Is James Cameron the anti-christ?

[007]

As per Glen Beck.

http://time-blog.com/middle_east/200...the_crypt.html

February 23, 2007 6:55
Jesus: Tales from the Crypt
Posted by Tim McGirk | Comments (2884) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.
Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,"King Kong", whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision, and Israel's Channel 8, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned.
--Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by Cochise

What would a family tomb of his be in Jerusalem for? You family was buried where you came from in that culture, so if he did have a family tomb that contained his father's remains, it would have been in Galilee.

Not if Mary Magdalene bitched and bitched at him because she saw some really nice plots in Jerusalem, and would really like to be placed to rest there. Finally he told her he would agree to it as long as she would shut the hell up about it.

[greg63]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

I believe in a greater power/god/whatever you want to call it, but I am not religious. You see, I never needed the concept of religion to understand what is morally wrong and right. And anyway, 99% of the religious people are hypocrites (1% being the truly devoted monks who just pray all day and live the simplest life possible in some monastery).

But yeah, religious people do piss me off, they ruin the world for everyone, always have and always will.

And I'm sorry, but I like I said, I don't believe in fairy tales - a category into which resurrection falls. And I don't mean to offend you, it's just what I believe.

You're right, religious people do tend to be hypocrites; true Christians are not religious. True Christianity is a life style; not a religion.

[Redrum_69]

I thought to be the anti-Christ that said person was supposed to survive after being killed to amaze everyone...

[Ebolapox]

Originally Posted by Guru

Everyone needs to believe what they want. Does it really serve a purpose to call someones religion a fairy tale though?

Someone's religion? How about everyone's religion.

Let's face facts here. One can not prove a single speck of fact from any single set of 'religious' beliefs. They are what they are, beliefs that require faith (a blind leap into a chasm which we can't see where we'll land) to even believe in them in the first place.

All religion, regardless of amount of gods worshipped, where it's practiced, what sect, etc. (I'm not singling out ANY religion: christianity, islam, shinto, buddhism, tao, et al) is basically the same. They contain certain archetypes (the flood myth appears in many cultures from around the world [*note: the bible's flood myth isn't the first flood myth, and contains many of the same concepts/archetypes of other flood myths, but I digress*], as does the creation myth [*once again, christianity's isn't the first, and certainly not unique*], the dying and resurrected deity myth [*yep, jesus wasn't the first: inanna, ishtar, tammuz, dumuzi, dionysus, mithras, zoroaster, krishna, and a LOT of other deities--too many to list here-- predated jesus, and his 'dying/resurrection' myth contain, you guessed it, elements of all of these myths*], and many other of the same archetypal stories, morals and ethics to live by within a society, etc. The kicker is that mythoi, in almost every instance, shows evidence of spreading from culture to culture, maturing in the process, and in the filtration from different cultures, we get the various myths in cultures that never met, could never have met, etc. As a matter of fact, one of the more interesting bits about religion and the spreading from culture to culture is that one's cultures gods/goddesses become the demons/devils/bad places of the next 'religion,' or set of myths. The catholic church was particularly good at this: the halo (sol invectus) went from sacred symbol of the undying sun to the 'headband' of saints. The horns of Satan are from numerous fertility gods. The devil's pitchfork? that belonged to poseiden. The cloven hooves? Nope, not the devil's exclusively, but from greek mythology: pan! The witch hat? belonged to wise cronos. But I won't bore you with the countless other examples.

I keep telling myself that I'm going to stop posting on religion, because it's one of a select few unwinnable debates, and ends up pissing everybody off... but here comes the meat of the issue:

The main issue I have with religion in general (although christianity seems to have more of an issue with this than other religions, but they all have this weakness to a certain extent) is that the more vocal members of the different religions (let's use christians in this discussion) are so narrowminded that they can't or won't admit that there's any possibility on planet earth that they may be wrong. They've so painted themselves into the proverbial corner that to admit wrongness might very well destroy them. They have faith, but in this instance faith isn't a good thing.

The problem with faith (which is normally a good thing) is that when one has faith, it tends to absolutely sew one's mind shut against the possibility of being wrong. With faith, one very rarely (if ever) will even acknowledge a situation where one might be wrong, as it collapses the house of cards.

At its very base, religion (every religion) was founded on principles and ideas that are unprovable. If one attempts to disprove a tightly held religious belief (godforbid jesus was married!), one would bring a firestorm of scrutiny on one's self because people simply don't like to consider the fact that what they believe is nothing more than an elaborate fairy tale, and will fight to the death to believe what they want to believe.

