But did Jesus actually die on the cross? It is quite doubtful that he did. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl3dIPMcq50

So it is far more likely a case of ressucitation, of reanimation, than a case of resurrection.

Idolatry of the Messenger has diverted away from the Message and given rise to countless superstitions, to the detriment of the Message.

All discussions on doctrine and dogma are simply a waste of time, since they divert from the essence of the Message and the Teachings.

As a genuine Mystic said quite recently: “If you truly want to find God, stop erecting huge thick walls of beliefs between God and yourself, for they only obscure and obfuscate (in all senses of the word) and lead you astray.There’s not enough room in you for both God and beliefs. You can only contain one of them, not both.The choice is yours. What you find through your beliefs is anything and everything but God.

”

In #7308, GW Anderson concluded: “We are a product of our environment nothing less, nothing more.”

The “Nature vs Nurture” argument has been chewed over for decades. Most “experts,” I believe, agree that we result from a combination of these influences and, as in cooking, a minor alteration of the recipe can result in a major change in the product.

That’s why we have BRAINS. I assume we’re supposed to USE THEM to sort the wheat from the chaff and set our own courses in life.

However, early on, “leaders” discovered if you “get ‘em young” you can essentially destroy, in many people, the ability to critically analyze the “truth” they’ve been fed for what it is… pure codswallop.

So we have fundamentalists of all stripes running around playing the fools. The only problem I have with it is THERE’S SO MANY OF THEM! I can live OK with a “few mosquitos” but when these pesky devils descend en masse they sure can make life miserable.

Brothers and Sisters:
  Research HISTORY AND ECONOMICS outside of the education institutions.
  New documentation has been discovered since 1900. What information has been witheld from the world populations since the crusades? Why has all wars throughout history been related to religion?What makes Europe and the U.S. the youngest nations in the world think they know best and everything? There are civilizations in this world and others that are thousands year old who until recently have survived before us and will be here after we destroy ourselfs.
  If we look at the worlds oldest tribes we find that they live very simple lives- FOOD, SHELTER, AND CLOTHES.

A spiritual resurrection makes more sense than a bodily one, especially in light of the second coming: Christ will not return in a body. Just as his first appearance did not conform to what was taught, learned and hoped for, his second will evolve the pattern: christ-consciousness will erupt. There will be no rapture unless you seriously consider it to be a vaporization of entire cities via nuclear bombs.

Rather, people will walk out of their jobs. Global commerce will cease until those who claim to be Christians and claim to be doing God’s work will be killed very much like pulling a weed out of the ground.

Those who think they can force the return of Christ, literally, are fools who do not care about the consequences.
———
I liked GW Anderson’s reply and agree with it. I put it like this: we need to unlearn everything we’ve learned via our 5 senses; those 5 senses do an incredible job of convincing us that that’s all there is.

It’s true that our identity is dependent upon our environment. But we don’t necessarily have to adopt everything that is passed on to us - it is possible to challenge the dominant constructions. The idea of free thought is based upon this assumption.

There was a comment claiming that all these responses were a sad commentary. I find them all refreshing because this is a forum that allows regular folk to comment on issues that they have been carrying inside all along and seldom had a place to vent them.

These comments are not so much anti-Christ but anti religion, and how religion has hyjacked and twisted the image of Christ for their own gain and political power. This is what is really sad!!!

I believe that Jesus said, “A man’s wisdom is foolishness to God.”  Many people have tried to analyse the validity of the Bible. Many of you want proof that Jesus was or wasn’t. Those of you with doubts need to read about the Shroud of Turin, and the new evidence and scientific findings. It has been proven to be over 2000 years old with traces of real blood stains of a man’s face. Also even Darwin turned to Christianity and belived in one God in his last years.

Never forget, 90% of who we are and what we believe is based on who raised us and where we lived.

If you are raised in the Middle East, odds are you may turn out to be Muslim.

