If Jesus were to ever return... how would anyone know it was him? - Page 8

**jAZ** · 02-20-2007, 12:02 AM

I'm pretty sure this guy isn't it, but there's a sizeable group that seems to think he is. Seems like all you have to do is be believable and with enough followers... you create your own "reality".

If that's the case, how in the world would we ever know objectively that someone is Jesus returned?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/16/mia...her/index.html

Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine
POSTED: 2:08 p.m. EST, February 19, 2007

By John Zarrella and Patrick Oppmann
CNN

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm.

But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God.

"The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says.

De Jesus' claims of divinity have angered Christian leaders, who say he is a fake. Religious experts say he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader who really believes he is God. (Watch followers get 666 tattoos for their leader )

"He's in their heads, he's inside the heads of those people," says Prof. Daniel Alvarez, a religion expert at Florida International University who has debated some of de Jesus' followers.

"De Jesus speaks with a kind of conviction that makes me consider him more like David Koresh or Jim Jones."

Is de Jesus really a cult leader like David Koresh, who died with more than 70 of his Branch Davidian followers in a fiery end to a standoff with federal authorities, or Jim Jones, the founder of the Peoples Temple who committed mass suicide with 900 followers in 1978?

Prophets 'spoke to me'
De Jesus and his believers say their church -- "Creciendo en Gracia," Spanish for "Growing in grace" -- is misunderstood. Followers of the movement say they have proof that their minister is divine and that their church will one day soon be a major faith in the world.

But even de Jesus concedes that he is an unlikely leader of a church that claims thousands of members in more than 30 countries.

De Jesus, 61, grew up poor in Puerto Rico. He says he served stints in prison there for petty theft and says he was a heroin addict.

De Jesus says he learned he was Jesus reincarnate when he was visited in a dream by angels.

"The prophets, they spoke about me. It took me time to learn that, but I am what they were expecting, what they have been expecting for 2,000 years," de Jesus says.

The church that he began building 20 years ago in Miami resembles no other:

Followers have protested Christian churches in Miami and Latin America, disrupting services and smashing crosses and statues of Jesus.

De Jesus preaches there is no devil and no sin. His followers, he says, literally can do no wrong in God's eyes.

The church calls itself the "Government of God on Earth" and uses a seal similar to the United States.

Doing God's work with a Lexus and Rolex
If Creciendo en Gracia is an atypical religious group, de Jesus also does not fit the mold of the average church leader. De Jesus flouts traditional vows of poverty.

He says he has a church-paid salary of $136,000 but lives more lavishly than that. During an interview, he showed off a diamond-encrusted Rolex to a CNN crew and said he has three just like them. He travels in armored Lexuses and BMWs, he says, for his safety. All are gifts from his devoted followers.

And what about the tattoo of 666 on his arm?

Although it's a number usually associated with Satan, not the son of God, de Jesus says that 666 and the Antichrist are, like him, misunderstood.

The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation; he's the being who replaces Jesus on Earth.

"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says. "Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian. Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put it on Jesus after the cross."

And de Jesus says that means him.

So far, de Jesus says that his flock hasn't been scared off by his claims of being the Antichrist. In a show of the sway he holds over the group, 30 members of his congregation Tuesday went to a tattoo parlor to have 666 also permanently etched onto their skin.

He may wield influence over them, but his followers say don't expect them to go the way of people who believed in David Koresh and Jim Jones. Just by finding de Jesus, they say, they have achieved their purpose.

"If somebody tells us drink some Kool-Aid and we'll go to heaven, that's not true. We are already in heavenly places," follower Martita Roca told CNN after having 666 tattooed onto her ankle.

Redrum_69 · 02-22-2007, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delano

That's you in a nutshell dude.

Nah, if I liked to see what I wrote all the time, I'd be breaking 40 or 50k posts..or be a post whore like crazycoffey

El Jefe · 02-22-2007, 10:22 AM

redrum_69, you just lost all your credibility to battle me in theology. Its oh YE of little faith, and Jesus only says that like 100 times in the bible. I dont care if you were raised a Christian obviously you dont remember enough to quote stuff correctly. You dont have a clue how a real Christian mind works in fact you dont even know how your mind works.

