Wait, Lion, then why ON EARTH did you make the claim about how it was so awful they invented a word for it. “Excrutiating”. (Which, we should point out, you in no way showed was invented for THAT crucifiction.)
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Aaah, the Easter Cognitive Dissonance
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Politesse
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Really, no. In fact, we have yet to identify a single crucifixion apparatus in the material record, and claims to have found forensic evidence of crucifixion victims have been both rare and extremely controversial. Because of the boatloads of historical evidence, no one doubts that crucifixions occurred, but they are seldom described in any detail, and the descriptions that do exist frequently contradict. This has fueled speculation that more than one method existed, and none are understood all that well. The Christian scriptures themselves are a major source of data on crucifixion (of both Jesus and many of his followers), as they are uniquely willing to discuss the normally socially taboo issue of what a crucifixion was like. But again, they often contradict each other or include details we don't quite understand in the present.
For an interesting scientific exploration of the medical controversies involved, check out this relatively recent study that attempts to make sense of the various explanations for the mortality of the crucifixion. Some of these theories would actually tend to support Koy's just so story about an accidental false zombification, but only if proven valid. Personally I don't see how it matters all that much, considering the fact that Jesus did, eventually, die, whether by traumatic legal injury in Judea or from choking on an olive after escaping and retiring to Malta.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
We also have documents from history with Rhett Butler telling Scarlet O'Hara, "I don't give a damn."
We have a robot named Gort landing in a ship in Washington DC.
We have lots of documents from history that are obviously fictional, even though they are historical documents.
They are out there by the millions.
We have a robot named Gort landing in a ship in Washington DC.
We have lots of documents from history that are obviously fictional, even though they are historical documents.
They are out there by the millions.
RavenSky
The Doctor's Wife
Did you accidently post this is the wrong thread, or are you suggesting the French police officer is Jesus?
braces_for_impact
Veteran Member
Ah yes, that "Get Out Of Jail" card, the 'ol personal experience. You know who else has had a personal experience as evidence of God? Muslims. Hindus, Scientologists, Mennonites, Baptists, Christ Scientists, and many many others. So many of them have had a "personal experience" that they simply cannot articulate to anyone else, and even when shared ALWAYS seem so underwhelming to anyone else! Do these personal experiences point any of these people into the same direction as far as truth is concerned? Why no! It just usually coincides with prior expectations (given via culture, media, and knowledge) quite well. Imagine that! Do any of these people seem onto something? Do they behave better than the average person? No. Seem happier? No. Do they have and impart to others useful wisdom? Nope.
Again. A very small god. We should expect better fro a divine being. Instead, we get "personal experience". Hmph.
Again. A very small god. We should expect better fro a divine being. Instead, we get "personal experience". Hmph.
Keith&Co.
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My great great grandfather was from Scotland, he didn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster.
But he saw the Bear Lake Monster, so he believed in that, from personal experience...
He saw it on his way back from one of his famous three-day benders, though, so his news was underwhelming to the rest of the family...
I was admonished by a tour guide in China for laughing when he explained how talking monkeys (and maybe they flew, too) gave advice to kings. I didn’t laugh on purpose, it slipped out, as it did from 3 or 4 other tourists, but he turned to us and said, “you laugh! But this is true!” And now I know to say, “and I know some Christians who believe you completely!”
Koyaanisqatsi
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Beg pardon? How do you get from a perfectly viable theory about a coma from blood loss to “accidental false zombification”?
Politesse
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Beg pardon? How do you get from a perfectly viable theory about a coma from blood loss to “accidental false zombification”?
Zombies are a Caribbean folk myth about persons who similarly appeared to die and get resurrected, but who (at least according to Wade Davis and most contemporary bokor) were actually just falling comatose and reviving in a more standard mortal fashion. You are positing something similar for Jesus, yes? Everyone thought he was dead but he was actually just out cold? Zombie.
Lion IRC
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Did you accidently post this is the wrong thread, or are you suggesting the French police officer is Jesus?
You think Jesus is the only one who ever acted that way? The Op is suggesting that self-sacrificial saving of others by proxy - (here, take my life in lieu of theirs) - is a bizarre concept.
