I'm not a Christian but I love Jesus.

I love Jesus too! He's a great gardener and comes twice a week. Can't even depend on my husband like that, wink wink!

I'm an atheist and I agree with Gandhi: I love your Christ but not your Christians.

Jesus would be closest in thought/word/deed to progressive, social justice churches like UU/UCC.

The people who claim evangelical holiness the loudest these days are the ones that would have been tossed out of the temple.

Reporter: what do you think of Christianity?

Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

The Christian (xtians) today would probably boo Jesus.

Going by today's American Christians you'd get the impression their Jesus was the biggest piece of shit asshole in the history of the universe. He was a MONSTER preaching cruelty, hatred and greed.

Xtians today are just doing their evil under the guise of the goodness of Jesus, thinking it makes everything acceptable and fine. They think by chanting..."Jesus, Jesus".... will still get them into Heaven, after all their evil deeds.

Are there any contemporaneous paintings of Jesus? Maybe not, as he was a fringe leader but like the Che of his time.

I've always thought that most Christians today, particularly those in the US, would be the first and loudest in the crowds to scream "crucify him" if a true Jesus/Jesus-like figure ever showed up. They'd be the first for screaming to get rid of him.

^ They keep praying for the second coming! They'd have a hard time explaining themselves. Imagine you arrive in a foreign country and see mega churches, child molesters, and billion dollar thieveries all in your name haha.

Christians would have to kill him ASAP.

He's alright with me.

One of my favorite bumper stickers is: "O Lord, spare me from your followers."

Christianity, like Communism, works well on paper. It's just the pesky practical application that causes all the problems.

I agree with the up-threaders who said that if a Christ-like figure came on the scene he would at least be looked at askance, if not outright mocked by many of today's so-called Christians. OTOH, if Jesus Himself showed up and proved His existence with some flashy miracles, then that'd be a different ballgame entirely.

If Jesus actually came back preaching turn the other cheek, sell all your property and give the proceeds to the poor, love one another, etc., it wouldn't matter how much water he turned to wine—American fundamentalists would call it fake news. They've been brainwashed into believing that Jesus preached laissez-faire capitalism and every man for himself. They'd probably turn on him for healing undeserving blind beggars and so on and so forth. They think he was an Ayn Rand without the atheism.

Jesus would have voted for Bernie

I'd let Jesus cum in my asshole

Jesus was the first non binary child of god. Praise them!

Have today's Xtians ever killed a good man who was critical of them? I'm sure many have been punished

My favourite fact ever has to be that Jesus likely didn't even exist. There is no contemporary historical evidence to back up that Jesus existed and if he did, he definitely wasn't the miraculous Jesus that the Bible talks about. This sends a lot of people nuts if you tell them this. They just don't want to believe it! I love it.

[quote]I'd let Jesus cum in my asshole

Thank you, gurl

Actually, we never hear of Jesus having a laugh. I wonder what made him laugh. Gay humor probably. I guess they had jewish humor then and Arab humor. I have no idea what that's like.

They mutilated him at birth and nailed him to a cross. What a life, violent from start to finish.

People prefer to be right. Right feels good. It’s empowering. Wrong feels awful. And this is by design. Evolution rewards being right and punishes being wrong. The foraging mono-brows who looked up from the berry bush and said, “That’s a predator, run away,” had a better chance of passing on their genes than the Alley Oops who said, “No, it’s just a big pussycat with an unfortunate overbite.” (They were more likely to become virgins tar-tare.) In other words, wrong equals death. If you’re wrong enough, you get excused from the planet. This explains why it’s almost impossible to change people’s minds. In order to have a shift in perspective, one must first admit to being wrong. That’s extremely hard to do. History is filled with people who chose to cause unbelievable carnage rather than consider the possibility that they’ve misjudged a situation (I’m talking about you Imperial Japan, Deutschland über alles, and The Confederate States of America). Which is why I fear for our future. None of us are willing to be wrong. The very idea of it is inconceivable. Unless, of course, some enlightened soul came along and proposed an alternative to the polarity of right and wrong. Perhaps the idea of Neither. A middle way leading to peace, serenity and joy. And if we were again to use history as a guide, we would most likely decide the Enlightened One was wrong, then we would kill Him, then we would worship Him, then we would kill anyone who didn’t agree that ours was the true faith. Which would allow us to be... yep, you got it... righteous.

