If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Dontaskme
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote:We already do. The problem is not that there are different ideas; the problem is that some people insist that their idea is right, and demand that others agree.
I'm going to reply to all your responses uwot, so hope you can stay with me. I don't think it is correct to say that others ''demand'' an agreement. People are generally exchanging ideas with each others world-views that's all, maybe we are helping others to see a clarity that wasn't seen before, but in no way can anyone ''demand'' another to agree with them. My current view is that we all have the ultimate truth within us anyway as Jesus promised. Jesus being the unknown ''absolute mind'' embodied . . aka the physical relator..(known) .. < Does that make sense?

You appear to already live in a world of doubt or mistrust of others opinions by believing that someone is out to demand from you. I would totally distrust someone outright if I thought that was their agenda. Discussion of this nature is very tricky, but has nothing to do with demanding an agreement, an agreement happens or not, it's never forced on someone. That would be a strange world to live in if that was the case.

It's about pointing to something, but whether the person wants to see where it leads to or not, is entirely up to them, no one is forcing or demanding them to accept what's being pointed to. We are discussing a metaphysical subject here, it's not like we are talking about 2+2=4 that we all know to be absolutely true.

To imagine another of having the kind of agenda that is out to prove their truth only is a suspicion mind, a sceptical mind, and it's a good thing, it's positive, it's allowing real truth to flow through.

Keeping our mind open ...with a child like innocence without holding on too tight to our own ideas, allowing others ideas to comes in, coupled with integrity, honesty , and vulnerability is allowing absolute truth to be revealed to us...but that truth never comes from the other person,as if they were the only one who is right, and you were not..no, that's not what good communication is about...others are simply reminding you of what you already know...we are all teachers and students to each other...in relationship...like Father and Son.

So, do you agree or not, that although we all have different ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, like and dislikes, the source of these arbitrary intangible abstracts must come from the same one ''absolute mind'' ?

In other words, the capacity to reason, to critically think and to be able to solve problems..has to be the same for each one of us? ..that meaning we all share the same ''one absolute mind'' expressed as objective truths...and that there can be no separate little minds in and of themselves with with their own little objective truths?

I'm trying to word this as coherent as I possibly can so that everyone can understand what I'm pointing to, if not, then please ask me to clarify.
I'm trying to point to something that you may not have thought about before, I'm in no way forcing you to believe what I say. So hope you stay aboard this discussion. I happen to be very passionate about teaching others that they are the embodiment of truth love and justice and that they are eternal life and no one can take that away from them ever...especially the devil...but of course you do not have to believe that, you heard?
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by uwot »

Dontaskme wrote:I don't think it is correct to say that others ''demand'' an agreement.
People have been burnt alive for heresy. There are places in the world, today, where people will hack your head off if you don't submit to their vision. There are thousands of political prisoners in all sorts of places. Creationists are demanding that their beliefs are taught as science. All of which makes the fisticuffs on this forum look exactly as trivial as it actually is. But this is the stage we are currently on and even here people describe my way of thinking as irrational, closed minded, insane, uneducated, educated to imbecility, dumb; in fact think of a slur and it's probably been slung my way at some point. "Drama queen" was a new one, so kudos for originality.
Dontaskme wrote:My current view is that we all have the ultimate truth within us anyway as Jesus promised. Jesus being the unknown ''absolute mind'' embodied . . aka the physical relator..(known) .. < Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense, if you happen to believe that Jesus existed and promised what you say he promised, and that the trinity accurately describes reality. The thing is, people have a habit of accepting one or two basic premises: god exists; the bible is true, for example, and then creating an entire narrative to support those premises. So people might deal with the problem of evil by insisting it is necessary for free will.
Dontaskme wrote:You appear to already live in a world of doubt or mistrust of others opinions by believing that someone is out to demand from you.
Well, people rationalise others' dismissal of their precious and sometimes carefully constructed narrative, by attributing it to cynicism, bad faith, stupidity or indeed, mistrust. What they very rarely consider is that the reason people don't believe them, is that what they are saying is nonsense.
Dontaskme wrote:I would totally distrust someone outright if I thought that was their agenda.
They are entirely trustworthy, because they are generally not very bright.
Dontaskme wrote:Discussion of this nature is very tricky, but has nothing to do with demanding an agreement, an agreement happens or not, it's never forced on someone. That would be a strange world to live in if that was the case.

