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Goodbye Jesus

There Exists No Solid Proof Of Jesus Existence


LifeCycle

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See, I told you. No reliable proof Jesus ever existed. I have no idea what we're talking about now, but I think we all agree? :)

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Thou Art That is a compilation of previously uncollected essays and lectures by Joseph Campbell that focus on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here Campbell explores common religious symbols, reexamining and reinterpreting them in the context of his remarkable knowledge of world mythology. According to Campbell, society often confuses the literal and metaphorical interpretations of religious stories and symbols.

 

http://www.jcf.org/n...ls&p9999_wid=64

 

Metaphor is ubiquitous. If you, yes you, believe that you are free of it, then you are probably neck deep in it.

Yep. Been saying this for years.

 

I continue to find this question of did Jesus exist or not to be a question besides the point. So what if it is shown scientifically one thing or the other, one way or the other? Is what is conveyed through that dependent upon it? Does its value or lack of it depend on its scientific/historical veracity? To look at those questions either to support the myth or reject it, misses what is right smack in front of their faces, and which continues to influence and inform them whether they are aware of it rationally or not. Cultural ethos is deeply informed by these, and their truths create the invisible backdrop of reality that we somehow imagine, because we can reason and analyze, we are somehow free of them!

 

GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

 

I don't believe it be beside the point at all. Christians believe the myth to be true... It's not.

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Thou Art That is a compilation of previously uncollected essays and lectures by Joseph Campbell that focus on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here Campbell explores common religious symbols, reexamining and reinterpreting them in the context of his remarkable knowledge of world mythology. According to Campbell, society often confuses the literal and metaphorical interpretations of religious stories and symbols.

 

http://www.jcf.org/n...ls&p9999_wid=64

 

Metaphor is ubiquitous. If you, yes you, believe that you are free of it, then you are probably neck deep in it.

Yep. Been saying this for years.

 

I continue to find this question of did Jesus exist or not to be a question besides the point. So what if it is shown scientifically one thing or the other, one way or the other? Is what is conveyed through that dependent upon it? Does its value or lack of it depend on its scientific/historical veracity? To look at those questions either to support the myth or reject it, misses what is right smack in front of their faces, and which continues to influence and inform them whether they are aware of it rationally or not. Cultural ethos is deeply informed by these, and their truths create the invisible backdrop of reality that we somehow imagine, because we can reason and analyze, we are somehow free of them!

 

GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

 

I don't believe it be beside the point at all. Christians believe the myth to be true... It's not.

I said the sword goes both ways. What Legion said was subtle. And I agree with him.

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Thou Art That is a compilation of previously uncollected essays and lectures by Joseph Campbell that focus on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here Campbell explores common religious symbols, reexamining and reinterpreting them in the context of his remarkable knowledge of world mythology. According to Campbell, society often confuses the literal and metaphorical interpretations of religious stories and symbols.

 

http://www.jcf.org/n...ls&p9999_wid=64

 

Metaphor is ubiquitous. If you, yes you, believe that you are free of it, then you are probably neck deep in it.

Yep. Been saying this for years.

 

I continue to find this question of did Jesus exist or not to be a question besides the point. So what if it is shown scientifically one thing or the other, one way or the other? Is what is conveyed through that dependent upon it? Does its value or lack of it depend on its scientific/historical veracity? To look at those questions either to support the myth or reject it, misses what is right smack in front of their faces, and which continues to influence and inform them whether they are aware of it rationally or not. Cultural ethos is deeply informed by these, and their truths create the invisible backdrop of reality that we somehow imagine, because we can reason and analyze, we are somehow free of them!

 

GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

 

I don't believe it be beside the point at all. Christians believe the myth to be true... It's not.

I said the sword goes both ways. What Legion said was subtle. And I agree with him.

 

Then could you explain it to me? I didn't understand what Legion wrote.

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Then could you explain it to me? I didn't understand what Legion wrote.

Legion quoted this about Campbell's work:

Thou Art That is a compilation of previously uncollected essays and lectures by Joseph Campbell that focus on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here Campbell explores common religious symbols, reexamining and reinterpreting them in the context of his remarkable knowledge of world mythology. According to Campbell, society often confuses the literal and metaphorical interpretations of religious stories and symbols.

