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Catatonic

Nine Lives
Neither did Jesus! ;)



Again, neither did Jesus! ;)
Funny,
I often refer to myself as a Jesusist just to get a conversation started.
Mostly with Evangelical Christians since I rarely initiate religious discussions.
John Dominic Crossan is a scholar whose ideas and beliefs seem to parallel mine.
 

oldngray

nowhere special
Funny,
I often refer to myself as a Jesusist just to get a conversation started.
Mostly with Evangelical Christians since I rarely initiate religious discussions.
John Dominic Crossan is a scholar whose ideas and beliefs seem to parallel mine.

Crossan is an atheist ex Catholic priest. Interesting choice.
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Crossan is an atheist ex Catholic priest. Interesting choice.
He is not an atheist (not even remotely) ... he simply does not believe or accept in all the mythological aspects described in the Bible such as the Gospel accounts of the miraculous and the supernatural as factual or historical.
The mythologies in the Bible were used to appeal to the people in those times when science was not known.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Funny,
I often refer to myself as a Jesusist just to get a conversation started.
Mostly with Evangelical Christians since I rarely initiate religious discussions.
John Dominic Crossan is a scholar whose ideas and beliefs seem to parallel mine.

When it comes to Jesus, I'm more fascinated with the Gnostic traditions that were widespread prior to Constantinian Orthodoxy which the former was then crushed by the latter. Much of gnostism is linked to the Alexandrian traditions of hellenized Egypt as opposed to the Syrian/Antioch traditions and Nag Hammadi has helped to reignite those lost traditions which I think whose research is very healthy to the large question of belief.

As for Crossan, I like him as well along with Spong and Dr. Robert Price which all worked together at the Jesus Seminar. The work of the 300 theologians, scholars, historians of the Jesus Seminar really opened up the conversation about the person of Jesus, the historicity and the NT writings in general.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
He is not an atheist (not even remotely) ... he simply does not believe or accept in all the mythological aspects described in the Bible such as the Gospel accounts of the miraculous and the supernatural as factual or historical.
The mythologies in the Bible were used to appeal to the people in those times when science was not known.

I'm actually glad Old posted what he did about Crossan, as wrong as it is. It seems to me that anyone who dares question orthodoxy, the standard retort from fundamentalist/literalist circles is to either be called an atheist or a satanist. This is another reason I just embrace the term atheist for myself because at least if I'm going to be labeled, it's done moreso on my terms.

Atheism IMO is a default position of extreme monotheism when the god of monotheism is discovered not to exist either!
;)

Now if one is interested in not asserting god as noun but the idea that god is or might be a verb, then the conversation opens to a whole other direction. Or as I posited elsewhere in this forum, god is Photon!

Funny the Egyptians worshiped a sun god named Atum or "ATOM"! ;)
 

Jones

fILE A GRIEVE!
Staff member
What supernatural beliefs of deism would you think invalid?
Didn't say they were invalid, just pointing out that supernatural beliefs are only limited by your imagination so as far as that goes, why not deism?
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
When it comes to Jesus, I'm more fascinated with the Gnostic traditions that were widespread prior to Constantinian Orthodoxy which the former was then crushed by the latter. Much of gnostism is linked to the Alexandrian traditions of hellenized Egypt as opposed to the Syrian/Antioch traditions and Nag Hammadi has helped to reignite those lost traditions which I think whose research is very healthy to the large question of belief.

As for Crossan, I like him as well along with Spong and Dr. Robert Price which all worked together at the Jesus Seminar. The work of the 300 theologians, scholars, historians of the Jesus Seminar really opened up the conversation about the person of Jesus, the historicity and the NT writings in general.
The Gospel of Thomas has resonated with me from the first time I read it.
The red-letter Bible was what I gravitated to even as a 10 year old.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
Didn't say they were invalid, just pointing out that supernatural beliefs are only limited by your imagination so as far as that goes, why not deism?

Your original post to me came across as suggesting deists as believers in supernatural which surprised me. Maybe the creator part might be that but of the deists I know personally, most take an almost agnostic POV on what the effect is that caused the creation but accept an effect having caused it on the basis that something can not come from nothing. Even Big Bang comoslogy, initially a religious concept (see George Lemaitre) conscripted by and for science agree on some level that what we are was caused by something. I don't take the deist position on a creator on some level and default them into a kind of fundamentalist/literalist creationist camp myself but I don't speak for others either.

Thanks for clarifying otherwise.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
The Gospel of Thomas has resonated with me from the first time I read it.
The red-letter Bible was what I gravitated to even as a 10 year old.

Why more Christians don't read the Gospel of Thomas has always puzzled me. I highly recommend it to everyone. And I also suggest they read many of the other text discovered at Nag Hammadi. Texts like the Apocryphon of John show the influence of neo-platonism in gnostic thought which were important to early christian thought in folks like Marcion which influenced the christian ideal of the OT being replaced by the NT or the OT god as evil and the NT god as good.
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Why more Christians don't read the Gospel of Thomas has always puzzled me. I highly recommend it to everyone. And I also suggest they read many of the other text discovered at Nag Hammadi. Texts like the Apocryphon of John show the influence of neo-platonism in gnostic thought which were important to early christian thought in folks like Marcion which influenced the christian ideal of the OT being replaced by the NT or the OT god as evil and the NT god as good.
It appears to go back to the meetings in Nicene where the Nicene Creed was adopted as Universal or Catholic.
The Protestants adhere to these catholic beliefs except as the Pope presiding over a "heaven on Earth organization" mirroring God's organizational structure in Heaven. There are other differences but the "common man" having to go through the Earthbound Church to communicate with God was primary in the riff.
 

BrownArmy

Well-Known Member
...Even Big Bang comoslogy, initially a religious concept (see George Lemaitre) conscripted by and for science agree on some level that what we are was caused by something...

My impression of the current theories about what came before the Big Bang is that they are simply that, theories. We may never know the answer, as we've reached the horizon of how far into the past we can 'see' with current technology.

However, some scientists posit that asking what happened before the Big Bang is like asking where North of the North pole is - the question makes no sense.

In this rationale, before the Big Bang, space and time didn't exist, so concepts of something coming out of nothing or 'before the Bang' are nonsensical. As well, the math doesn't seem to support a 'before'. It's not that there was nothing, there wasn't even that.

Was it a quantum fluctuation that initiated the Big Bang (which we're still experiencing, by the way), or perhaps our Universe came out of another Universe's particular black hole? I'm not sure we'll ever know.

I'll admit, I could never hope to understand this math, and other peoples' descriptions of what the high-level math actually describes fall well short of the mark. In either case, even if we discovered the actual cause and conditions of the Big Bang, the next question is, in what/where/how did those conditions arise?

It becomes infinitely regressive.
 
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