The Existence of Jesus Christ

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I am curious, friend. (Thanks for the welcome.) When one says that the Bible is not the Word of GOD, but rather contains the Word of GOD--who do you differentiate between the two?

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Why, compare it against the later scripture, the Qur'an, of course.But again, I'm intruding into other people's beliefs.Uh, what's so funny/sad about the EvC?

The Case for Christ is a bunch of second rate poorly written drivel who took all the appoligist arguements that have been rightfully demolished by others, and put them in one book without any kind of balanced viewpoint on them. If you looked at the evidence as presented, you will see, amoung other things, items that are strongly indicated to be forgeries being presented as real (such as antiquities 18), and items taken out of context. It never presented the opposite point of view in any valid way.

Hi Val, I agree completely: Have you heard about people who live in glass houses and what they shouldn't do with stones?I also agree with Ramoss regarding Lee Strobel's book (s), they are all extremely amateur and academically redundant. They are written for an unquestioning audience, so he essentially gets away with writing whatever nonsense he wants to.Brian.

This is the first that I've heard the claim that the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of the Buddha. My understanding has always been that he is the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.An interesting viewpoint to your point though is something I just read in the book:Re-enchantment : Tibetan Buddhism comes to the West
Author: Paine, Jeffery, 1944-
Publisher, Date: New York : W.W. Norton, c2004.
ISBN: 0393019683 (hardcover) - Description: 278 p. ; 25 cm.On pg. 6 is Paine talks about Thomas Merton meeting the Lama Chatral Rinpoche in Nepal."'Is it true,' Chatral asked Merton, 'that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?' In Tibet when a dead man pulled that stunt, a lama was called in to pray and get the dead man to lay down again. "Has Christianity erected an entire religion around a ghoul?'"The Tibetans had no problem believing Jesus rose from the dead, they just didn't understand why this was regarded as a good thing!lfenThis message has been edited by lfen, 06-12-2005 11:48 AM

i'd always heard that the original dalai lama was siddhartha gottama. but maybe that's apocryphal.

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אָרַח

From the official biography of the current Dalai Lama.
http://www.tibet.com/DL/biography.html

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"select * from USERS where CLUE > 0http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
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Title: God against the gods : the history of the war between monotheism and polytheism / Jonathan Kirsch. BookAuthor: Kirsch, Jonathan, 1949-
Publisher, Date: New York : Viking Compass, 2004.
ISBN: 0670032867 (alk. paper) - Description: xii, 336 p. : map ; 24 cm.But there is a lot of material on this. The argument you make is great for revival tents for people who know nothing about the history of the times. The reason that Judaism and by extentsion the Christian cult of Judaism were offensive to the pagans was because they like many modern fundamentalist were intolerant of other people's religions.The pagans were tolerant and the Romans had even made exceptions for the Jews but the Jews and Christians wouldn't make any compromises and so were offensive on purpose cause just like you they had the truth and anyone who disagreed was to be looked down on as Godless. This evil of rigorism is alive to this day in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic fundamentalism. I grew up in a small town rife with Christian rigorism. Its stupid, narrow minded, and evil. I dispise it.Also your argument that people only will martry if they believe Jesus arose from the dead doesn't explain why the Jews martyred themselves at say Masada. But because some clever snake oil salesman of an apologist found he could close conversions of the ignorant by this false claim it gets repeated here ad nausem. Christians martyred each other over doctrinal points such as Arianism, etc. The church used the martyrs and did even more martyring than the Romans and then lied to claim that only ever have Christians been martryed. Not true. And the fact that only ever Christians have been martryed means that all the claims of the Church are true. Not logical. This is bad illogical propaganda and I totally disrespect it and the motives and behaviour of those who advance it. It is tawdry cheap rigorist religion of the worst kind.I feel enraged and sick that this is advanced as a religion deserving respect. It's not. It's stupid, sick, and evil. Grow up. Learn to think. If believing in Christ helps you love and help other people great. But if you are believing in this like some fundies do here in order to feel superior and special because you have the sole truth however nonsensical it is, then realize you are just indulging your self in nasty ego exclusiveness and repeating old stale apologetic nonsense that appeals to you emotionally but that is without evidence or logic.Your arguments only demonstrate to me how desparately irrational Christian fundamentalists are about their self righteous claims to knowing the only truth even though they aren't capable of logical argument but only of illogical emotional appeals and blackmail for uninformed people.lfen

I'm intrigued. What other avenue of experience do you think we have? Are you asserting that consciousness can be independent of the nervous system so that we can or do experience independent of our brains?I'd like to think that is possible actually but it's difficult to make that argument.lfen

i though my statement was rather simplistic... what i meant was:"i think that what a lot of people experience is largely a product of their own brains. [as opposed to real spiritual experiences or interactions with god, the devil, angels, or space aliens]"meaning that i reserve the small chance that the occasional experience could be real, but most of them, i think, are hallucinations and the like. basically do we have souls independent of our bodies? i dunno.