Learner
Veteran Member
Its greater by its significance, hence why this is still the big debate of all debates.
If it is that, being so common as you suggest... there has at least among the common crucifixions only been one character such as Jesus "uncommon" an individual and quite unique to the rest, even despiting the various versions of the burials you take to.
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Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
Did you accidently post this is the wrong thread, or are you suggesting the French police officer is Jesus?
You think Jesus is the only one who ever acted that way? The Op is suggesting that self-sacrificial saving of others by proxy - (here, take my life in lieu of theirs) - is a bizarre concept.
If Jesus offered his own life in exchange for a hostage, who was the hostage-taker? That would be God, no? And wasn't Jesus an aspect of that very same God? The police officer in France heroically agreed to become the hostage of a terrorist. If that is how you construe your deity, then so be it. It seems that the hostage and the terrorist were working in cahoots with each other. But then I worry about the fact that you worship this divine terrorist as well as the somewhat crazy hostage.
BTW, the sacrifice of Jesus was an old concept at the time, and it had long predated Christianity. It is now called scapegoating. The idea was that an animal (or human, in the case of human sacrifice) was chosen as a bearer of the sins of the worshipers. The scapegoat was then ritually slain as a way of cleansing the religious community of its sins, thereby once again gaining the favor of a god or gods.
J842P
Veteran Member
Then *why the human sacrifice*???
Koyaanisqatsi
Veteran Member
Beg pardon? How do you get from a perfectly viable theory about a coma from blood loss to “accidental false zombification”?
Zombies are a Caribbean folk myth about persons who similarly appeared to die and get resurrected, but who (at least according to Wade Davis and most contemporary bokor) were actually just falling comatose and reviving in a more standard mortal fashion. You are positing something similar for Jesus, yes? Everyone thought he was dead but he was actually just out cold? Zombie.
Not quite. Wade Davis claimed that bokor used a tetrodotoxin, “a poison that comes from pufferfish that has the ability to induce lethargy, immobility and in many cases death” that they ritually blew into the faces of their soon-to-be zombies, causing them to appear dead, so that upon their burial the bokor could go dig them up and turn them into slaves due to the brain damage inflicted by the toxin.
Not exactly the same scenario as in GMark, unless you’re suggesting that God’s inaction was the equivalent of poisoning Jesus or something?
Koyaanisqatsi
Veteran Member
Once again, according to the only source on the matter, Jesus did not act in a self-sacrificial way at all. He threw himself to the ground and begged his “father” to stop his death three times, clearly delineating that his death was not his own will, but God’s will.
Plus, as I also pointed out previously, for sacrificial/substitutionary atonement to have any meaning whatsoever, it has to be a voluntary ritual conducted by others for the express purpose of offering up a sacrifice of their own livestock or best grain; something of value to them that if they lost it would cause them direct material suffering. Iow, they had to give up something they needed—willingly—as an offering to God to prove their love and devotion and worship in order to garner God’s favor (i.e., to bless them and their family and their lives and whatever).
Either way you look at GMark, it is the Romans that actually kill Jesus. Were they doing so to willingly initiate a sacrificial ritual for the express purpose of sacrificing something they needed in order to garner favor from the Jewish god? No.
Is is also asserted in GMark that the crowd of Jews—at the miraculous Jew-whispering powers of the San Hedrin—demand that Pilate kill Jesus, but was that likewise initiated as a loving ritual offering by the Jews to garner favor from their god? If so, then there are a LOT of Sunday school teachers that owe the Jewish community their sincere apologies and we’d better just chuck everything Paul ever wrote out the window and celebrate the San Hedrin for being such compassionate and devoted Christian church elders to have bent down before Jehovah to sincerely offer him Jesus for our sins (and for having been able to convince Pilate to be the honored Kohanim).
So, the Romans made no such offering. The Jews made no such offering. Jesus begged three times and concluded that it was not his will, but God’s will. So who was doing the sacrificial offering to God? “For God loved us sooooo much...”
And, again, once you throw in the trinity bullshit, then we have God requiring that he kill himself as a necessary offering to himself in order to grant us salvation from his own wrath.
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Jobar
Zen Hedonist
Lion, as far as I'm concerned, what you and other Christians believe within your own minds is entirely up to you. If it neither picks my pocket or breaks my leg, as Jefferson put it, I have no problem with it.
