Do You Think Jesus Really Ever Existed?

I don't understand this statement (or question) whatsoever. He didn't produce bad fruit, so He would not have been recogized/known for this. Or are you yourself claiming He produced bad fruit and this is your thought? But...I thought you didn't believe there was ever a Jesus.

"by his own words" ???? What words of his?

Of everything in this thread, this is the thing I don't understand. lol Yeah, I must have special challenges.

 

You must have a secret decoder or something because I would NEVER have some up with this explanation.

 

You first have to define what you mean by "succeeding" in regards to Science. For some perspective, in the 20th Century we became closer than ever before to World annihilation. Is this succeeding? You could argue that without some sense of religion, we may have done that very thing.

But they DO all say the same things in different ways, in fact.

What makes Buddhism more special?

 

I've stated countless times here before that based on my personal transcendental experiences of multiple, profound ego deaths, both pharmacological and non, that I don't even believe there to be a barrier or distinction between outside and inside.

“Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.”
― Alan W. Watts


True, without error, certain and most true: that which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above, to perform the miracles of the One Thing. -Hermes Trismigestus

The fundamentals of Magick rely on this principle.

"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]." -Jesus Christ


"Buddhist enlightenment consists simply in knowing the secret of the unity of opposites- the unity of the inner and outer worlds..."~Alan Watts,


...How are these not all talking about the same thing?


Some other notable quotes:
"It is useless to attempt to drag Zen down to the intellectual plane....
Zen belongs to the intuitive plane. It is therefore beyond discussion, and beyond the sway of the "opposites" by which all description and argument are carried on. It must therefore be understood on its own plane or not at all, for the intellect can never understand or assimilate spiritual facts."
~C. Humphreys,

"There's no way it could be made sensible and logical. It doesn't follow any pattern you could trace."
~Mike Love


"...reality is grasped only when the intellect quits its claim on it. Zen knows this and proposes as a koan a statement having some savor of intellection, something which in disguise looks as if it demanded a logical treatment, or rather looks as if there were room for such treatment."~D.T.Suzuki,

"Satori may be defined as an intuitive looking into the nature of things in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it. Practically, it means the unfolding of a new world hitherto unperceived in the confusion of a dualistically-trained mind....Logically stated, all its opposites and contradictions are united and harmonized into a consistent organic whole."


Clearly Enlightenment and Satori/Samadhi are an important aspect of Buddhism. And also, it looks like that there's not a whole lot of room for Logic in Zen, or at least, more emphasis on Intuition.

I have no interest in staying authentic to any religion whatsoever, and I do not consider buddhism at its core to be a religion anyways.

Well Buddhism very much IS a religion whether you like it or not.

You are making the argument that the aim of buddhism is enlightenment, but that is an argument you are making not a fact. Just as saying the aim of christianity is to get into heaven, is one which would be disputed by many christians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_in_Buddhism

http://www.spiritualworld.org/buddhism/print.htm

http://www.nichirenbuddhist.org/LearnBuddhism/IntroBook/ch2.html

Once again, it looks as if Enlightenment is an important and key element to Buddhism. Your missing of this shows that you don't really seem to understand Buddhism that well.

There may be Buddhists out there who have the aim of Buddhism simply to lead a good life...but it must be remembered that Buddhism is based on The Buddha and his Enlightenment. This is not an argument of mine. It's just what it is. Buddhism wouldn't even exist without this premise.

So too I am not so comfortable with stating the aim of buddhism is enlightenment, especially not any kind of supernatural enlightenment which you are tangled up with.

Your insistence on throwing Kundalini into the "Supernatural" realm and therefore "unreal" is of your own doing. The Serpent Power IS recognized by Zen Buddhism, whether you like it or not.

It's a simple matter, mountains become mountains again, if this is confusing to you, I suggest studying your mind more.

Yes I have heard this countless times (you didn't post the full quote)...you're just stealing Zen jargon and trying to sound profound about it.

You say buddhism is like kindergarten, well you are just learning how to swallow milk properly, so give yourself some time.

Whatever you say Mr. Sophisticated-Buddhist-Oh-Wait-I'm-Not-Actually-A-Buddhist


I'd love you to start a thread about buddhism vs hermeticism because I've done some research into the latter and found it to be quite lacking, and quite full of unsubstantiated metaphysical claims.

Gladly.

When you capitalize "Spiritual Awakening" like that, it's clear that for you that is loaded with some serious baggage that you yourself are not even completely in touch with.

So no, I don't accept any of these claims. I don't know anything about enlightenment or Spiritual Awakenings or Kundalini, though if you were to say, "show me the money", we could perhaps have a transaction.

