The really BIG miracles of Jesus

Robert Tulip · Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:58 pm


	stahrwe wrote: If one works hard enough one can make a connection to anything, the old 7 degress of separation applied to the Bible. Too bad that the energy is wasted making connections which cannot be defended. The Bible contains few references to the constellations, and if anything seems to prefer to ignore them. To extract from the Gospels what was a 'lesser' miracle and construct a whole fiction around it is sad, especially as Jesus explains the miracle. One is reminded of the apocryphal quote attributed to Freud that, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

How much 'energy is wasted' by Christians who assert that Jesus Christ breaks the laws of physics? It is a cruel hoax and totally unethical to assert that miracles are possible. No wonder Christianity is a laughing stock among all sensible and rational people, when its advocates insist on banging their heads against the wall of claiming an obsolete fiction is fact. Supernaturalism is an outmoded form of thought, incompatible with scientific evidence. Christians have to develop natural explanations for their beliefs or they will just keep getting loopier.

The reference here to Freud is something to work with though, since it opens the psychological problems of why people believe absurd claims, and how they justify false belief through methods such as projection, transference, symbolism, etc. Most creationists would not want to start quoting Freud as the beginning of dialogue is the end of delusion. Stahrwe implies, using his refined skills of Freudian psychoanalysis, that the loaves and fishes are just loaves and fishes, ie that Jesus Christ took two fish and five loaves and fed 5000 men and their families and had enough left over to fill twelve baskets, and then yelled at his disciples because they did not understand the meaning of this miracle. End of story. This 'lesser' miracle appears in all four gospels, twice in some, which is more than you can say for the resurrection which is not explicitly in the gospel of Mark.

stahrwe · Wed Sep 15, 2010 8:56 am

Robert Tulip wrote:


	stahrwe wrote: If one works hard enough one can make a connection to anything, the old 7 degress of separation applied to the Bible. Too bad that the energy is wasted making connections which cannot be defended. The Bible contains few references to the constellations, and if anything seems to prefer to ignore them. To extract from the Gospels what was a 'lesser' miracle and construct a whole fiction around it is sad, especially as Jesus explains the miracle. One is reminded of the apocryphal quote attributed to Freud that, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

How much 'energy is wasted' by Christians who assert that Jesus Christ breaks the laws of physics? It is a cruel hoax and totally unethical to assert that miracles are possible. No wonder Christianity is a laughing stock among all sensible and rational people, when its advocates insist on banging their heads against the wall of claiming an obsolete fiction is fact. Supernaturalism is an outmoded form of thought, incompatible with scientific evidence. Christians have to develop natural explanations for their beliefs or they will just keep getting loopier.

The reference here to Freud is something to work with though, since it opens the psychological problems of why people believe absurd claims, and how they justify false belief through methods such as projection, transference, symbolism, etc. Most creationists would not want to start quoting Freud as the beginning of dialogue is the end of delusion. Stahrwe implies, using his refined skills of Freudian psychoanalysis, that the loaves and fishes are just loaves and fishes, ie that Jesus Christ took two fish and five loaves and fed 5000 men and their families and had enough left over to fill twelve baskets, and then yelled at his disciples because they did not understand the meaning of this miracle. End of story. This 'lesser' miracle appears in all four gospels, twice in some, which is more than you can say for the resurrection which is not explicitly in the gospel of Mark.

If BT members would even agree to do a reading of the Bible, book by book your concerns about Mark would be addressed.

Your above post is a bit petulent. Quoting Freud, apochryphal though it may be is not the same as subscribing to his theories, which I do not. That, not-withstanding, you finally got it right that the loaves and fishes were only loaves and fishes and that the only thing His followers did not undserstand was His power. The idea that there was some hidden meaning related to Great Years and Equinoxes is indefensible. Out of curiosity, was there anyone in the first century who would have understood that concept?

Azrael · Wed Sep 15, 2010 5:35 pm

What concern should we have? I do not think bad literature is a real concern to us.

Robert Tulip · Thu Sep 16, 2010 3:00 pm


	stahrwe wrote: you finally got it right that the loaves and fishes were only loaves and fishes and that the only thing His followers did not undserstand was His power. The idea that there was some hidden meaning related to Great Years and Equinoxes is indefensible. Out of curiosity, was there anyone in the first century who would have understood that concept?

Hello again Stahrwe, you have misread my comment. I am saying the loaves and fishes are allegories for stars and planets. I will soon start a new thread on Stars in the Bible as this goes beyond the topic here of the miracles of Jesus and presents the basis for a major paradigm shift in Biblical studies.