If you are born to republican/democratic parents, odds are you will be a Republican/Democrat?

If your parents both smoke there is a good chance you will be a smoker.

If your family was a military family odds are you too may be pro military.

As children, we do not choose or control the environment that is so crucial in helping us form our life views.

So, remember, next time you meat an inflexible bible thumper whose mission it is to “save you” or next time you meet a staunch republican it is not always by choice.  In fact, that is all they know.

We are a product of our environment nothing less, nothing more.

Didn’t they find the tomb empty?? Wasn’t the burial shroud all piled up in a nice neat stack? If he was just “resurrected spirtiually” why wasn’t his body still lying there?  Why didn’t Jesus point at it when Mary came to the tomb and mention that this was the way of all flesh or something profound like that? The resurrection involved a change of the physical body to a spiritual body. I don’t think Paul ment that here is no resurrection of the “physical body”

The arrogance in these responses turns my stomach.  You people sound more idiotic than fundamentalist, and yet I am willing to bet you fancy yourselves somehow enlightened because you reject Christianity.  How sad.

Caccciato,
I applaud the fact that you recognize that Jesus embraced the marginalized with compassion, but please also recognize that that these teachings of Jesus are central to Orthodoxy. In contrast, “Manifest Destiny” has long proclaimed the right of the powerful to subjugate the weak, while Karmic Philosophy has simply regarded the marginalized as receving what they deserve. Rather, it has been the Judeo-Christian Bible that has upheld the broken.

Yes, there has been negative fruit borne from organized Christian churches. However, we don’t throw out the court system because of certain corrupt lawyers and judges; nor do we disband the police because of a few bad apples.

How is it that so many Christians focus on the birth and death.. and miss the truths Jesus taught?

I think it is true humans often need to be born again, born to compassion, forgiveness, inclusiveness.  In the context of Judaism in his life Jesus spoke for the poor, for the children and for women, in otherwords those denigrated by the powerful Jewish elites. Awakening to their humanity is awakening to our own and we are in truth resurrected from the dead.

countless ‘christians’ have recognized this truth, but they have been abused insulted and crucified by the Orthodox Christians from Paul, Origen, to the Romanized church that the bishops chose under the Emporer Constantine.  Moving once more away from a democratic church of tolerance and toward hierarchy and power.

There is room for all the excluded according to Jesus,  chose that not orthodoxy.

As an agnostic I always find articles like this interesting,

  I’m am in solid agreement with Mr. Mann: The bible has been translated and retranslated. Words change meaning (is it just me or did “gay” once mean happy?) The only possible way you could claim the ressurection is true is to have the origional text and understand the language as it was spoken at the time. This is one of the main reasons for my religion choice.

  Anything and everything the bible states should be taken with a grain of salt. There are some wonderful guidelines on how to live your life. And let’s face it: who doesn’t want an excuse to stuff themselves with chocolate and eat big fancy meals? Easter is what we the people make of it. 

  Does it really matter if he did rise from the dead or not? His lessons were valueble to people of the time and continue to be decent guidelines for continuing generations. I think that the danger lies in Easter becoming just one more commercial holiday with no deeper meaning. It’s what happened to Christmas…

  -J

It was an perfectly executed magical act. A very high flying kite and particularly strong fishing line. Nothing more and nothing less.

A dead spirit, does that make any sense.  If a spirit is dead, it ceases to exist and can never be again. In short for a spirit to exist it must “be” or said another way, it is in a state of “be-ing-ness” and to be in a state of “non-be-ing-ness,” which is to say it is gone, long gone and never to return, means it has ceased to exist. Not so with a physical body, it changes states from a life form to a non-life form but its physical attributes cause it to continue being, although in a dead state. In either state it still exists; consequently, the miracle of the resurrection is the changing of the physical body from a living state to a dead state and back to a living state.  The resurrection was that of a physical resurrection.  For believers in the Bible one only has to look at Luke 24:39 which states, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

Why does a spiritual being - whether christ or the saved soul of a man - need a body?  What a silly notion.  Will we be having sex and drinking scotch and smoking cigars in the afterlife?  Eating porterhouse and lobster?  What possible function other than manipulation of the 3d physical realm and reproduction of more carbon based mammalian units does the body serve?

