Hi all,
My own two cents:-
I went and looked at
www.jesusneverexisted.com. ; Except for the stuff about "Jesus" apparently having been a title shared by a lot of different contemporary people, there wasn't really anything there that I haven't seen before. The "pagan Christ" stuff is very, very old and doesn't really prove anything to my mind. So the concept of an avatar has existed in other religions...so what? That in itself still doesn't necessarily disprove the idea that Jesus was one.
Also, the amount of very visible raw attitude radiating from
www.jesusneverexisted.com was in itself enough to cause me to take it with a metric ton of salt. Such sites are typically created by individuals who have experienced abuse at the hands of Christians, left Christianity themselves, and then made the erroneous assumption that Christianity itself was to blame for their abuse...and so feel that they are offering a service to others if they can discredit other Christians' faith. The truth is, there are a *lot* of people out there who follow what David Wilcock would call the service-to-self polarity (what the rest of us call evil, if that doesn't make sense) who also call themselves Christians...and they do an enormous amount of harm. George W Bush is only the most well-known of such wolves in sheeps' clothing...but he is by no means the only one. The thing to realise is that Christianity as a belief system is NOT in itself to blame for the actions of these individuals. Jesus himself had serious problems with such people...Read about his dealings with the Pharisees if you want to know about it.
The bottom line is that most people's objections to Christianity generally don't have anything to do with Christ at all...whether he existed or otherwise. They tend to have a lot more to do with the cognitive dissonance and disenchantment that thinking people of various faiths experience because of the above described false Christians.
I personally choose to believe in the existence of Christ myself...but unlike JD and a few of the other people who've been here, I openly couldn't care less whether other people do or not...In fact, if people really don't want to, I'd actually urge them NOT to...because Christianity includes far too many people who don't really want to be there/believe for the wrong reasons already, and all they serve to do is give the rest of us a bad name.
Dora, I have sensed quite a large amount of emotional pain in you since I first started posting here. Because I don't know anything about you, I cannot and therefore will not speculate as to that pain's cause...but I do genuinely hope that none of it has been caused by bad experiences with Christians. If it has been, I do deeply sympathise. It has been probably three years since I last attended church in any form, and I still wrestle with large amounts of guilt and fear at times. There have been times recently where I have asked others for intercessory prayer due to events occurring in my life, because I have difficulty believing that I have sufficient moral/spiritual legitimacy to attempt said prayer myself. I'm laying myself bare here...and JD (if not others) will probably pounce and triumphantly declare that my sense of guilt arises from subconscious knowledge of the fact that I genuinely *am* a benighted heretic...but if that happens, there is nothing I can do to prevent it. For what it's worth, I believe that every person has the right to believe whatever they want to believe. Even JD, although he might try his hardest to convert you, would not, I suspect, disagree with that assertion. People will disagree with you...and a lot of those people might just happen to be Christians...it doesn't necessarily mean they're right at all.
If anyone out there is going to evaluate Christianity, my only request is that you base your evaluation on the Biblical record of Christ himself...and NOT on his self-claimed followers and their behaviour...because 98% of the time, you will find that supposedly orthodox Christians' view of Christ (and behaviour) has absolutely nothing in common with what is recorded about him.
I can't speak for anyone else, but Jesus to me, more than anything else, acts as a mirror. I will never forget once reading one woman's Near Death Experience, (I can't remember who's now...it was years ago) and the woman said she encountered Jesus on the threshold between life and death. She said what he asked her was, "What have you done with your life to show me?"
To me, this is primarily what Jesus does. He serves not only as an example, but as someone who asks us to look at ourselves...to attempt to honestly evaluate what kind of person we are...and the longer I live, the more I grow inclined to believe that he does that more to aid *our* development than because he has any interest in destroying us.
Do I believe in the miracles and the Resurrection? Yes, I do. I believe Jesus' purpose in earthly existence was to show us what was possible, to liberate people in a number of different ways, and to fundamentally change the nature of reality to lead to a greater degree of freedom and positivity overall.
Am I going to try and forcibly shove my beliefs down anyone else's throat? No, I'm not...because the most fundamental freedom is the freedom to choose. Freedom to choose our beliefs, freedom to choose our actions, freedom to define ourselves as we see fit. I believe we have been granted these freedoms by our Creator...I don't believe it was Jesus' intent to violate them, and I don't believe Christians should try to either.
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