It is, isn't it?
Dontaskme wrote:It's about pointing to something, but whether the person wants to see where it leads to or not, is entirely up to them, no one is forcing or demanding them to accept what's being pointed to.
Ah well, you need to be careful with your language, by saying "pointing to something", you are implying that there is something to point at. What you are talking about is people's opinions.
Dontaskme wrote:We are discussing a metaphysical subject here, it's not like we are talking about 2+2=4 that we all know to be absolutely true.
Not if you believe that Jesus was the embodiment of god.
Dontaskme wrote:To imagine another of having the kind of agenda that is out to prove their truth only is a suspicion mind, a sceptical mind, and it's a good thing, it's positive, it's allowing real truth to flow through.
As above: I am not imagining it.
Dontaskme wrote:Keeping our mind open ...with a child like innocence without holding on too tight to our own ideas, allowing others ideas to comes in, coupled with integrity, honesty , and vulnerability is allowing absolute truth to be revealed to us...
Yes. I did all that through many years of studying the history of ideas. I have said many times that I am perfectly willing to entertain any idea that is not contradicted by sound evidence. The absolute truth is that there is experience. Everything else is theory laden.
Dontaskme wrote:So, do you agree or not, that although we all have different ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, like and dislikes, the source of these arbitrary intangible abstracts must come from the same one ''absolute mind'' ?
No. As I said, there may well be an "absolute mind", but you haven't made any connection between the fact that you and I have 'minds' and it. This is the premise that you have built your narrative around, and while you may have a perfectly coherent story based on that premise, the fact that the story 'makes sense' doesn't make it true.
Dontaskme wrote:In other words, the capacity to reason, to critically think and to be able to solve problems..has to be the same for each one of us?

I think that is demonstrably not the case.
Dontaskme wrote:...that meaning we all share the same ''one absolute mind'' expressed as objective truths...and that there can be no separate little minds in and of themselves with with their own little objective truths?
So what is an example of these "objective truths"?
Dontaskme wrote:I'm trying to word this as coherent as I possibly can so that everyone can understand what I'm pointing to, if not, then please ask me to clarify.
Please clarify. Specifically, could you explain the train of reasoning that leads from 'I think' to 'Therefore god exists', to paraphrase Descartes. He tried and failed.
Dontaskme wrote:I'm trying to point to something that you may not have thought about before...
I have a reasonable knowledge of the last two and a half thousand years of western philosophy and some familiarity with Chinese and Indian philosophy; there are very few ideas that I haven't at least considered.
Dontaskme wrote:I'm in no way forcing you to believe what I say. So hope you stay aboard this discussion.
I'm game if you are.
Dontaskme wrote:I happen to be very passionate about teaching others that they are the embodiment of truth love and justice and that they are eternal life and no one can take that away from them ever...especially the devil...but of course you do not have to believe that, you heard?
Sounds suspiciously like an agenda.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote:No. As I said, there may well be an "absolute mind", but you haven't made any connection between the fact that you and I have 'minds' and it. This is the premise that you have built your narrative around, and while you may have a perfectly coherent story based on that premise, the fact that the story 'makes sense' doesn't make it true.
Sorry for the drama queen thing, I was only projecting a quality that is my belief. We are all actors on the stage. Our job is not to take the character in the play seriously, but to take the one playing that character seriously.


I'm suggesting it is impossible to have an individual mind. BUT for any idea to come up at all does require a mind. So there has to be ONE ABSOLUTE MIND ..and that is what's known as God...what God is.