Love this tune and it's message.

R18 I'm an atheist and very dubious about everything in the Bible which was largely written by hallucinating schizophrenics as far as I can see. However, the historian Josephus (who was born only 3 years after Jesus' death) wrote about Jesus and would of course have lived at the same time as people who actually knew or saw Jesus.

How true these remarks he'd be at the very least scorned and ridiculed,if not put to the death. A long haired, dirty, hippy-dippy communist Jew would most definitely not be celebrated by most American Christians.

[quote]My favourite fact ever has to be that Jesus likely didn't even exist.

Not only didn't exist R18, but his backstory is a rip-off of the Egyptian god Horus:

R24 Born AFTER Jesus's death? Please, that's not a good source.

Does he have to come back as a Jew in his second coming. Will it be a reincarnation Like with tibetian monks?

I have to admit he looked SHREDDED on the cross. Those abs of his were incredible.

R29 Those depictions are soft core porn for gay priests into BDSM.

R26, did you notice that the website you link to debunks that whole idea? I'm in a field close enough to Egyptology that it sounded suspicious to me—I think certain aspects of Christian iconography (e.g. the image of the Madonna and Child) were eventually borrowed from Horus and Isis, but the basic story of Jesus in the gospels has no relation to Horus.

R28 I question your use of "Tibetian", whilst laughing, as I've heard Tie-bee-shin before, but going to assume it's a typo, and you meant to type Tibetan!

You're probably quite right about the endless possibilities really. I suppose it is just as likely he appear as an alien visitor-redeemer of souls, or even a Hindu guru.

Of course R26 didn’t, R31. Like most of the shit-for-brains posters on this thread, he/she hastening to appear witty or erudite.

*was* hastening

I like Gandhi who said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Ugh, I can’t fucking stand that dude. He acts as though he walks on water.

He lost me when he started acting like he's God's gift to mankind.

I find him to be annoying. How many times can someone say “Dad damn it!” and then laugh at his own joke as if he didn’t say the same thing a hundred times already.

I think Jesus dis have a sense of humor. Didnt he randomly zap a fig tree just to get a reaction out of his disciples?

Jesus, He Knows Me

The gospel Jesus is a wonderful man and saviour.

He’s always our designated driver when we go out drinking. At the end of the night we toss the car keys to him and say “Take the wheel, mate.”

Most of you have no clue who christ was and is. A bunch of atheist commenting with very little knowledge of Christianity.

[quote] For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.... John 3:16

So God only had one kid, I mean he is God couldn't he have knocked up another virgin and had another? or found a surrogate like Pete did?

American Christians are so intellectually lazy. It's frustrating. At least with Jews and Muslims, I can have a discussion since they study their holy texts and are expected to be able to analyze it. Also, serious Jews and Muslims give a lot to charity as part of their faiths is bringing goodness to the world. Most Christians don't read The Bible nor do they do anything related to their religion like charity, good deeds, rejection of materialism, prayers, etc which is clearly stated as necessary in The New Testament. Protestant Christianity in The US became so conservative and rigid since the late 20th century, going even more and more right-wing than it has ever been. Topics like abortion, gay marriage and transgender don't even exist in The Bible yet Evangelicals are obsessed with them. It's all about power, instilling fear, feeling morally superior and gaining material rewards than any type of spirituality

The only denominations of Christianity I hold respect for is the African Episcopal Methodist Church (essential in abolitionism and Civil Rights) and Quakers (again very important in they rejected slavery, object to wars, are egalitarian and focus on spirituality).

[quote] Most of you have no clue who christ was and is. A bunch of atheist commenting with very little knowledge of Christianity

R43 I know you are suppose to capitalize the word Christ.

Survey: Atheists, Agnostics Know More About Religion Than Religious

[quote] A period of forty years separates the death of Jesus from the writing of the first gospel.