Redrum_69 · 02-22-2007, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcchiefsfanGoLJ

redrum_69, you just lost all your credibility to battle me in theology. Its oh YE of little faith, and Jesus only says that like 100 times in the bible. I dont care if you were raised a Christian obviously you dont remember enough to quote stuff correctly. You dont have a clue how a real Christian mind works in fact you dont even know how your mind works.

Why the constant need for arguing. Just accept the fact already that youre going to hell for all the sins you committed. I misquote so you can have something to talk about at church camp

El Jefe · 02-22-2007, 11:27 AM

Yeah you misquoted me because you are talking out your butt about stuff you dont have a clue about. I am done arguing with you, you are already a lost cause. Im not going to Hell you are the one going to hell my friend, oh and you can send me a post card and tell me how the fishing is in the lake of fire.

Redrum_69 · 02-22-2007, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcchiefsfanGoLJ

Yeah you misquoted me because you are talking out your butt about stuff you dont have a clue about. I am done arguing with you, you are already a lost cause. Im not going to Hell you are the one going to hell my friend, oh and you can send me a post card and tell me how the fishing is in the lake of fire.

I'll be there alright, banging your mom on a stalagmite. She'll be screaming out satanic verses as I'm fishing at the Lake of fire.

Hell is a great place, I'm surprised youve never been. I dont remember a lake there, unless you consider the ocean a lake. It was more of a tourist attraction...but what can you expect at the Cayman Islands.

Redrum_69 · 02-22-2007, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcchiefsfanGoLJ

Yeah you misquoted me because you are talking out your butt about stuff you dont have a clue about. I am done arguing with you, you are already a lost cause. Im not going to Hell you are the one going to hell my friend, oh and you can send me a post card and tell me how the fishing is in the lake of fire.

LOL...nice profile...19 years old love the Chiefs and the Ohio State Buckeyes. I live in OHIO. Taking criminal justice to be a cop.
Occupation working at my Dads transmission shop

training to be a cop..19 years old....think you know everything about everything. I'd stick to working in your dads tranny shop.

Sully · 02-22-2007, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcchiefsfanGoLJ

redrum_69, you just lost all your credibility to battle me in theology. Its oh YE of little faith, and Jesus only says that like 100 times in the bible. I dont care if you were raised a Christian obviously you dont remember enough to quote stuff correctly. You dont have a clue how a real Christian mind works in fact you dont even know how your mind works.

Wow...

You are REALLY bad at the Christianity thing.
If you're gonna stick with it, keep trying, but as of now, you suck as a follower of Jesus.

Just thought I'd let you know.

CoMoChief · 02-22-2007, 11:56 AM

Amazing how he wants to come on here and preach, like we all give a shit and then become offended when some of us dry sense of humor people make a crack at him. If he doesn't like it he should leave. Oh yeah, did I mention this is a football board, not a bible forum?

JohnnyV13 · 02-22-2007, 12:14 PM

We'd know Jesus if he returned. He'd be the guy shooting lightning at fundamentalists for screwing up his word.

Jenson71 · 02-22-2007, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyV13

We'd know Jesus if he returned. He'd be the guy shooting lightning at fundamentalists for screwing up his word.

JohnnyV13 · 02-22-2007, 01:30 PM

You know...the fundamentalists who master the bible so they can use their skill as a club to prove their earthly superiority to others are the ones i'm talking about. But, somehow, I think this description might apply to the majority of fundies, but it could also be that I notice these types more than the others because they annoy the "f" out of me. This behavior is often seen with people who can't succeed at anything in life, so they grasp onto christianity because of the "blessed be the poor" doctrine so that their earthly failure is then transformed into a symbol of success.

Typically, such people will read the bible like a modern statute book. Which, btw, would be rather comical if such people didn't use their "chapter and verse" knowledge as an earthly club against others to establish their supposed superiority. They, of course, blissfully forget (or are simply too stupid to realize) that the writers of the bible did not intend their work to be so interpreted, because they had a different concept of "truth" than we do today.

We use historical "fact reporting" because paper and printing (and more recently, virtual cyberspace) are rather cheap. The advantage of this methodology is it does not require any complex understanding on part of the listener. THe disadvantage is the modern way can be unweildy and lengthy, but is less prone to interpretation errors.