 

http://www.jcf.org/n...ls&p9999_wid=64

Legion then says, "Metaphor is ubiquitous. If you, yes you, believe that you are free of it, then you are probably neck deep in it." I could get into talking about Roland Barthes and other semioticians, structuralists, post-structuralists, etc, about things such as the role of symbol and sign and myth in culture, how that these are invisible backdrops that create our notions of reality for us, which we assume to be like the ground we stand upon, and indeed they serve that function (all such postmodernist stuff the likes of which the modernists chaff and recoil against), but that would get tedious. Suffice to say that what does it prove to say Jesus wasn't a real human being, when the entire culture is already suffuse the meaning? What, this discredits the truths we already hold, both Atheist and Christian alike in this culture, neither really understanding the 'where' it comes from?

 

Both the Christian and Atheist who go the path of trying to prove the Bible is literally, scientifically, historical, factually accurate or not are propping up some external icon to either trust in or reject, while both being engulfed in the ethos that myth creates. They assume themselves rational and free, while all the while being carried along unawares in its currents. This is why I say often times, that Atheism really is Christianity without God. It doesn't matter if God is literal or not, the essence of the myth permeates culture in all of its myths, whether they are secular myths or religious myths.

 

I know I've quoted this many, many times over the years, but why reinvent the wheel when it says it all so very accurately and true? It underscores what Legion quotes as well. Give this a read over and tell my your thoughts: Constricting the Cosmic Dance

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I hear you, AM. But part and parcel of speculating about Jesus' historicity is speculation about just how seriously we, today, should take the demands and claims of those anonymous guys who wrote about him decades after the fact.

 

The NT, and Jesus' story in particular, are part of a much larger cycle of myths and legends that humanity turns to again and again and again. But this particular fragment of that legendary story threatens us with pain and torture if we don't comply with the demands it makes, if we don't believe in the claims it makes. We don't burn the thigh-bones and fat of goats anymore to Zeus; not even the people reconstructing Greek pantheistic religions would go so far. We don't sacrifice infants in the wild hope that it'll make the crops grow; even those who worship gods who once favored such sacrifices rightly recoil from such an idea. And we do not have to live ascetic lives of self-denial and proselytization just because Paul thought that was the best way to fly, nor to treat mentally ill people like they are demon-possessed because Jesus said this was so, nor to demand women be stoned to death if they didn't yell loudly enough while being raped just because crusty old goat-herders in the Middle East felt threatened about femininity. We're in a unique situation now of being able to decide for ourselves based on what evidences we accept what we're going to do with these legendary stories and fables. If Jesus were a real boy, it'd at least be something that Christians could point to while trying to coerce the rest of the world into letting them continue on their privileged asses; if he isn't even real, then Christianity's demands become purely optional.

 

It sounds like you're discounting a legitimate scholarly pursuit by saying that we're all victims of legend in the end. Yes, but we're trying, man, we're trying.

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It sounds like you're discounting a legitimate scholarly pursuit by saying that we're all victims of legend in the end. Yes, but we're trying, man, we're trying.

Legitimate, but to what end? It's arguing the literalist side of it. I would suggest it is better to understand what religion does, how it evolves, what roles it plays, and what meaning it has, instead of contesting over whether it's literally true or not. Is it relevant? Is it meaningful? Was it meaningful? How does it speak to us today?

 

I haven't the time right now to flesh this out more deeply, but it seems it is a debate centered around a particular literalist mindset, one that says because it's factual, like science is, it is somehow authoritative on a cultural/moral level. That argument is mistaken, and 'debunking' it's claims of fact is missing the point as well. All that shows ultimately is that how a five year old sees things in mythic-literal terms as facts is 'wrong'. It doesn't then try to understand anything beyond that. There is no subtle truths since its not factual in scientific terms. I see that as the flip side of the same literalist coin.

 

So I guess my point is that whether or not Jesus existed historically (which I believe he did, FWIW), is not the end all be all argument to 'believe' or not, as far as that goes. "Jesus says", permeates our cultural psyche, and I'm not talking the hard-core idiot fundamentalist notions here. In this sense of the word, all these sayings, teachings, morals, that define our basic ethos which we all live and breathe and having our being within, that backdrop of reality, is for all intents and purposes Christianity. And whether or not someone believes in a literal ark, a literal god, a flying messiah, or whatnot, is besides the point. We imagine if we 'disprove' the historical Jesus this matters. And the flip side, the fundamentalist Christian imagines if they prove it, that that too matters.

 

It doesn't. At best, it's a matter of historical interest, not the litmus of validity or not. We're not talking science. We're talking religion and its myths. They serve a very different purpose. To me, that is where the focus should be. That does far more to taking away the power of the literalist who wishes to send you to hell for not 'believing. Facticity is not key, or even relevant when you are speaking of these areas. Symbolic meaning is. Deconstructionism only goes so far. It doesn't see what comes before and after in its critiques.

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Then could you explain it to me? I didn't understand what Legion wrote.