No one at the time thought Jesus was important enough to write down a single thing about him.

[quote]The only denominations of Christianity I hold respect for is....

You can blabber on all you want to try to show how educated you are in various religions, but really, who gives a fuck? All religion is based on superstitious nonsense, so any belief in them is just plain fucking stupid. Why would I care to be so deeply educated in fairy tales before I reject them as some sort of truth?

Yeshua/Joshua/Joses/Jesus was a Jew. Lived as one. Died as one. Was executed for treason by Rome hence the crucifixion. Probably belonged to a radical sect (later) called Nazarenes or Ebionites. Probably was either illiterate, so couldn't write his beliefs down or whatever he wrote down was destroyed or didn't survive. We at least have something from his brother James who led his ministry before also getting executed. Not different from Buddha or Prophet Muhammed who didn't write their stuff and their beliefs were passed down orally.

Paul decided to lead the Jesus' Jewish movement and after having a vision of Jesus decided that Jesus was God himself. And created Christianity, removed a lot of the Jewish aspects and made it inclusive in order to convert pagans. Grew to become more popular in Rome. Romans tried to get rid of them because they thought monotheism was absolutely disgusting. And Jews and Christians alike were always rebelling and spreading their beliefs at the expense of the Roman hegemony. Finally Constantine realized instead of trying over and over to get Jews and Christians to put Yahweh/Jesus into the pantheon (which was attempted). That Christianity could be used to legitimize central power by claiming Emperors are God's chosen rulers. Monotheism was no longer outlawed. Christianity eventually became the state religion of Rome. Symbols, holidays and rituals of Roman polytheism were syncretized into Christianity including the idea of the Trinity and voila we have the Catholic Church which most Christian denominations split off from. Also we have Orthodox which predates Catholicism and still exists but didn't seem to have the same influence.

There was no historical Jesus connected to the catch-all mess that became Xtianity, OP.

Please.

R48 Because religions have influenced society and laws. And it was only very recent that the world started to secularize. So it's not useless to be educated on them just like it's not useless to be educated on Greek, Arabic, Roman or Hindu philosophy which also influenced a lot of the world as well. No knowledge is really useless, just the application. In fact the lack of historical knowledge will just create the same patterns of dysfunction we want to avoid.

OP Jesus would have hated you if she’d ever met you - just for the stupid posts you make.

R50 Yep. Same with Moses, Buddha, Mohammed and others. What occurred was most likely the game of telephone. Numerous individual preachers likely of the same movements got conflated into a leader of a movement and over years became deified.

R51 Well said, Mazel Tov! One doesn't necessarily need to be any of this as the direct word of a creator-god to take away some wisdom, and good teachings. Certainly one must sift through the sand to find the gems however.

There are sound intellectual arguments which support a lack of historical evidence for Jesus... (many claim the Roman Empire invented Christ and Christianity to combat the Judaism of the time.)

There is value in all great religious texts. Search, and you shall find the many gems awaiting your discovery!

^to believe

He's too forgiving. Old Testament's where it's at!

Ancient civilizations had thousands and thousands of gods in local communities and every tribe or town had patron gods. Animism was the most common form of spirituality. Many popular warriors, kings and preachers became deified after death. The human mind is very complex and has the gift of imagination which is how religion came to be. Even with modern science, humans still desire a higher power or some type of great mystery.

R56 I too have problems with Christianity's insistence we always forgive our enemies. As a Jew, (and a liberal-Reform one at that) I have been troubled by the idea of such a burden. Move on, don't be consumed by eternal anger; I get. But forgive them? Every last one of them? Always? No thanks. I'll leave that for the Christians, or for G-d, if there even is one.

The issue with Christianity is that due to all the early persecution of members of the Jesus movement (still Jewish and most likely disorganized) and the fact it took until Paul to get some type of organization, most certainly thanks to him being very educated and literate. We have no very little clue to what the actual beliefs were. And if Jesus was a real person, he didn't leave any writings behind. The New Testament was written decades after his death and James and Paul's letters predate the Gospels and influenced them. It's laughable how all these denominations fight over being closer to Jesus' words. We don't know what Jesus actually said or did or if he was actually a real individual. Yesha/Joshua was a very common name, many Jews were claiming to be the Messiah around the same time and many sects were Apocalyptic. So it's more likely Yeshua was a composition of different Messiah claimants and executed for being a nuisance to the Romans. And Paul decided to make Yeshua into a god to start a new religion.

