You got to admit that tooting him as "The ONE and ONLY" does have a lot of appeal to the masses.

Miracles are important for that same factor. What people don't realize is that yesterday's miracles are today's "ho-hum". Transport a man back in time 500 years ago. He comes along this guy who dies. Well, yes, he stopped breathing. Heartbeat is gone. Say he takes him into the shed and has a team trained at ACLS procedure with the meds. LO and BEHOLD. That dead man has come back to life. It is a miracle.

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Thanks for posting this link. Wouldn’t it be great to be a scholar of the Old testament, or the New one for that matter!?! It would make for a very serene profession.

I remember from my school studies that at the time Christ lived, there were many many many supposed profits. The death and resurrection part of the narrative were said by one of my profs to have originated starting thousands of years before Christ. I did a Google search to supplement my failing memory and a sources said that deities to have gone through resurrection include Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, Zalmoxis, phoenix, Jesus, Baldr, and Odin.

The article went on to state that “Female deities who passed into the kingdom of death and returned include Inanna (also known as Ishtar) whose cult dates to 4000 BC and Persephone, the central figure of the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose cult may date to 1700 BC as the unnamed goddess worshiped in Crete.”

I’m unfamiliar with many of these deities, but the roll call provides evidence that the idea of resurrection existed thousands of years prior to JC and the portrail was well developed by the time it was incorporated into the legend of JC. It has probably the greatest dramatic appeal of any part of the narrative.

If one were to take death and resurrection as a sign of being touched by a god, what of all those who have gone through this by accident or as a necessary part of modern surgery? It would “prove” that there are many son’s and daughters of god…

BTW, Kerry, in a previous thread I wrote that speaking in tongues was done for dramatic appeal, I think there may have been a misunderstanding. I wasn’t characterizing your comment as done for dramatic appeal, but rather that the act of speaking in tongues as a tool of drama.

Odin was often portrayed as the grey-bearded old man with one eye, his face hidden by a hood or a broad brimmed hat, because he had cast an eye into Mimir's well in return for a drink of its "immense wisdom". Even after losing an eye, Odin's love of wisdom was so profound that he was prepared to sacrafice himself to plumb its depths. He gained insight by hanging himself for nine days from Yggdrasil, the cosmic tree (imagery: think of the movie Conan when he was tied to the Tree of Woe). This voluntary death, and his subsequent resurrection by means of magic gave Odin greater wisdom than anyone else. It is possible that the obvious parallel between this myth and the Crucifixion gave Christianity a head-start in northern Europe.

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I did take it that way. I think it is sometimes done as a tool of religious drama, especially when a religious leader uses it to impress his or her followers. But it is also done in private for other reasons. I'm interested in the non-cognitive components of these private uses.

I don't think there's any evidence that Jesus spoke in tongues.

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Interesting. Care to illustrate the other reason or examples of non-cognitive components?

Nor do i. It was easier to reply to the previous here than to find the other thread....But it would have added something big if he did speak in tongues…..but only after resurrection...

I love this stuff. A lot of it can be seen as ways to illustrate the ideology of the culture from which it sprang.

I do like Greek and Roman and even Norse mythology a lot better.

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The language/sound producing part of the brain in most of our lives is closely connected to the meaningful production of sounds. In other words, we utter sounds that communicate in a social context. Only rarely do we utter meaningless sounds. This is quite a constrictive process whereby the social necessity of shared meaning impinges upon individual freedom of sound production.
Thinking is closely connected to these meaningful sounds resulting in the fact that thoughts and words become indistinguishable. The private use of glossalalia disconnects meaningful words and sounds resulting in a thoughtless mind.
The best way I know to illustrate this is insomnia. If I can't sleep because my mind is racing, thinking about a million things, I can speak in tongues and the thoughts disappear resulting in almost immediate sleep. So I think that speaking in tongues is a kind of shortcut to the kind of experience that mystics seek in meditation. It's a Pentecostal Nirvana. Part of the reason why I think both traditional Nirvana and Pentecostal Nirvana is appealing is that it frees the individual from the influence of others, producing a religious liberation of sorts. This liberation can only occur in two possible ways. Either it involves no words or sounds at all (the Zen experience) or it involves words and sounds that mean nothing to anyone(the Pentecostal experience). In either instance the 'individual' is freed from society.

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This whole thread assumes that all religions are man-made attempts to explain the unknown.
Christianity, as a revealed religion--meaning truth revealed by God that is otherwise unknowable--- is a very different matter.
I hope some of you can appreciate the difference, although I know some will ( willful choice) not.
Lack of belief is not often due to a lack of knowledge, or an imperfection of knowledge, but rather a willful choice not to believe. You do not believe because you choose not to believe.

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Just how can I force myself to again believe things that I now am firmly convinced are nonsense?

If only it were really that easy.

How is that different from Islam, Judaism or even Greek Mythology? Don't they also claim that their truth is revealed by their diety?

Belief: confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof. If you don't have the confidence, how do you choose to have confidence in something?

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You where saying ?
http://www.geocities.com/worldview_3/science.html

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Quote:

The best way I know to illustrate this is insomnia. If I can't sleep because my mind is racing, thinking about a million things, I can speak in tongues and the thoughts disappear resulting in almost immediate sleep. So I think that speaking in tongues is a kind of shortcut to the kind of experience that mystics seek in meditation. It's a Pentecostal Nirvana. Part of the reason why I think both traditional Nirvana and Pentecostal Nirvana is appealing is that it frees the individual from the influence of others, producing a religious liberation of sorts. This liberation can only occur in two possible ways. Either it involves no words or sounds at all (the Zen experience) or it involves words and sounds that mean nothing to anyone(the Pentecostal experience). In either instance the 'individual' is freed from society.

Very interesting observations. Thanks for sharing. What you are describing sounds a lot like studies of how music works (effect affect), or at least it is very similar. Music circumvents much of the parts of the brain that works with critical thinking and language, and the nature of music can be evocative of every emotion there is. Sound used as language is often used to dissect, while sound used as music is used as a ride of sorts.

What is even more interesting is that you’ve found an internal way to alter your state of mind. Humans and I guess all life have reactions which are highly dependent on outside stimuli to work. As example, if we are frightened by something, our mind and body will react in far more powerful ways than we would otherwise. The adrenalin rush we experience is largely dependent on outside stimuli. It would be difficult to create this adrenalin rush just by concentrating. As another example, if one is obsessing about something, it is difficult to let go of it. Obsessing becomes a nearly perpetual act. You have found a way to not only turn that off, but to calm yourself enough to fall asleep without outside stimuli, other than perhaps the sound of your voice.

Anyway, I agree that sound as an abstract can have a powerful effect on the mind.

Your last sentence brings up the question of what freedom is? Is freedom merely the escape from being “I?” If so, is this a goal of religion? And bringing it back to the topic of the thread, does resurrection of JC serve the purpose of freedom?

Why would that be?

Now that's funny. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually prove anything.

Attempted proofs of god should have stopped with Aquinas.