Legion quoted this about Campbell's work:

Thou Art That is a compilation of previously uncollected essays and lectures by Joseph Campbell that focus on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Here Campbell explores common religious symbols, reexamining and reinterpreting them in the context of his remarkable knowledge of world mythology. According to Campbell, society often confuses the literal and metaphorical interpretations of religious stories and symbols.

 

http://www.jcf.org/n...ls&p9999_wid=64

Legion then says, "Metaphor is ubiquitous. If you, yes you, believe that you are free of it, then you are probably neck deep in it." I could get into talking about Roland Barthes and other semioticians, structuralists, post-structuralists, etc, about things such as the role of symbol and sign and myth in culture, how that these are invisible backdrops that create our notions of reality for us, which we assume to be like the ground we stand upon, and indeed they serve that function (all such postmodernist stuff the likes of which the modernists chaff and recoil against), but that would get tedious. Suffice to say that what does it prove to say Jesus wasn't a real human being, when the entire culture is already suffuse the meaning? What, this discredits the truths we already hold, both Atheist and Christian alike in this culture, neither really understanding the 'where' it comes from?

 

Both the Christian and Atheist who go the path of trying to prove the Bible is literally, scientifically, historical, factually accurate or not are propping up some external icon to either trust in or reject, while both being engulfed in the ethos that myth creates. They assume themselves rational and free, while all the while being carried along unawares in its currents. This is why I say often times, that Atheism really is Christianity without God. It doesn't matter if God is literal or not, the essence of the myth permeates culture in all of its myths, whether they are secular myths or religious myths.

 

I know I've quoted this many, many times over the years, but why reinvent the wheel when it says it all so very accurately and true? It underscores what Legion quotes as well. Give this a read over and tell my your thoughts: Constricting the Cosmic Dance

Joseph Campbell and Sam Keen did many seminars together combining the methods of recovering personal mythology with reflections on classical mythical themes until the year before Campbell's death.

 

Sam Keen says this about myth.

 

"Few words have been subject to as much abuse and been as ill-defined as myth."

 

Myth is usually used to mean a "lie," "fabrication," "illusion," " mistake," or something similar. "

 

It is the opposite of what is supposedly a "fact," of what is "objectively" the case, and of what is reality.

In this usage myth is at best a silly story and at worse a cynical untruth.

Theologians and propagandists often use myth as a way of

characterizing religious beliefs and ideologies other than their own."

 

"Myth refers to "an intricate set of interlocking stories, values, rituals, rites, and customs that inform and give the pivotal sense if meaning and direction to a person, family, community, or culture."

 

"A living myth is 10 percent visible and 90 percent beneath the surface of awareness."

 

"Myth is the software, the cultural DNA, the unconscious information, the meta-program that governs the way we see "reality" and the way we behave."

 

Myth includes the unspoken consensus, the habitual way of seeing things,

the unquestioned assumptions, the automatic stance.

It is differing cultural myths that make cows, sacred objects for Hindus

and hamburgers meals for Methodists, or turn dogs into pets for Americans

and roasted delicacies for the Chinese.

 

"The organizing myth of any culture functions in way that may be either creative or destructive, healthful or pathological. By providing a world picture and a set of stories that explain why things are as they are, it creates consensus, sanctifies the social order and gives the individual an authorized map of the path of life."

 

"Myth gives us security and identity, it also creates selective blindness, narrowness and rigidity because it is intrinsically conservative."

 

If your inclined to the thinking of Carl Jung here is what he said,

 

"I ask myself,
"What is the myth you are living?" and found that I did not know.

So ....I took it upon myself to get to know "my" myth,

and I regarded this as the task of tasks ..
.

I simply had to know what unconscious myth was forming me."
~
The Portable Jung

 

Our Myths house the overarching truths and values of our identity. They give us a sense of identity, continuity, and security, "they become constricting and boring if they are not revised for time to time. .."

 

We are like fish swimming in the ocean of myth. I define evolutionary transcendence as inventing ourselves, weaving a new life-narrative by remembering the past and not repeating its mistakes--re-visioning our perceptions with prospective and reauthorizing the myth or myths by which we live.

 

I define evolutionary transcendence as breaking tired, toxic, worn-out, childish myths, learning to include and envelop what once informed and animated my life so that I may "see" clearly that which illuminates full and inclusive mature growth.

 

This is what fools people: a man [woman] is always a teller of tales,

he [she] lives surrounded by his[her] stories and by the stories of others,

he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live

his own life as if he were telling a story.

~Jean-Paul Sartre,
Neusea

 

Ah! the wonder of our Myth, both ancient and present day!