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אָרַח

We have to keep in mind that the historical Buddha of the Shakya clan, Shakyamuni Buddha is only one of many Buddhas. Buddha means awakened and at least in Mahayana Buddhism all sentient beings have Buddha nature. I think the Bodhisattva of Compassion is a reference to another Buddha that might be thought of an aspect of the awakened mind, namely compassion and that might be Avalokiteshvara which the Tibetans call Chenrezig. I'm not sure of the authoritative answer. I suspect Arach read a claim similiar to the one I've quoted and later misremembered it as a claim that the Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the Buddha.The word Buddha is used in many ways in Buddhism. The story is that Siddharta when asked if he was a human or a god answered by saying he was awake, which is what Buddha means. The awakened mind sees that all things are interdependent, that thus no things exist independently. The word Buddha then is used for the pure or primordial mind unclouded by ignorance. So, yeah, the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of Buddha but it's not claimed, to my knowledge, that he is the reincarnation of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni.I might have misunderstood the point Arach was making also. I had thought he was comparing Shakyamuni Buddha to Jesus Christ and then saying that the Dalai Lama was regarded as Shakyamuni Buddha reborn even though everything I've read claims that Shakyamuni Buddha entered complete perfect nirvana and would never be reborn.lfen

You have an odd concept of tolerant considering the Christians were fed to the lions. Moreover, you misunderstand the nature of pagan and ancient religious belief entirely. Christians and Jews were not persecuted because they were intolerant, and pagan Rome was not a tolerant soceity towards others. That's just wishful thinking on your part.No, the real answer is the ancient world had a basic religious belief of "one religion for one people" and thought violating that produced curses from the gods, and irregardless, created a divisive soceity. The principle of religious freedom as Jesus espoused was a totally alien concept, even for the Jews, and the truth is no society ever really adopted that concept, in terms of the rulers and throughout, until the Quakers and the Baptists were allowed to start colonies in America. The Quakers were mocked and scoffed at for even suggesting religious freedom would work.Rome though had a problem because there many different religions. So they required everyone to take a religious oath and participate in a common sacral rite, and in doing so conform to religious unity even within diversity.You are right to see parallels in multi-faith, multi-cultural concepts of today, but you mistake the root and meaning of it. The reason Rome was so upset is they did not believe, nor think, true religious freedom and individual freedom could work. I would argue there are some parallels to today's liberal mindset as well, but that's a different thread.They genuinely felt to grant the people the right to have a separate religion without tied to their religion and a sacral rite would result in disaster. They allowed it reluctantly for the Jews because at least the Jews were clinging to "one religion for one people" and not upsetting the applecart too much.The Christians on the other hand boldly presented the idea that you could have, even within the same family, pagans and Christians without the Christians making any oath to the pagan's gods. That was outrageous, and totally contrary to the beliefs of the ancient world, and except where Christianity has had a great influence, it is still that way today.You may have Hindus and Budhhists and Moslems living side-by-side, at times peacefully, but let some family members switch to a different religion, and all Hades breaks loose. Apples and oranges. The folks that died at Masada were political revolutionaries, which explains that quite well. This where you are being intellectually dishonest. Rome martyred whether through the church or otherwise. Please note that the fact Roman Catholicism abandoned the principle of religious liberty proves my point. The early Christians advocated volunteerism. You could be a Christian or not. It was your choice.The Empire made a deal. We'll quit killing you and even make your religion be the official state religion, as long as you let us change a few things, chief of which is we have to maintain religious unity, and thus the idea of religious liberty had to go.It wasn't that bald-faced, mind you. It was more subtle, and you can imagine the Christians' relief to find out they wouldn't be persecuted so much anymore, and so it is understandable that they would accept the Empire's help, but it was the spirit of the Empire doing the killing, not the Spirit of Jesus Christ.But something many don't realize is that many Christians never accepted Roma's authority, and clung to the original principles, and were persecuted as various sects throughout the ages, even by Luther, Swingli and company. One of the more telling evidence of this is that certain names of derision were levied at these Christians, and all reflected specific evangelical doctrines that eventually won the day. One of the chief principles was the concept that only those born-again were part of the Church and subject to it's rule, and that rule did not include the method of the sword of the magistrate.That's why the term "separation of Church and State" was coined by Christians, used as early as the Donatists, and a chief rallying cry of the Anabaptists.On the rest of your post, I can only express my sorrow that you feel Jesus Christ is not real and alive and present even now, and that somehow the behaviour of Christians has turned you away. I would caution you though to be honest with yourself and realize that within any camp, even those holding to your beliefs, there is a wide range of people, and even evil people of the worst sort. If you are going to base your faith on people, then you will be sadly disappointed no matter what that faith is.As far as Jesus, I can just tell you He is real, alive, was genuinely born a man, crucified, died and was buried, and that it's true, as hard as it may seem for you to accept.You seek for reality hard enough, you will find Him. I hope that day comes sooner than later.