Does God have a body?  Is “he” really a big huge guy with a white beard way up in outer space of some place?

Of course not!  When we shed our carcasses, it’s for good.  The spirit lives on in a spiritual real and a spiritual form that is likened on to God.

No grey hairs.

D. W. Thomas, in #7233, offered: “The Resurrection is little more than a pious fairy-tale, along with the Virgin Birth, turning water into wine, feeding the multitude with scaps of bread, turning water into wine and all that other mythological nonsense. However, his message of The Creator"s love for its Creation, and the corresponding message that All are loved by this Creator, in my opinion, are the only notions worth dwelling upon.”

There ya go again, Christian… cherry pickin’ what to believe. The “message” you choose to accept is as much hogwash as the rest of it. Do you REALLY believe (a) there’s a “Creator” (b) and if there is, that he/she/it who created all the physical universe(s) actually “loves” us all… even CHARLES MANSON, HITLER, IDI AMIN.

There are “notions worth dwelling upon” but this one doesn’t get my vote. But enjoy it if you do… I guess it’s as good a fairy tale to “buy” as any other, if, for some unfathomable reason, you need the psychological crutch to make it through the day.

And perhaps if you’d READ what you’ve written before clicking “Submit” you’d notice such boo-boos as turning your water into wine TWICE, and posting SCAPS for SCRAPS. I know, I know… I’m such a nit-picker… but better “nits” than “cherries.”

Madison,
The Greek word “psuchikos,” which you translate as “physical,” is much better translated “natural” as opposed to “spiritual” which is equated with “imperishable” (verse 42) rather than “immaterial.” Please regard the three other contexts where this word is found (1 Cor. 2:14; James 3:15; Jude 19). In none of these contexts would it be proper to translate this word as “physical.” Besides, Jesus gave numerous proofs that His resurrection was physical: (1) His body was gone from the tomb, (2) He still had His wounds, (3) He ate.

On another level, you wrote, “’Oh my, how can we even speak about whether the Resurrection is real or not?’ I find this passage liberating.” This made me think that you want to distance yourself from the physicality of the Resurrection. I find this troubling (that you might be wanting to impose your own understanding on Scripture.) I’ve found great blessing in seeking what Scripture taught me as opposed to imposing my own definition on God. If God is truly God, then I’m in no position to impose my philosophy on Him, but must learn humbly at God’s “feet.”

I believe that the story of Christs resurection is a demonstration of and ancient theory.  This theory is repetitive in many beliefs.  Birth, Life, Death, Rebirth.  Rather the Rebirth is spiritual or temporarily spiritual to be followed by a reincarnation that continues a Bloodline is not really important because it is out of our hands.  Only the sourse of life truly knows how it manifests and remanifest throughout history.

“According to Burton Mack, this spiritualization of the Resurrection was in keeping with the Greek sensibilities of the Gentile Congregations of [the] Christ that were springing up in the eastern Mediterranean regions of the Roman Empire. Greek notions of immortality did not include the body. Immortality was more a matter of the mind or spirit leaving the body to experience eternal existence.”
Quoted from above column