 

What overarching Myth do you authorize? What overarching truths does your story tell?

 

What authorizes your life? In what 'ocean' do you swim?

 

What childish stories have you out grown found toxic to your development as a human being? How have you transcended?

 

Who are your heroes and heroines? Who are the villains?

 

Our myths inform us.

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Well said. I'm heading to the lake place for some reading and meditation. I'll pick this up as I am able later. I love this poignant, but widely misunderstood and under-appreciated area that affects every part of our lives. Later....

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Well, after Antlerman has weighed in, I feel like a five year old saying the following, but what the hell...

 

I agree with you after all, mwc, about the NT's claiming that Nazareth was a "polis" at the time of Jesus. Whatever legal status the writers of Luke and Matthew thought attached to that word for municipalities, the fact that Luke talks of Jesus sending the disciples into the cities (poleis) and villages (komas) shows that the writer takes "polis" to be big enough that a word is needed to distinguish it from a "komh." So one would expect some remains to exist if Nazareth was that big in the early first century CE.

 

Strategies for the Christian in light of absence of confirming material:

1. say that archeologists are still looking, esp. since later structures were built over the places where the buildings of Jesus' day may have stood

2. claim that what has been discovered is sufficient to establish Nazareth's existence as a "polis" (at least, bigger than a village).

My understanding is that such a claim is stretching the evidence.

3. the Raymond Brown approach of classifying the gospels, not in the genre of history writing, but in the genre of theological meditation. As long as s/he adheres to her/his church's doctrines, this sort of critic feels authorized to allow that such and such a detail is a theological, midrashic sort of meditation. Such a critic usually doesn't want to go the whole hog and allow that all the resurrection narratives are ahistorical, theological meditations, so this option 3 is very slippery.

4. some other spin that involves unusual significations of words adopted ad hoc for this or that problem in apologetics

5. just say, "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it"

6. ?

 

The more I think about it, the weaker the historicity of Jesus appears.

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Our myths inform us.

They're just like the old fairy tales. The point of many of the stories wasn't if they were true or not, but what they taught, like moral, staying safe, not trusting strangers, not disobey authority, and such. Just like movies today can contain political messages. It's not if the story in the movie is real, but there's a hidden underlying message that changes the audience.

 

Sorry for butting in my opinion again, but this was about a different angle than before. Back to the regular program.

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Antlerman wrote...

 

"This is why I say often times, that Atheism really is Christianity without God. It doesn't matter if God is literal or not, the essence of the myth permeates culture in all of its myths, whether they are secular myths or religious myths."

 

 

A secular myth? What is that A-man?

 

I had thought that Atheism was the simplest, most stripped-down view of reality that there could be.

 

Ummm... you're saying that Atheism is derived from and/or carries with it a whole load of secular mythology (whatever that is) ...?

 

Please elaborate. I'm curious.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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Well, after Antlerman has weighed in, I feel like a five year old saying the following, but what the hell...

 

I agree with you after all, mwc, about the NT's claiming that Nazareth was a "polis" at the time of Jesus. Whatever legal status the writers of Luke and Matthew thought attached to that word for municipalities, the fact that Luke talks of Jesus sending the disciples into the cities (poleis) and villages (komas) shows that the writer takes "polis" to be big enough that a word is needed to distinguish it from a "komh." So one would expect some remains to exist if Nazareth was that big in the early first century CE.

 

Strategies for the Christian in light of absence of confirming material:

1. say that archeologists are still looking, esp. since later structures were built over the places where the buildings of Jesus' day may have stood

2. claim that what has been discovered is sufficient to establish Nazareth's existence as a "polis" (at least, bigger than a village).

My understanding is that such a claim is stretching the evidence.

3. the Raymond Brown approach of classifying the gospels, not in the genre of history writing, but in the genre of theological meditation. As long as s/he adheres to her/his church's doctrines, this sort of critic feels authorized to allow that such and such a detail is a theological, midrashic sort of meditation. Such a critic usually doesn't want to go the whole hog and allow that all the resurrection narratives are ahistorical, theological meditations, so this option 3 is very slippery.

4. some other spin that involves unusual significations of words adopted ad hoc for this or that problem in apologetics

5. just say, "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it"

6. ?

 

The more I think about it, the weaker the historicity of Jesus appears.

 

Welcome to the club!!!!

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6. ?

6. The author was just sloppy and didn't use the correct word.

 

I grew up in a city... but it was really just a village, or something in between. Not sure. About 3,000 households and a very small center. Maybe the right word is town? Anyway, it's easy to say something that is not exactly right, and yet make a reference to something that was real. Wendyshrug.gif (Is "real" a real word or should it be "objectively existing"? Not sure.)

