very funny youtube video

[Solefald]

You want a contribution? Here's a contribution.

Shaede, would you (or anyone really) care to support this quote about every religous story being a metaphor, because this is not the case for many religions.

What we see today is a focus on the images that are actually metaphors. We also see secondary interpretation, that is, a reinterpretation of ideas based on the images used to logically explain the act rather then relying on the original metaphorical meaning.

For example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is never considered metaphorical my the overwhelming majority of Christians. Belief in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus is a requirement of every major sect of Christianity. To believe otherwise, e.g. that his appearances to the Apostles were an illusion, is heresy. So this part of the Bible cannot simply be waved away as being a metaphor. For Christians, the bodily resurrection of Christ is literal fact.

So could you please back up your assertion about metaphors and images because not even members of the religion(s) you're defending can support it.

[Chreman]

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled."

People who take the bible seriously make me laugh.

[Ashen]

Existentialism 4tw

[Shaede]

For example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is never considered metaphorical my the overwhelming majority of Christians. Belief in the physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus is a requirement of every major sect of Christianity. To believe otherwise, e.g. that his appearances to the Apostles were an illusion, is heresy. So this part of the Bible cannot simply be waved away as being a metaphor. For Christians, the bodily resurrection of Christ is literal fact.

Oh, a challenge? Actually, this is not challenging at all, Solefald, and I'll gladly explain to you the metaphorical nature of the death/rebirth process of mythology.

The death of Jesus is symbolic of the process of the self that the hero-figure must go through to come back from the beyond/subconcious with the world redeeming elixer. I like to refer to this figure as the Jesus/Buddha, because those are the two best examples of this process.

In the standard mythological tale, the hero usually dies. This isn't always a literal death, often times it's a metaphorical once such as my previous example of Baptism which allows the participant to experience the death/rebirth process of the hero-figure using water.

In the tale of Jesus, we know that he dies and comes back to life. Now, compare this with the Egyptian myth of Osiris and Isis (keep in mind that Jesus most likely lived most of his life in Egypt, where the myth likely originated). In this story, Osiris was slain and his body was thrown into a sarcophagus and commited to the Nile by his brother Set. His wife, Isis, is shown weeping for him during his return, much like the telling of the ressurrection of Jesus. In fact, the custom practiced in Greece at the time celebrating this event was merely modified to incorporate Jesus instead of Osiris in their performance. If you read both stories, you'll find striking simularities.

The Buddha went through a simular process with his death and rebirth, but the images used were slightly different. Just as Jesus was confronted by the devil three times before his death, the Buddha was confronted three times by worldy distractions before he set out on his path to enlightnment. The imagery of him under the Bo Tree is very simular, in fact, to the image of Jesus on the cross. Both are a very standard image of a hero on a tree-like structure that you see all over the world. During this time, the Buddha had removed himself from the world and sat in a period of deep meditation. When he came back to the world, as Jesus did from the cross, he had achieved enlightmenment (and the command of the unseen forces of the universe).

In all cases, the hero is shown to have gone into the "Belly of the Whale" (as the eskimos would tell in a simular story involving a hero named Raven) and returned from beyond the lands of knowlege, reason, and worldiness, to the world with a world revitalizing elixer (such as a path to heaven or enlightnement).

This clearly symoblizes, not only a metaphorical process of the heroes, but a staple the almost every myth around the world experiences. The simularities are so strikingly simular, in fact, that early Christian missionaries believed that the devil had infiltrated the rest of the world, feeding the populace with simular, but unfamiliar, myths involving the staple creation, virgin birth, death/rebirth stories that we all know no matter our religious backgrounds.

Jesus is not a unique story at all, in fact almost every culture has the same story with different names and images. To get caught up in the images of it and ignore the meaning behind it and the lessons and ideas the story tries to show you through it's imagery is the true lack of understanding that ultimatly leads you to what heresy often really is.

Concerning yourself with the historical accuracy of mythology is pointless, as it's very easy to disprove such imagery.

[Septimus]

Jesus is not a unique story at all, in fact almost every culture has the same story with different names and images. To get caught up in the images of it and ignore the meaning behind it and the lessons and ideas the story tries to show you through it's imagery is the true lack of understanding that ultimatly leads you to what heresy often really is.

Oh, don't forget that early Christian imagry of the cross often times included a Phoenix pearched on it. Phoenix mythology comes from the Benu of Pheronic legends, he is the "Ba" or soul of either Amun-Ra or Osiris.

[Geostigma]

I've created a monster.... *note to self never post a video with a fake jesus in it on BG forums*

Man I hate religion who cares when you die as long as you enjoyed your life.