[quote] “Both in this world and in the Hereafter, I am the nearest of all people to Jesus, the son of Mary. The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their religion is one.”

Early Christianity was apocalyptic. It emphasized on doing good deeds, taking a vow of poverty and forgiving everyone because they believed the endtime was coming in their lifetime. So it was for your best interest to let go of material possessions and earthly desires to gain God's favor. Jesus was just seen as a prophet to warn mankind. A messiah which just means divinely anointed human on a mission from God. Paul made Jesus into the son of God, sorta demigod of Greek traditions. But Romans made Jesus into god-God for sociopolitical reasons.

[quote] "I'm not a Christian."

Then you are not of God! You are DARK-SIDED!!! I want NONE OF THIS! IN JESUS' NAME!

Well, I for one think it's a good time to inject some good, old time gospel music into this thread! Sang it, Sister Shirley!

[Quote] OP Jesus would have hated you if she’d ever met you

🎶 Jesus loves me this I know, For the Bible tells me so... 🎶

Who you calling she, bitch.

The origins of Christianity are absolutely fascinating.

The basic tenets of “love your neighbor,” do good deeds, forgive others, spread wealth are wonderful. Too bad so many people seem incapable of acting this way.

Also, the best quote I ever heard about Christianity came from an old black man sitting in the booth behind me at El Torito in Lakewood on Taco Tuesday: “churches are full of sinners. Beware of the wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

Every pilgrimage site regardless of religion is filled with crooks preying on the insecure, unhappy and vulnerable.

I'm not Hindu but I love that little god with the elephant head - he brings good luck.

[quote]Old Testament's where it's at!

"Old Testament" is an are insulting, demeaning Xtian term used to annihilate Jews, their laws, language, culture and history. Tanakh or Jewish Bible is the appropriate term.

Was Jesus woke?

Yes definitely ^

Define "woke", exactly. You mean bullies who decide that everything and anything is hateful and racist with zero proof?

Jesus hung out with the underdogs. The people that were looked down upon by his society. I think that he is woke in that sense. Not the social shaming shunning sense. He said judge not

When these fuckers sell all that they have, give to the poor, turn the other cheek, give their cloaks and coats to thieves, and start wandering around homeless while trying convert others to that unselfish and non-judgmental way of life, then I'll believe they're Christians. Until then, they're the Pharisees that Jesus hated and the money-changers he chased out of the temple.

Yes, he did hang out with the underdogs and stand up for people, the ones most people hated.

r73 so, only bottoms can be Christians? what is a Christian? Muslim? Jew? Sihk? Anti-Theist? Atheist? Humanist? Do they all come with preconceived notions of exactly who they are, what they're about, their politicial affiliation, etc? Is it a free for all? Can we stereotype them all?

R73 Jesus would have been flipping over Joel Osteen’s tables if he was alive today. And probably called anti-Semitic and Islamophobic as I also bet he would be critical of both Israel and Palestine

[quote] Are there any contemporaneous paintings of Jesus?

Let me check. No, of course not.

There was an effort to restore a possible appearance based on skills of Jews from Palestine in that period though.

^** skulls

[quote] Are there any contemporaneous paintings of Jesus? Maybe not, as he was a fringe leader but like the Che of his time.

Unlike Jesus, Che was real and actually influenced real revolutions in three nations and succeeded in two.

Don't think he looked like that. The Shroud of Turin many believe is the real thing. Where's Max when ya need him.

Of course there are pictures of Jesus. This one is likely to be the most accurate.

Can someone provide us with real life Harry Potter pictures too?

I talk to Jesus when ever I stub my toe, but he never talks back.

R46 That is interesting and I can't say that I'm surprised - I have read the entire Bible including the Apocrypha from start to finish, and paid close attention. Yet I'm an atheist. I did it because I think that religion has had enormous influence on the world. And I meet so many Christians whom I doubt has done that. In fact, I rather suspect that if every Christian did that, we'd have fewer Christians.