In biblical times, writing books was hugely expensive in labor and materials (parchment is the skin of a sheep. Sheep graze on grasses and anyone who knows about "trophic levels" in ecology will understand that 90 percent of an ecosystem's productive energy potential is LOST as you move up a trophic level. The important point is, if you eat things like cows and sheep and chicken ect, instead of eating grain you're losing about 90% of that land's ability to produce food.) By using a sheep to produce a book you are getting ZERO food value. This cost doesn't even consider the labor that goes into writing a book out by hand. When writing is thus so expensive, it becomes cost effective to maximize the communication density as much as possible. Consequently, the bible uses enormous quantities of symbolism and depends on skilled readers to understand what is meant.

(To show how effective this method is, remember that the bible not only was a religious tome for the jews, it also was their legal code that was applied in their courts every day. Walk into a library and compare the size of the Old Testament to the United States Federal Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the statutory codes for all 50 states AND the case reporters for both federal and state law. While jewish society was not nearly as complex as our society today, the effiecency gap is still pretty impressive).

In jewish society, they relied upon rabbi's as these "skilled readers" to interpret the word for situations that came up in the local community.

Yet, the modern reader, conditioned to modern "fact reporting" will apply something akin to the word splitting seen in modern statutory interpretation. This error would be very funny if they didn't try to seize political and social power based upon their analysis.

To show how this sort of error worked, rather than recite the statistics of the 1990 game in which Derrick Thomas set the NFL sack record, a bibilical writer might say "Mighty Derrick destroyed the Seattle quarterback". Two thousand years from now, an NFL fan would believe that in ancient times, the NFL involved mortal attacks upon players.

El Jefe · 02-22-2007, 01:43 PM

redrum_69, I never said I know everything you are the one quoteing scripture you dont know. Sully, what in the world are you talking about anyway? CoMoChief, I dont care if this is a football forum I am not the one who started this thread if you dont want me to preach then dont start talking about the bible because if you talk about the bible or Christianity I will post my thoughts. Then how many threads have I started on anything to do with my religion, I am posting in your guys threads.

El Jefe · 02-22-2007, 01:56 PM

JohnnyV13, is the point of that long essay to call me a fundamentalist. I have not thrown out scripture or said I am better than anyone or said that everybody is gonna go to hell. I have simply been debating with redrum_69 and everybody else has joined in. I dont need to quote massive amounts of scripture to impress people I let my actions speak for me. And when have I once said in these exact words that I am better than anybody on this site, because I havent once said that and I will never say that.

JohnnyV13 · 02-22-2007, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcchiefsfanGoLJ

JohnnyV13, is the point of that long essay to call me a fundamentalist. I have not thrown out scripture or said I am better than anyone or said that everybody is gonna go to hell. I have simply been debating with redrum_69 and everybody else has joined in. I dont need to quote massive amounts of scripture to impress people I let my actions speak for me. And when have I once said in these exact words that I am better than anybody on this site, because I havent once said that and I will never say that.

Actually, I couldn't care less what you are. I do, however, find the "statutory" approach to breaking down biblical verses rather amusing. Its sort of like someone who reads the Onion and thinks its a real news report.

InChiefsHeaven · 02-22-2007, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyV13

Actually, I couldn't care less what you are. I do, however, find the "statutory" approach to breaking down biblical verses rather amusing. Its sort of like someone who reads the Onion and thinks its a real news report.

Amen brutha. It's the difference between literal and literalist interpretation.

For Example "It's raining cat's and dogs"

Literal interpretation: It's really raining hard.
Literalist interpretation: THere are actually cats and dogs falling out of the sky.

Fundies tend to be literalist.

