Whether Jesus was the son of God is a matter for believers and non-believers, scholars and fools. Whether Jesus was a man, a human being, is not in doubt. As a man, he suffered about as cruel a death as is possible.
The cruelty heightened by his sense of abandonment.
His abandonment has become a symbol and an inspiration to believers and non-believers alike. The life and times of Jesus of Nazereth, son of Joseph and Mary, a young idealist who changed the World ended and began on what is now called Easter.
Your thoughts.
If jesus was infact a Jewish 20 something year old, he was one of about 110,000 Jewish men murdered that way...
ReplyDeleteOnly Jesus got to get off the cross after a short time, whereas the rest of the Jews stayed on the crosses for the buzzards to pick at their flesh...
Thanks to the Romans for inventing the method of murder called the crucifix...
In this day of holiday, if Christians can take a positive message from the crucifixion great, for me, the symbol of the cross reminds me of a cruel and usual way designed to murder Jews and I remember the other 109,999 Jews murdered by the Romans...
"...the cross reminds me of a cruel and usual way designed to murder Jews and I remember the other 109,999 Jews murdered by the Romans..."
ReplyDeleteYea, but that's because your such an upbeat guy, WiO.
Kind of like the song Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the Life of Brian.
Could be the statins.
On a serious note though I did see a poll in the Jerusalem Post that showed 60% of people indicated they would rather be stoned to death than crucified.
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Spartacus' last words:
ReplyDeleteHey, I thought this was "designed to murder Jews".
What the shit.
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From Wikipedia:
ReplyDeleteThe Roman historian Tacitus records that the city of Rome had a specific place for carrying out executions, situated outside the Esquiline Gate,[7] and had a specific area reserved for the execution of slaves by crucifixion.
Well you know me, the Transfiguration, that's the good thing--the early church made a mistake when installing the crucifixtion and resurrection as their story. The Transfiguration, that's for everyone, they should have stuck with that, the crucifixtion is the story of one man alone. The trans is mythy, the res, particularily those stories about a tomb in Jerusalem, impossible. I don't want to deal with the impossible any longer, I've had enough of it at my age. I'll try to take things straight from now on.
ReplyDeletethat's bob
ReplyDeleteIn the early church, there was much emphasis on recapturing the Garden of Eden, redoing the fall of man. Christ the good shepard, etc. This changed during the middle ages, and we got Christ the Crucified, and a lot of war and violence along with it, as a result. A change of metaphor is a change of meaning, and you damn well better watch out. It's like dealing with a woman.
ReplyDeleteJesus As The Good Shepard
ReplyDeleteThen, finally, you get to Luther, for Christ's sake, and predestination, devils, inkstands, cursing the Jews and the peasants, and a whole bunch of shit added on. Though he wrote some good melodys, and loved his wife, the rescued nun, and raised some kids that weren't his. A man can be many things.
ReplyDeleteHERE is the Transfiguration.
ReplyDeletequirk:
ReplyDeleteYea, but that's because your such an upbeat guy, WiO.
Kind of like the song Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the Life of Brian.
always LOVED life of Brian...
This is quite a stretch, but would it be possible to get through one holiday without the usual, "My dog's bigger than yours"?
ReplyDeleteWithout question, Joshua was a Jewish rabbi (teacher). That his followers changed the world cannot be denied by any rational person and some historians.
Again, Happy Easter to all!
Allen: This is quite a stretch, but would it be possible to get through one holiday without the usual, "My dog's bigger than yours"?
ReplyDeleteWithout question, Joshua was a Jewish rabbi (teacher). That his followers changed the world cannot be denied by any rational person and some historians.
Wasnt trying to say My dog's bigger...
Just was saying what I saw from my POV...
The anonymous cruelty of the Web
ReplyDeleteI'd be happy to get through the Holidays without my back nearly killing me.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn Monroe said on national TV, I think I have helped John Kennedy's back out a lot, I remember this well, but I'm not John Kennedy, and have no Marilyn around to help out.
ReplyDeleteGotta go with the Romans.
ReplyDelete"Just was saying what I saw from my POV..."
ReplyDeleteExactly the way I took it WiO.
Was just trying to bust your balls a bit.
Hey, if you can't rag on your friends, what's the point?
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Gotta go with the Romans. What the hell does that mean? Explain, please.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your points of view.
ReplyDeleteYou might as well go with the Swedes, for Christ's sake. Least some of them understand mythology, Thor and shit.
ReplyDeleteand usually don't get into gang wars, but some do fall for the fair lady
ReplyDeleteIt means it was the Romans that did all the crucifying not the Persians.
ReplyDeleteAnd besides there were only two others that were murdered that day. So Jesus only really escaped two others, as for the other 109,999 this day wasn't about them. I'm not denying what the Romans did but as for this holiday it's about one man.
Nuff said.
Those on probation shouldn't get too feisty.
ReplyDeleteNonsense, Melody, we simply don't know what actually happpened, then. There is no way to know. It is too far in the past, and encumbered with too much crustacean verbal slime. It is highly unlikely that this trial and this stuff happened like it is told in the four gospels. Further, all the other gospels have little to say about it. We are left with myth, the old old story. Did I ever tell you I love you?