 

My point there is, the author perhaps meant to say "a small village" but was lazy. Or maybe it was only a large farm with a few additional houses where the servants lived.

 

Sorry for being a nut. You guys are presenting so many interesting views... can't help to look and get a thought.

 

---

 

Here's a crazy idea. Let's say 1,000 years from now, most of the historical documents are gone about Abraham Lincoln, except for some copies of a book called "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." I wonder if people will question Abe's historical validity and existence based on that the fact that vampires don't exist? :scratch:

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A-man, Hans, (and the other participants here of supposedly less stature then these two :HaHa:), I see constructive things happening here within this thread. I'm probably going to ruin the vibe here with a long knowledge filled (and thus head-puffed) monologue.

 

I believe the title of this book "Thou Art That" which Campbell helped author is appropriate. And I think it's interesting to note that George Lucas consulted with Campbell in the making of Star Wars.

 

I want to focus here on the key role played by metaphor. A metaphor generally takes the form of...

 

A is B

 

or

 

substitutes B for A

 

But I want to back out a bit, and try to look at metaphor from what philosophers might call an epistemological perspective. From here it might be seen that metaphor is like an incomplete understanding. Let me try and say this in many ways. It is like a "prediction" without perception or reasoning. It is like a projection from within ourselves which we cast upon the world. It is like a dictionary which transduces language into phenomena. If we are lucky, it is like a crystal ball. And if we are unfortunate, it is very much like a disaster.

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Antlerman wrote...

 

"This is why I say often times, that Atheism really is Christianity without God. It doesn't matter if God is literal or not, the essence of the myth permeates culture in all of its myths, whether they are secular myths or religious myths."

 

 

A secular myth? What is that A-man?

Myths that don't have the supernatural. Myths such as the American Dream. Myths such as the belief that consumerism brings happiness. Everyone grows up with and operates off of mythologies, such as follow the rules and you will be rewarded. The list is endless actually. You have to understand that myths are not simply ways to explain stuff lacking scientific knowledge. They are symbols acting with symbols which create a symbolic structure that acts as the platform of reality on which we navigate. They may be religious, or secular in nature. But both are symbolic realities. Created structures that act like electrostatic forces which keep us from simply passing through the ground under the influence of gravity.

 

I had thought that Atheism was the simplest, most stripped-down view of reality that there could be.

In what regard? Explaining the natural world without the supernatural? I think Atheism is all good and fine, inasmuch as it is defined in rejecting mythic-literal interpretations of the world as representing the best of our knowledge today. But it hardly rises beyond that in its current forms. It stops there with a rubble heap at its feet, including living bodies buried underneath it. It impresses me as deconstructionist only. Maybe that's the problem. A stripped down view of reality is in its own way trying to explain the extraordinarily complex in mythic terms. Nature is all there is. The opposite of Godditit.

 

I see these things in history there for a reason, a valid one. And one that is part of all of us today in how we think, live, and breathe. We can't just gut ourselves and call that progress.

 

Ummm... you're saying that Atheism is derived from and/or carries with it a whole load of secular mythology (whatever that is) ...?

In modern terms, it starts with that mindset I spoke of earlier that begins with the Christian worldview and deconstructs its myths as 'nonfactual'. Big deal, IMO. Yes, it is important, don't get me wrong. But to then toss everything out along with it, is hardly functioning out of the pursuit of building upon the past though integrating what positive things we've learned in our evolution. It's a reaction against something, not learning and building. Saying 'God, we were so ignorant!', fails to actually learn the good we did learn within those systems of thoughts. And the same holds true for what lays beyond atheism.

 

I'll quote Sri Arobindo here that I think bears directly upon this:

 

It is necessary, therefore, that advancing Knowledge should base herself on a clear, pure and disciplined intellect. It is necessary, too, that she should correct her errors sometimes by a return to the restraint of sensible fact, the concrete realities of the physical world. The touch of Earth is always reinvigorating to the son of Earth, even when he seeks a supraphysical Knowledge. It may even be said that the supraphysical can only be really mastered in its fullness – to its heights we can always search– when we keep our feet firmly on the physical. “Earth is His footing,” says the Upanishad whenever it images the Self that manifests in the universe. And it is certainly the fact the wider we extend and the surer we make our knowledge of the physical world, the wider and surer becomes our foundation for the higher knowledge, even for the highest, even for the Brahmavidya.

