Resurrection

[atruthseeker]

After reading the Bible (King James version), I have some questions about the resurrection. If I read correctly, the gospels didn't agree on several details, like who was present. In none of the gospels did I read of an actual witness. His body was gone from the tomb, so resurrection is the only logical explanation? Secondly, the resurrection story had been done several times before the time of Jesus. It's not an original story. Why would it not be easier and more credible to believe that either someone else moved his body or he was never really dead?

[S-word]

Faith by definition has no need of solid visible proofs. It is by faith that I believe ....

What is the source of your faith in these various quasi-scientific and supernatural conditions and events that you describe? You're certainly going beyond any scripture I've ever heard of. Are you following a guru? Did you decide these things for yourself? In either case, what convinces you that you are right? Did God tell you? Do you actually know what physicists mean by "singularity?"

If "Who You Are," was not in the Beginning, "You" could not exist today. Be true to "Who You Are." Know who you are and you will be known.

So get behind me you charlatan priests and you shams
For I am true to my God---To MY God "WHO I AM."

etc

Posting some enigmatic lines of poetry does not answer my question. It appears some or all of it comes from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Whether it's just this, or any other books, tell me why you trust the source(s) as being true. Did God tell you? Does this stuff just resonate within you?

And of course, you haven't at all addressed the source of your unusual cosmological beliefs that you take on faith. Honestly, it sounds like stuff you made up. Did you? Whether you did or not, what convinces you it is true? I realize you accept it on "faith" - but you weren't born with this faith.

Please answer straightforwardly this time, in your own words.

Matey, I will answer as I choose to answer, your demands mean nothing to me, you can accept or reject whatever I say, that is your perogative. I am guided by my indwelling spirit, when everything within me warns me of impending danger, I don't go there, when everything within me tell me that something is correct, I accept it, when everything within me tells me that something is rubbish, I reject it.

Sir or Madame - I apologize if my questions appeared to be a "demand" as you termed it. You are certainly free to do as you've done, and not answer the questions I posed. I would like to point out that this is a debate forum (not a pontification forum). Asking questions is the norm around here.

When someone stipulates how I should answer them, to me, that is a demand, but I will accept your apology, and will now answer your question.

As I have said, I am guided by my indwelling spirit, which is the compilation of all my ancestors, human and pre-human, it is "Who I Am." I belong to no organisation, but eat from the tables that have been prepared by the many different bodies of belief. As I do not worry about the physical food that I eat, but accept anything that is placed on the table before me, knowing that whatever created this body from the food that my mother had eaten, and who maintains the health and continued growth of this body from the food that I eat, accepting that which it needs for that purpose and rejecting that which is unsuitable.

So too, it is the same with the spiritual food that I eat I simply eat from the tables of the Scientists, Philosophers, Jews, the christians, the moslems the Buddhists, and those of the Islamic persuasion, etc, and that which is needed for my spiritual/mental growth is taken and used by My Father, who is forming "ME," his heir and successor, within this physical womb, and that which is rubbish, He rejects.

I am neither a child of science, philosophy, Jewry, christendom, Moslem, Buddah islam etc, I am a Son of Man, and in the 68 years that I have lived on this earth, I have been gathering from feilds in which I neither sowed, nor laboured, and now I lay the bread that was made from the labour of my harvest, upon the table that stands before the veil to the inner most sanctuary of the temporary tabernacle of my God, which tent, is the physical body of mankind, that comes before the spiritual body that evolves from mankind, to which all previous creations including mankind, will bow. Those whose spiritual taste buds are titillated by my offering, are invited to eat, those who do not, must havest their own grain, which is good.

Now close your eyes slightly and hold your pen tightly
Then call for the spirit within to awake
For it’s He who I walk with, who, in you I would talk with
And here’s the request that to him I would make.
Arise! Let your light shine for now is the right time
To scatter the darkness and shine forth you’re Light
Release all your children held fast in the prison
Of those teachers of darkness, those Sons of the night….By S-word.
-------------------------------------------------------

There’s a place down deep inside me
Where I mingles with me past
Where the spirits of me Fathers share their light
And I often drowns me mind there
And If you do it friend, you’ll find there
All the wisdom of your fathers
And their wonderful insight
It’s like when a drop of water
Falls in a vat of wine
It takes the colour and the essence of that drink
Now in the darkness of the dawn
Me descendants who are yet unborn
Have been coming down to me, which makes me think
They want to suck me brain for knowledge
Or some wisdom what I’ve gained
But it’s got me how they know just where to look
I mean, I’m a bloody no one
Just a shadow in their past
Unless of course me words get in a book....By S-word.
------------------------------------------------

Here are two verses from a poem written by Robert Service, who like myself, holds to the veiw that Omar Khayyam, is the greatest Bard to have ever walked this earth.