The question of when the Great Year was first understood is highly controversial. Orthodox opinion holds that the Great Year was discovered by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in about 150 BC when he compared the observed position of the star Spica in Virgo to the position marked on old Babylonian star charts. However, an alternate view, in my opinion the truth, is that the Great Year was a central theme for esoteric wisdom in the ancient world, but was communicated only by secret oral tradition within mystery societies. This is the view advanced by writers such as WB Yeats in his book A Vision, by HP Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, by D Ulansey in The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries, and by Ralph Ellis in Thoth - Architect of the Universe, among others. The secret oral traditions of the mysteries proved vulnerable to extinction when pagan star wisdom was targeted for destruction by Christianity. Hence we only have fragmentary sources for this hypothesis, including, as I now assert, consistent coded references in the Bible. This claim of a lost wisdom of the Great Year is consistent with the evidence, while conventional Christianity is totally inconsistent with evidence, as it depends on literal reading of impossible miraculous tales. It is rather absurd to claim that Egypt and Babylon worshiped the stars for millennia and built highly accurate stone star clocks, but did not notice precession and had to be told of it by the later piratical slave empire of Greece.

I think what we cannot easily comprehend is the depth of racism that informed the Greco-Roman world, with its use of 'barbarian' to describe all the ancient civilizations whose language sounded like 'bar bar'. The racist European attitude held that other cultures were stupid and inferior and deserved only to be slaves, so barbarian ideas were not worth listening to. However, Plato disagreed, expressing high deference towards Egyptian wisdom, and we have the great mystery of how the so-called primitive savages of Egypt built the great pyramids, feats of architecture that remain unrivalled in their technical accomplishment and astronomical insight.

I mention this problem of European racism because it continues to inform orthodox Christian theology, which arrogantly sets itself above nature and above all cultures who recognise that humanity lives within nature. The claim that Jesus performed miracles is intrinsically racist and false in its historic application, demeaning the true ancient wisdom that sees miracles as allegories for deep natural truth.

stahrwe · Fri Sep 17, 2010 10:36 am


	Robert Tulip wrote: I mention this problem of European racism because it continues to inform orthodox Christian theology, which arrogantly sets itself above nature and above all cultures who recognise that humanity lives within nature. The claim that Jesus performed miracles is intrinsically racist and false in its historic application, demeaning the true ancient wisdom that sees miracles as allegories for deep natural truth.

How is the claim that Jesus performed miracles racist?

Interbane · Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:00 pm

Because god wanted him to be caucasian, so neener neener to all them asians! The savior was my race, not your race!

stahrwe · Fri Sep 17, 2010 1:43 pm


	Interbane wrote: Because god wanted him to be caucasian, so neener neener to all them asians! The savior was my race, not your race!

Trying to answer what race Jesus was is problematic. If by caucasian you intend to mean Western European that is most assuredly wrong.

Azrael · Fri Sep 17, 2010 3:55 pm

stahrwe wrote:


	Interbane wrote: Because god wanted him to be caucasian, so neener neener to all them asians! The savior was my race, not your race!

Trying to answer what race Jesus was is problematic. If by caucasian you intend to mean Western European that is most assuredly wrong.

I have to agree with you. Did I just agree with stahrwe? Oh hell, I better see a doctor first thing in the morning I am sick. As with anything relating to Jesus his race would be problematic though we in all likely hood know he was Jewish supposedly.

Robert Tulip · Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:21 pm

stahrwe wrote:


	Robert Tulip wrote: I mention this problem of European racism because it continues to inform orthodox Christian theology, which arrogantly sets itself above nature and above all cultures who recognise that humanity lives within nature. The claim that Jesus performed miracles is intrinsically racist and false in its historic application, demeaning the true ancient wisdom that sees miracles as allegories for deep natural truth.

How is the claim that Jesus performed miracles racist?

Let me explain. When the Greek and Roman empires overran the lands of the Middle East, they regarded people of the ancient cultures of those regions with racist disdain. As explained in the barbarian wiki thread that I linked in my quoted post:


	Quote: The Greeks used the term [barbarian] as they encountered scores of different foreign cultures, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes, Celts, Germans, Phoenicians, Etruscans, Macedonians, and Carthaginians. It, in fact, became a common term to refer to all foreigners. However in various occasions, the term was also used by Greeks, especially the Athenians, to deride other Greek tribes and states (such as Epirotes, Eleans and Aeolic-speakers) in a pejorative and politically motivated manner. Of course, the term also carried a cultural dimension to its dual meaning.[4][5] The verb βαρβαρίζειν (barbarízein) in ancient Greek meant imitating the linguistic sounds non-Greeks made or making grammatical errors in Greek. Plato (Statesman 262de) rejected the Greek–barbarian dichotomy as a logical absurdity on just such grounds: dividing the world into Greeks and non-Greeks told one nothing about the second group. In Homer's works, the term appeared only once (Iliad 2.867), in the form βάρβαροΦώνος (barbarophonos) ("of incomprehensible speech"), used of the Carians fighting for Troy during the Trojan War. In general, the concept of barbaros did not figure largely in archaic literature before the 5th century BC. Still it has been suggested that "barbarophonoi" in the Iliad signifies not those who spoke a non-Greek language but simply those who spoke Greek badly. A change occurred in the connotations of the word after the Greco-Persian Wars in the first half of the 5th century BC. Here a hasty coalition of Greeks defeated the vast Achaemenid Empire. Indeed in the Greek of this period 'barbarian' is often used expressly to mean Persian. In the well-known opening sentence of his account of that war, Herodotus gives the following statements as his reason for writing: To the end that (...) the works, great and marvellous, which have been produced some by Hellenes and some by Barbarians, may not lose their renown; and especially that the causes may be remembered for which these waged war with one another. This clearly implies an equality: both Hellenes and barbarians are capable of producing "great and marvelous works" and both are deserving of being remembered. Nevertheless, in the wake of this victory, Greeks began to see themselves as superior militarily, politically, and culturally. A stereotype developed in which hardy Greeks live as free men in city-states where politics are a communal possession, whereas among the womanish barbarians everyone beneath the Great King is no better than his slave. Slavery in Greece A parallel factor was the growth of chattel slavery especially at Athens. Although enslavement of Greeks for non-payment of debt continued in most Greek states, it was banned at Athens under Solon in the early 6th century BC. Under the Athenian democracy established ca. 508 BC slavery came to be used on a scale never before seen among the Greeks. Massive concentrations of slaves were worked under especially brutal conditions in the silver mines at Laureion—a major vein of silver-bearing ore was found there in 483 BC—while the phenomenon of skilled slave craftsmen producing manufactured goods in small factories and workshops became increasingly common. Furthermore, slaves were no longer the preserve of the rich: all but the poorest of Athenian households came to have slaves to supplement the work of their free members. Overwhelmingly, the slaves of Athens were "barbarian" in origin, drawn especially from lands around the Black Sea such as Thrace and Taurica (Crimea), while from Asia Minor came above all Lydians, Phrygians and Carians. Aristotle (Politics 1.2-7; 3.14) even states that barbarians are slaves by nature.

So, the cultural environment of Biblical times saw a new domination by European whites who behaved as lords and enslaved any member of a 'lesser' race they could capture. Caligula sought to put his statue in the temple at Jerusalem, and this attitude of racist superiority was a big factor in causing the Jewish revolts. As the Gospels were written, my view is there was an original story that was steeped in ancient eastern cosmic wisdom. However, this esoteric secret tradition was incomprehensible to mundane imperial society. In order to gain traction for the Jesus story in mundane imperial culture, the old story was gradually adapted from a cosmic parable to a literal historical miracle.

Where the racism enters the picture is that when the Roman Empire appropriated Christianity to establish Christendom, they interpreted the Bible according to their imperial racist precept that only one simple and comprehensible interpretation was allowed, the literal historical text. Because Romans viewed themselves as racially superior, they saw any claim they did not understand (eg astrotheology) through bigoted eyes. This racist view regarded the older cosmic wisdom with contempt and disdain, and sought to obliterate it from the face of the earth through a largely successful effort of cultural genocide. The success of the racist attacks was so great that it produced an amnesia within Christian society, who came to view their received imperial opinions as universal and absolute, rather than as what they are in reality, the corrupt and degenerate fragments of a former coherent story of salvation.

So nowadays, when people hold to a literal reading of Biblical miracles, they do not realise how they are heirs to a racist imperial tradition that sought to crush the cosmic vision that stands at the foundation of the Gospels. With the decline of Christendom, and its attitude that black people are 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' as described at Joshua 9, the anti-racist content of the Gospels has become more prominent and acceptable. However, there remains a strongly tribal imperial content to Christian cultural assumptions. The argument 'our religion did things that are impossible, therefore it is better than yours' has been a source of much bigotry, for example with Calvin's wild slurs against allegorical reading of scripture. Of course people are careful to use the dog whistle in discussing such matters, couching essentially racist arguments in non-racial terms, while ensuring their discriminatory intent is understood by the audience.

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