The Historicity of Jesus Christ

Obtenebrator said:
Certainly hallucinogens (often called ENTHEOGENS because people "see God") play a role in some religious experiences. And hallucination has a central role in many religions in general. Hallucination is one of the main ways the Church accepts new doctrine (although they call it "revelation") so it wouldn't be a huge stretch for hallucinogenice materials to be integral in the faith.


i haven't heard anything related to the origin of Christianity though
Click to expand...
Plato is credited for pushing gnostikos as a state religion but Athenians believed one could become a demigod through knowledge long before Plato.
 
goat said:
Plato is credited for pushing gnostikos as a state religion but Athenians believed one could become a demigod through knowledge long before Plato.
Click to expand...
I'd be offended by your ignorance, but you are beyond hope. No one ever said such a thing about Plato.
 
Hume said:
I'd be offended by your ignorance, but you are beyond hope. No one ever said such a thing about Plato.
Click to expand...
I❤Irony

Educated people can see the relation even if you and your paranoid schizo friend do not.

Social views evolve. There is a link between John Locke and the United States of America just as there is between Plato and early Christianity.


Example of links between Plato and Jesus:

www.logos.com

Take It from the Church Fathers: You Should Read Plato

Plato was the West’s most important philosopher, and he helped set the intellectual stage for early Christianity. Learn how.
www.logos.com www.logos.com
If you’re interested in Christianity’s origins, there are some very good reasons to be interested in Platonism:

  • Plato understood the self as divided between body and soul, with the soul more closely related to goodness and truth; this made Christianity’s later soul-body division easier to understand. (Some early Christians, like Justin Martyr, even regarded the Platonists as unknowing proto-Christians, though this conclusion was later rejected.)
  • Plato’s theory of forms prefigured the Christian understanding of heaven as a perfect world, of which the physical realm is a mere imitation.
  • Both worldviews assume the existence of absolute truth and unchanging reality; again, Plato’s thought helped prepare people for Christianity.
  • Augustine, at the end of a line of influence that began with Plato and passed through Plotinus, understood logic and reasoning—disciplines concerned with absolute truth—as important complements, not enemies, of faith. That faith-reason partnership would characterize Christianity through at least Kierkegaard. (Francis Schaeffer argues that the early existentialist brought modernity past the “line of despair” by conceiving of Christianity as accessible only through a leap of faith, beyond reasoning.)
 
Commander Dutch said:
I❤Irony

Educated people can see the relation even if you and your paranoid schizo friend do not.

Social views evolve. There is a link between John Locke and the United States of America just as there is between Plato and early Christianity.


Example of links between Plato and Jesus:

www.logos.com

Take It from the Church Fathers: You Should Read Plato

Plato was the West’s most important philosopher, and he helped set the intellectual stage for early Christianity. Learn how.
www.logos.com www.logos.com
If you’re interested in Christianity’s origins, there are some very good reasons to be interested in Platonism:

  • Plato understood the self as divided between body and soul, with the soul more closely related to goodness and truth; this made Christianity’s later soul-body division easier to understand. (Some early Christians, like Justin Martyr, even regarded the Platonists as unknowing proto-Christians, though this conclusion was later rejected.)
  • Plato’s theory of forms prefigured the Christian understanding of heaven as a perfect world, of which the physical realm is a mere imitation.
  • Both worldviews assume the existence of absolute truth and unchanging reality; again, Plato’s thought helped prepare people for Christianity.
  • Augustine, at the end of a line of influence that began with Plato and passed through Plotinus, understood logic and reasoning—disciplines concerned with absolute truth—as important complements, not enemies, of faith. That faith-reason partnership would characterize Christianity through at least Kierkegaard. (Francis Schaeffer argues that the early existentialist brought modernity past the “line of despair” by conceiving of Christianity as accessible only through a leap of faith, beyond reasoning.)
Click to expand...
In his later writings, Plato tried to force a state religion on all of Greece.
 