02-20-2007, 12:02 AM
jAZ Supporter Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Tucson, AZ Casino cash: $9847493	If Jesus were to ever return... how would anyone know it was him? I'm pretty sure this guy isn't it, but there's a sizeable group that seems to think he is. Seems like all you have to do is be believable and with enough followers... you create your own "reality". If that's the case, how in the world would we ever know objectively that someone is Jesus returned? http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/16/mia...her/index.html Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine POSTED: 2:08 p.m. EST, February 19, 2007 By John Zarrella and Patrick Oppmann CNN MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm. But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God. "The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says. De Jesus' claims of divinity have angered Christian leaders, who say he is a fake. Religious experts say he may be something much more dangerous, a cult leader who really believes he is God. (Watch followers get 666 tattoos for their leader ) "He's in their heads, he's inside the heads of those people," says Prof. Daniel Alvarez, a religion expert at Florida International University who has debated some of de Jesus' followers. "De Jesus speaks with a kind of conviction that makes me consider him more like David Koresh or Jim Jones." Is de Jesus really a cult leader like David Koresh, who died with more than 70 of his Branch Davidian followers in a fiery end to a standoff with federal authorities, or Jim Jones, the founder of the Peoples Temple who committed mass suicide with 900 followers in 1978? Prophets 'spoke to me' De Jesus and his believers say their church -- "Creciendo en Gracia," Spanish for "Growing in grace" -- is misunderstood. Followers of the movement say they have proof that their minister is divine and that their church will one day soon be a major faith in the world. But even de Jesus concedes that he is an unlikely leader of a church that claims thousands of members in more than 30 countries. De Jesus, 61, grew up poor in Puerto Rico. He says he served stints in prison there for petty theft and says he was a heroin addict. De Jesus says he learned he was Jesus reincarnate when he was visited in a dream by angels. "The prophets, they spoke about me. It took me time to learn that, but I am what they were expecting, what they have been expecting for 2,000 years," de Jesus says. The church that he began building 20 years ago in Miami resembles no other: Followers have protested Christian churches in Miami and Latin America, disrupting services and smashing crosses and statues of Jesus. De Jesus preaches there is no devil and no sin. His followers, he says, literally can do no wrong in God's eyes. The church calls itself the "Government of God on Earth" and uses a seal similar to the United States. Doing God's work with a Lexus and Rolex If Creciendo en Gracia is an atypical religious group, de Jesus also does not fit the mold of the average church leader. De Jesus flouts traditional vows of poverty. He says he has a church-paid salary of $136,000 but lives more lavishly than that. During an interview, he showed off a diamond-encrusted Rolex to a CNN crew and said he has three just like them. He travels in armored Lexuses and BMWs, he says, for his safety. All are gifts from his devoted followers. And what about the tattoo of 666 on his arm? Although it's a number usually associated with Satan, not the son of God, de Jesus says that 666 and the Antichrist are, like him, misunderstood. The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation; he's the being who replaces Jesus on Earth. "Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says. "Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian. Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put it on Jesus after the cross." And de Jesus says that means him. So far, de Jesus says that his flock hasn't been scared off by his claims of being the Antichrist. In a show of the sway he holds over the group, 30 members of his congregation Tuesday went to a tattoo parlor to have 666 also permanently etched onto their skin. He may wield influence over them, but his followers say don't expect them to go the way of people who believed in David Koresh and Jim Jones. Just by finding de Jesus, they say, they have achieved their purpose. "If somebody tells us drink some Kool-Aid and we'll go to heaven, that's not true. We are already in heavenly places," follower Martita Roca told CNN after having 666 tattooed onto her ankle.
Posts: 24,799

02-22-2007, 10:22 AM	#107
El Jefe Don't tread on me. Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Where the peaches grow Casino cash: $9030572	redrum_69, you just lost all your credibility to battle me in theology. Its oh YE of little faith, and Jesus only says that like 100 times in the bible. I dont care if you were raised a Christian obviously you dont remember enough to quote stuff correctly. You dont have a clue how a real Christian mind works in fact you dont even know how your mind works.
Posts: 8,540

02-22-2007, 11:27 AM	#109
El Jefe Don't tread on me. Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Where the peaches grow Casino cash: $9030572	Yeah you misquoted me because you are talking out your butt about stuff you dont have a clue about. I am done arguing with you, you are already a lost cause. Im not going to Hell you are the one going to hell my friend, oh and you can send me a post card and tell me how the fishing is in the lake of fire.
Posts: 8,540

02-22-2007, 11:56 AM	#113
CoMoChief Mahomes Dynasty Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Parts Unknown Casino cash: $8052254	Amazing how he wants to come on here and preach, like we all give a shit and then become offended when some of us dry sense of humor people make a crack at him. If he doesn't like it he should leave. Oh yeah, did I mention this is a football board, not a bible forum?
Posts: 39,158