 

In emerging, therefore, out of the materialistic period of human Knowledge we must be careful that we do not rashly condemn what we are leaving or throw away even one tittle of its gains, before we can summon perceptions and powers that are well grasped and secure, to occupy their place. Rather we shall observe with respect and wonder the work that Atheism had done for the Divine and admire the services that Agnosticism has rendered in preparing the illimitable increase of knowledge. In our world error is continually the handmaid and pathfinder of Truth; for error is really a half-truth that stumbles because of its limitations; often it is Truth that wears a disguise in order to arrive unobserved near to its goal. Well, if it could always be, as it has been in the great period we are leaving, the faithful handmaid, severe, conscientious, clean-handed, luminous within its limits, a half-truth and not a reckless and presumptuous aberration.

Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 12,13

 

The uses of the Divine you see him use in here bear little resemblance to the mythic god you are familiar with, but in my opinion understands that how we have approached truth and reality in our evolution, which includes atheism, has something beyond just that hard world, the material 'truth'. No man lives like this, and this is why the great Existential philosophers, including the Atheist Jean Paul Sartre pursued these philosophical lines against the myth of Positivism, which believed that reason and research alone will lead us into all truth. That is another example of a 'secular' myth.

 

Anyway, hope this helps.

 

 

BTW, I do not mean to suggest that 'debunking myth' as we know that is thinking like a five-year old. All I'm saying is that to remain there saying that's all there is to it; that's all there is to our myths, is being stuck arguing with a five-year old. When in reality the fact the argument is made at all shows a more advanced world view. Hope to make that clear here.

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Our myths inform us.

 

They're just like the old fairy tales. The point of many of the stories wasn't if they were true or not, but what they taught, like moral, staying safe, not trusting strangers, not disobey authority, and such. Just like movies today can contain political messages. It's not if the story in the movie is real, but there's a hidden underlying message that changes the audience.

 

Sorry for butting in my opinion again, but this was about a different angle than before. Back to the regular program.

 

Exactly the point Ouroboros!

 

Consider this quote from Joe Campbell;

 

It is possible that the failure of mythology and ritual to function effectively

in our civilization may account for the high incidence among us of the malaise

that has lead to the characterization of our time as "The Age of Anxiety."

 

 

The trivialization of the notion of myth reflects false certainties of dogmatic minds, an ignorance of the mythic assumptions that underlie the commonly accepted view of "reality" and a refusal to consider how much our individual and communal lives are shaped by dramatic scenarios and "historical" narratives that are replete with accounts of the struggle between "light" and "darkness," friend and foe, right and wrong.~S. Keen

 

It's not if the story in the movie is real, but there's a hidden underlying message that changes the audience.

 

The power of stories is demonstrated in the way propagandists use myth to influence an audience. A skilled one uses story to influence the cultural consensus by skillfully reshaping the unconscious conspiracy between "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" (Clint Eastwood?)

 

We are always adapting our stories to influence and gain support from our audience. If life is horrible and I'm a "victim" my story reflects that. If I'm a "winner" I have a story to tell you about how hard life is and how to overcome. I might even influence your "version of the world."

 

Without a human story to tell how would we provide the interrogative metaphors serving to reorganize neural networks and alter human experience?

 

If I am ignorant of the mythic assumptions that underlie the commonly accepted view of "reality" and refuse to consider how much our individual and communal lives

are shaped by dramatic scenarios and "historical" narratives I can become just another "sucker" for any "good story."

 

Words (myth) shape worlds.

 

"The cinema, that 'dream factory', employs countless mythical motifs--the fight between hero and monster, initiatory combats (the maiden, the hero, the paradisal landscape, hell, etc.)." ~Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane--(parenthesis from Sam Keen )

 

"I simply had to know what unconscious myth was forming me."
~
The Portable Jung

 

Transcendence is knowing the Stories and understanding which promote health and wholeness--"from I, to you, to us, to we!" ~Ken Wilber

 

 

Sorry for butting in my opinion again, but this was about a different angle than before.

 

Pardon me for the different angle!

 

Now!

 

back to the regular program.
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But I want to back out a bit, and try to look at metaphor from what philosophers might call an epistemological perspective. From here it might be seen that metaphor is like an incomplete understanding. Let me try and say this in many ways. It is like a "prediction" without perception or reasoning. It is like a projection from within ourselves which we cast upon the world. It is like a dictionary which transduces language into phenomena. If we are lucky, it is like a crystal ball. And if we are unfortunate, it is very much like a disaster.

I'll give another word for it. Intuition. Or you might even say in many cases, an actual higher realization. That realization, or the intuition of that, speaks in metaphor, or highly symbolic languages. Why? Because it is beyond current knowledge. Words we use here and now describe common realities, shared experiences. But how does one describe a sense of the ineffable, for instance? What words do we have, save those of poetry, which by its nature is non-literal? It speaks to what is beyond the words.