ZenMode said:
He could have existed and not been the son of the Christian God, right? It's technically possible.
Click to expand...
In human reproduction medical pseudoscience immaculate virgin Mary son of Allah Jesus the Christ conception is not possible; but obviously suicidal super ego sociopsychopathilogical human farming certainly has quite a cult forgiving themselves in hallucinogenic schizoid behaviors....
 
Hume said:
Where exactly? You don't know because you never read anything by Plato.
Click to expand...
Plato believed that religion should be part of the state. Not a separate religion for every city state but one religion for all of Greece.
 
Obtenebrator said:
You are missing a quadrant in your model: It is possible for a person to have existed and people make up stories about them being divine or doing miracles.
Click to expand...
You are correct, but we have two topics running in parallel here.

History: What happened in the past? What can be supported by documented first-hand accounts? Was Jesus a real person? What do we know? What stories appear to be snowball-effects of embellishments gone out of control?

Theology: What do I believe really happened? Was Jesus the son of God? Did he perform miracles and teach wisdom flowing from the supernatural? What do I believe is true, regardless of it being supported with first-hand accounts?

In the case above, you are accurately addressing possibilities of an historical analysis. On the other hand, I was simply discussing theology and the absence of any need to link any particular quantity of supporting documentation to one's faith.

Cypress appears to have major insecurities about his faith. His desperate need to believe that his religion is somehow supported by far more documentation than it really is reveals his actual lack of faith, knowing that he doesn't have anywhere near the amount of documentation that he apparently needs to satisfy his own requirements.
 
ZenMode said:
He could have existed and not been the son of the Christian God, right? It's technically possible.
Click to expand...
You pivoted to the topic of history from the topic of theology that I was addressing. If you actually believe that a divinity existed, then you should worship that divinity because you believe it actually exists/ed. If you are merely thinking of a divinity that you don't believe ever existed, you probably aren't going to worship it.
 
Obtenebrator said:
Certainly hallucinogens (often called ENTHEOGENS because people "see God") play a role in some religious experiences. And hallucination has a central role in many religions in general. Hallucination is one of the main ways the Church accepts new doctrine (although they call it "revelation") so it wouldn't be a huge stretch for hallucinogenice materials to be integral in the faith.
Click to expand...
 
Obtenebrator said:
Cypress just wants people to know he's really mad. And there's no good way to "stamp dose widdle feet" online. So he does that shit.
Click to expand...
Any objective analysis you might offer will run roughshod over Cypress' attempts to preach his favorite sermons from Quora.
 
Cypress said:
You used to say nobody wrote anything about Jesus for six decades, so after reading my posts you finally learned that claim was incorrect.

But you are still shooting wide of the mark.

The earliest gospel was probably written at least 30 years after the crucifixion, not two decades. But it credibly can be interpreted as the firsthand reports of Peter, as recorded an organized by his companion Mark.

Paul's letters are the Christian writings that are more like about 20 years after the crucifixion.
But in Corinthians, Paul mentions much earlier writings or oral reports about Jesus he had received and passed on to the churches of his mission. Corinthians is written around 50 AD, and Paul began his ministry to the gentiles in the early 40s or late 30s. So these earlier reports or writings Paul received and shared with his ministry arguably go back to the earliest years of the Church in Jerusalem in the 30s.

Wrapping up, we have historical data points showing that there were reports of Jesus going back to the earliest days of the Jerusalem church in the 30s, and the evangelists Paul and Mark were in direct contact with the original Apostles of Jesus.
Click to expand...

Ye.s When they were 'written down' is just a dishonest attempt at misleading people into believing it's a story made up many years after the fact. That is clearly not the case, as is shown by other events in the time frame. A lot of crypto-pagans and both left and right wing ideologues have a vested interest in destroying Christian influence on culture, dishonest economic practices, sexual deviancy, and promotions of the traditional family structures in favor of some fake 'rationalism' and 'technocracy' fads.

Others hope to peddle their own mythical fictitious rewrites as somehow becoming valid if they can destroy the credibility of the orthodoxy, as Walther Bauer and his flunky Elaine Pagels tried to do with their agenda re Gnosticism, building some silly conspiracy theory around 'the real Jesus' being somehow repressed and the 'truth' destroyed over the centuries by evil churches n stuff as a substitute.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top