Do You Think Jesus Really Ever Existed?

You waste a lot of time setting up strawmen for me. The scientific method is not my god; I have no god. It's a method that works. I never said the word intuition either. When you "listen to your heart" you should be using the scientific method to determine the quality and value of what you are hearing. Ethics can be counterintuitive, like much of the world.

 

I don't know which parts of the Bible to believe and which not to. Jesus taught that the kingdom of Heaven was within and all around you, yet when he was crucified he screamed out "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Didn't he know where Heaven was at that point? Or is that a part of the story Christianity added?

Why is Jesus any more important a teacher than you, Chinacat? I've never understood if Jesus wanted to be looked upon as some kind of master or not. He certainly didn't object when his followers referred to him as "Lord". Instead of just saying what he meant so anyone could understand, he always said things in a vague way that everyone has to interpret. The effect is that we sit around discussing what is probably complete bullshit, but we almost never discuss whether or not following Buddhistic principles will lead to enlightenment. It's always about Jesus, to the point where his message is so contrived it really doesn't matter if he existed or not, because he didn't say anything. And the only thing I can think of is that he intentionally set himself up in such a way to do exactly as he said he was here to do, which is set up brother against brother and spread fire across the Earth. Which I don't even think he was that successful at.

You say that his major point wasn't just "be nice to people". The alternative was that he was espousing a Buddhistic way of relating to the universe. But he didn't make that clear at all. How is saying you're turning families against each other and spreading fire around the world supposed to be simply interpreted as "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you". I mean, did he really have inner peace if he felt it was necessary to change the world so much? It seems more like there was an internal war with the world going on.

 

For the umteenth time, we aren't talking about a guy who necessarily had magical powers. Before doing that--on some other thread, maybe--let's consider whether this man, Jesus of Nazareth, magical or not,existed!

 

The Gospel of Thomas is not "known" to be the "oldest Gospel ever found", but some scholars (notably the Jesus Seminar) think it is. Others think the version we have was started at an early date, but was modified in subsequent renderings to include later Gnostic teachings. Assuming that it is leads to important decisions concerning Jesus' message. The Jesus Seminar, for example, uses a methodology that gives greatest weight to the earlier scriptures. Considering Thomas earliest is controversial, and supports the Jesus' Seminar's position (bias?) that Jesus was a wandering gnostic sage who taught a non-apocalyptic message. I've been influenced by the Gospel of Thomas, especially by saying 113: "the kingdom of the father is spread out everywhere upon the earth, and people do not see it."

 

I think you take universal love, peace and understanding for granted, but they are hard-won values, by no means historically universal nor biologically "natural". Empathy typically extended to kinsmen, like parents, and to fellow tribesmen, not to outsiders or those who were different. While I don't think Christianity "invented" them, it's been helpful to me and others in reinforcing and sharpening them. What I'd be like without them is a matter of speculation. What would Buddhists be like without the insights that attachments are the root of human suffering? The notion that our "heart" teaches these things flies in the face of our observations of daily "heartlessness" on the part of so many of our fellow humans, who think that love is fluff and that power is the way the world works.

 

If Jesus didn't say the things we think he said and didn't do the things it's written he did, then it's relevant to our search for the "real jesus"; that is, we may be looking for a ghost, or at best, just a random guy who's had a whole bunch of stuff attached to him by other people. If so, this search would seem to be a big waste of time; who cares if some random guy existed? You care because you think he did say those things, and maybe even did those deeds; so that is what we are discussing now; why we even care.

Our science of morality is just being birthed now, and we are already toppling millenia of incorrect notions of where our sense of right and wrong comes from.

The notion that the message of christ teaches anything flies in the face of our daily observations of the ruthless "christians" who partake in horrors and scandals of all stripes.