So if you believe in your personal ''experience'' of self as ever happening, then you can only know that if there is AN ABSOLUTE RATIONAL ALL KNOWING CONSCIENTIOUS MIND THAT IS ALL PERVADING. ?

And it is this one that is making your personal ''experience'' possible? ... that is the connection, this one is in relationship with you...as and through your body mechanism experience, the knowing of which is coming from self to self...from self to itself.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote:So what is an example of these "objective truths"?
An objective truth is when we all agree, not just a few of us,all of us what is morally right and just and what is not morally right and just.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote: It makes perfect sense, if you happen to believe that Jesus existed and promised what you say he promised, and that the trinity accurately describes reality. The thing is, people have a habit of accepting one or two basic premises: god exists; the bible is true, for example, and then creating an entire narrative to support those premises. So people might deal with the problem of evil by insisting it is necessary for free will.
But you can say that about every human narrative, who's story are we to believe to be true, the narrative spoken, or the one speaking the narrative?

Jesus the man is reported to have been a true bona-fide real historical character that lived and breathed a physical existence like you and me. That evidence was recorded in the gospels of M M L & J who's authors bore actual I witness testimony to his presence as a physical human being.Who is there alive today that can refute that truth? ...no one of course ...so if the real I witness of Jesus was not telling the truth, then that makes a complete and utter mockery of the human justice system in the courts of law, as we swear oath to tell the truth on the bible of the only one reliable witness.

The question you must ask yourself, how can we refute the claim that Jesus was either just a fictional character or a real character unless we were physically there at the time seeing him with our own eyes?
To not believe is based purely on your own heresy as to whether he did or not. And here's the rub, we are taught to believe only in things that are based on real I witness accounts as evidenced according to science, so unless we were there to witness his life in person then there is no ground to doubt in his existence.

And if Jesus was telling the truth about him being the eternal one in finite body then there can be no doubt in our mind that that is the absolute truth. No one who was not there can take that away...

We can only doubt, and if we doubt truth how are we ever to find it? we can only find it by going to the direct source of truth by living that truth, the truth that Jesus preached to us as the truth...and then see for ourselves..

We can ignore it, if that's what we want, and live in ignorance, it's up to us, but want sort of a life would that be, if we ignored the truth, what sort of a world do we want for ourselves and for our children to live and grow up in.?
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote: Please clarify. Specifically, could you explain the train of reasoning that leads from 'I think' to 'Therefore god exists', to paraphrase Descartes. He tried and failed
Okay, I'm going to clarify.

If there is no ABSOLUTE RATIONAL JUST CONSCIENTIOUS MIND....AKA God.

Then thinking can go it's own way and make up it's own mind as to what is right and wrong.

For example: ... if I thought that being a good person was the only way to live life, that would be my just right to have that belief because I thought about this, I authored this belief myself with my own separate mind...it's my belief only.


So if someone else decides their belief is to have the right to go around killing innocent people, children, and animals because they are the thinker and author of their own mind then no one can deny them that belief, no other person can say their belief is morally wrong.

The one believing that it is okay to kill others is entitled to that judgement call, it's their mind...to deny them that would be to allow them to deny your belief that by being good is the right way...so we then just end up living in an unjust world...is that what we really want? if so..what's the point of living, why do we go on living for?

If we were the authors of our own beliefs then could we live a life like that? where is it okay to go around killing innocent people because that is what we believe to be the right thing to do?

Do you see what I'm getting at?
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by uwot »

Dontaskme wrote:I'm suggesting it is impossible to have an individual mind.
So I gather. You may be right, but you haven't given any reason for thinking so. As I said, the story you have created based on this idea of yours may be coherent, it may even be beautiful, but if you cannot tell us why you think it is impossible to have an individual mind, there is no reason to treat your story as anything but a work of fiction.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:I'm suggesting it is impossible to have an individual mind.
So I gather. You may be right, but you haven't given any reason for thinking so. As I said, the story you have created based on this idea of yours may be coherent, it may even be beautiful, but if you cannot tell us why you think it is impossible to have an individual mind, there is no reason to treat your story as anything but a work of fiction.
Bingo!