ReplyDeleteThe four gospels didn't tell me the History channel did.
ReplyDeleteheh, good answer, I quess !! :) Hard to come back to. Who can argue with the History Channel:) Excellent reply, Melody.
ReplyDeleteAnd did Christ Jesus harrow Hades for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_ergaster
ReplyDeletehomo ergaster too? They found the bones. I don't want to have poor old Jesus die for my sins, I have to die for them, whatever they are, for myself. And I can tell you this, having looked it up, you wouldn't believe, Melody, what kind of beasts were in old Nevada, when the lake beds were full of water, when the last wet came, back in the Pleistoscene. You wouldn't believe it, and the proto men went south and east and west. Nothing left. They had emotions too, and suffered. And died. Without any Christ, just their own myths.
In the earlier days animals accustomed to cold, such as the hairy mammoth of the north, the caribou and the muskox, wandered through the valleys. As the ice retreated and the summers grew warmer and the winters less severe, other creatures, many of them strange to modern eyes, worked their way up from the south. Among these were such animals as southern mammoths, mastodons, native American horses, large and small, several kinds of camels of various sizes and, strangest of all, the huge lumbering ground sloths, hairy and stupid. These last were vegetarians and harmless enough unless attacked, but they must have been formidable enemies when defending their lives, for their claws were terrific and their strength enormous. Old Nevada.
ReplyDeleteI know Bob. I saw both Ice Age and Ice Age 2: The Meltdown.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff.
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BBC News -
ReplyDeleteThe Archbishop of Wales will say the proof God exists can be found in "resurrection moments" like parents forgiving their child's killers.
Here at the EB, rapists are forgiven, by the parents.
This must be proof of God's grace. For me though, I'd have hunted down and castrated the fucker, or hired some of our Mexican migrant friends to "Get 'er done", but believe you me, it'd have gotten done.
I'd have not been left waiting for the Lord to supply justice, not for a moment.
Six soldiers, 30 Taliban killed in Orakzai Agency
ReplyDelete- Daily Times
Happy Easter.
ReplyDeleteHippidy hoppity Easter is here!
ReplyDeleteIt's just another shitty day in Paradise, darlin'.
Car bombings in Baghdad -
Children bein' raped in the Congo.
Your good Lord, he does work in mysterious ways.
Mine, they let's me work out my problems, myself. Vengeance is mine to take, sayeth Thor & Odin, not theirs to bestow.
The Swedes, those real old school living on the edge Swedes, they knew the real deal.
Before those nasty Romans changed the religion game and turned all those whirled conquering pagans into socialist sissies.
Not to forget the Lord's good works through pedophile Priests, here and abroad.
ReplyDeleteThe Chief Priest, his spokes folk dismiss this challenge to the Church's credibility, as gossip, perhaps rumors, as well?.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal
VATICAN CITY—
A senior Vatican cardinal defended Pope Benedict during an Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by the pope, dismissing criticism of the pontiff's handling of the sexual-abuse crisis as "gossip".
April 4 (Bloomberg) -- US Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner delayed a scheduled April 15 report to Congress on exchange-rate policies, sidestepping a decision on whether to accuse China of manipulating the value of ...
ReplyDeleteRat, I don't criticize any one's religious beliefs. It's just not right. They have the right to believe in what they want to believe in. They have the right to their own religion.
ReplyDeleteThe bible was written by man and religion was created by man. That's all I'm going to say.
You would have a real nice conversation with my daughter.
Evil has evolved to be the aberation rather than the norm. If it had not, it would not be reported.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that is some progress.
Would the world be better off without religion?
Is society better off without dress codes? The highways without traffic codes? The airlines without regulation and ATC?
Perhaps with Thor in charge, In the truse spirit of a more diverse and inclusive Easter, we could crucify pedophile priests.
"It's just another shitty day in Paradise, darlin'."
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for the uplifting epistle, Rat.
Very inspirational.
Although, I must admit, it could still use a little work.
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Did someone get up on the wrong side of the burrow this morning?
ReplyDelete.
A point of order.
ReplyDeleteThe post was more about the pathos of man than the glory of God.
Some see the glass half empty, others half full. To Rat they are both the same, a poisoned chalice.
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ReplyDeleteIf the chalice ain't at least half full of ethanol I ain't interested.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful Easter morning.
ReplyDeleteIt's 70 and sunny in the Detroit burbs.
"The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land"
Hell, even the Rat (sorry, the rat) can't bring me down this morning.
Time for breakfast and some joe.
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There is much in the universe that the common man cannot see.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the 'Dark Matter' that can be measured, but invisible?
What is that 'Dark Matter' for that matter?
But religion and the different Gods that man has created, for himself, they are human constructs, attempts to explain those things that are beyond sight or explanation.
Religion is, I think, wrapped tightly around mankind, part and parcel of civilization, such as it is. The Aztecs had a civilization and a religion, it's just that it was not acceptable to Catholic sensibilities, and so was denied any sanctity, at all.
