Did Jesus visit the Americas?

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This is a very informative thread, but I must take a different position. I am a firm believer in God. I am not such a firm believer in ANY of the versions of the bible today. While each will give you an interpenetration of how one should live his life, each was written by a man (or group of men). My philosophy follows that of William James, who authored "The Willingness to Believe". The very condensed version is that, in the absence of empirical proof to the contrary, a person is free to believe what he chooses.

There is a children's game called 'telegraph'. Kids sit in a line and the first one is told 'something'. Each child must then whisper what was told to him to the person sitting next to him. The result NEVER comes out the same. That is why I do not have faith in the 'facts' contained in any bible. I am not criticizing anyone's beliefs, just the 'factual' interpretation of any bible.

While many legends may have a basis in fact, the recording of them is subject to 'man's' interpretation. Teddy
 
goldsmithy said:
While many legends may have a basis in fact, the recording of them is subject to 'man's' interpretation. Teddy
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Thanks for the reply Teddy. For sure the reading of them is also subject to man's interpretations,... without any empirical proof to the contrary.

It's also interesting that philosophically,... we act on what we believe, not what we think we might know.
 
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I appreciate the courage the Knifedog Christians have in speaking what they believe. It is a character virtue.

Issues are coming up in this thread that I hadn’t expected or taken the time to really think over completely before the OP. I apologize for that.
 
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Agreed...it's not the beliefs, but it's the ACTION on those beliefs that causes all the problems. Teddy (who wonders if it's time to start a new thread)
 
I agree, but the actions on the beliefs could also help create solutions. Also, a persons actions speak to what they believe.
 
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There are good actions and bad actions. One of my favorite sayings is "You see in others what you are yourself". Of course, I have no idea who said it. I try to follow it. Teddy
 
Teddy, I tried to find who said that quote but couldn't find it exactly. Some I found were very similar, but I think it might be yours. I believe Jesus taught the same basic thing in many different ways.

"Do not kill or injure your neighbor, for it is not he that you injure; you injure yourself. Do good to him, thus adding to his days of happiness even as you then add to your own. Do not wrong or hate your neighbor; for it not he that you wrong: you wrong yourself. Rather love him, for the Great Spirit loves him, even as He loves you." The Pale Prophet (Shawnee)

John 10:16 (NIV) I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
 
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From Matthew 25: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

From John 10: Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods” ? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

If we were each to strip away, layer by layer, all the superficiality of our existences,… our bodies, our minds, our beliefs and experiences etc,… what we would find at our very core, our very souls, the very essence… is the exactly same!

We are all connected and we are all One. To me, this is the ultimate truth. God lives within each and every one of us. We are all children of God. His word is written in our hearts. No one goes to hell for eternity, unless we all go,... and this will never happen. Victory is absolute. Nothing can be added to it or taken away from it. In the end, we all return to from where we came.

"We are and you aren't" is a false doctrine.

"The One in All is the Jewel in the heart of the lotus and is my True Self."

This is what I choose to believe.
 
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I’m sorry if I offended anyone.

I don’t “know” any of these things,… just what I choose to believe.
 
Your idea of being connected reminded me about a eastern philosophy called the "I-Chang" where each of us is a simple thread in a never-ending cloth or rug. Any way, I don't think I spelled it correctly or interpreted it properly...but it works for me.

Here's another one of my favorite quotes ..."what you give away, comes back to you ten fold" Sounds like it's from some bible, but I haven't read one in years, and years. But...I find that it works very well for me.

Somewhere in a bible, somewhere, is a story about God speaking to the masses at Mt Sinai and it is said that he spoke in 600 different voices so that everyone could understand him. When I chose to believe that...God became my best friend, big brother, etc., and he has a very weird sense of humor. He's still my best friend and it's been a long time. Teddy
 
Brad Lilly said:
You can't offend me I'm a broken down ex logger with attitude, I call them as I see them
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... Sometimes I can't believe myself either, some of the crazy things I say and do... but it's just me, Tai.