It's of my life the golden sum;
Ah! Who that reads this book of mine,
In stormy centuries to come,
Will dream I rooted with the swine?
Behold! I give mankind my best:
What does it matter, all the rest?

It's this that makes sublime my day;
It's this that makes me carry on.
Oh, let them mock my mortal clay,
My spirit's deathless as the dawn;
Oh, let them shudder as they look...
I'll be immortal in my Book.....By Robert Service
----------------------------------------------------

Come travel with me on a journey through time
Not in some capsule, but in our mind
To the Inner Most Sanctuary will we descend
To that single cell from which your body began
In the Holy of Holies where all is one
Where all of space and time is joined
We’ll mingle there with other minds
From other lands, in other times.
Minds of the past, who seem dead and gone
And minds of the future who are yet unborn
For they in their time, whether here on this world
Or some distant planet to which they’ve been lured
Will enter their inner most sanctuary too
And there perhaps they’ll merge with you
Ah! To travel through space In the wink of an eye
One with your child on some world way on high
And if this is but madness, then madness it be
But come my mad brothers, come, fly with me.....By S-word.

[The Nice Centurion]

After reading the Bible (King James version), I have some questions about the resurrection. If I read correctly, the gospels didn't agree on several details, like who was present. In none of the gospels did I read of an actual witness. His body was gone from the tomb, so resurrection is the only logical explanation? Secondly, the resurrection story had been done several times before the time of Jesus. It's not an original story. Why would it not be easier and more credible to believe that either someone else moved his body or he was never really dead?

Depends on what you're accepting as a premise. For someone who takes the Bible as true, people saw him crucified and die on the cross, then saw him walking around afterwards and talk with them. So you're correct that even in the gospels there is no actual witness to him coming back to life, but for someone who believes the gospels are true the most logical conclusion is he did come back to life.

Why are debaters always so eager to handle with silence the fact that the Resurrection Encounters with the raisen Jesus were shady and unsure like Bigfoot photos.

Plus the Resurrection Encounters happened only to a few closest co-workers/fans/relatives.

Just like the Golden Plates were shown only to the three and eight witnesses (besides the Frogman and David Whitmers mother).
They all were closest admirers and relatives of Joseph Smith.
(Not the Frogman, or else he wouldnt have slapped the Prophet in the face.)

From a historical stand-point, however, it can be reasonably asserted that the man lived and was probably crucified. What happened after that though, no historian can honestly say with certainty. Was there an actual tomb set aside for him, or did he end up in a typical gravesite? If the former, someone removing the body would certainly seem a more reasonable explanation than him coming back to life.

I like the. "Marys visited the Wrong Tomb" Theory

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to The Nice Centurion in post #32]


Indeed, that is a valid question even if we assume the 'encounters' are reliable accounts.

I'd argue that the Resurrections in the gospels are totally invented - never happened. Just like the visions in Acts are the Luke -writer's guesswork and invention loosely based on Paul's remarks.

Paul (I believe) can be trusted on the visions of the resurrected Jesus in I Corinthians, but that is just their imagination, not a solid walking body, with or without crucifixion marks.

I don't believe that the 'encounters' are reliable or true, but are fictions.

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to The Nice Centurion in post #32]
Indeed, that is a valid question even if we assume the 'encounters' are reliable accounts.

Sure! But for the Umpteenth time; The Emmaus Resurrection Encounter (ERE) at last is easily explained as a copycat of an older Asclepius Myth:

Two men visit an Asclepius Temple. On their way home the sick one complains about why Asclepius didnt care to heal him at all. A stranger joins their campfire at night. After he left the sick one feels healed. Finally they recognice: THAT WAS ASCLEPIUS! SO HE DID CARE!

Here it seems clear why the story goes this way;

Went to Asclepius Temple and got healed = Not a good story.

Went to Aclepius Temple and got frustrated. Then a stranger finally gets identified as Asclepius because patient miraclously. healed = Story with drama, twist and amazing happy end.

But JesusResurrection Encounters didnt need all to be suspiciously shady to make story acceptable.

