The Truth about Religion

[Pyrotex]

I beg to differ....

You beg to differ about what?

Josephus was contracted (in a manner of speaking) by a Roman Emperor to write his Antiquities of the Jews. He HAD to please that one person, and only that one. He was "adopted" into the household of that Emperor and knew that his position was entirely conditional on pleasing him. Whatever the opinions, ideologies or agendas of far-away people, living or dead, they would have had less than no affect on Josephus.

[cwes99_03]

Pyro, if that is true (not saying it isn't because I don't have much background on Josephus) then why do you cite him as a source when stating that he hardly even mentions Jesus and only in later editions.

 

Let's see, a man get's contracted by an emperor (who probably has an inflated head because he has been "worshipped" as a god by his people's religion) to give a history of the Jews (not christians). So the man (possibly under fear of death) writes down the parts that won't make his patron mad, including the obvious parts that the emperor wants to know about, and leaving out the parts that are likely to be unhappy thoughts for the emperor. Furthermore, as a historian of the Jews, just briefly mentioning a man the Jews killed because he claimed to be their Messiah is probably enough from a Jewish standpoint.

Would you want to show that Jesus had various powers including those powers to raise the dead when you knew that the guy paying you to write was afraid or angered by such talk and when the Jews you were writing about didn't feel he deserved any credit in their history except as a footnote.

 

Today, Jesus is still just a footnote to Jews and Muslims as a man who had some power but was at best just a prophet, and to some most likely a false-prophet.

[Southtown]

You beg to differ about what?

Josephus was contracted (in a manner of speaking) by a Roman Emperor to write his Antiquities of the Jews. He HAD to please that one person, and only that one. He was "adopted" into the household of that Emperor and knew that his position was entirely conditional on pleasing him. Whatever the opinions, ideologies or agendas of far-away people, living or dead, they would have had less than no affect on Josephus.

I differ in regard to there being 'no establishment' in the first century. And therefore I also disagree that scant referrence to Jesus in the first century is cause for concern. Read my links. Read about Nero. From the wiki, most consider enough evidence from Josephus to say that he existed, if not in the too-good-to-be-true, show-stopping Catholic enunciation.

 

Josephus on Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Abstruce]

I differ in regard to there being 'no establishment' in the first century. And therefore I also disagree that scant referrence to Jesus in the first century is cause for concern. Read my links. Read about Nero. From the wiki, most consider enough evidence from Josephus to say that he existed, if not in the too-good-to-be-true, show-stopping Catholic enunciation.

 

Josephus on Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Southtown

 

Have you studied the history of any other religions?

 

There were many religions that died out. Most were created on a similar myth structure.

 

The question of what connection Christianity has to Mediterranean religions has been a controversy since the early centuries of Christianity.

 

Such questions subsided and were suppressed as the power of the Church grew, they have returned as the knowledge about early religions has been rediscovered.

 

Whether this connection exists, and who copied whom, is at the core of the question of Jesus as myth.

 

Most religions of the Mediterranean in the time of early Christianity were centred on a single divine figure (in the case of Orphism, the central figure is essentially an avatar of his own master, Dionysus), who had in most cases originally been a minor deity, whose mythology contained a narrative involving the deities death. In several cases, the original mythology seems to have been completely hijacked and abruptly altered, often bearing very little relation to the original myth.

 

This is particularly noticeable in the way that Mithra somehow became Mithras. A number of the Mediterranean religions of the period contain several similarities to each other, such as a prominent life-death-rebirth narrative, and the central deity being semi-human.

 

This group (including the religions of Osiris-Horus, Dionysus, Mithras, Aion, Adonis, and Attis) were identified as connected in early times, and as a group were named Osiris-Dionysus after the two earliest groups.

 

Modern scholars have argued that most of these Osiris-Dionysus religions evolved when earlier Osiris-Dionysus religions spread into a new region and localised themselves by hijacking convenient local deities.

 

This is most evident in how Sabazios, originally a Phrygian deity, became another name for Dionysus, it is also evident in how Orphicism developed with the central figure of Orpheus, supposedly a priest of Dionysus, but essentially Dionysus himself.

 

Most scholars that have an opinion on the matter argue that the earliest form of this religion was the Osiris-Horus form of ancient Egyptian religions, and that the others developed from there, having been transferred by merchants. Notably, although a form of Osiris-Dionysus was present in most nations around the Mediterranean, particularly in the east, at first glance no such form appears to have existed in Roman Palestine.