“HERAKLES was finally done to death by the foolish love of his (last) wife DEIANEIRA, the daughter of Oeneus king of Calydon. NESSOS THE CENTAUR had tried to rape Deianeira, perhaps just because centaurs are lusty animals, perhaps in revenge for the destruction of the Peloponnesian centaurs. When Herakles wounded him with one of the famous poisoned arrows, he pretended that all was forgiven and gave Deianeira a `secret potion’ which would keep Herakles home and make him hers forever. Actually the potion, a salve, contained blood of the HYDRA in it. Deianeira smeared some on the inside of a fresh tunic which she helped Herakles to put on after a bath upon the return from one of his many adventures (Cf. the bathtub scene in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, where Queen Clytamnestra murders her husband Agamemnon, with help and support from Aegistheus, Agamemnon’s vengeful cousin and Clytamnestra’s lover.). The Medusa potion was corrosive, and nearly drove Herakles crazy with pain because he could not get the tunic off (The `crazy glue’ motipheme). To escape, Heracles ordered POEAS his Chief Steward and Poeas’ son PHILOCTETES to build his funeral pyre. He climbed up on it, still alive, gave Poeas his bow and arrows as a farewell gift (later inherited by Philoctetes and taken to the Trojan War—a necessary ingredient for victory of the Greeks). He ordered the pyre to be lit. His mortal part was consumed by the flames (cf. the prince of Eleusis Demophon and Asklepios), while his immortal part (He was a son of Zeus, after all) was fetched to Olympus by Zeus’ order, who sent a special chariot to meet what was left of Heracles. This was at the demand of the rest of the gods (Divine Council) who were impressed by Heracles’ achievements, and reminded Zeus of the prophecies.”
http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/herlabor.html

Herakles was one of the most popular Olympian deities among the Greek-speaking peoples of Antiquity. Like Jesus he suffered a horrible death and was raised into heaven, where he took a favored position near his father,Zeus.

The story of the resurrection is but one of many instances of early Church leaders grafting Greco-Roman myth onto a fundamentally Jewish,hence foreign,theology thereby making it more palatable and accessible to the majority of so-called “gentile” Christians.

I grew tired long ago of making sense of out cleverly designed nonsense.

The Bible resembles the following sentences….

The following sentence is true.
The previous sentence is false.

Why bother?  Move on to the here and now and the tools we have today to understand the world.

another of those christian mythology points.

The Resurrection is little more than a pious fairy-tale, along with the Virgin Birth, turning water into wine, feeding the multitude with scaps of bread, turning water into wine and all that other mythological nonsense. However, his message of The Creator"s love for its Creation, and the corresponding message that All are loved by this Creator, in my opinion, are the only notions worth dwelling upon.

religious freaks? hmm i think we’ve got one…
save me the excerpts, preacher.

Jesus also addressed a group before him and said some would see him enter his Kingdom. When I have asked this before I have been told that was to be in the pre messianic times which I would have learned if I had attended a seminary. But if I had attended a seminary and asked why did it take so long for the Apostles to write down their versions, I would have been told because they thought that it was unnecessary as he would have returned. Why did they think this would happen, because while he didn’t tell them the date he told them so- he did not write it down for others but he addressed those assembled before him.

I think it becomes more pertinent to ask why anyone considers Paul to be an authority on the subject, and simply said it’s because those who prosper tend to be written into the history books.  With regard to the letters to the Corinthians and Romans, they were written in isolation and with a given agenda in mind, painting Christ as something other than what other contemporary sources, such as the little information we can find from James, Christ’s brother, who had some fundamental problems with Paul’s hijacking of the message and the steady massaging of things to make it more palatable to other Roman citizens.

Rather than spend time speculating on what ‘the resurrection’ meant by using ecumenical sources from the Middle Ages, it would be more interesting to ask _why_ the resurrection was written the way that it was by the differing viewpoints of the oral tradition.

And yes, I’m a bright with a bit of an interest of the history of the bible.

“Even a progressive Christian can reasonably assert that Jesus was really born.”

Even though his birth—or the fact he was supposed to be human—doesn’t even come up in Christian writings for *decades* after the beginning of the religion?

It’s looking more and more like Jesus never existed at all. The assumption that he did is just that—an assumption. A lot of stuff in our culture is built on that assumption, but that has no bearing on whether Jesus is a mythical character like Poseidon or Zeus. A lot was built on those characters, too, at one time.