You clearly do not understand what Spirituality and Religion are all about. Buddhism wouldn't even exist at all if it weren't for The Buddha's Enlightenment or claim thereof. So all that you derive from it is based on it.

This is again just you not caring about the Root of where your interests came from. Just like Science in relation Magick/Alchemy/Astrology. That's like a leaf forgetting that if it weren't for the roots of the tree, it wouldn't even exist at all.

And what exactly does Buddhism do for you anyway? In what way does it "work" for you?

 

And whose fault are the misinterpretations? I'd say it's the guy who spoke in vague parables and left not one shred of convincing evidence that he ever existed. The guy who said to love your enemy whilst simultaneously saying he was going to spread fire across the world. 2.2 billion people can't agree upon their own religion. I wouldn't call that good fruit. I'd call it a rotten apple.

I don't believe there was a Jesus. I believe that if there had been and he had said that people can be known by the fruit they produce, then he would not be guiltless for the state Christianity is in. If he didn't know that there would be lies, rumors, and wars spread in his name, then he should have done everyone the courtesy of keeping his mouth shut. We can't all just blab our mouths and then proclaim ourselves guiltless for where people run with it.

By succeeding I mean that truths are proliferated instead of lies. I don't know why you equate all sense of morality with religion. It wasn't because of Jesus Christ or Buddha that the Cold War didn't turn into armageddon.

Buddhism seems more special to me because it has proponents who actually reach transcendent states. If Buddhism and Christianity are fundamentally saying the same thing, and following their teachings can lead to a transcendent state, then why choose Christianity, where you can't prove that anyone has reached anything like a transcendent state? Obviously Christianity isn't as good at what it aims to do as Buddhism is, given that they both have the exact same aims according to you.

 

How absurd. If Jesus says "love thy neighbor and turn the other cheek" and a person hearing that says he wants us to hate our neighbor and knock our neighbor's block off, how is Jesus responsible for that? Obviously you're simply looking for some way, logical or not, to hold Jesus responsible. Methinks I smell a troll!

Jesus and the Buddha aren't wild beasts trying to devour each other. Setting up a contest of "Which is better, Christ or Buddha?" is divisive agitprop.

 

And how can you prove that Buddhists have reached these states and not Christian mystics? You can't just say "Christianity", as that is a giant umbrella term. There are plenty of Christian mystics who have aimed for Gnosis, and ultimately whether Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, or any other religion, nobody can prove what transcendent space someone has come to, as it is a subjective experience.

 

Jesus also said, "I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." How is this to be construed as Jesus teaching everyone to love their neighbor and turn the other cheek? How is it that Jesus follows his own teachings? So when confusion arises, how is it not Jesus' fault for not making himself plain, if all he really wanted was love? He is at once telling us that he is the law of the earth, and simultaneously not being an example himself of how we should behave. "Do as I say, not as I do," in other words.

According to you, Jesus is a voice of authority, yet it's not his fault that his words and deeds are so easily misconstrued by simple people whom he said himself would not understand. So I suppose I can go amongst a colony of cavemen and light a fire, and it's not my fault if the cavemen happen to go crazy and beat each other to death when they create incongruous myths about the fire, or, perhaps, run out of the cave into a snowstorm to their doom? Maybe I didn't know any better, but if Jesus was as enlightened as you people say he was, surely he ought to have known better. And the texts seem to show that he did know exactly what he was doing, as he said, "I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." I think, had he really existed, he could be said to have succeeded in at least that. But bad fruits they are, indeed.


Also, I resent being called a troll (yet again). And I think it's very telling of "Christianity" and its works in this thread that the only people doing any name-calling happen to be "Christians". So I don't think that when he said "Love your neighbor" he was very successful at teaching that.

I am simply saying that, if they said the exact same things, and clearly Buddhism has better fruits, why give any attention at all to Christianity? Has it got something up its sleeve you Christians are holding out on us? When exactly are you going to start living by Christ's example and become enlightened beings instead of putting non-believers down on internet forums?

Because I have seen Buddhists light themselves on fire without uttering a single complaint! They are clearly in a transcendent state of mind. I haven't seen any proof of any Christian reaching such a state of mind, and if they had, then they certainly haven't shown me the specific teachings that can lead to this state of mind. Saying it's all just a subjective experience when Buddhists can sleep on mountain passes covered in nothing but wet sheets seems a little dishonest to me. Are you saying the Buddhists are tricking me, and that inside they might just as well be screaming and moaning? There is good evidence that Buddhists have reached transcendent states and no evidence that Christians have, even if they have tried.