 

A central contention of the Jesus-as-myth argument is that Jesus, or at least much of the Gospel narrative about him, and early Christian tradition concerning him, is the form of Osiris-Dionysus localised for Roman Palestine.

 

Enough has survived from the comments of their enemies (for example, Origen and Irenaeus), and a few relics of their own, for scholars to be fairly certain that many

religions were, at least by the first century, Pythagoreanist and Neo-Platonic reinterpretations of earlier myths

 

Earlier myths became, religions, allegory and metaphor, concerning universal truths, rather than something considered literally true.

 

What connection exists between Gnosticism and the Mediterranean religions is an unsolved question, but it is certain that they would have shared considerably similar teaching methods, soteriology, and mysticism.

 

Thus to approach the question of whether Christianity borrowed from other religions (and vice versa), comparisons should be made not only between early Christianity and Mediterranean myths, but also between early Christianity and Pythagoreanism.

 

This is good evidence that Jesus is a myth.

 

JQ

[ughaibu]

Abstruce: That's interesting. Do you know of a source listing miracles attributed to Pythagoras?

[Abstruce]

Abstruce: That's interesting. Do you know of a source listing miracles attributed to Pythagoras?

 

The Pythian oracle predicted his birth?

 

I do not know what you are referring to, however I have to run there is an new RL out there with my name on it.

 

JQ

[ughaibu]

Abstruce: It hadn't occured to me that Pythagoras would be in the lineage from which Jesus evolved, thanks for pointing this out. Accordingly, I'm wondering how much overlap there is between the miracles of Pythagoras and those of Jesus. I guess this may be the place to start: Amazon.com: The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy: Books: Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie http://www.amazon.com/Pythagorean-Sourcebook-Library-Pythagoras-Philosophy/dp/0933999518

[Southtown]

A central contention of the Jesus-as-myth argument is that Jesus, or at least much of the Gospel narrative about him, and early Christian tradition concerning him, is the form of Osiris-Dionysus localised for Roman Palestine.

. . .

What connection exists between Gnosticism and the Mediterranean religions is an unsolved question, but it is certain that they would have shared considerably similar teaching methods, soteriology, and mysticism.

Extremely impressive. If you can send me resources for any of that I would be grateful. I have been trying to build an essay regarding the Christian distortion of the Jewish Messiah. All that you have said above is true. Christianity was the result of Pagans trying to make sense of the Gospel as conveyed by Paul. They erred the same way as the rest of us; they didn't know the Hebrew roots. Why were the Jews expecting a Messiah? How were they supposed to know when they found him? You are on the right trail, padawan.

[Abstruce]

Extremely impressive. If you can send me resources for any of that I would be grateful. I have been trying to build an essay regarding the Christian distortion of the Jewish Messiah. All that you have said above is true. Christianity was the result of Pagans trying to make sense of the Gospel as conveyed by Paul. They erred the same way as the rest of us; they didn't know the Hebrew roots. Why were the Jews expecting a Messiah? How were they supposed to know when they found him? You are on the right trail, padawan.

 

Pythagoreans were vegetarian, until the 18th century all vegetarians were not called vegetarian but Pythagoreans.

 

Many scholars and theologians believe that the earliest Christians were vegetarian, as the Desert Fathers almost definitely were, and some significant early Christian groups even had versions of the Gospel of Matthew that clearly point to Jesus being vegetarian.

 

The Gospel of the Ebionites differs from the now traditional version of Matthew in places referring to meat by using similarly spelt vegetarian friendly terms; there is no academic consensus as to which version has the more original wording.

 

As the canonical New Testament seems to argue that vegetarianism is a personal choice, and many early Christian writers also stated that it was, the early Christians would seem to have taken this position without a New Testament based theological motivation for doing so.

 

Modern Christian vegetarianism argues that passages from the Old Testament and Book of Enoch assert that vegetarianism was God's ideal, but there is no evidence either for or against the idea that early Christians used the same argument, and there is the alternative possibility that early Christian vegetarianism originated due to the influence of Pythagoreanism.

 

Pythagoreanism also saw deep value in mathematics; geometry was seen as having a high spiritual significance in and of itself, as well as being a mechanism to encode mystical teachings.

 

The Feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000 have long been thought to encode some deeper meaning; more mainstream interpretations regard the numbers involved as references to the Torah feeding the Jews and Jesus' ministry feeding the Gentiles.

 

The use of numbers as cryptic references to deeper teaching could be argued to demonstrate Pythagorean influence in and of itself, but the encrypted presence of mystical diagrams would be a much stronger argument in favour of the existence of such influence.