Now go back and read through all my post carefully, I have given all my reason there in detail why it is impossible for an individual mind to exist.

God is not what you think it is.

Have you the fictional character ever seen a MIND...it is just a fictional belief...appearing real...and that is who you are, the real fictional character.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by uwot »

Dontaskme wrote:Now go back and read through all my post carefully, I have given all my reason there in detail why it is impossible for an individual mind to exist.
Well, there's this:
"I'm suggesting it is impossible to have an individual mind. BUT for any idea to come up at all does require a mind. So there has to be ONE ABSOLUTE MIND ..and that is what's known as God...what God is."
Ideas are not logically dependent on minds, unless you are equating ideas with minds. That's a bit abstruse, but nonetheless true; so your second premise, while it may be contingently true, it isn't necessarily true. In other words, it probably is the case, but it could still be that we are simply disembodied ideas floating around with no connection to what may, in fact, be an illusory body and/or mind.
Worse than that not being a sound premise; there is absolutely no logical connection between it and your conclusion. You simply haven't given any reason to conclude that there is one absolute mind.
You also present a version of divine command theory, which you summarise thus:
"If we were the authors of our own beliefs then could we live a life like that? where is it okay to go around killing innocent people because that is what we believe to be the right thing to do?"
Despite its popularity (William Lane Craig and our very own Mr Can think it is decisive) it is a completely hopeless waste of logic.
Dontaskme wrote:God is not what you think it is.
I have no idea what god is and don't really think it is anything; though my best guess is that it is fictional.
Dontaskme wrote:Have you the fictional character ever seen a MIND...it is just a fictional belief...appearing real...and that is who you are, the real fictional character.
I have already said that the only thing that is certain is that there are experiences and that everything else is theory laden. In other words (again); I fully accept that the material world I take to be the cause of my experience could be a fiction. You, I gather, think you have some reason for believing so, but, while your story might seem compelling to you, you still have not given any reason to suppose your premise is sound.
Try again: Why must there be one absolute mind?
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

uwot wrote: Try again: Why must there be one absolute mind?
Okie Dokie..will try again.

I have in the past described the one absolute mind as awareness. We can call oneness anything we like. In the context a rose by any other name is still a rose.

Now, we all have awareness, yet what arises in that is different for all of us. But we cannot deny that the awareness in you is the same awareness in me, and the same awareness that is in a cat or an ant.

Now, lets call this awareness another name, lets call it the Sun... The Sun can exist without shadows, but shadows can't exist without the Sun. The same with evil, evil cannot exist without an objective standard of good, hence proving the existence of an absolute God / awareness.

The fact that real evil does exist is actually proof of an objective good - and the fact that objective good exist is proof that God does exist. Evil is not a thing that stands on it's own, but rather the lack of another thing (good). For example, shadows dont exist on their own, it's only the lack of sunlight.

If there was no God aka this absolute all pervading eternal infinite all knowing awareness aka unconditional LOVE/LIGHT... then it wouldn't matter if we choose to be a mass murderer or a mother teresa..we can do what ever we want because we're all just going to end up in the fertilizer pit anyway, so it wouldn't matter what we do...there would be no higher conscience guiding us, we would have no innate knowing of a higher purpose for living... if we are just temporal beings with no purpose other than to become worm fodder at death...then what's the point of any values or morals...where do they come from, and why do they exist?

Can humans live that way? without a higher conscience?
All the evidence points to one as co-creators of something that created us..where we can build amazing things like jumbo jets and skyscrapers is the evidence of a creative mind...one that has created man in it's image...and existed prior to us as a human being.

Notice that animals do not build jumbo jets like we can. The fact that we can is proof of a mind that must have always existed, and the human body is one of it's creations...and the human is the minds co-creator.

In other words we don't have a mind ..we are the mind.