 

And now tie this to much of the mythologies in religious language. They are as one person put it, "Fingers pointing to the moon". So many mistake the fingers for the moon. And that is literalism. It argues that no such thing exists, and does so because it falls outside their experience. To those with similar experience or intuition, the words 'resonate', and are understood as non-literal descriptions.

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A modern myth to consider, "The Myth of Progress".

 

Time is money and the moment should be used productively to better oneself in the competition...(evolutionary capitalism).

 

Stories about meaning, purpose and goal and the paths that go there.

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Yeah, but guys, nobody's ever tried to say that Clint Eastwood flicks are the "way, the truth, and the life" and told people who don't like Westerns that they're going to get shot for such heresies. Nor is there any serious attempt to say that his movies actually happened ZOMG GUIZE NO RILLY THEY DID. I find the historicity of the Bible to be part and parcel to its claims and demands. Freeing myself from its literal-ness was a big part of freeing myself from its overall toxic hold over me--and indeed a start to my general skepticism regarding a host of other dogmas I just took to be above questioning. Modern evangelical Christianity makes a series of claims, demands, and yes, threats. It sets itself up as the only arbiter of truth and life. Its followers are attempting a takeover of our very society through the promulgation of false histories and utterly fake science and a disgustingly callous manipulation of human psychology. As much as you disdain literalists, evangelicalism's various falsehoods are one of the biggest legs of its privilege-chair. They're pretty open about it, too. If its messiah never existed and is largely a literary construct only loosely based upon any real, historical figure(s), if its entire prelude (the OT) is purely a verbal mythology a few of them finally got around to writing down, if its threats are largely metaphorical in nature and not literal, that sort of knocks the wind out of quite a few of evangelicalism's claims and its privilege too, doesn't it? It lets Christianity become nothing more than one option among a host of others, so that the metaphorical claims of any of them may be examined without fear or coercion.

 

What we do with facts matters more to me than the facts themselves, but you have to have those facts before you can synthesize them into a statement about the world. A physics equation in and of itself may be very pretty, but it's the knowledgeable application of that equation that makes a Curiosity. While facts alone don't constitute an overarching metaphorical grand truth, deliberate falsehoods and deceptions most certainly don't either.

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I will grant that the mythology presented in the Bible may have attractions for some apart from the question of the historicity of the major character.

 

However, if you come from a church that teaches that the Bible is literally true in all respects and historically accurate, and then find out that it is NOT historically accurate, you are forced to abandon Christianity or reframe it in an entirely different way. It is an onerous task and not many people want to do it. So they look the other way when the evidence is presented that the person of Jesus may never have existed.

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As much as you disdain literalists, evangelicalism's various falsehoods are one of the biggest legs of its privilege-chair. They're pretty open about it, too. If its messiah never existed and is largely a literary construct only loosely based upon any real, historical figure(s), if its entire prelude (the OT) is purely a verbal mythology a few of them finally got around to writing down, if its threats are largely metaphorical in nature and not literal, that sort of knocks the wind out of quite a few of evangelicalism's claims and its privilege too, doesn't it?

The emphasis should be on a non-literal understanding, not a specific interpretation of history, viz., that Jesus didn't exist. It is much easier and productive in my opinion to first acknowledge that their views have some value to them, but that they are ultimately harming themselves in adopting an untenable position, such as science denial, exclusiveness sending others not them to hell, narrow literalistic interpretations, etc. I'm not a Christian, but you'd be hard pressed to make a case reasonable enough for me to reject that there was any historical Jesus whatsoever, that it was all a great big lie intent on deceiving people. I don't buy it, on a whole list of reasons. How much less so would someone whom Jesus symbolizes the realities of the myths in their life? They "know" something on an internal level, even if they aren't versed in all the details of a theology. To them to hear "God doesn't exist", is flatly rejected by them because in their heart, God does.

 

This comes to this discussion of mythology. It's symbols represent an experiential reality to many. And if they are unable to be as knowledgeable on an academic level of how symbol and myth works in the human psyche and culturally, to simply say "There's no proof Jesus ever existed!", or "Prove God exists!", is not a pitch their prepared to buy. It is to them to say to themselves their experiences, what the myths evoke in them, is invalid. You will never win the case that way. Their experiences to them are meaningful, and that is what myth is intended to provoke. It gives the internal dialog an external symbol set to take that and make it something the person can look at and examine. To say "God doesn't exist! There's no proof!", is going to be dismissed, except in cases where the person has been unable to internalize any meaning from the symbols...

