What do you REALLY believe?

[Cramulus]

you know - I'm surprised that out of 131 votes, there's ZERO Christians, Jews, or Muslims in the mix.

[Epimetheus]

you know - I'm surprised that out of 131 votes, there's ZERO Christians, Jews, or Muslims in the mix.

it's either a weird anomaly, or we produce some powerful peer pressure.

[Kai]

Does going to Catholic mass weekly count?

[Cramulus]

not unless you REALLY believe it

[Iason Ouabache]

you know - I'm surprised that out of 131 votes, there's ZERO Christians, Jews, or Muslims in the mix.

I'm not going to say that it is impossible to believe in the Abrahamic God and be a Discordian at the same time, but the cognitive dissonance would be enough to send anyone to the looney bin. Christianity is all about submitting to an all powerful Father figure. Not exactly something that meshes well with Discordianism.

[Cain]

Though some interpretations of Jesus posit he was a master of O:MF

One school of biblical study reads many of Jesus' most famous and apparently submissive aphorisms as sophisticated XanatosGambits for the exploited to use against their exploiters, without resorting to violence. Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers cites three such examples:

    * Give the undergarment (giving the shirt off your back). In Jesus' time, a creditor could sue a debtor for the debtor's outer garment if they had no other means of paying. Obviously, a person would have to be very poor if they could only afford to pay off their debts with their outer robes. Now Jesus, viewing poverty as an unjust, socially created phenomenon, counseled resistance. If any of his poor followers were sued for their outer garment, he advised them to give it and their undergarment to their creditor. This would be shaming for them, but even more so to the creditor, the cause of their nakedness, and would illustrate the injustice of a system which humiliated its victims in such a fasion.
    * Walk the extra mile. Under Roman law, Roman soldiers were allowed to order citizens to carry their (very heavy) packs for them while marching, but only for one mile. The penalties for soldiers who forced citizens to carry the packs further than one mile were stiff. Jesus told his followers that if a soldier forced them to carry his pack for a mile, they should offer to carry further. This leaves the soldier in a bit of a dilemma. He doesn't know how to respond.
    * Turn The Other Cheek. Jesus said "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." In the Middle East, the left hand was never used for touching another person. Therefore, the only way someone could strike you on the right cheek was with a backhanded blow, as from a superior to an inferior, rather than a slap or punch, which was reserved for equals. Jesus, radical egalitarian that he was, wanted his followers to resist such attempts to "put them in their place." By turning the left cheek on the aggressor, a victim forced them either to deliver a punch or slap, acknowledging them as equals, or to use the left hand, which would be deeply shaming, or to back off. In any eventually, the victim has resisted being labeled an inferior.

[LMNO]

I'm tempted to go for the on some of these, but regardless, I really like those interpretations.

As to the above question, there used to be an Xtian Discordian or two here, once upon a time.

And if I had to choose one of the Big Three Gods, I'd probably become one of those Jews who spends their whole day arguing about the Bible, as that seems to be a behavior most befitting a Discordian.


Either that, or a Sufi.

[Cain]

Yeah.  They sound plausible, but I'd like a historical sociologist to verify them for sure.

Most Xtian Discordians seem to take the "Jesus as revolutionary rabble-rouser" interpretation in my experience, and usually consider most interpretation since then to be bunk (and before as well).  Its picking and choosing of course, but you could do worse.

[MMIX]

[snip]if I had to choose one of the Big Three Gods,[snip]

Curly Moe or Larry -

or are you suggesting the people of the book have corralled themselves three different deities . . .?

and did you notice how I circumcised your quote there, didya, didya?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'd be more interested in some evidence that Jesus actually existed, before determining if he was a mindfucker, a fucker or just fucked

[LMNO]

Why would that be important to you?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Why would that be important to you?

Well, until we figure out if Jesus was a real person, or a fictional entity, its rather difficult to make any conclusions about 'what he said/did'. We simply don't know if Jesus said those things, or if someone wrote them down and attributed them to Jesus at some point, or if multiple people wrote them, attributing them to Jesus... and then they got collected together.

Otherwise its all just speculation.

Personally, I went from thinking we had iron clad evidence that Jesus was a real person to thinking that we had strong evidence that he didn't exist, to my current position which is sort of a 'Fuck if I know, but the whole thing looks shady' kind of stance.

[LMNO]

Well, do we really know if Odyssyus actually existed, and did the things he did, or do we take the stories as cultural and archetypical lessons and examples?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well, do we really know if Odyssyus actually existed, and did the things he did, or do we take the stories as cultural and archetypical lessons and examples?

Well, when I read things that "Odyssyus" did, I read them with the assumption that Homer is saying X using Odyssyus as a character. The character may be based on a real person, but there is no assumption or analysis of "Who was Odyssus, why did He Says X" because we assume that whatever was said, was likely a fictional version of anything that might actually have been said by a real Odyssus. The words, phrases and views in Iliad and the Odyssey tell us about Homer.

With Jesus, we have a similar problem. We have no evidence that he existed, so we must assume that either A) He existed and the Bible contains stuff he said; B) He didn't exist and someone made all this stuff up; C) He didn't exist and multiple someones made all this stuff up, which got mixed and remixed into what we have today; D) He did exist, but the record is a hyperbole of stories from previous deities, heroes and messiah figures; E) Unknown.

To be able to say "Jesus was prankster" or "Jesus was a rabble rouser" or "Jesus was..." we need first to figure out if Jesus was at all. Otherwise, all we can talk about is a character in a story... at which point, "Jesus was a..." becomes a silly argument since we don't know if Jesus said anything at all, or if the things attributed to him came over time from multiple sources.

In my opinion, the Biblical account of Jesus appears to be pretty badly fudged. So any conclusions or arguments based on the Gospel about what Jesus 'really was' seem to be putting the cart before the horse, IMO.

[MMIX]

 . . .  my understanding is that there is quite enough non-biblical evidence to show that Jesus was a real historical character but I get a distinct vibe from your post that you would find the task disturbing  - that said . . . millions of people over two millennia have believed  in the historical Jesus as presented in the gospels both biblical and otherwise [or acted as though they believed, or pretended that they believed, or re-written to their own preference and then 'believed']. Our whole damn society, and it pretty much doesn't matter which one you belong to or which ones you descend from, is shot through with Jesusism so it really is totally irrelevant what the "truth" of the matter is, the effects of Jesus's words historical or fictional are there in plain sight for anyone to see.