The human is not the experiencer of life, the human is an experience of life.


The flow of this embodied mind can be cut off at the death of the body, but not the source of the body mind. In the same context, the light bulbs light can be switched off or on, but the electricity powering that light is still present.

The mind is the invisible absolute ONE.. embodied as the visible/physical...The relative many

The relative mind cannot know the absolute in the sense a shadow cannot know the sun ..for the shadows existence is known only by the sun.
The absolute knows the relative because it's known only to the absolute. That which is known cannot know anything, for the knowing is coming straight from the knower source which is the absolute.


Sorry if this sounds very convoluted ..it's something that cannot be taught, it's within the person to see this for them self, to have that aha moment. I've only got the signpost to hold up...but you have to make the journey to what it points to..I can't make that for you or show you the final destination.That would make for a very long long long philosophical discussion. I would probably be dead before I could even get anywhere near a completion of making this an understanding we can grasp at the drop of a hat. It takes a lot of unravelling of old belief systems to reach the heart centre where it meets the mind. Until then, it's never the twain shall meet, but hopefully the gap is starting to close.



.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote:
Immanuel Can wrote: Now, if we concede for argument's sake that we Christians could be right about that, that would change the equation radically. We'd no longer be at sea about the groundwork of morality.

But if Christians are right, it also won't matter whether skeptics concede it or not. It will still be true, either way. And if they are not, then it will mean we're back at sea...all of us.
Belinda wrote: "If Christians are right" .Christians are partly right, and the ones who don't quite 'get it' are the literalists who are unable to understand the use of myth.
From that point, you go off topic, so perhaps we should return to the matter in hand. If what the literalists say is true, we have a solid grounds for morality. If what they say is merely mythical, then we do not. Myths are not sufficient grounds for morality, for a couple of obvious reasons:

1. Most obviously, they're fictional. :shock:

2. Secondarily, if they have any "mythic" quality, as opposed to mere fictionality, then they must be drawn from some real-world archetype...and that archetype must represent some reality beneath all things. So we would need to say what that "real" thing at the bottom of the archetype, and hence of the myth, really is. Absent that, we're not dealing with a real "myth" at all, but a mere fiction.

3. Myths are always optional. If one does not believe in them, or find them resonant, one is no longer under obligation to practice whatever they enjoin. Any duty to follow a mythical pattern is derivative. So again, we're back to the problem of #2.

The upshot is that there is no value to viewing at thing as a "myth" unless we can meet the challenge of #2, and the deontological burden of challenge #3.

Again, the literalist has the goods, but the "mythologizer" of the same material is empty- handed.

At sea again.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Belinda »

DontAskMe wrote:
But we cannot deny that the awareness in you is the same awareness in me, and the same awareness that is in a cat or an ant.
We can deny it!

It is true enough that humans, cats, and ants are aware. Each individual human, cat, or ant is aware of its own experience, which differs from individual to individual.The awareness of you and me, DontAskMe, is not the same awareness . You are not aware of very much that I am aware of, and I am not aware of most of what you are aware of. Cats and ants are aware of wondrous experiences that you and I can only guess at.

There is no such animal or vegetable as awareness. Awareness is an abstract idea. Awareness does not exist except as idea. Many humans can conceptualise awareness but cats and ants cannot conceptualise awareness. Just because we have a word ' awareness' doesn't mean that awareness exists.

*********************************************

Immanuel Can, it's ignorant to say "merely myth". Important myths reveal foundation world views of a people at some specific time. Some myths are so durably meaningful that they last for centuries and can explain the foundation beliefs of different peoples. The human condition arguably is the same for all humans, and the best myths describe the human condition.

If you persist in conflating history and myth you will get into worse and worse problems of faith in proportion as historical knowledge increases.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dubious »

Belinda wrote:...conflating history and myth you will get into worse and worse problems of faith in proportion as historical knowledge increases.
Speaking of which, this documentary is quite interesting in making more sense of the Gospels expanding the historical context when all this takes place.