 

My point is, it is better to acknowledge the validity of the persons internal sense, but then to provoke them to grow that beyond the constricting literalism of your typical conservative religions. The argument should be against literalism, not whether these things are facts or lies, or frauds, or whatnot. Most people don't approach faith rationally, nor should they actually. I do believe however, they should be reasonable, which means not living in denial of facts, such as evolution, the age of the earth, modern knowledge, etc. The key is in not conflating 'facts' with meaning.

 

It lets Christianity become nothing more than one option among a host of others, so that the metaphorical claims of any of them may be examined without fear or coercion.

I do find the discussion about the 'historical Jesus' to be of great interest to me, as it informs about the humans involved in the process of the creation of Jesus to Christ. That humanness displayed there speaks a great deal about us as humans today and in all ages. I do not take the mythologizing of Jesus as LIES!. I take them as expressions. I view Jesus much the same as I do the Buddha. There are many things attributed to the Buddha that are from various schools of thought of later times. But metaphorically speaking, they are the sayings of "The Buddha". That's how I view the formation of "Jesus", from a simple sage, to an amalgam "Jesus", which one could argue is the "Christ".

 

What we do with facts matters more to me than the facts themselves, but you have to have those facts before you can synthesize them into a statement about the world. A physics equation in and of itself may be very pretty, but it's the knowledgeable application of that equation that makes a Curiosity. While facts alone don't constitute an overarching metaphorical grand truth, deliberate falsehoods and deceptions most certainly don't either.

Again, of course, go after error such as false science. But I think there is far more to understanding the nature and purpose and value of myth than a simple matter of "facts". That misses it, and people will still 'believe' because it does in fact 'speak' to them. That's where these myths really live. Not in head reason, but heart reason.

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I will grant that the mythology presented in the Bible may have attractions for some apart from the question of the historicity of the major character.

 

However, if you come from a church that teaches that the Bible is literally true in all respects and historically accurate, and then find out that it is NOT historically accurate, you are forced to abandon Christianity or reframe it in an entirely different way. It is an onerous task and not many people want to do it. So they look the other way when the evidence is presented that the person of Jesus may never have existed.

 

Deva,

 

The day God died for me was the day I gave up my search for the historical Jesus.

 

With anxiety I discovered that the history which I had taken as the basis of my identity was fallible. Textual criticism yielded that the old stories, the schema of promise and fulfillment that rests at the heart of the Christian Myth, did not happen.

 

The day God died was the day I started the journey that lead me out of ancient Israel and upon the soil of my own history. If the stories told about the great teachers have any significance it is that they are about finding my own particular unique life in the experiences of my own human saga.

 

It was on the occasion of the death of God that I began the search for the historical person that I am--a human being born into a simple family in Tennessee light years from ancient Israel. A human being with a story. A story just as important as the stories of Jesus or the Buddha.

 

When the great myths of my religious tradition turned up empty I was compelled to find my own story.

 

I was to fine that the primary locus of my life was not in an ancient land but in the humus of my on fertile soil.

 

The day that my dualist notion of God died, was the day I was born!

 

When I discover that I had "out grown" what the "authorities" said I should be or was intended to be, was the day I began the risky business of living without the repression of embarrassing images, feelings, desires, doubts.

 

I'm thankful it happened! If not, how would I have understood the grace that over takes me while helping a fellow struggler in need? How would have I ever understood the grace that overtakes me while looking into a sunset, or in making love?

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That, is the perfect sunset. Thank you. As they say, Amen, and Amen.

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Here's a crazy idea. Let's say 1,000 years from now, most of the historical documents are gone about Abraham Lincoln, except for some copies of a book called "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." I wonder if people will question Abe's historical validity and existence based on that the fact that vampires don't exist? silverpenny013Hmmm.gif

 

I see where you're going with this Ouro, but it seems like this can work both ways. I've struggled with expressing the idea here. Others have done a much better job than I, but I'll try again.

 

Think of how movements evolve and how many sects are established that loosely connect to other sects. If you trace them, you could see something like an evolutionary tree where one sect evolved out of another sect, which evolved out of yet another. Tracing that back to the root can be quite difficult.

 

My question is whether Jesus is the actual root in this tree or rather simply evolved from earlier branches. That his is so similar to that of other religious beliefs of that era, I think it's possible he's merely a branch and from a distant future we have a difficult time seeing this because of how influential xianity has become. We think there must have been something more that caused others to strike up a movement, but sects have started on much less (ideas and legends built upon ideas and legends). The ability of people to become true believers knows no bounds.

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