 

The Catch of 153 fish is one of the most notable situations where a diagram can be derived from the text following basic consistent rules; using the Isopsephia of the text to dictate sizes, the account of the event can be described geometrically - the resulting diagram not only describes the event, but simultaneously has another, more mystical, interpretation as described in Plato's Timaeus.

 

153 itself is a significant number in Pythagoreanism, and had a strong connection to fish, as it was one part of the 'measure of the fish - a reference to the Vesica Piscis (whose name means flesh of the fish) and the square root of 3.

 

JQ

[Heresiarch]

Simple, it's called 'Pattern Recognition'.

 

Example:

Say, "your mama is ugly". Get punched in the nose.

Repeat 10,000 times.

Conclusion: saying "your mama is ugly" will get you punched in the nose.

 

How do you "know" that?

 

Pattern Recognition.

 

also called Classical Conditioning.

[InfiniteNow]

One "truth about religion" is that the world is not as communicatively segragated as previously, and with the recently acquired ability to connect with others around the world, folks feel less isolated in their feelings, outlooks, and consensus.

 

Living in a small community with no telecommunication network, you are easily ostracized and taught to remain silent for the social implications non-conformance brings. Now, with the internet, more people realize that there are others out there *like them* and these communities of alternate and new ideas are growing in both strength and number.

 

There can only be so many communities, and religion is more and more looking for a more secure home.

[Southtown]

As the canonical New Testament seems to argue that vegetarianism is a personal choice, and many early Christian writers also stated that it was, the early Christians would seem to have taken this position without a New Testament based theological motivation for doing so.

. . .

The Feeding of the 5000 and of the 4000 have long been thought to encode some deeper meaning; more mainstream interpretations regard the numbers involved as references to the Torah feeding the Jews and Jesus' ministry feeding the Gentiles.

. . .

The Catch of 153 fish is one of the most notable situations where a diagram can be derived from the text following basic consistent rules; using the Isopsephia of the text to dictate sizes, the account of the event can be described geometrically - the resulting diagram not only describes the event, but simultaneously has another, more mystical, interpretation as described in Plato's Timaeus.

You still have no references.

 

If I were born a Greek, I would think pagan thoughts, eat pagan foods, observe pagan holidays, believe pagan myths, teach pagan doctrines, etc. If some guy tells me about the coming of the Jewish Messiah, do I then know everything about Judaism? Of course not. I would merely attempt to assimilate that concept into my perspective of reality.

 

Christianity is the Greek interpretation of the Messiah concept (a sacrifice from God) that carries the official Roman stamp of approval. Many denominations reject the authority of the church and attempt to interpret scripture for themselves, but let's face it; unless they were raised Jewish, they won't understand the significance of a Messiah at all.

[LayDominican]

The Truth about Religion is simple. It has always been right in front of everyone, and yet no one takes the time to understand it, to see it.

 

All of this nonsense about the nets and the number of fish, the feeding of the 5,000 and some code are like the people who took their good albums and played them backwards to reveal secret messages.

 

Love God above all else, love your neighbor as yourself. these are the truth. these are the keys to salvation. It is not hard, nor does it need a code or hidden words etc, etc.Very simple.is it not?

[InfiniteNow]

It is not hard, nor does it need a code or hidden words etc, etc.Very simple.is it not?

Salvation from what?

[Southtown]

Salvation from animosity. :)

[catholiboy]

Salvation from what?

 

 

What kind of a question is that?

[Abstruce]

If I were born a Greek, I would think pagan thoughts, eat pagan foods, observe pagan holidays, believe pagan myths, teach pagan doctrines, etc. If some guy tells me about the coming of the Jewish Messiah, do I then know everything about Judaism? Of course not. I would merely attempt to assimilate that concept into my perspective of reality..

 

Most people are products of their environment, and in most cases not much more.

 

To decipher reality from folklore and myth has always been a challenge for most people on this planet.

 

JQ

 

 

Christianity is the Greek interpretation of the Messiah concept (a sacrifice from God) that carries the official Roman stamp of approval. Many denominations reject the authority of the church and attempt to interpret scripture for themselves, but let's face it; unless they were raised Jewish, they won't understand the significance of a Messiah at all.

 

What you say about the significance of the Messiah was similar to several Pagan Gods, if you are referring to the Jesus Character. After all there were many Jews who claimed to be the messiah who are not mentioned in the bible.

 

The whole problem with the Jesus story, it holds no historical verisimilitude therefore should not be considered a real event in history. As with the slaughter of the innocence out of exodus and other stories.

 

They are the greatest works of fiction ever written.

 

JQ