When it comes down to it, everything is a subjective experience. So should we just disregard all evidence for everything? Maybe it is reasonable to think that Jesus existed, but it's also true that all I can know for sure is my own subjective experience, so maybe I shouldn't ever believe in anything else.

 

Jesus didn't write the gospels. The gospels were written by humans with different agendas trying to understand a man probably none of them met on the basis of undisclosed sources, so that needs to be considered in deciding what, if anything, we believe. The passage you quote is from Matthew 10:35 who is not one I trust. If I had only Matthew to go by, I wouldn't be a Christian for so many reasons. The Jesus Seminar gives the passage the lowest rating for credibility, and remarks: "The claim that Jesus deliberately creates conflict would seem to contradict other sayings of Jesus in which he recommends unqualified love.." The statement is based on a saying by Micah, and was probably put in Jesus' mouth to link Jesus to prophecy.

If lighting oneself on fire is the acid test of spiritual development, go for it! Christianity has a long history of martyrdom, and there are plenty of accounts of Christians going eagerly to the lions in the arena. Some Roman authorities found that particularly annoying. Alternatively, you might look into Islam. ISIS would be happy to assist your spiritual growth by teaching you to blow yourself up in a strategic location for jihad. You might even get a few virgins out of the deal.

Like Christians, Buddhists don't always practice what they preach. There's been an unfortunate amount of violence stirred up by Buddhist monks, some of it going on today in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. http://www.thenation.com/article/buddhist-violence-burma/ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/opinion/malik-myanmars-buddhist-bigots.html?_r=0
Buddhist inspired violence in Sri Lanka is continuing, against Hindus, Muslims, and Christian : http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-02/sri-lankan-muslim-legislators-buddhist-hate-crimes/5426726
http://www.speroforum.com/a/QTEZYVAEGH28/73369-Sri-Lanka-Violent-dispossession-of-Christian-churches-by-Buddhists#.Vi6FAisodII
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/opinion/sri-lankas-violent-buddhists.html?_r=0
http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2014/07/01/why-are-buddhist-monks-promoting-violence-in-sri-lanka/

Buddhism (specifically Zen) contributed to Japanese militarism during World War II, as recounted in Brian Victoria in Zen at War and Zen War Stories. It is also the view of Ichikawa Hakugen, a Buddhist monk who apologizes for his role in promoting it in The War Responsibility of Buddhists.

S.J. Tambiah charges that Buddhist monks stirred up violence in Sri Lanka during the civil war with the Tamils ( Buddhism Betrayed: Religion, Politics,and Violence.)

No religion seems to have a monopoly on hypocrisy and bad behavior. I'm not convinced the fruits are any better on the other side of the planet. The reason I'm a Christian (as well as a Buddhist) is that Christianity seems more conducive to social activism and specific concern for society's rejects and outcasts. I find Buddhism and Christianity to be compatible and complementary--the former being especially useful in dealing with attachments. So why do we have to do either-or? By all means follow your subjective experience, but I think it's also important to keep an open mind.

 

You already posted a quote of a Christian who went on about how enthusiastic he was to go on the cross.

I just don't feel that the lighting on fire is any sort of ultimate determining factor in whether one is in a transcendent state or not. Some people get off to choking themselves and masturbating, to the point of near death or death. Does this make them enlightened?

 

My guess is that in setting fire to themselves for some cause, they think they will get free of their karma.

 

I love you, brother, I truly do. I wish all good things for you. But that doesn't mean I have to like you, and it doesn't mean I won't call you on things I think might be inappropriate. My 'troll' reference was prompted by: (1) your persistent efforts to go off topic. As I've said numerous times, this thread is about the existence of Jesus, not about the merits of what he said or did or how he compares with other religious figures. If you want to discuss those things, you might start another thread; (2) the nature of your posts which seem calculated to pit one religion against another; and (3) the content of your posts, which in the case that drew my content seemed particularly specious in holding Jesus responsible for people who do the opposite of His teachings. But if it offended you, I apologize.

 

The short answer is, "No, I do not think Jesus existed."

The longer answer is, "There is evidence that Jesus never existed."

I went from thinking to knowing, all by researching for evidence.

You, my friend, are the most aware person in this thread so far...

Exactly, it was invention. The Ecumenical Councils conducted by Constantine when he headed the Roman Empire offer empirical proof.

This is an awesome breakdown and analogy. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

See, this is where the Roman Empire succeeded in an effort to create this one world religion.