My "odd" concept does not claim the persecutions of Christians as tolerance. Nor do I claim any perfection for polytheism or monotheism, my concept of tolerance is that usually polytheists Roman or otherwise accepted the gods and practises of other believers. I cite Jonathan Kirsch's recent book God Against the Gods. Rome and pagans as polytheists were generally quite tolerant of religion. They expected that there would be other gods. Rome asked as a display of civic virtue and solidarity that incense be offered. Later they allowed the Jews to pray for the emperor in lieu of an offering.I won't at this time go into the arguments in Kirsch's book. He does look at Akhenaton and Josiah's attempt to force monotheism on their subjects but the bulk of the book is focused on Constantine and Rome.I think you have a viable argument that it was the worldly power of Rome that led to the worst abuses. That doesn't mean I think you are right but there is real substance to that argument.A large question exist as to how much the Church exagerated the persecutions. There is no doubt that there were periods where Rome persecuted Christians and some Christians were tortured and killed in the Colliseums. The extent of this persecution is debated. I have no trouble believing that for some people Jesus Christ is real, alive, and present. I believe that for some people Krishna is real, alive, and present, and for other people that prescence is the Buddha, or Avalokiteshvara. What I don't accept is the rigorist notion that only one belief system is true and good and all others are false and evil.lfen

But you accept the persecutions were real when done by the Catholics. Why not just throw it all out? I mean there is no basis to claim that Rome did not persecute the Christians, bitterly even at times.But one thing I think you may be missing here is that the primary people that were persecuted by Roman Catholicism were other Christians. If you were somewhat secular minded, you were just fine under the new Roman system because all you had to do was give lip service to Catholicism, same as they required for the incense before that. Sure, it put down paganism, but that ended fairly quickly and the real persecutions, the slaughters, were against Christians who held to the original beliefs, repetance and faith to be born anew by the blood of Jesus, that God's rule was greater than any priest, that we are all priests, that everyone had to voluntarily follow Jesus or it wasn't real, that God required purity, evangalism, etc,...The Crusades and Inquisition, especially in Spain, targetted non-Christians as well, that is true, but the Crusades were essentially war for territory more than religious persecution. The Jews though were persecuted like beleivers that refused to accept the marriage of Church and State. Don't confuse the issue. Jesus is either real, or He is not. The fact Jesus is Lord is not some statement denying any truth or reality anywhere else. Everything must stand on it's own. But putting Jesus side by side with other religious leaders is intellectually dishonest. Buddha or various Budhhas don't claim to the Saviour of the world, to offer their blood as the sacrifice of sins, etc,....It seems to me that in the name of accepting everything, there sure are a lot of people that reject Jesus, which seems to me to make their claim of acceptance bogus.If you have learned something true and good in any religion, fine, but what does that have to do with knowing Jesus Christ?

I like that question and one good question deserves another. What does knowing Jesus Christ have to do with knowing your Buddha nature? Or as the Advaitist put it, knowing the Self?lfen

I believe all truth comes from Jesus. So if someone arrives at a spiritual place of true Self or whatever, they are in some arriving closer to Christ.Now, one would have to delve a little deeper to understand what all that means. Becoming one's true self, and becoming one with Christ, are the same thing, but that's hard for people to see. It seems impossible that you can be 2 people, or one person and "in Christ" as part of another, at the same time, but that's the beauty of the revelation of Jesus.While most Trinitarians probably have thrown out the Oneness side of God too much, and have an image of 3 parts of God or some such, as if it is 3 Persons in one God when it's really 3 Persons in one Person with all 3 being God and God being one at the same time. 3 are one, not 3 in one. God doesn't stop being the Father just because He is the Son.But God in creating people took a part of Himself, personhood, and made us, and it seems to be the highest level of being we understand, but God exists on a higher level of Being, where 3 can be 1 at the same time. Our math does not work and seem to add up, but maybe superpositional math stemming from a quantum physics understanding of reality will help us see it more from the natural one day.So we think of the highest state of being as personhood and so have a hard time thinking we could exist as more than one person at once, but it's no big deal for God, and here is the wonderful part. We can become "in Him" even so that He is "all in all", and yet retain our individuality.That could not be if there was not a higher state of existence, a state of personhood where the many could be one, and the 3 are 1 shows us that very real hope, that God in offering to swallow us up in Him so to speak does not intend the death of our individual identity.So when a spiritual or holy man knows "the Self", he is beginning to know Christ. Anything he has learned from Christ that is true, we should of course retain and understand, but often and this can be true of Christianity as well, the systems of truth that men create to categorize that experience and talk of how to attain that experience are usually flawed, and that's because reality is not a system to be understood and practiced, but a Person, and that Person is the man Jesus Christ, the Godhead revealed in the flesh, the Son of God.That's my preaching for tonight, and though it's preaching and not scientific discourse, it's still true.This message has been edited by randman, 06-13-2005 03:34 AM