I'd argue that the Resurrections in the gospels are totally invented - never happened. Just like the visions in Acts are the Luke -writer's guesswork and invention loosely based on Paul's remarks.

Still that doesnt answer why ALL Jesus REs were invented as shady as they were. REs could have easily been made up as good storys without being suspiciously shady.

Paul (I believe) can be trusted on the visions of the resurrected Jesus in I Corinthians, but that is just their imagination, not a solid walking body, with or without crucifixion marks.

Perhaps so.

I don't believe that the 'encounters' are reliable or true, but are fictions.

Now, you can take that position. Still, as for the people resurrected by the healer Jesus, there are more ways to explain them. For example; I am sure that fake healers/illusionists sometimes even staged the resurrection of a patient who was in on it and played possum.
Or else; patients NEAR death brought back by a good physician became people brought back from the grave when time exogerrated the tale.
(Jesus: "Your daughter isnt dead. She only sleeps.")

Further:
SInce you are sadly NOT inquiring on me about that Frogman who guarded the Golden Plates and therefore must have seen them and so can be called another Witness of them READ HERE:
( I believe that one was a mutant frog with partly human genes. An anthromorphic frog = Frogman.)
https://www.lostmormonism.com/something-like-a-toad/

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to The Nice Centurion in post #32]
Indeed, that is a valid question even if we assume the 'encounters' are reliable accounts.

Sure! But for the Umpteenth time; The Emmaus Resurrection Encounter (ERE) at last is easily explained as a copycat of an older Asclepius Myth:

Two men visit an Asclepius Temple. On their way home the sick one complains about why Asclepius didnt care to heal him at all. A stranger joins their campfire at night. After he left the sick one feels healed. Finally they recognice: THAT WAS ASCLEPIUS! SO HE DID CARE!

Here it seems clear why the story goes this way;

Went to Asclepius Temple and got healed = Not a good story.

Went to Aclepius Temple and got frustrated. Then a stranger finally gets identified as Asclepius because patient miraclously. healed = Story with drama, twist and amazing happy end.

But JesusResurrection Encounters didnt need all to be suspiciously shady to make story acceptable.

I'd argue that the Resurrections in the gospels are totally invented - never happened. Just like the visions in Acts are the Luke -writer's guesswork and invention loosely based on Paul's remarks.

Still that doesnt answer why ALL Jesus REs were invented as shady as they were. REs could have easily been made up as good storys without being suspiciously shady.

Paul (I believe) can be trusted on the visions of the resurrected Jesus in I Corinthians, but that is just their imagination, not a solid walking body, with or without crucifixion marks.

Perhaps so.

I don't believe that the 'encounters' are reliable or true, but are fictions.

Now, you can take that position. Still, as for the people resurrected by the healer Jesus, there are more ways to explain them. For example; I am sure that fake healers/illusionists sometimes even staged the resurrection of a patient who was in on it and played possum.
Or else; patients NEAR death brought back by a good physician became people brought back from the grave when time exogerrated the tale.
(Jesus: "Your daughter isnt dead. She only sleeps.")

Further:
SInce you are sadly NOT inquiring on me about that Frogman who guarded the Golden Plates and therefore must have seen them and so can be called another Witness of them READ HERE:
( I believe that one was a mutant frog with partly human genes. An anthromorphic frog = Frogman.)
https://www.lostmormonism.com/something-like-a-toad/

One might possibly suggest the Aesclepius story as supportive mimetic material, but the reason for the story being invented (and it was - IF one proposes the synoptics were based on an original 'proto -Mark - meaning additional stuff was invented) is demonstrable: Luke wanted to get the reader away from Jerusalem so he could wangle in the appearance to Simon (which he knew from Paul's letter to the Corinthians) without having to describe it. They can just hear about when they get back.

The fact that the RE's were suspiciously shady does not make them any different from the other suspiciously shady material. The reason they fail in spectacular fashion is the terminal contradiction, which the others don't do, being based on a common original text - which even John is, to a certain extent.

I agree (Indeed I have said I used to credit this) that the resurrection is equally explainable with the 'swoon' theory (an induced swoon), but that requires the self - deception of weaving the story together and ignoring the contradictions - which we should not. They show the stories are made up and the reason they were made up is because there was no common story there in the first place - just as we find in Mark. It was not lost - it was never there and three invented stories were made up to correct reality - just as was done with the two nativities.

And now it's time for me to do my Monday shopping for the four basic food groups: Booze, baccy, coffee and curry sauce. Have a good week