One of the most interesting aspects is that Christ did not enter Jerusalem at Passover but 6 months earlier on the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnNhNscbrI
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Dontaskme »

Belinda wrote:
We can deny it!

It is true enough that humans, cats, and ants are aware. Each individual human, cat, or ant is aware of its own experience, which differs from individual to individual.The awareness of you and me, DontAskMe, is not the same awareness . You are not aware of very much that I am aware of, and I am not aware of most of what you are aware of. Cats and ants are aware of wondrous experiences that you and I can only guess at.

There is no such animal or vegetable as awareness. Awareness is an abstract idea. Awareness does not exist except as idea. Many humans can conceptualise awareness but cats and ants cannot conceptualise awareness. Just because we have a word ' awareness' doesn't mean that awareness exists.
All words are abstract conceptual ideas...even the word human, no human exists apart from the idea..where do ideas come from I've no idea.

However..

We cannot deny that we are aware...it's a concept known. We cannot deny that it does not exist. Yes, it exists as an abstract concept, but some knower has to be prior to the concept known that knows every concept as it arises in the instantaneous moment. This All knowing is instantaneous in the moment one with the knowing which is awareness.

That knower is everything which is nothing. There is nothing looking out through your eyes. That same nothing is looking out through my eyes. . . and is the same nothing looking through the eye of every sentient creature.It is an energetic boundless free energy looking at it self.

Cats and ants dont know they are concepts, they live from a state of pure tacit awareness... humans are a concept known by the mind, which is an aspect of awareness ...relative of the absolute. The absolute experiences itself as this immediate knowing..knowing itself as and through the body mind mechanism...a concept / image known only to the absolute...as an image of it.

The human is not the knower, the mind is the knower. All thoughts, feelings, ideas,beliefs, sensations, world-views, arise as different expressions of the mind, they are merely appearances of the one same aware mind...a human is an experience of that mind, not the experiencer, the experiencer is the mind.

Humans are made in the image of GOD..aka the mind, aka a concept known by the mind which is unknowable, but known in the concept as it arises one with the knowing... a mind is not human, the human is a concept known by the mind which is unknowable.

.Life is a fiction appearing real. . . as the concepts are believed to exist as literal things in and of them selves by a mind that has never been seen.

Quite an amazing illusion....not that different to the video game the sims.
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Re: If God is so merciful, then why did Jesus have to be sacrificed?

Post by Immanuel Can »

Belinda wrote: Immanuel Can, it's ignorant to say "merely myth". Important myths reveal foundation world views of a people at some specific time.
Yeah, that's anthropologists rubbish, the sort of nonsense that Jung and Eliade spouted. I've seen what they have to say, and there's no reason for buying any of that. This is really old stuff, like Fraser's "Golden Bough" and all that -- it's been debunked decades ago. And honestly, when they talk about "myth" and their "secret meanings," or "archetypes," I think their 'discipline' is operating only one step above alchemy on the scale of "scientific" thought. It's certainly neither systematic nor verifiable by normal scientific methods. It's their own form of myth-making, really.

Now, the truth is that some myths are just fictions. And a few, but only a few , are attempts to articulate a deeper truth. But whenever someone calls something a "myth" in this second sense (as you have here) they need to say what "deep truth" that "myth" attempts to articulate. So we should see if you can explain the "foundational world view" that accounts for the alleged "mythic" significance of the crucifixion, no?

Meanwhile, we should keep in the backs of our minds that the historicity of the crucifixion in no longer in any serious historical doubt, since the old theories that attempt to "explain" it with reference to alternate narratives have all been thoroughly debunked, and the positive historical attestation for it we have is better than almost any event in ancient history.

So much for it being a "myth," I would say.
Some myths are so durably meaningful..
And some are not. So?
...that they last for centuries and can explain the foundation beliefs of different peoples.
Great! Well, what is this universal "mythic" explanation for the crucifixion? Have you one, or were you just speaking generally, not of this particular case?
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