02-22-2007, 12:14 PM	#114
JohnnyV13 Veteran Join Date: May 2003 Location: Tucson AZ Casino cash: $6145200	We'd know Jesus if he returned. He'd be the guy shooting lightning at fundamentalists for screwing up his word.
Posts: 4,156

02-22-2007, 01:30 PM	#116
JohnnyV13 Veteran Join Date: May 2003 Location: Tucson AZ Casino cash: $6145200	You know...the fundamentalists who master the bible so they can use their skill as a club to prove their earthly superiority to others are the ones i'm talking about. But, somehow, I think this description might apply to the majority of fundies, but it could also be that I notice these types more than the others because they annoy the "f" out of me. This behavior is often seen with people who can't succeed at anything in life, so they grasp onto christianity because of the "blessed be the poor" doctrine so that their earthly failure is then transformed into a symbol of success. Typically, such people will read the bible like a modern statute book. Which, btw, would be rather comical if such people didn't use their "chapter and verse" knowledge as an earthly club against others to establish their supposed superiority. They, of course, blissfully forget (or are simply too stupid to realize) that the writers of the bible did not intend their work to be so interpreted, because they had a different concept of "truth" than we do today. We use historical "fact reporting" because paper and printing (and more recently, virtual cyberspace) are rather cheap. The advantage of this methodology is it does not require any complex understanding on part of the listener. THe disadvantage is the modern way can be unweildy and lengthy, but is less prone to interpretation errors. In biblical times, writing books was hugely expensive in labor and materials (parchment is the skin of a sheep. Sheep graze on grasses and anyone who knows about "trophic levels" in ecology will understand that 90 percent of an ecosystem's productive energy potential is LOST as you move up a trophic level. The important point is, if you eat things like cows and sheep and chicken ect, instead of eating grain you're losing about 90% of that land's ability to produce food.) By using a sheep to produce a book you are getting ZERO food value. This cost doesn't even consider the labor that goes into writing a book out by hand. When writing is thus so expensive, it becomes cost effective to maximize the communication density as much as possible. Consequently, the bible uses enormous quantities of symbolism and depends on skilled readers to understand what is meant. (To show how effective this method is, remember that the bible not only was a religious tome for the jews, it also was their legal code that was applied in their courts every day. Walk into a library and compare the size of the Old Testament to the United States Federal Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the statutory codes for all 50 states AND the case reporters for both federal and state law. While jewish society was not nearly as complex as our society today, the effiecency gap is still pretty impressive). In jewish society, they relied upon rabbi's as these "skilled readers" to interpret the word for situations that came up in the local community. Yet, the modern reader, conditioned to modern "fact reporting" will apply something akin to the word splitting seen in modern statutory interpretation. This error would be very funny if they didn't try to seize political and social power based upon their analysis. To show how this sort of error worked, rather than recite the statistics of the 1990 game in which Derrick Thomas set the NFL sack record, a bibilical writer might say "Mighty Derrick destroyed the Seattle quarterback". Two thousand years from now, an NFL fan would believe that in ancient times, the NFL involved mortal attacks upon players. Last edited by JohnnyV13; 02-22-2007 at 01:45 PM..
Posts: 4,156

02-22-2007, 01:43 PM	#117
El Jefe Don't tread on me. Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Where the peaches grow Casino cash: $9030572	redrum_69, I never said I know everything you are the one quoteing scripture you dont know. Sully, what in the world are you talking about anyway? CoMoChief, I dont care if this is a football forum I am not the one who started this thread if you dont want me to preach then dont start talking about the bible because if you talk about the bible or Christianity I will post my thoughts. Then how many threads have I started on anything to do with my religion, I am posting in your guys threads.
Posts: 8,540

02-22-2007, 01:56 PM	#118
El Jefe Don't tread on me. Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Where the peaches grow Casino cash: $9030572	JohnnyV13, is the point of that long essay to call me a fundamentalist. I have not thrown out scripture or said I am better than anyone or said that everybody is gonna go to hell. I have simply been debating with redrum_69 and everybody else has joined in. I dont need to quote massive amounts of scripture to impress people I let my actions speak for me. And when have I once said in these exact words that I am better than anybody on this site, because I havent once said that and I will never say that.
Posts: 8,540