Radorth

Let's call this one Early Christian Conspiracy #183, ("cynical manipulation of readers" theory), which unfortunately conflicts with Early Christian Conspiracy # 121 ("plagarized from Hellenists" theory) and #47 ("popular midrash" theory).

So the inventors have him sulking in Galilee for dramatic effect? I thought he didn't exist. Or was that a Freudian slip? Well there's a new one. Come to think of it, new one's are invented daily, either because JM'ers just like to tell and hear new ones, or it takes 183 theories because no one theory answers all the questions raised by the earlier ones.

I'm forced to conclude Durant's "swoon" theory is the most viable. It is the only one which raises fewer questions than it answers, and is just as damaging to Christ. I also conclude that Durant did more damage in three pages than all the JM'er's who ever lived put together. IMO it takes an intellectually honest person about four hours of reading JM'ers to realize it takes more faith to believe them than the Gospels. It seems whatever creative talents they have are often fueled by a morbid cynicism as well.

Rad

paul30

I read Bertrand Russell's essay "Why I am not a Christian" a long time ago.

I like it, and think he makes some valid points; but his reasons are not my reasons for NOT being a Christian.

Ever since I can remember, I have had spontaneous mystical experiences. These are times, unprompted and unexpected, when I become absolutely aware of the unity of things, the illusoriness of time, the illusoriness of my individual consciousness, the rightness or sanctity of things. This certainty is as real to me as the certainty I am typing now or hearing the noises in the room or breathing.

It is easy for someone else to question my certainty, but I would no more question it than I would the evidence of my senses. And unlike dreams, all these experiences do not vanish when I come out of them, and do not simply rearrange waking elements.

So when I was introduced, at a very young age, to the teachings of the Old and New Testaments--with their radically dualistic God, who is absolutely separate from creation, and their obsessive emphasis on personality and personal salvation--well, none of it squared in the least with my own experience.

Later, when I heard that the Buddha had said, "Do not believe something because I say it or you read it in a book, but because your experience confirms it," I knew that is what I must do.