We are also not discussing all those other teachings of gentle jesus, meek and mild:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/nt_list.html

 

I wouldn't say Jesus was just a "random guy", since He seems to have had quite an impact on those around Him, but the evidence of what He said or did is slimmer than the evidence for His existence. I care about His existence in much the same way I care about the existence of Socrates, the Buddha, King Arthur, or Queztalcoatl, --an interesting historical puzzle that I suspect may never be fully resolved to everyone's satisfaction. But Christianity is a noteworthy historical development, and understanding how and why it developed is important. A not irrelevant piece of the puzzle is whether the figure claimed as the start of it all existed, or whether it was all made up out of whole cloth. The thing that makes Jesus especially interesting, as opposed to the others, is His impact on history, as a figure revered by one-third of the world's population today. If the historical existence of Jesus were not worth considering, why have secular historians from Srauss to Carrier made a cottage industry out of studying it? If I believed that Jesus came to earth to die for our sins, and that my salvation depended on literally believing that, as lots of people do, His historical relevance would be particularly important. I admit that Jesus has a special place in my heart as the source of my sense of meaning and morality. But I think I wouldn't be crushed if I learned that science has shown conclusively that He didn't exist (which it hasn't).Same goes for Socrates, the Buddha, Quetzalcoatl and King Arthur. I've come increasingly to realize that the Jesus I follow is mainly the Jesus of the Gospels, especially Luke, which I'm convinced are not reliable as a guide to biographical detail. This is the Jesus of myth, in the sense that Joseph Campbell uses the term ( a metaphorical truth, not a falsehood). It's the spiritual and moral truths the Gospels convey that are reliable. Yes, we know them through the "heart"--because they are intuitively recognized as wisdom. As for the darker side mentioned in your link, that's precisely why it's useful to distinguish between the historical and the mythical Jesus. Those skeptical interpretations taken out of context could be the subject of a whole new thread, although to address them now would carry us way off topic. While awaiting the birth of the "science of morality" (whatever that is), which hopefully won't be aborted or stillborn, we have to make do with what we have--the teachings and example of our heroes, real or mythical.

 

So to sum up this conversation so far, no one has proved that Jesus existed. No one has proved that Jesus didn't exist. But we all pretty much agree that the record of his existence is so shoddy that even if he did exist, we wouldn't be able to agree upon who he was.

 

Yeah I was just including that to be nice.

 

Doesn't matter. I believe People have always found something to worship/fear, starting with frightening displays of nature. Right on up to frightening displays of wealth. People do not want to be considered just another animal among animals. WE WANT TO BE SPECIAL AND LIVE FOREVER!
Maybe we will---maybe we won't.
Trying to remember that guy that died, came back and told us ALL about the afterlife some years later--------------hmmmmmmm. Slipped my mind, I guess.

 

Unless you assert that he didn't (or probably) didn't exist. Then the burden of proof shifts to you.

 

"I don't know which parts of the Bible to believe and which not to. Jesus taught that the kingdom of Heaven was within and all around you, yet when he was crucified he screamed out "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Didn't he know where Heaven was at that point? Or is that a part of the story Christianity added?"

Whether you're in Nirvana or Enlightenment or Heaven or not, why don't you try getting crucified? Your question is no different than when an adept goes to the Zen master and proclaims to be enlightened, only for the Zen master to wack him over the head with a stick. This is a famous Zen story that highlights that physical pain doesn't disappear when you're in a different or new state of Consciousness.


Why is Jesus any more important a teacher than you, Chinacat? I've never understood if Jesus wanted to be looked upon as some kind of master or not. He certainly didn't object when his followers referred to him as "Lord". Instead of just saying what he meant so anyone could understand, he always said things in a vague way that everyone has to interpret. The effect is that we sit around discussing what is probably complete bullshit, but we almost never discuss whether or not following Buddhistic principles will lead to enlightenment. It's always about Jesus, to the point where his message is so contrived it really doesn't matter if he existed or not, because he didn't say anything. And the only thing I can think of is that he intentionally set himself up in such a way to do exactly as he said he was here to do, which is set up brother against brother and spread fire across the Earth. Which I don't even think he was that successful at.