A young long haired Brad Pitt looks just like Jesus.

Jesus is a fictional character.

Yeah I don’t get white evangelical US Christians

Yeah, that bit where he supposedly said:

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

is wonderful! Revolutionary and not at all cultish!

Also: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."

Also: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.…"

This Law is the Old Testament, meaning Jesus hated gays and wanted them put to death.

If you believe all this stuff, which I don't.

Jesus and Christians are two different things. One has nothing to do with each other.

I believe Jesus was born of a virgin and white and walked on water and turned water into wine and died and came back from the dead and is magic.

R90 and spoke only in American English!

Ironic how in The US at various points, Jews weren't white, Italians weren't white, Greeks weren't white, etc. Yet everyone in The Bible is white...

Jesus looked more like Aladdin than Brad Pitt.

[quote]However, the historian Josephus (who was born only 3 years after Jesus' death) wrote about Jesus and would of course have lived at the same time as people who actually knew or saw Jesus.

There is reasonable doubt about that text. The Jesus stuff could easily be a later addition by a copyist looking to create some contemporary "evidence."

The photorealistic portraits of the Egyptian upper-class made during the Roman occupation Egypt. Moses, Joseph, Jesus and other Jews traveled and settled in Egypt and blended in with the local population. So this should give an idea of what 1st Century Jews looked like. Many Mediterranean, Jewish and North African people today have this sort of phenotype. Like Jeff Goldblum.

R92 At one time certain Americans didn't take or consider Irish as white either, especially in the Northeast US. You know what though, they're still white skin though. Kindly stop feeding into it please.

It's in peoples' imaginations that biblical characters were white, pink, or brown. We do have a few descriptions of fair complexions. King David was said to be a ginger. The rest is up to our imagination. The genes encoding for light hair and eyes were already present throughout the Levant, and Near East. A cave was recently discovered in upper Galilee with skeletal remains of all blue eyed people after decoding the genomes. It's again, one's imagination to assume they're all dark complexions.

Here's a link below to the cave discovery.

R95 It's because there is no such thing as "white" or "black". And it is ironic, the Irish are the most palest of Europeans and still not considered white just based on arbitrary definitions. Spanish were the first to call themselves white in order to distinguish themselves from the Moors (which meant brown) and later the Indigenous groups of the Americas.

You're right the Middle East is very diverse in phenotypes and Middle Easterners can be very fair and very dark. Same with Africans who are just as diverse in skin tone, features and hair. Europeans probably got fair skin, blue eyes and light hair from Middle Easterners not the other way around. I never took David as a redhead, maybe having a reddish complexion due to being pale which again many Levantines have.

Many Bible characters were Subsaharan Africans from the kingdoms Nubia or Ethiopia. Like one of Moses wives, Balthazar the Wise Man and the Queen of Sheba. East Africans had plenty of presence in the Mediterranean. Cassioepia of the Greek myth was an Ethiopian princess. Ethiopia means "land of the burnt faces" and was also a catch-call for all of Subsaharan Africa. The Ancient Egyptians were Mediterranean people though with more in common with the Middle East.

R97 I find it even more interesting that ALL blue eyed people are believed to share a common ancestor, after just one single mutation. The "originals" are said to have had only brown eyes. I wish bigots could conceive the concepts behind the traits they seem to see as superior, are mere de novo mutations.

Some believe the mutation in the OCA2 gene encoding for the blue eyes may go back much more than 6,500 years, even as much as 10,000 years.

I dont think Jesus was anti gay. He said love one another. Also, you cant convince me he and the disciples, all those men, were roaming around the desert together and no hooking up happened.

Sorry, I didn't intend to usurp R97's identity like that! I meant to sign off R99 as R98:

It seems modern DNA research proved that the Ancient Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Levantines really didn't look that different from the modern day populations. People exaggerate, it would take a lot of repeated rape or intermarriage to massively alter the phenotype of millions. Most invaders simply serve as the ruling class and lived pretty isolated from their conquered population. Most mixing would occur in diverse urban areas naturally. People back then could not travel easily and majority didn't leave their villages. Ashkenazi Jews do have European DNA but many have at least half Middle Eastern DNA, the mixture varies on the individual though.

