NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 11:02pm:

You couldn't make this sort of thing up. You could not have a worldwide religion centred on a person as a person without that person.

Quote:



This is an anticipated but ridiculous attempt at drawing a nonexistent a parallel.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 11:02pm:



People on forums have often told me, that i'm too fixated on seeing just the black and just the white, of things.


Yeah, Black, and White.

Evil, and good.

Devil and God.

Darkness, and light.



Its a fault i guess.

muso wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 9:31pm:

I think the idea of monotheism may have played a large part in the peculiar success of Paul's Christianity... This derivative of Judaism had the right pedigree in that it had its established ancient texts, it had been a monotheistic belief system for many centuries and had its prophets and its many ancient traditions and epic sagas. What was unpalatable to the Roman and Greek mind was its severity with its multitude of laws that did not make sense to non-Semitic people.

Enter Paul who was well prepared to reconstruct this still very Jewish sect into something that non-Jews could accept. The Jewish dietary laws were ditched, the rite of circumcision was abolished and, importantly (since Paul was convinced the world was soon to end), belief in Jesus as one's saviour sent by god, was all that was needed to be initiated into his new religion.

His teachings of this 'Christ' were so far removed from the Jesus of Palestine that the Jewish leaders were compelled to try to silence him. When he refused to desist in preaching lies and heresies against the sect, they disowned him and attempted to have him executed.

But there's no denying that Paul was clearly a master of persuasion and endowed with such gargantuan physical and intellectual energy, that the Jerusalem sect had no chance outside of their Semitic world of challenging or subverting him. He was, in every respect, equal to the likes of Plato in his capacity to persuade and, interestingly, early Christian depictions of the Last Day had Jesus releasing Plato and Socrates from the (by then) very Greek influenced underworld (hades) as the first souls into Heaven.

My own belief regarding the idea of exporting the Jewish (Jesus) sect out of Palestine was to reunite the diaspora Jews back into the Jerusalem sect and perhaps make converts to Judaism from within non-Jewish communities. These rededicated Jews (who were starting to assimilate with non-Jewish cultures) and new believers would then have supported the Jews of Palestine financially and it was likely that the Jerusalem Council believed Jews could eventually stand as equals against Rome in culture and wealth.

Their crude understanding of Hellenised and Romanised cultures proved their undoing as Paul who attempted to follow their strict code realised quickly that the severity (and inanity to non-Semites) would not attract non-Jews. It was becoming unpalatable even to diaspora Jews who by then, I'd guess, were either ditching adherence to religious laws anyway, or were easily persuaded to ditch them with Paul offering them a new Judaism that did not require adherence to the laws. This would have assuaged their guilt at abandoning their religious roots and their ancient covenant with Yahweh.

In short, sending the intellectual giant among the non-Jews, Paul, was to make converts to Judaism to make the Jewish sect rich. It failed and Christianity evolved instead.

Were Jesus to return today (if he ever existed) and saw the Vatican, no doubt he'd wonder what god was being worshipped in St Peter's.

Soren wrote on Apr 6^th, 2014 at 11:13pm:


Not too sure he should be thought of as a person (god probably shouldn't either). doubtful that he is some sort of cop or judge sitting at a desk waiting for us to hand in our CV's.
I think Jesus said this himself.  I am the way, the truth and the life.  more a concept to aim towards and aetheists should be made to argue about whether what he spoke is "the truth", whether his way is 'the way" to peace and happiness, whether his "life" is the best life.
I wouldn't be letting aethiest dumbies blow off Jesus just because they want to analyse him as a "Human" when his words reveal he was aiming for an analysis on a plane of understanding way beyond that.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 7^th, 2014 at 6:59am:


The messiah as the head warlord of the jewish version of the Taliban.
Throwing the romans out of the holy land.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 7^th, 2014 at 7:35am:



Religion and politics.....who'd have thought that they just don't mix