Quote:
Originally Posted by Stefan-A
(Snippet 1  The only "evidence" of somebody called Jesus from that area is in fact a few mentions written down as hearsay several decades to several centuries after his alleged resurrection.
(Snippet 2 I really don't like mocking people's faiths, but the fact of the matter is that the bible doesn't contain much history (if any). |
I told myself when this thread started, that I would stay off of the religious themes and what I know about them... but did want to respectfully disagree with the two snippets quoted above.
First, Josephus records the history of the very early church. Josephus was a Jew, and not a believer in Christianity. One thing is clear from his writings... the people who were living immediately after the claimed ressurrection did question the validity of what Jesus had taught during His life, but they did not question that his death and subsequent appearing before many people was a hoax. In addition, we have actual whole copies of New Testament writings in posession today, which are carbon dated at 60 A.D, which would be 30 some years after Jesus died.
In the second snippet, however, my disagreement is more immediately and easily provable. Archaeologists are STILL finding, and CONSTANTLY finding, lost cities and civilizations that they find based upon Biblical text. The clues provided in the Bible have always been accurate enough that the archaeologists are able to find the lost city, the burned library, and etc. by starting with the Biblical text as a reference point. The Bible is very much FULL of history.
But I agree with Cazador that near death experiences seem to be the most unbiased and modern examples which suggest evidence for an afterlife. Some things about near death experiences that interest me are that:
1. Everyone in a true near death experience sees some version of the light tunnel, and the light tunnel seems to be hard-wired into the brain.
2. Everyone in a true near death experience has the feeling of being "out of body" and this sensation also seems to be hard-wired into the brain.
(These two experiences can be duplicated during brain surgery by stimulation of a certain area of the brain.)
3. Some people who have had near death experiences have reported events that surrounded their near death... that they could not have known. For example, a child reports that he travelled toward a light, out of his body, floated up to the ceiling, floated out into the waiting room, and heard Aunt "Gertrude" say something that he could not have heard from the treatment room where his body lay.
4. Reports of events outside the room are rare, and cannot be duplicated during brain surgery.
5. Near death experiences sometimes report meeting someone at the entrance to "heaven", meeting relatives who have died, and so forth. There are one or two reports of someone meeting a dead relative that the reporting person did not know was dead at the time... such as a boy who met his dead parents after a car crash.
6. When the person with the near death experience meets a religious person that is central to his faith, that religious person tends to be the one that is associated with the faith of the person making the report... for example, Christians see Jesus, Jews may see Moses, Buddists may see Buddah, etc.