarily law, while the NT is largely gospel, one displaying God's wrath, while the other emphasizing his grace and love. That, and we believe in gradual revelation; that is in this case, the writers of the OT were without the whole picture of God, perceiving him as wrathful with their limited understanding of the Almighty, and believing that unexplained calamities were due to God's anger at sinfulness.
No, I don't expect that to be a satisfactory answer, but that's how we explain this discrepancy.

See my response to Simon_Says.

Well.. religious participation is correlated with the social welfare state...and per the research done in this area..that is not changing much in the world..

The ACA is a start in the US..but as long as people cannot rely on the state for fuller social security in time of need..

Religions more than anything fill this space..for culture...

http://rss.sagepub.com/content/16/4/399.abstract

As linked and quoted earlier..believers have remained relatively stable since the 1940's in the US..at 90% but actual church doors closing is on the rise..at the start of the 2000's likely in part as a result of competing..sources of potential dopamine stimulation ..that the information technology highway brings..as well as alternative avenues of worship...

But belief remains strong..in the US..there is no reason to see for any change in that..even the fundamentalist folks that look toward pop stars like Katy Perry as some type of devil worshipper..for her full freedom in creative expressions..herself admits she has a personal belief in GOD..

GOD is alive and well..in the US..dying in some European countries..but with the immigration of Muslims in many of those..earlier homogenous only societies..the social welfare state..may potentially go on the decline instead of rise there..with the average tribal animosity among human beings who view each other as different....leading to separation of full human cooperation..as a tribe of one...instead of separation....

And to be clear..much about organized religion disgusts..me..it's amazing really i could find one in my local area i could tolerate...

I abhor oppression of all kinds..including the oppression of alternate beliefs..whether it is atheism..or whatever makes a person happy...

But i'm a maverick..not really a member of any herd..here or anywhere..other than the human one....

Well, non faith has made some significant inroads in the past few decades. I really don't need a link to establish it at this late date. And it's further advanced in Europe than the US.

As far as religiosity and birth rates, look at Spain and Italy. At one time they might have represented the gold standard for European religiosity. Now they have low birth rates even by EU standards. And falling birth rates have happened all over the world as nations develop. Things change.

Well..seriously while organized religion in churches in on the decline in the US..the research simply does not show that for overall belief in a higher power in the US..again it's relatively stable since the 1940's..perhaps you may be confusing the two..if ya can provide research that refutes the link i provided..i will certainly entertain..a different result...

It's impossible to determine this strictly by anecdote alone..

it's just not something many people wanna talk about around the water cooler...

Falling birth rates..are more associated with birth control and abortion in developing countries that any other single variable..

They are a long long way..from reaching a secure social welfare state...if ever..and the birth rate alone is not what the correlation is..it is the social welfare state..in research that is the correlation....

And yes i do agree that faith has been on the decline in Europe for decades now..but the difference is Universal health care and other measures of the social welfare state for human beings..in these countries..

But Europe is a relative drop in the bucket for the population of the entire world..and again..the Muslim world is moving in...slowly but surely....

We have the Mexican immigrant religious folks to replenish the minions of christians..in the US and they have the Muslim religious folks to replenish the minions of muslims..that are just starting their existence on a rise..in those European countries...if it wasn't for these immigrants..the statistics in the US..very possibly could show a significant overall general population loss of faith in the US..since the 1940's...

Religion sells...as long as the need is there...it's gonna exist..in needed proportion..as long as it's legal....

Gallup has a number of them. People identifying as "none" under religion is up from 8% in 2000 to 15% in 2013. Not all will be atheists and agnostics but it's something that Christian writers have openly worried about it. I didn't just make this up tonight.

A Gallup-Win international poll has atheism up 4 points internationally since 2005 and religious faith down. China having the largest pool of confirmed atheists.
http://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affai ... 69644886-1

And Europe is running thin on faith. Non faith in Spain: 19%, 25% UK. 40% France. 29% Norway. Even our neighbors in Canada have 23% with no faith.