There were 180 books (ponder on this number for a moment to gather its meaning) on the cutting board to create the KJV of the bible. It is important that I note the word "version." If it's GOD's word, then why is this sh!t being treated like a a windows update. GOD said it or GOD didn't say it, right?

Anyway, NONE of the characters in the bible are found in any other historical document, fictional document, or other versions of the bible, "GOD's word."

So, with no facts, no birth dates, and no death dates, which were in all historical literature I read from kindergarten to completeing undergrad, why is th KJV always the exception? I mean, I was so misguided as a kid I had to finally ask my dad, "Who is this pharoh, cat? That's a title, not a person.

Yet, I digress.

You have got some great biblicl info in this post. However, if we are going to remain scholoarly, we cannot prove a person, place, or thing, by using the document itself as a reference.

I don't think we are truly understanding how successful the Roman Empire was under Constantine. We push works cited to the side when it comes to proving that a character existed, that Constantine, previous popes, and scholars have been clear was created from derivations of Serapis and Ceasar Borgia. In the conscious community, this is common knowledge. He is a complete and utter fabrication laced over thousands of years of spirituality from Africa and the Near East, so that paganism would be the real winner. As much as it has brainwashed humans, the move was absolutely brilliant. We debate this intangible more than things we can touch and see. Amazing!

Here is the difference: there may be a lot of things we accept with less evidence, but it does not have your soul's salvation, pearly gates, and fire and brimstone attached to it.

You tell a Santa story, or an Easter Bunny story, or a Tooth Fairy story, with the same implications of NOT believing as we do with christ, and watch the fanaticism rise to an all time high.

We can't talk about believing in jesus in a vaccum. It is ALWAYS accompanied with a reward if you do, and consequences if you don't, of eternal life or eternal damnation.

It's a reason they push the verse, "Suffer the little children, to come unto me. And forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven." The wolves teach it to us early, when we don't have critical thinking skills, so we won't turn from it later on in life.

We need to dig further into world history. There were MANY people who were considered christ. This is not unique to jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is a name, which could not have been because the letter j was not even invtented while he was on earth. IT was more than likely a Y, if one cares. Anyway, there AT LEAST a dozen and a half well documented martyred christ's before you even get to jesus. I mean, you can't have a world that is projected to be millions, maybe billions of years old, and all this awesome prophecy just got documented in the last 600 years of a guy that lived just 1400 years before. In the span of world history, it's like everything in the bible happened yesterday. It is a carbon copy multibple times of Kemetic, Ethiopian, and Egyptian spirituality. Once Constantinee got a hold of it, all bets were of for sanctity.

The document is written with real places to give it just enough authenticity to integrate characters I can find in no other book on this earth, to get people to view a universal and infinite energy, through one scope.

We both know that is downright dirty mind control, better known as PSYCHOLOCIAL WARFARE!

If one cannot look at the KJV as psychologicla warfare, when it is the 16th english translation of a document that has 15 predecesors. Where are those versions. Why is the KJV the offical version? GOD is not already offical? He needed the King's permission? I'm lost on this one! Why don't we read from Wycliffe? Hell, why was J. K. Rowling just asked to write a new version of the bible...?! She is not a historian, she writes FICTION! I mean, what more evidence is necessary that we have been duped?

This is a great point. Islam is fastly approaching as the world dominat religion.

America has bastardized christianity through televangelism and using it for material gain, rather than for personal growth and development.

When someone says they are a christain, I liken it to "I am a human." It is a marketing term that is much to broad to give sheep a false sense of security when they allow wolves dressed as sheep, to fleece them.

Are you Orthodox Christian? Are you Coptic christain? Are you catholic or protestant? I mean, the KJV is not even accepted in the Catholic church. There are over 40,000 denominations under Protestantism.

I mean this thing is a true cluster f*ck.

Yet, we act like it's all one big monolith.

I look at life like this, give me the original. If I am going to belive in the 10 commandments, let me go back to an older document "The 42 Laws of Ma'at." Straight copied with no reference. If I want to believe in a trinity, why not go with the original Asset (Mary), Assaur (Joseph), Heru (Jesus.)

Bottom line, you have to have evidence and the onus is on the believers, not those that don't.

GOD, the All, the Creator, Vibrations is real. Jesus is a concept, that if you study his teachings via the 4 gospels, we should strive for. Not his actual existence.

 

I don't understand this at all. Do you mean the character of Jesus was based partly on Ceasare Borgia?

