Jesus says....

[Giant Salamander]

It's much better when you take out the whole divine thing and just look at what he was saying.
If the dark age schmucks had been listening to him when he said religion should never, ever have a place in government, or be used to govern people (basically that the church should never become an institution), they'd have saved the Western world a shitload of historical embarrassment.
The fact that people literally believe him to be the son of God most likely didn't come from his mouth, but those who followed him; he said everyone was a son/daughter of god, divine, etc., and those who didn't know it were lost - heaven was on earth for those who knew they were already divine. Never really said anything about "getting saved" so you wont' "go to hell." That's all retarded interpretation based on Old Testament mythos.

...not that I'm a Christian (tried that cult out for two years, crashed, burned), but Jesus was definitely the man, and ahead of his time in that particular part of the world.
Perhaps he made a visit to India in that huge span of undocumented life...
Who knows?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Giant Salamander

Perhaps he made a visit to India in that huge span of undocumented life... Who knows?

From the link....

At this time, an old woman approached the crowd, but was pushed back. Then Issa said, "Reverence Woman, mother of the universe,' in her lies the truth of creation. She is the foundation of all that is good and beautiful. She is the source of life and death. Upon her depends the existence of man, because she is the sustenance of his labors. She gives birth to you in travail, she watches over your growth. Bless her. Honor her. Defend her. Love your wives and honor them, because tomorrow they shall be mothers, and later-progenitors of a whole race. Their love ennobles man, soothes the embittered heart and tames the beast. Wife and mother-they are the adornments of the universe."

"As light divides itself from darkness, so does woman possess the gift to divide in man good intent from the thought of evil. Your best thoughts must belong to woman. Gather from them your moral strength, which you must possess to sustain your near ones. Do not humiliate her, for therein you will humiliate yourselves. And all which you will do to mother, to wife, to widow or to another woman in sorrow-that shall you also do for the Spirit."

[lumberjim]

AND, some of them are`sexy as all hell!

[binky]

I think Jesus left out divorce for spousal abuse, it was either that or a shotgun blast to the head for my ex

[smoothmoniker]

It doesn't seem odd to ya'll that every generation remakes Jesus in their own image, deciding which of his words they think he "really said" based on the socially acceptable values of the time? To get the nice warm and cuddly eastern philosopher Jesus, you have to leave out huge swaths of the written record of his words. The same thing if you want to end up with the Republican Jesus.

It's much more complex, and I think compelling, to deal with the whole thing, rather than performing literary surgery to arrive at a Jesus in our own image. What could be more useless, really, than a spiritual teacher who already agrees with us?

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

~snip~ What could be more useless, really, than a spiritual teacher who already agrees with us?

The debil agrees with me more than Haysoos does !

Damn debil.

[monster]

I just don't "get" the whole spiritual leader thing anyway. Jesus seems to have been a cool bloke who said some sensible things. There are other such people in history. I try to live my life according to the principles I believe to be good rather than the the set of principle laid down by a specific person. Mostly, I fail, but dammnit , try.

[Giant Salamander]

I just thought it was interesting is all. The whole domination of Western thought throughout most of the rest of history thing.

[smoothmoniker]

Yes, damn that western thought for giving us such horsecrap as logic, science, medicine, musical harmony, democracy, the enlightenment, the concept of "rights" ...

... such oppressive assholes, us "western thinkers".

[Cloud]

Originally Posted by monster

I just don't "get" the whole spiritual leader thing anyway. Jesus seems to have been a cool bloke who said some sensible things. There are other such people in history. I try to live my life according to the principles I believe to be good rather than the the set of principle laid down by a specific person. Mostly, I fail, but dammnit , try.

perhaps you've never met someone truly charismatic?

if so, you're lucky!

[Giant Salamander]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Yes, damn that western thought for giving us such horsecrap as logic, science, medicine, musical harmony, democracy, the enlightenment, the concept of "rights" ...

... such oppressive assholes, us "western thinkers".

ACTually, that's a list of most of the things I love about western thought. I guess I didn't mean western thought so much as western religion. Oops.

[Cicero]

I wonder what internet Jesus thinks of this representation of the last supper.

Wow.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/...4604392&page=1

[xoxoxoBruce]

Probably rioting, looting, and threatening to murder people... no, wait, that's another group.

[Sundae]

Jesus didn't like it, he told me.
He said it was very cold in that room, but the painter must have been short sighted or something.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

It doesn't seem odd to ya'll that every generation remakes Jesus in their own image, deciding which of his words they think he "really said" based on the socially acceptable values of the time? To get the nice warm and cuddly eastern philosopher Jesus, you have to leave out huge swaths of the written record of his words. The same thing if you want to end up with the Republican Jesus.

It's much more complex, and I think compelling, to deal with the whole thing, rather than performing literary surgery to arrive at a Jesus in our own image. What could be more useless, really, than a spiritual teacher who already agrees with us?

Ouch. That's brutal.

Here's my take on "what Jesus really said" ...

#1 He didn't write anything, so we have no direct records of his teachings.

Therefore #2 we have his message filtered through the minds of the authors of the texts we do have.

So #3 to arrive at what his message actually might have been, we have to strip away the artifact of the interpreters, based on our knowledge of what their "spin" might have been, based on the culture they were a product of.

Just as you say, we shouldn't apply our own cultural filter, we also should not apply the cultural filter of the times at which these texts were written. Also, take into account he was/was claimed to have been fulfilling a prophecy, so some of what he said/was claimed to have said was hard-coded.

As a measuring tool, one can also apply an average of the many different messages he was claimed to have had by the many different authors. Weigh that against the average of all of history's other spiritual teachers, to get a feel for what a responsible "enlightened" person is likely to say, and further weed out the cultural artifacts of homophobic goat-herders.

Somewhere in this process, once you realize that simply reading the text verbatim is of questionable value (by the way, which texts are we reading, is the Gospel of Thomas in or out?) you realize that about all Jesus is good for is a frontman for some amalgam of various belief systems.

We don't know what he said, we don't know what he meant, and all we can do is make educated guesses. And when we do that, he invariably will reflect our biases. This is the danger of religion, that it can stand for stupid and dangerous things.