It's also quite natural that you'll see more people willing to openly identify as non-believers in this era than 20 or 50 years ago when almost no one said none. Traditional society has lost much it's power to shame non-traditional beliefs. Your neighbor or boss usually doesn't care what you think any more. And where people are allowed to speak their minds ideas will naturally be passed on. To assume that the distribution of religious conversation in 1950 Mayberry is due to the natural order of things and biological mandates is likely missing a few factors.

When you look at the meta number you have to account for growth in certain regions. Since China has become more permissive there are Christian conversions going on. Same for Eastern Europe post communism. But that doesn't change the fact that regionally you do have developed regions that are slowly leaving gods behind. Europe, the source of all of that screaming and shouting over a parade of gods, is losing interest in the subject.



Which is associated with wealth and family planning, as I said:
http://www.gapminder.org/videos/what-st ... on-growth/

Thanks for providing the links..and it does seem like there is some movement in America..toward the non believers..significant yes..but substantial no..and yes definitely concern for traditional religion...like
Christianity...

But i do not see the overall idea of a higher power..as dying in the US..it's ingrained in the way of life..ironically as a cultural materialistic one too..with
almost one third of the year focused on the Christmas buying season...

But anything goes in Europe..it's been that way for sometime...and i do not have anything against that at all..

it would be better in my opinion..if people's needs were taken care of..properly when they fall in life..

as opposed to any specific ABSTRACT LANGUAGE 'VESSELED' OR 'VEHICLED' belief in any deity at all....INCLUDING
POTENTIAL MYTHS TO HOUSE THOSE VESSELS AND VEHICLES...of abstract language for however one may describe
the total force of 'GOD'...

But in my opinion GOD IS ALL ABOUT SURVIVAL..AND will and THOSE WHO CONNECT AND HELP OTHERS..
REAP THE NATURAL BENEFITS..OF WHAT IS THE NATURAL REWARD OF NATURE..
FOR BEING A SOCIAL ANIMAL...WHICH IN MY OPINON..IS JUST ANOTHER PROCESS AND POSITIVE
FORCE..THAT CAN reasonably BE identified as THE ABSTRACT CONCEPT GOD...

NO LANGUAGE OR logical STRUCTURE..IS NECESSARY TO BE
part of that..

It flows..in the way..
most animals enjoy a oneness with the force of what i describe as GOD...

I NEVER FULLY experienced that until this year..when i returned to nature..and escaped..the prison..
and illusions of cultural delusions..like hate..illusory fear..and a desire for anything but
the joy of now....

But it is a practice..my way is a similar way..that people have entered into a oneness with the ALL that is..
since 70 thousand years ago..
a natural form of TAI CHI dancing..walking in reverse..and belly dancing..
that flowed from me..
and was never lessoned from another human being...

The folks that come to this type of enlightenment have to escape logic..
it is the only way to do it..
in my opinion..and the more intelligent a person is per standard intelligence measures..
the more difficult it is..
but i veer from no challenge in life..or death.

And seriously it
s not that different than a hawk spiraling around the Sun..
it requires no thought at all....

But the experience of it is better than many human orgasms..at the same time..
continuously...
There are no words to even describe the experience..
of TRUE ONENESS WITH ALLITIS...

YEAH..SERIOUSLY I GOT A CASE OF ALLITIS..

BUT YEAH SERIOUSLY..IT'S NOT A BAD THING TO CATCH..
IF YA find a way TO FISH FOR IT....;)

I'm sure there are many other paths..
but the one i found
works for me..and yes
many folks find it in a similar way through history..
mostly Yogis and folks in the Buddhist tradition..of the way
to Bliss...and escape from human suffering...
My meditation is movement..
some folks do it sitting still...
but hell no i ain't ever sitting still again.. like i did when i was a shut in for over 60 months with 19 documented medical disorders...
as long as i can move...toward.. and stay in an enlightened state of being...
that is the way i'm moving...