But if you want to convince *us* that these incredible events actually occurred, or simply talk to us about them, then your arguments and evidence have to enter the world of common day. You can't just plead that it's an experience in your head; we know that people believe all sorts of astonishingly strange things. Your inner experiences do not constitute evidence.
I've been reading a lot of Robert Ingersoll lately; he has a wonderful comment on this matter.
(Let me add here that it has to be a relevant fact. That some brave and selfless person has offered his own life in exchange for another is of course a great and noble thing, but it isn't relevant to the assertion that God offered Himself (in the form of His son) in exchange for the sins of the world.)
But if you want to convince *us* that these incredible events actually occurred, or simply talk to us about them, then your arguments and evidence have to enter the world of common day. You can't just plead that it's an experience in your head; we know that people believe all sorts of astonishingly strange things. Your inner experiences do not constitute evidence.
I've been reading a lot of Robert Ingersoll lately; he has a wonderful comment on this matter.
(Let me add here that it has to be a relevant fact. That some brave and selfless person has offered his own life in exchange for another is of course a great and noble thing, but it isn't relevant to the assertion that God offered Himself (in the form of His son) in exchange for the sins of the world.)
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Jobar
Zen Hedonist
As most here are well aware, there have been any number of interpretations of the tale of Jesus Christ; that his supposedly voluntary sacrifice is meant to forgive humanity of Original Sin is only one of the many dogmas put forth, in particular during the early centuries of Christianity. There were some who believed he was a sacrifice to Satan for the souls in Hell. There were some who thought Jesus was a totally separate, more merciful God, and not the one in the Old Testament. The Easter story has probably been interpreted in thousands of different ways.
I think the tale makes most sense as a pantheistic parable, influenced by Buddhist teachings of how to deal with human suffering. Jesus' realization that he and God were one applied not just to himself, but to all human beings. His preaching of this angered all the authorities of his time; witness the reactions of the Romans, the priests, and Herod. (If humans didn't fear suffering, they couldn't be governed externally, only internally.) So his tale has been twisted almost completely out of recognition, in the attempt to make it useful to the ones who want to enforce their power with the threat of suffering.
I think the tale makes most sense as a pantheistic parable, influenced by Buddhist teachings of how to deal with human suffering. Jesus' realization that he and God were one applied not just to himself, but to all human beings. His preaching of this angered all the authorities of his time; witness the reactions of the Romans, the priests, and Herod. (If humans didn't fear suffering, they couldn't be governed externally, only internally.) So his tale has been twisted almost completely out of recognition, in the attempt to make it useful to the ones who want to enforce their power with the threat of suffering.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
I think we're observing loyalty and group identity more than actual examination. Inner experiences are also occurring although not at the same rate as the group identity and security behavior. People with certain brain conditions will certainly experience voices and hallucinations, as anyone who has experience with someone of this condition can attest. The sincerity is genuine. I myself experience migraine auras, but do not attribute those occurrences to angels or ghosts, gods, demons or visitations from the dearly departed.
If these brain conditions are not self destructive the individual goes on to reproduce same as any other organism. This is what we see, that the seriously affected are no longer around, natural selection saw to that. We are left with the religious types only, but still see more serious manifestations of these brain conditions in the population.
It's not like these folks have a choice anymore than I can choose to be taller. Their behavior is physically determined, one could say constrained.
Did you accidently post this is the wrong thread, or are you suggesting the French police officer is Jesus?
You think Jesus is the only one who ever acted that way? The Op is suggesting that self-sacrificial saving of others by proxy - (here, take my life in lieu of theirs) - is a bizarre concept.
No, the OP is suggesting nothing of the kind. You made that up.
This soldier was actually saving someone else because the rule (from physics) is not something the soldier has power to change, and he may have thjought he could help negotiate to stop physics (bullet from entering human body) from even happening.
It would be analogous to the OP, on the other hand, if we were saying that the god _is_ the terrorist, and he’s agreed to negotiate with himself to say he’s going to shoot himself in the toe in order to appease his terroristic plans so he can let the hostage go free and claim he was a Swell Fellow(tm)