If Jesus had a gun, he would have survived.

[quote]I dont think Jesus was anti gay. He said love one another.

If you believe in the Bible though (I don't), he said that the laws in the old testament must not be changed by even one word. The old testament as we know says a man having sex with another man is an abomination, punishable by death.

People will jump through all sorts of hoops to believe what they want to believe. Think of how many people (the vast majority, I would say) who call themselves Christians have no intention of helping the poor.

But R104, who knows what "the law" meant in that particular time and place? The Bible—that is to say, the canonical collection of texts that Judaism settled on as scripture—was still in flux. The passages in question are Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 (homosexuality isn't at issue in the story of Sodom in Genesis, which in any case isn't "law"). Was Leviticus even worded the same way in the early 1st century as it is now? And even if so, did every observant reader interpret that passage as "no same-sex activity for anyone at any time"? Authority and meaning were always contested. The fact that the gospels say nothing about same-sex activity—nor do any early Christian texts except for two or three odd passages from the Pauline letters—means that the whole concept wasn't on the theological radar in that time and place, and it's not because they didn't know people were doing it.

At least Jesus got nailed a few times before he died.

It's easy to blame Paul but the New Testament is out of order. The earliest Christian documents are the letters of James, Jesus' brother and Paul. The Four Gospels were written decades later and were sourced from different Christian sects that debated over the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary and the core tenets of beliefs. Overall most were still heavily very Jewish, were apocalyptic and placed heavy emphasis on self-denial, celibacy and plain living. Since homosexual sex was for pleasure, it would not be seen in a positive light. But same-sex love and life friendship (philia) was fine. I don't think they were going around killing sexually active gay people and it was most likely tolerated and seen as simply a moral failure not some great evil. The Medieval era was when the violence against homosexuals really took off.

Want to know how Jesus felt about homosexuality? Ask the “Beloved Disciple” if you get my drift

Who cares if a host of fictional characters - Jesus! Paul! - had any opinions on how we live our lives! They are fictional characters.

The beautiful young David was the kept boy of handsome King Saul who was obsessed with him. And David made a covenant with Saul's son Jonathan who loved David more than he loved himself. Given David was lustful, jealous, violent and a serial sinner, why would he not also commit the sin of homosexuality? Most of the Old Testament people were deeply flawed individuals and sinned multiple times. The idea of sinlessness was really pushed by the New Testament with Jesus and Mary being held as examples to live by. Jews seem to accept humans are flawed and they have to correct mistakes rather than pretend they never happen.

It's a collection of myths from some desert tribes. That's all the Bible means to me. But mythologies in general mean a lot to me, whether Greek, Norse or Sumerian.

It's a collection of myths from some desert tribes. That's all the Bible means to me. But mythologies in general mean a lot to me, whether Greek, Norse or Sumerian.

It's a real shame that so many of these mythologies involve killing women and gays. A real pity.

Which Jesus, OP?

It's almost like God didn't know the rest of the world existed!

Ask me again why I'm an atheist.

The Word of God.

I always thought that most gay people were too smart to buy into this Xtian bullshit. As usual, many DLers have delighted in proving me wrong.

Best of...

[quote]I'm not a Christian but I love Jesus.

You are literally the definition of the term "christian" - moron.

Jesus loves the little children

all the children of the world

Just as long as they are white

they are precious in his sight

Jesus loves the little children of the world

The definition of Christian would be accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior and believing in God, The Holy Spirit and the Ten Commandments.

So loving Jesus is not the definition of Christian. Many people love Buddha's teachings but aren't Buddhist in practice.

