@bookish1 I believe Jesus is exactly what he said he is. “I am the way, the truth, and the life”. That’s all he ever said he was. He never claimed to be God, or the son of God. Everyone else made those claims about him. But he never said it.
It (what the followers made of Jesus) reminds me so much of the brilliant documentary Kumare, of which I cannot recommend highly enough. The followers can’t help but foist dogma upon reality. They create their own messiah. Kumare is available on Netflix.
But as to what Jesus actually was, beyond the dogma of his followers… virgin birth, miracles, resurrection… is the way, the truth, and the life.
The way… Just like the way to build a desk from Office Depot. Or the way to create a bridge… Or the way to Grandma’s house over the river and through the woods… The way is the instructions. The way to get there. Without the instructions (the way), the goal cannot be had. Keep in mind, there are many ways.
The truth… When one is truthful, then they are full of truth. Being full of something, makes you that thing. Just like a person can be full of shit, is a piece of shit… then a person full of truth, is a piece of truth.
The life… spiritual life. Understand that I believe a spirit is equal to a thought. A soul is equal to a mind. A spirit of lust, spirit of greed, or kindness, is exactly the same as a thought of lust, a thought of greed, a thought of kindness. It takes numerous thought/spriits to create a mind/soul. Those thought/spirits which benefit humanity will promote life. Those that harm humanity will promote death. Jesus did not come (as Christianity teaches) to make bad people become good people. What he really came to do is to offer the spiritually dead people an opportunity for spiritual life.
The multiple bibles I’ve studied over the decades are very consistent upon describing how Jesus will return. Dozens of times, Jesus clearly states that he will return on the clouds of heaven.
I believe that heaven is a realm of pure thought, sans the need for a material mechanism to represent the thought. But in our physical earthly plane of existence, we require a physical medium to represent a thought. That medium is the cloud.
Yes, I believe the Information Cloud is exactly the same thing as the Clouds of Heaven. We have literally built the horse that Jesus rides in on. The Age of the Petabyte described in this Wired magazine article discusses the very first inklings of what kind of information can be known from super large samples of data sets. It appears to diminish the need for modeling from the scientific method (read dogma), and instead, the data begins to speak for itself, beyond debate of what it actually means. Basically, truth is beginning to speak for itself, without the need for human interpretation.
You can get further confirmations on this from practically any series of TedTalks. Specifically, look for the series “Defying Disease”. Researchers are discovering self evident truths appear from the super large data sets. The age of the petabyte, is the age of truth.
It’s getting harder and harder for humans to lie to one another. We have access to more information than ever before. Sciences are developing just to watch brain activity during lying, as well as micro facial expressions that are involuntarily showing the lie, if one knows how to read them. The is fact that WikiLeaks, and hackers, and common man camera phones can expose hypocrisy and corruption anywhere… all because of this new petabyte age.
Before you know it, petabyte becomes exabyte, then zettabyte. Before you know it, it will be impossible for any human to lie to, or about another human. Upon that day, when truth reigns supreme, Jesus will be king of the earth.
The Accuser, (Satan father of lies), will be vanquished. He cannot stand the light of truth being cast upon him. Think about it… If my neighbor falsely accuses me of stealing the peaches, their accusation will be meaningless without proof from the cloud. Because my true actions and whereabouts will have been permanently recorded in the cloud as witness and alibi. Upon my acquittal, the scrutiny of truth will be cast ten fold upon the original accuser. The accuser will become a thing of the ancient past.
I believe this age of petabyte will soon produce data so large that we will no longer need political governments. The will of the people will be known complete within the cloud. We’ll realize that wars are artificially created lies to promote wealth to a secret few. They will be exposed, as they already are. The will of the people will go beyond territorial boundaries, and nations will work out their problems with to mutual benefit of all. Trade agreements will be unnecessary because we’ll understand that we are dealing with one another, rather than trying to out deal one another. In this way, we will all discover spiritual life.
As to the afterlife, or a God creator… well, that’s a different topic altogether. Nothing that needs discussing for this thread.