He's not more important than me or you. That's why he says all people are gods in the Gospel of Thomas.

I think that he was both misunderstood in his time and in the present time, and we're talking about 2000+ years of our own small little modern interpretation. Like I said, play the game "Telephone" and see what happens. Now do it over 2000 plus years.

The Alchemists also taught in cryptic and hard-to-understand ways. Maybe he realized it was the only way he could get his message across for his time. I feel he was following his True Will. That's why when he said "why haven't you forsaken me?", he quickly surrendered, because he knew he was just letting his True Will guide him.

We should definitely be talking more about Buddhism and Enlightenment, I agree.

How was he not successful at tapping into where men divide themselves against each other? He was a master at it.

You say that his major point wasn't just "be nice to people". The alternative was that he was espousing a Buddhistic way of relating to the universe. But he didn't make that clear at all. How is saying you're turning families against each other and spreading fire around the world supposed to be simply interpreted as "the Kingdom of Heaven is within you". I mean, did he really have inner peace if he felt it was necessary to change the world so much? It seems more like there was an internal war with the world going on.

He was sending people into their own aloneness. By putting "brother against brother", he is showing people where their Ego's and sense of separation are in the deepest ways in a human being. He wanted people to turn inward and find their own Oneness. Differing views of philosophy are where people most find their sense of identity. By exposing people to this, he was attempting to break down those barriers, in a chaotic way.

He is different than The Buddha because he was very much in this world, as opposed to The Buddha who had a more transcendent vibe. It's just the Western and Eastern differences is all.

How did he not spread fire across the world? Think of the irony of what Christianity is and all the wars that are faught in the name of it. It's a Cosmic Irony.

And if anything, having inner peace seems to me to be the best and most powerful way of changing the world. He had the freedom to have the life that he had, and he exposed himself to the things he did, even and especially the shitty aspects, because of the inner peace. Freedom is never freedom "from" anything. It's not freedom if it's freedom "from". Freedom is freedom "to" experience both great and ugly things.

 

Then why is it important to know whether he existed or not? Why do we have to act like it's important for this guy to receive credit posthumously, as though it's a token of dignity we all would deserve when his teachings are supposedly saying just the opposite of that?

I just think his existence was kind of irrelevant. Had it not been him people fought over, it would have been something else. He didn't create good and evil within humanity. He didn't create the struggle that was and is going to occur whether he existed or not. I suppose if he felt someone had to be the crux around which wars were fought and it might as well be him, then thanks for taking one for the team (even though you are idolized for it.)

I see a struggle for humanity's salvation going on that is very real, and the story of Jesus may be allegorical to this struggle, but the struggle itself shouldn't be overshadowed by any one personality. Everybody is involved in it. It really doesn't matter if Jesus existed or not, but if he did and people really wanted to honor him here, they would post his teachings in the Buddhist forums and actually discuss their merits. We all know you can't do that on a Christian forum, because no one takes Christians seriously when it comes to their spirituality. They just have kind of a hokey spirituality where they like good foods, good friends, and good times. Though maybe there is something to be said for that as well. Maybe that is enlightenment, to just kind of humbly accept that everything is just perfectly ordinary.

 

Yes it does.Ei incumbit probotio qui dicit. ( He who asserts must prove).http://www.lawweb.in/2014/03/basic-principle-of-burden-of-proof-he.html. Therefore, anyone who asserts that Jesus doesn't exist must prove that.You seem to recognize this, or at least quote the words,. but deny their application to the hypothetical presented.

 

His existence is important because of his impact on history, as a figure revered by one-third of the world's population today. If we want to develop an accurate understanding of the man and his deeds and teachings, we need to consider whether or not he existed.

 

Trust me, just because he's from the East doesn't mean that physical pain is disappeared for him.

Why is it important to know whether the Buddha existed or not?

You don't HAVE to pay attention to Jesus if you don't want to. Only Christians are insisting that you have to.

You can post it on a Christian forum if you want to. Christians are close-minded, but Christianity and Jesus are two different things entirely.