The term homosexual dates to the late 1800s. There was no concept of being "gay" as there is now. Everyone was expected to get married and procreate due to shorter life expectancies and need for self-preservation of cultures, families and inheritance of wealth and property. Any type of sex that was non-procreative was seen as an "abomination." Sodomy was any type of non-vaginal sex including oral, anal and bestiality. So a man preferring to get blowjobs from his wife would be seen as committing sodomy too and would get punished. The Bible seems fixated on the degrading aspects of homosexual relations like men raping boys and slaves (hence the "like women" phrase which indicates some type of domination). Consensual egalitarian gay sex was not on their minds because it was not for procreation thus perceived as selfish and sinful. Funny enough, platonic male same-sex friendships were highly regarded as the highest form of love since there was also a stronger separation of the two sexes and misogyny which devalued any intellectual ability that women had. So men were seen as the only ones capable of true love.

It's pretty clear that Judaism, Christianity and Islam don't approve of any type of non-procreative sex as they are a product of their time and the people's understanding of the world. It's difficult to reconcile this with modern day values. People are generally shifting away from literalism and dogmas though to more mystical interpretations which is helping.

Jesus's story is very similar to many other Mediterranean gods who died and rose again (usually being a sun deity), performed miracles for humans and were connected to the sky father deity (like Zeus). Some that come to mind are Osiris, Sol Invictus, Dionysus, Helios, Heracles, Mithra and Asclepius. The portrayal of God in the New Testament being more of an omnipotent and omnipresent essence (as opposed to OT God who is anthropomorphic, temperamental and short-sighted) is very Neoplatonic

It's another tired troll thread. Several a day invading DL. The Christians ALWAYS try to spread their mental disease. It's their nature.

[quote]R24: I'm an atheist and very dubious about everything in the Bible which was largely written by hallucinating schizophrenics as far as I can see. However, the historian Josephus (who was born only 3 years after Jesus' death) wrote about Jesus and would of course have lived at the same time as people who actually knew or saw Jesus.

No, Josephus does not mention Christ at all. The "Testimonia Flavianum" (Antiquities 18.3.3; 20.9.1) are interpolations unattested before the 4th century CE. Within critical scholarship, Ken Olson has made a compelling case that the larger of the two passages (18.3.3) was composed in its entirety by Eusebius. (see link below)

The secondary passage, the so-called "Jamesian reference," has been answered ably by Richard Carrier in his book, 𝑂𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠: 𝑊ℎ𝑦 𝑊𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐷𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑡 (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014), pp. 337-338. In fact, Carrier puts to rest any possibility that either passage is genuine.

On these threads, there's always at least one who comes along and volunteers that 'Josephus wrote about Jesus,' no matter how many times it's been exploded. This one, R24, has only three posts to its history. It's undoubtedly a sock of one of the trolls.

And now come the sermons. For fuck's sake.

[quote]R127: And now come the sermons. For fuck's sake.

Funny how you can declare that "Jesus is a fictional character" (R86), but you heckle anyone who posts evidence that that's the case.

Funny how you have Jesus up your asshole and feel comfortable enough to shit it out ONCE AGAIN on DL.

I will have you R129 know that Datalounge is the cradle of Christian Doctrine and the Holy Trinity of Cockgobbler, Billy Porter, and Miss Patsy Ramsey, formerly of Boulder Co.

R129, funny how you claim to hate Jesus and Christianity, yet you police every one of these threads, and reserve your profanity-laced venom only upon posters who deconstruct Christianity, most often me.

That you're the sock of one of the believers with a special hard-on for me could not be more apparent. Probably either the Dennis R. McDonald troll, or Bootsie Gumdrop, both of whom hover over all of the 'Jesus' threads.

God, you're an idiot.

[quote]R26, did you notice that the website you link to debunks that whole idea? I'm in a field close enough to Egyptology that it sounded suspicious to me—I think certain aspects of Christian iconography (e.g. the image of the Madonna and Child) were eventually borrowed from Horus and Isis, but the basic story of Jesus in the gospels has no relation to Horus.

Ever since the claims began to appear, R31, Christian apologists have scrambled to refute them, with the Christian sites now far outnumbering the genuine advocates of the theory. Incautious posters mistakenly select links to sniffy theologians attacking it. The best treatment of it, IMO, seems to be D.M. Murdock's 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐠𝐲𝐩𝐭: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐮𝐬-𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 (2009). Here's a review of it by Robert M. Price:

It never stops. It can't. It MUST go on, and on, and on with the christ cult diarrhea.