Ultimately, Jesus will take his place in the books of mythology. For now, he stands demoted to “historical figure.”

http://www.thegodmovie.com/

I have long thought that Jesus taught a Buddhist-type spirituality, “the kingdom of god is within you.”  Ironic that many study the “mystery” of the resurrection without discovering that the mystery really is the presence of divine nature in each of us…

Does it really matter?  Can not the spiritual body recreate any physical body needed from the perfect love and perfect trust inherent in divine nature?  If Jesus was truly the son of God, with the power of God, he could have come with body or without.  Doesn’t change his message does it?

Why quibble over the zombie or non-zombie nature of Jesus, and instead celebrate the renewal of faith and of devotion inherent in the Ostara/Easter time of year?

The bodily resurrection posed a big public-relations problem for early christianity, because it sounded too much like what the Persian Zoroastrians believed at about the time the Romans fought several disastrous wars against them. Christians got themselves into enough trouble by refusing to worship the Roman emporer; the resurrection doctrine also made them suspect as a pro-Persian “fifth column” within Roman borders.

Those knowledgeable about the textual development of the Gospels are aware that their witness to the resurrection is sketchy, at best. It is a well-accepted truth that Mark was the first of the Gospels (although this is contrary to church tradition, which puts Matthew first.) An uncomfortable fact for those who want to take a traditional view of the physical resurrection is the absence of any mention of it in the oldest manuscripts of Mark, notably Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.  These two codeces are the earliest extant examples of the canonical bible, and date to the 4th. century. It is difficult to explain how Mark could not have known about the resurrection if it were historical fact, nor how he could have omitted mention of the most central issue of Christianity had he known.

In my opinion, anyone with their “eyes and minds wide open” should have long ago realized the fundamental absurdities inherent in the “Christianities” and have moved on in their quest to be meaningfully connected to the cosmos.

I also suspect that most grounded thinkers have concluded that, in spite of not knowing for certain about our origins and knowing even less about our destinies (if any), rational common sense and deduction based in evidence leaves little option but to conclude that alive is alive (temporary electro/chemical reactions), and dead is dead (nada).

Just as we didn’t exist anyplace before birth, we will no longer exist anyplace after death. And the notion that’s there’s a “god” someplace who gives a damn one way or the other is pure fantasy.

So, that’s all there is, Alfie… enjoy it to the fullest while you’re still able to.

As I said, that’s my opinion… and it works for me.

Okay. Now get all these “progressive” Christians out in the world confronting predatory capitalism, who believe our natural resources are nothing more than commodities to be used anyway seen fit. How about a massive movement on the Christian idea of planetary stewardship? How about a countervailing force standing up to Christian fascism? Anything but how many angels are sitting on the head of the damn pin.

I agree totally with this. It makes all the sense in the world. You see, he resurrected himself spiritually because he was keeping his other body for the 2nd comming.

Just ask any Jesuright.

Regarding the resurrected body, St. Thomas explains the meaning of Paul’s words in the following way,

“THOUGH the bodies of the risen are to be of the same species with our present bodies, still they will be otherwise organized….Since the recovery of the body is a provision for the perfection of the soul, it is fitting that the body be organized in such fashion as shall suit the soul….But the soul is incorruptible, therefore the body shall be restored to it incorruptible….This body, now corruptible, will be rendered incorruptible in such sort that the soul shall have perfect control over it, giving it life.  Nor shall any foreign power be able to hinder this communication of life.  Risen man then shall be immortal, not by taking up another body, that shall be incorruptible, but by his present corruptible body being made incorruptible.  This corruptible must put on incorruption (1 Cor. 15:53).  So then that saying, “Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 15:50), [and similarly, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Cor. 15:44)], means that in the risen state the corruption of flesh and blood shall be taken away, while the substance of flesh and blood remains.” (Summa Contra Gentiles 4,85)

Thus the spiritual body is a real body with the added qualities of spirit or conformed to spirit. 

There is always a better orthodox answer.