Nothing I can do about it now, so,... I guess, just let it ride.

Cheers brother! :)

... The spirit made me do it.
 
I n the End, the Truth will be revealed as in all things . Choose what you want to believe. The Earliest Religion

* Religion goes back as far as human civilizations. Nobody knows what the first religion was. The Egyptians predate the Jews, The Mesopotamians predate them. The Chinese predate them...

* Religions with a creation story often claim to be the oldest, since the world began with that creation and with the god or gods of that religion.

* Others say that animism would be the oldest known type of religion. This is a primitive religion, which sprang up independently n many areas of the world, but in most countries has mainly been replaced by more formal religion. In animism, spirits are considered to inhabit familiar objects in the landscape. For example, Australian aboriginal beliefs probably go back 60,000 or more.

Remnants of animal worship survived in Judaism and Christianity. Satan was a serpent; Jehovah, like Osiris, was worshiped as a bull; Christ was the lamb of God, and the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove. However, these are only symbols of the worshipped object, and are not worshipped in themselves.

* The Egyptian religion can also be considered the oldest religion. Its origins date back beyond 3000 BCE. There are oriental religion that are very old also . Chritianity of which I belong .

Is older than the muslim religion . Who knows what is correct about the One supreme Being that made us all ? Believing is a powerful force

Saved my life on several occasions , War. I pray that we all believe in God, and in his son who sits on the right hand side of God .

On Jesus birthday lets all agree that we all believe in something , and hope we can all make this a world that our creator can smile at .....

Bubba...
 
That was beautiful Bubba Bro! :)
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I forgot to tell the story about how the book “He Walked the Americas” came to me:

Julie (my wife) has a friend at work. A friend of his gave him that book a long time ago, and he never has read it... Anyway, I've never met her friend from work, but he gave the book to Julie and said maybe Tai would like it. I asked Julie what would make him think I would like it (he’s never even read it or met me) and she said she didn't know?... So anyway, here I am stuck with it in my head…
 
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goldsmithy said:
There is a children's game called 'telegraph'. Kids sit in a line and the first one is told 'something'. Each child must then whisper what was told to him to the person sitting next to him. The result NEVER comes out the same. That is why I do not have faith in the 'facts' contained in any bible. I am not criticizing anyone's beliefs, just the 'factual' interpretation of any bible.

While many legends may have a basis in fact, the recording of them is subject to 'man's' interpretation. Teddy
Click to expand...

I would encourage you to do some research on the "origins" of our modern day bible translations and how we get "most" of the translations that we have today.
While there's no doubt that there are a certain amount differences within each, for the most part they all come from the same sets of text (or rather, versions/copies of those: Textus Receptus and Masoretic Text being two of the main "texts" that we derive our modern translations from.

Now, there are probably thousands of "copies" of the Textus Receptus, and most of them do have subtle differences as far as spelling, phrasing, etc... are concerened, but for the most part, they all communicate the same ideas. In other words, the differences really don't pertain to anything foundational to Christian Theology, and what little differences there may be, are small enough (or repeated enough in other copies) that we can be reasonably certain we know what the original text said. In fact, many modern translations such as the NASB or the NIV will typically have footnotes denoting what manuscript a verse was selected from, in instances where there may have been a debate on what was originally written. It may even show alternate translations as well.

Long story short, we can be reasonably certain that the translations we have today are very close to the original texts they were taken from, which in turn, were VERY close the texts that THEY were taken from. Any peculiarities or differences can fairly easily be compared/contrasted as well (especially with the modern resources, study guides, etc... that we have available to us today), and I've personally yet to come across or hear of any "faith shattering" discoviers from any of those issues.

Now, that's not even talking about the origin of the Textus Receptus, Masoretic Texts, etc... themselves, or how we came to have a book that is not just a book, but 66 books, penned by 40 authors over 1000s of years as they were each, in turn, inspired by God.

Very interesting stuff, the least of which I haven't even a fraction of the time it would take to brush the surface of... (Not to mention, I need a bit of a refresher course myself!)
 
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