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Post by Tobari Sabbatine on Feb 15, 2005 20:59:09 GMT -5
yeah Jesus is his real name but they were a few hundread others too.
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Post by Fireball on Feb 15, 2005 21:35:45 GMT -5
I'm kind of late to join in on this one, but Hell, I'll give my views on the matter. Keep in mind, I got my ideas in part to Kevin Smith's Dogma. Everyone should watch that for a new point of view.
In the beginning there was God. It, as God is not a he or a she, created the angels, instruments to do God's work. However, to keep the balance between good and evil, God guided Lucifer to rebellion, setting up a Hell and Devil to mirror Heaven and Michael the Archangel.
When humanity came around, Lucifer gave them knowledge, which caused humanity to be kicked out from God's full protection. This meant that humans could then make decisions, and choose their own paths, balancing out good and evil once more.
God took a devout follower, Abraham, and promised his heirs importance and kingdoms in the future. By his second son, Isaac, the Jewish people came about, and were his Chosen. They were chosen to produce the Messiah, Jesus Christ, or in Hebrew Joshua Messiah. JC's prototype was King David, ancsestor of Jesus.
On the other side of the Abrahamic bloodline was Ishmael, who created the Arab race. From the Arabs came Muhommad, who would found Islam.
So we have three groups, the Jews who were cast aside following Jesus's birth. Then Jesus came and converted the non believers to what should have been Judaism, but became Christianity. Then there are the Muslims, followers of Muhommad.
Personally, I think Jesus came early, and in essence set up the pieces. The Messiah's true coming is when Christ is needed most, and can end the disputes between the two Abrahamic houses, and bring in the other humans.
It should be noted that I consider God to be like a Hindu belief. There is one god, but there are different aspects, allowing for polytheism.
Anyway, there are my views. Peace out. Oh, and remember, Rufus was the Thirteenth Apostle, left out of the New Testament because he was black.
-Fireball, the resident theology obsessed dude.
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Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Feb 17, 2005 18:14:05 GMT -5
That's Yeshua H'natsri. It means "The Savior the Nazarine". (Although Natsareth is likely a derrivative of the Hebrew Netser, which means a shoot/sprout or branch.) Coincidentally enough, that would seem to coincide with information I found somewhere that suggested that Nazareth was actually a suburb of a larger town at the beginning of the Common Era, which would make sence to call it a "branch-village." I'll have to go find it again to show it to you, though. Hmm, that's interesting. Sure, I'd like to see that source. I figured that the name originally meant "The Savior, The Branch," being a reference to being a "branch" of the tree of Jesse. According to my source, the Christians were originally known as Jesseans, so that was their support.
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Post by Xtermo on Feb 19, 2005 16:57:43 GMT -5
Yeah, they get that from Isaiah. There's a messianic prophecy in the tenth chapter that, in the Hebrew, begins:
"V'ya'a' heter migezets Yeshi v'netser misharasaiv ipreh."
or, in English:
"And goes out a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit."
V'netser is "and a branch". Some people read into that as being a prophecy that the messiah will be of Nazareth, but I'm not so sure that that's fully the implication.
And from what I've seen, as early as the mid second century, the term "Christian" was in use. Although, having seen the above, you can get the idea that it's not unlikely that there were those who would have referred to Christians as Jesseans.
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Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Feb 19, 2005 17:19:48 GMT -5
Which, of course, makes more sense to me than just being from a town of Nazereth. I think it's more interesting to think of the Gospels as sort of a mythology. You know, the Nazereth that was created for the Bible was just a symbol for where he came from.
And that's how I see the Bible. As a complicated mythology. You can't take anything in the Bible literally, it's just a bunch of sayings, teachings, and stories. Some of these stories have great messages. The "He who casts the first stone" story comes to mind. Of course, some of the more absurd stuff, such as the insane Mosiac (I think that's the right word) Laws from Leviticus, are just products of their time.
I just can't see any of it as being real. I see it like Star Wars' Force, it's just fantasy. Just because it's fantasy doesn't mean we can't get anything from it. How many non-religious stories have you read that you got something out of, be it a message or a moral or an inspiration? That's how I view the Bible. It's got some good in there.
And I will conceed that there could be some higher power out there, but it would not be one that we created or know of here on Earth. I thought about this in class yesterday while our teacher was talking about human evolution. The reason we came out on top over the other Hominid species was that we could use imagination and harness our abstract thinking. Well, I was thinking, what if another being on another planet managed to start thinking on a plane higher than us or even being able to exist on a plane we can't comprehend? We describe the universe in terms we can understand, but what if I terms are incorrect or inaccurate, and these "higher" beings have a more accurate grasp of reality.
And that's what I think a higher power would be, something that can think on a plane higher than us. Well, we would never fully be able to understand them. And trying to would get us nowhere. That's why I think religion is silly. If these beings are truely higher than us, what is the point in trying to put them into our terms?
And of course, this brings up why Science will never be able to prove or disprove a higher being. They do not exist on our plane of existence, and science can only explain something in terms we can understand.
Heh, maybe I should stop daydreaming in class.
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