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Moderator
Moderator
06-30-2002
| Friday, January 28, 2005 - 9:34 am
Okay, folks, let's chill out and just agree to disagree politely. All opinions are welcome, but let's not cross into making it personal. RA
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Marysafan
Member
08-07-2000
| Monday, January 31, 2005 - 11:14 am
When I finished reading the book, someone asked me if I thought there was any truth to it. I said that historically speaking, I thought it was in the realm of possibility. Now whether I believe it to be true or not is a whole other can of worms. I am no longer certain what "truth" is. I don't know why we believe what we do...and I don't think there has been sufficient research to figure it out at this time. Why do some of us think blue is a pretty color and brown isn't? What makes something true? I was born into a French Canadian family. My roots go long way back into Catholicism. I went to church every Sunday and Catechism every Saturday morning. I was raised "right." Yet, one Sunday while in church, it came to me, that I know longer held the teachings of the church to be true. Simply put...I no longer believed...and not just a couple of things relating to doctrine...but a lot of things. It wasn't something that I logically thought out. It certainly wasn't something that I wanted to happen. I was a very good child, obediant, trusting, and always trying to do the right thing...but I could not accept the teachings put before me as "truth". I knew it would be very disappointing to my parents and my grandparents and as I was one who wanted very much to please my parents and especially my grandparents, this was devastating to me. What was wrong with me that I couldn't believe like everyone else? It isn't a matter of wanting to believe or not wanting to believe. I DID want to believe...I just couldn't. I couldn't believe the things they were telling me no more than I could believe that Santa Clause came down the chimney. I TRIED to believe. I WANTED to believe. I just couldn't. I no longer believe that "believing" is a choice. There is more to it. I just don't know what. I don't think I'm alone. If people do believe and I am certain that there are millions that do...just as I am certain that there are millions that believe blue is a pretty color and brown isn't...but that doesn't mean that I can chose to be one of them by reading the bible making a decision. It's more visceral than that. At least for me. At this point, it's beyond my understanding. I tried taking the quiz at the link that Max provided, but I didn't get the results. I really liked taking the quiz though because it allowed me to take an inventory of where I am now in what I "believe."
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Max
Member
08-12-2000
| Monday, January 31, 2005 - 12:29 pm
Marysafan, I get what you're saying. Belief is, for some, following what they are taught. For othes, it's as you said, a visceral feeling that is either there or not. Your analogy of liking one color and not another is a good one. What do you mean you didn't get the results of the belief quiz? Did they not show up when you finished the test or did you not understand what you saw? Just curious. Glad you enjoyed answering the questions. I think it's a valuable thing to look at that quiz now and then to refresh ones perspective on where we are on the "belief" scale. Micah 6:8 (NIV): "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

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Marysafan
Member
08-07-2000
| Monday, January 31, 2005 - 12:34 pm
Max...for some reason when I clicked on the results link...it just didn't come up.
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Newman
Member
09-25-2004
| Thursday, February 03, 2005 - 10:46 pm
Back to The DaVinci Code...the part that got a lot of attention was that Jesus could have been married to Mary Magdeleine and had a daughter together. That seemed very interesting to me. The way it was explained was very logical. Jewish men during that time were almost always married. Jesus was Jewish. Why wouldn't he have been married? The Bible was written by men, not divinely written. What went into the Bible (as we know it today) was a political decision. Didn't the book say that Constantine was responsible for eliminating The Book of Mary as one of the gospels? Was Jesus just a man who had a good philosophy or did he really "rise from the dead" in 3 days? I think "The Church" decided to go with the latter, because people fear death, and want life ever after. People want to believe.
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Tashakinz
Member
11-13-2002
| Friday, February 04, 2005 - 7:37 am
fear is an excellent movitator...
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Tashakinz
Member
11-13-2002
| Friday, February 25, 2005 - 5:06 pm
I finally finished "Holy Blood Holy Grail" It read something like the bible in that the first half was all about who was related to who and who was married to who in Europe and how they possibly descended from Jewish settlers/refugees. The second half was the academic deconstruction of the gospels. A truly fascinating piece of logic and deductive reasoning. If you enjoyed TDC and are interested in the basis of the particular Grail legends discussed in that book, I highly recommend HBHG, even though the first half is a bit tough to get through.
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Newman
Member
09-25-2004
| Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - 6:45 am
Isn't that the beauty of TDC? It reads well. Not a chore. Not a snoozer. I picked up some book, from the library, not sure of the title, which tries to counter the theories set forth in TDC. As Rumsfeld would say, it's a hard slog. Result being, I probably won't read much of it. Does Holy Blood agree with TDC? My feeling is this. The Bible was a political decision. Some books were included. Some left out. All were written about the same time. The ones that were included promoted the idea that Jesus was divine, rose after he was crucified, thereby promising life ever after.
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Tashakinz
Member
11-13-2002
| Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - 8:44 am
Newman: HBHG lays out the most likely academic explanations (that I've seen so far) for cohesing the timeline of the historical Jesus (whose real name purportedly was Yeshua according to another source) with the biblical Jesus. Only a small portion of the focus is on whether or not he was married. They do make a good case for why they believe he was, who he was married to, and even speculate that the wedding in Cana (sp) was his own. i.e, for the historical Jesus to have been a Rabbi, marriage would have been a requirement. The rest of it has more to do with when the gospels were written, re-written and why the they whitewashed the Romans' role and vilified the Jews' role. His later followers were selling the religion to the Romans and therefore had to make it palatable to their target audience. It wouldn't have been good for business if they were telling the Romans that they were to blame for executing a messiah. It also lists in the footnotes the actual vote for and against the deification of Jesus by the Nicene Council in the 4th century. It was something like 215 for and 2 against. Fascinating stuff. They also lay out an interesting hypothesis about whether or not the crucifiction actually resulted in the historical Jesus' death. Again, fascinating stuff. Bribing officials and so on. You wouldn't be out too much if you skipped the first parts of the book. Especially if you're familiar with the Knights Templar, the Masons and their histories. While the first part was a slog, the overall work made for very interesting reading.
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Newman
Member
09-25-2004
| Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - 7:37 pm
Tash, Thanks for the info. I'm going to try to find the Holy Blood Holy Grail book in the library. Sounds exactly what I'm looking for.
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