When one has faith (I'm sure there are exceptions), one basically shuts one's mind off of the possibility of being wrong. Obviously, my main issue with that is that we, as human beings, are wrong all the time--hell, it's practically what we're best at. Mankind started religion (long before christianity, judaeism, or even recorded history) to explain the unexplainable--Where we truly erred is when we began to refuse to believe that we might be wrong.

We tied the whole of humanity to religion and religious practices in general (not singling out christianity), and that restricts the potential that we have as human beings. We have the potential for so much more. I despise it when we paint ourselves into the tiny restrictive boxes of organized religion.

To finish, I'll be the first to admit that I may be wrong about this-- If there is a god (which I certainly won't rule out, but the world we live in certainly reeks of unfairness and injustice, two tools that I believe a just and righteous god wouldn't allow--that is a debate for another time and place), I'll stand judgement for my disbelief. If one has to go by all the pageantry of modern religion to stand any chance at heaven, that the only shot at a good eternity is to dance like a little monkey, then I'll gladly accept hell. If there is a god, he gave me the brain to be a rationally thinking human being. With religion, we're basically forced to shut off our brains and just accept what we're told--SO WHY GIVE US COMPLEX THINKING BRAINS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

alright, enough of that novel... 'submit reply'

[Redrum_69]

Good God....how about summarizing that for those whose eyes bleed after a paragraph

[greg63]

Originally Posted by Redrum_69

Good God....how about summarizing that for those whose eyes bleed after a paragraph

[Ebolapox]

Originally Posted by Redrum_69

Good God....how about summarizing that for those whose eyes bleed after a paragraph

long story short, religion is as old as mankind... religion was formed to explain the unexplainable

mankind erred when he begain basing his life on the make-believe, aka religion

when one bases one's life on the unproveable, aka religion, one tends to narrow one's mind to not accept anything other than what one believes

so when something comes along to even possibly disprove what one believes, one is so blind with faith that one misses the boat, and in the process doesn't live up to one's human potential, wasting away as a mindless drone

there, that good enough?

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Redrum_69

Good God....how about summarizing that for those whose eyes bleed after a paragraph

No kidding... not one person will read all that.

[RJ]

Originally Posted by Cochise

No kidding... not one person will read all that.

I did.

[Archie F. Swin]

Glenn Beck is a Mormon...Mormon's really don't give Jesus he reverence that Christians do. In fact, Mormon's feel that that level of "holiness" can be achieved by man.

Glenn Beck is a watered-down, more charming version of Limbaugh with a better sense of humor. After a week, it gets old. He's a pretty shallow conservative, that loves to remind us that that his daughter has cerebral palsy or something like that.

[Pants]

Originally Posted by Cochise

No kidding... not one person will read all that.

I did, and I 100% agree. But I tend to agree with logic.

[Deberg_1990]

IM pretty biased....James Cameron is pretty much the best filmaker alive....

So No....

[Sully]

I wonder why this would piss people off so much.

I don't know how much "proof" Cameron has, but even if it were 100% that this definitely was Jesus' remains, how does that change his message, his actions and his ideas? I don't get it. So he wasn't resurrected... his message still remains the same.

[Archie F. Swin]

Originally Posted by Sully

I wonder why this would piss people off so much.

I don't know how much "proof" Cameron has, but even if it were 100% that this definitely was Jesus' remains, how does that change his message, his actions and his ideas? I don't get it. So he wasn't resurrected... his message still remains the same.

Well the difference would be Jesus being a fine Humanitarian and being the risen Son of God...which is one of the more important parts of Christianity. Otherwise Christians would be far more similar to Buddhists.

[KCWolfman]

Originally Posted by Metrolike

I believe in a greater power/god/whatever you want to call it, but I am not religious. You see, I never needed the concept of religion to understand what is morally wrong and right. And anyway, 99% of the religious people are hypocrites (1% being the truly devoted monks who just pray all day and live the simplest life possible in some monastery).

But yeah, religious people do piss me off, they ruin the world for everyone, always have and always will.

And I'm sorry, but I like I said, I don't believe in fairy tales - a category into which resurrection falls. And I don't mean to offend you, it's just what I believe.

100% of people are hypocrites - including you. The fact that you feel compelled to deride others while you state "it's just what I believe" proves just that. With a statement like that you had no intent on attempting to sway anyone's opinion, merely to humiliate them if they disagreed with you - kind of like the religions you are complaining about.