Now aint it funny, how on this Easter day...
ReplyDeletethat the collective world still finds it a crime for Jew to live in jerusalem...
as the Christians of this board go to their respective churches, regardless of the extent of their personal beliefs in the supernatural, the basic fact stands..
Jesus, a JEW, born and lived in the so called occupied lands and died in the so called "arab" east Jerusalem...
Jesus was and still is a settler in his own land...
Just like his fellow tribesman..
5 Myths about your taxes From the Washington Post.
ReplyDeleteBasically, our Income taxes are high, but our "Sales" taxes are low.
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ReplyDeleteOn this day, it might do to remind ourselves of the two basic ways the 'resurrection' of Jesus has been thought about. The older way, used to be the majority way, is represented by N.T. Wright Here This has the dead body of Jesus being transformed on this day, in the tomb in Jerusalem, by the power of God, his body now being beyond our normal capacities, 'able to eat fish, and walk through a wall', a real accomplishment. The newer way, now the majority thought, is that the 'resurrection' was a real event, and was witnessed in the minds of the friends of Jesus, in visionary experiences. In this view, it doesn't matter what happened to the body. This way of looking at it seems to be the earlier Christian understanding, going back to St. Paul, the other, 'cruder, more physical' understanding coming later, in the literature of the time. Visionary experiences are 'real', the question is, what causes them. Are they projections of one's internal anxieties, etc., or something more. If William James is right, there might be a thin film between this level of consciousness and something more, and the friends of Jesus may have experienced that, and made a culture out of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd Our Lute Prof of Religion Weighs In Taking the visionary point of view.
ReplyDeleteSo that if a TV camera had been in the tomb, it would have recorded the transformation of Jesus' body There is the question they are fighting over. A 'real' event, or a 'real' visionary event.
ReplyDelete"I'd have hunted down and castrated the fucker, or hired some of our Mexican migrant friends to "Get 'er done"
ReplyDeletethere we go, rambo rat's solution would be a mafia style (surprised?)
castration using migrant mexican workers. that would send a great message to mexico on who they should send here. A True Patriot whose country comes first (unless of course he wants to hire a hit on someone and get away with it--Bravery)!! It's all been a lie, rat's country does not come first. end of story.
That anon is not me. But, I did notice the comment. I am not going to waterboard my daughter, or my wife, to get a name. It is past. They don't want to talk about it. I'm going fishing, now, on this Easter.
ReplyDeleteThere are very few like you
ReplyDeleteThat know when the rain falls in the Wallowas
In a day or two, the fishing will get better As the wash comes downstream
Bringing the trout up. It has taken a lifetime to know these lessons. And you are so familiar with it now, and the eagles in the cedars, you know you can't really tell it to anyone. How the clouds build up, over the hills older than time, and the river, the ripples, run away, forever away. And how you seem so comfortable. But you seem compelled to share something of this, and how your daughter is taking Sahaptin, put together by a Jap, and if the damned paragraph bar would work, you'd put it into rime. It is better than Easter, or Christmas, or even Thanksgiving, it is a young spirit at home with himself.
No, bob, you do not waterboard your females, that is not required of an honest citizen. Reporting a felony, an assault, a rape, that is required of an honest citizen.
ReplyDeleteTo not report such a crime, that is a crime against the commons, itself.
It is an abdication of social responsibility that is the root cause of the decline of the United States.
A feeling that your own wants and desires are more important than the demands of the those of your village, your commons.
You are a moral coward and a poor citizen, at best.
It was too late to report it, for your information. I wasn't informed for weeks, and I couldn't have reported it, by myself. And she didn't want to do that.
ReplyDeleteNo, bob, a tardy report to the police is better than no report, at all.
ReplyDeleteThat rape could have been part of a pattern and any piece of intel could have been the dot that connect the perp to a series of rapes.
Who the fuck are YOU to decide when the police should be informed and when they should not. What information they need or do not need.
Did you become an investigator, a diviner of police intel, while driving your combine across your alfalfa field?
You know nothing of police work.
It is not for you to decide what the police needed to know.
It was your DUTY as a citizen to inform them, when you became aware of the crime.
All in an effort to protect the OTHER women of your community. A good citizen thinks beyond their narrow self-interest, to the needs of the commons.
boobie, your hypocrisy is showing.
ReplyDeleteAll this time you have spouted on the "Rights of Women", but where the rubber meets the road, you abandoned the women of your community to the rapist, instead of stepping up to the sacrifice required to protect them.
You're a coward.
Oh all right I'll go around with you once more. I did not have any facts to report. Not where, not when, not who, she didn't want to talk about it. I tried three times, and then her mother said no. She just wants to heal. I did pay for some counseling for her. Great way to end an Easter thread.
ReplyDeleteI've learned my lesson, don't come back to the EB, even for an Easter discussion.
ReplyDeletei tell you what, this DR is rotten to the core. pure crap.
ReplyDeleteHe does appear to be somewhat fixated Bob.
ReplyDelete.