 

I still say he holds some responsibility for what subsequent followers did. Surely there are passages you do believe in which he referred to himself as a Christlike figure? Such as John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father but by me." Can you really blame subsequent authors for assuming he was the messiah and trying to make him fit prophecy? I don't know. Maybe they were being completely dishonest and unscrupulous, but maybe they really admired the guy and were just blowing him out of proportion like any ordinary people who love a guy might do. Surely Jesus understood the hearts of men and where his teachings would lead if he wasn't specific enough and left no evidence to his true identity of his own accord. To me it seems that he basically allowed legends about himself to flourish.

Accounts, accounts... I'm talking about proof that these people have reached a transcendent state. Even if they do go eagerly to the lions, do they scream their heads off when they're being eaten? I only wish Jesus had gone eagerly to the cross, if it would have annoyed the Romans so much. Instead he complains and gives them exactly what they probably wanted.

I don't like the insinuation that I would have anything to do with ISIS. And there's a big difference between blowing yourself up and rising above the pain that comes with being burned alive.

The man in the photograph who burned himself alive was protesting the Vietnam War, but I don't assume he had some ulterior motive. To me he was simply saying, "Look at the state of spiritual enlightenment I have attained." But I don't think people fully appreciated the fact that what he did was damned near impossible by normal human standards. I guess when you see the impossible you sort of glaze it over.

Well in turn, do these religions have a monopoly on good behavior? Why do you need Christianity in order to do good things? I assume that you find some authority to do good things in Christianity, but I can't for the life of me figure out where this authority is coming from. Jesus said so, so it must be true? Or is it that it's better to do things in groups, and Christianity is the arbitrary group for you through which to focus your good deeds?

Yes, but that's just a story. There's no proof Andrew did that, just as there's no proof that Jesus did what he did. But if we're to go simply on stories, then I would say Andrew had the more enlightened attitude towards his death on the cross, where he totally shouldn't have if Jesus was truly the master.

Autoerotic asphyxiation isn't quite the same thing as lighting yourself on fire. These men face certain death, and they aren't doing it for their personal enjoyment. If there was something sexually satisfying about lighting yourself on fire, I think you might have a point.

Well I like you.

1) I'm not going off-topic any more than anyone else. Less so, I think. If anything, I'm making efforts to stay on topic. My speech about the merits of what he said and how he compares to other religious figures are all based on other people who broached these subjects. I would like to discuss these things, but frankly you guys know more about Christianity and Buddhism than I do, so I think it wise to let you guys start them. Maybe I should just ignore these things when people bring them up in order to stay "on topic", but really there doesn't seem to be a strict adherence to staying on topic on hipforums. I doubt these forums will ever be moderated so strictly, and the threads will probably stray way off topic, maybe even further off topic, if I don't join in. I mean, already half of this thread is dedicated to discussing aliens. I think it's kind of a good thing I joined in when I did.

2) I'm not trying to pit one religion against another at all. This all started because Chinacat said if we don't believe in Jesus, by the same token we shouldn't believe in Buddha. And he may be right. But he said all religions say the exact same things, so my comment on that was, if they say the same things, why choose Christianity over Buddhism? It seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me.

3) I'm sincerely not just trying to be a dick. rjhangover quoted Jesus, for no apparent reason, saying we could tell a person by their fruits, which I thought was off topic, so I responded rather flippantly. I would like to stay on topic. But I think this thread really has two divisions:

1. Did Jesus actually exist?
2. If Jesus did exist, who was he?

I don't think you can really answer one without the other. So I'm cool so long as we stay on these two points. It's okay that you called me a troll. It just starts to get annoying because I've been called a troll so many times on these boards and never once have I been trolling.

 

"Anyway, NONE of the characters in the bible are found in any other historical document, fictional document, or other versions of the bible, "GOD's word." "

I don't think that's accurate at all?

 

No, let me clarify.

How he looks, or who he is modeled after in image, is Cesare Borgia.

Furthermore, jesus is a derivation of Serapis, a greeco-Egyptian god created in the 3rd century.

 

Okay, I may have overreached.

Present your evidence.

 

Well Moses for example:

Moses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Moses
Mobile-friendly - Moses also appears in other religious texts such as the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), Midrash (200–1200 CE), and the Qur'an.

He's also in Jewish religions and was also spoken about in Greek religions.

 

What about images produced prior to the renaissance? Byzantine for example, or mediaeval? I'm certain that enormous numbers of images produced both before the time of Borgia, and later on bear no resemblance at all.

Also, he's shown differently by different artists. Anybody looking at a picture of Jesus would be rather foolish to assume he actually looked as depicted in the picture.


Some occultists such as Crowley, claim that Jesus is identical with the Egyptian god Osiris, who goes back a lot further than the 3rd c.