You're such a desperate troll, R134, that you're even replying to yourself at R129/R130. Anything that criticizes the bible, or disproves Jesus Christ, you behave like Regan O'Neill hit with holy water: "Ugh - it burns! It burns!"

Oh, Poisoned Dragqueen, you're such a cunt, you must keep it in a jar.

Unless I see irrefutable proof, "Jesus" exists only in the vivid imaginations of his followers.

R126, did you mean to write "Testimonium Flavianum"? Perhaps a spellcheck error?

Oh, now I see that you're using the phrase in the plural. So "Testimonia Flaviana," then?

Every bizarre opinion about Jesus and Christianity on display here. I go to a gay friendly church, pray, and try to help the poor. That's the extent of my understanding of Christianity.

R139, correct. I kept editing how I wanted to structure that second sentence, whether I wanted to refer to one or both of the references. I left it at both, but forgot to change 'Flavianum' before posting. And as we all know, there is no edit function on DL.

[quote]Perhaps a spellcheck error?

R138, Spellcheck cannot help with 'Testimonia Flaviana;' it doesn't know it. In fact, it flags most of the specialized terms associated with biblical criticism, such as 'pseudepigrapha.'

[quote]R105/R138/E139: Was Leviticus even worded the same way in the early 1st century as it is now?

As good a question might well be, 'Did Leviticus even exist in the early 1st century?' It might be a moot point to wonder how an ostensible Jesus might have regarded the passages at 18:22 and 20:13, since the book in question could be a post-Temple development, the composition of a priesthood suddenly lacking an active Temple service, and perhaps envisioning a description of it as they wished it could have been (somewhat like Ezekiel's plans for a temple which was never created).

For the kinds of priestly duties and scale of temple sacrifices that Leviticus describes would have been impossible to actually carry out; insufficient livestock, insufficient wood to burn, and the impracticality of that much slaughter, and discarded blood and fat. The Temple mount would have been constantly encircled by carrion birds. The issue is somewhat like how Bishop John Colenso in the 19th century demonstrated through mathematics that the Jewish Wandering in the Wilderness accounts could never have happened.

Another reason for placing Leviticus later is how spare the New Testament is in citing it - clear quotes from it only occur in texts from the late 2nd/early 3rd centuries (i.e. 1 Peter 1:16). And purported fragments of Leviticus supposedly found among the Dead Sea Scrolls keep turning out to be fakes.

"Priest" (1994) is the best religion-themed gay film ever.

[Quote] The definition of Christian would be accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior

That's why I said what I said. No I do not accept the guy as a savior but I do love and admire him. I love the Buddha too but I'm not a Buddhist either. I like the Hindu monkey God dude too.

I like eating shit.

I'm not a Scientologist but I love Xenu.

I think I would have liked him very much, if I were his contemporary, or he, mine. They'd crucify him now for his beliefs, especially because he advocated for the poor and meek.

He wouldn't be an asshole on Twitter, I don't think.

If Jesus were alive today, he would rape women in the middle of the night, impregnate them, force them to give birth, and his alien prodigy would take over the earth.

How blasphemous, R148, you EDGELORD!

Like father like son.

That R148 only happens in Texas. But we're working on making it nationwide.

Apparently the idea of Mary being a virgin or impregnated by God and Jesus being God incarnate was not universally accepted. There were was a huge debate over it. Some Christians were Adoptionists and believed Jesus was chosen by God and became divine similar to other Messiahs like Moses.

Mary was a whore that deserved to be put in her place.

The Trinity makes absolutely no sense to me. The idea that God sent himself to die to save mankind is stupid. Jesus being a human who was chosen by God as a Messiah or even being a demigod (akin to Heracles) would make more sense.

^^ You're confusing one Mary with another.

^^ You're confusing one Mary with another.

Jesus was half human and half alien. Like Mr. Spock.

Biblical Scholar Cher has something to say about this issue. My calculations confirm that she is correct.

I prefer worshipping this goddess than Jesus.