The Passion rotten so far

[Bereta_Eder]

It's not all encompassing of course. What I am basically saying is that since Christian religion was born in Israel by Jews it inevitably absorbed plenty of their cultural values. With the spread of Christianity these values expanded by the "vehicle" of Christianity. For example in ancient Greece or Rome it would have been ridiculous and incomprehensible to be ashamed of your genitalia or to uphold the notion that pleasure is sin. Such ascetism was alien to these regions. Sparta was ascetic but in a different way.

For all purposes, I'd add that IMHO the Jewish God (or Christian if you prefer) is much more humane than the Dodecatheon, which was more human and thus more cruel. I'm talking about Christianity's core teachings of "love one another" not about the inherent Jewish conservative notions that inevitably were incoprorated into the religious dogma of Christianity.

[Drake Tungsten]

Sparta was ascetic but in a different way.

A very different way, as the Spartans sure had no qualms about engaging in homosexual sex.

[Bereta_Eder]

I don't know about that. According to Plato homosexuals were executed in Sparta. You can read more about that in Symposium. Of course everyone is free to believe what pleases him.

[Drake Tungsten]

Plato was gay himself. Might have just been the usual gay persecution complex that made him write about executions of gays in Sparta.

[Bereta_Eder]

There are no written accounts of Plato being gay. There are however about him being married and having kids, which he neglected to philozophise.

[Bereta_Eder]

And ascetic, with which I described Sparta, means hardened and voluntarily deprived of earthly comforts. Doesn't have anything to do with homosexuality AFAIK.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'd consider homosexual sex to be an "earthly comfort". Maybe the Greek guys don't do it right, though; hell if I know.

And we all know Socrates was giving Plato the hot meat injections on a regular basis.

[Bereta_Eder]

dp

[Bereta_Eder]

As said you are free to believe whatever gives you an erection.

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


Yes they were. But Jerusalem, where the records would have been kept, was destroyed a few years after the events.

I refer you to my earlier post - science is tending to confirm the accuracy of oral traditions. In some cases, stories once thought of as myth are being found to based accurately on historical events. Certainly more than historians ever gave credit going off the written record.

The most famous example was actually a century ago when Homer's Troy was found by a German archeologist. Hitherto Homer's stories had been considered myth and not been thought to be based on historical events.

AH is right.

The Viking's sagas were claimed to be at best myths and more likely drunken songs of braggarts. The notion that they discovered North America was repudiated with the utmost scorn by English historians.

In 1960, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad simply went to the area described in the sagas, asked a local fisherman if there were any old ruins around, and promptly found the site where the Vikings established a permanent settlement in North America a millenia ago.

On one hand, you can't really trust history.

On the other, oral traditions may actually be more trustworthy than the accounts of "historians" being paid by the authorities in power.

*

Jesus existed. This is a fact that no serious historians debate. He is generally considered a prophet by Judaism and Islam. Only Christians consider him divine.

He was a Jew, an activist, and he was put to death by the Romans, as he was a destabilizing political influence, who were aided by the Pharisees, whose established dogma Jesus threatened.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Jesus existed. This is a fact that no serious historians debate.

Yes, they DO debate it. While it might be convenient for you to just dismiss the scholarly research into the matter as not being "serious," it is a matter of serious debate by serious scholars, although now they aren't in the majority in their viewpoint.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Plato was gay himself. Might have just been the usual gay persecution complex that made him write about executions of gays in Sparta.

I don't know if Plato was married. It's not unlikely, but it wouldn't stop him being bisexual - which was probably the norm.

He did not get the "meat injection" from Socrates because respectable Greek men did not allow buggery; it would make them too much like women. There's a passage in the Gorgias where Socrates wins an argument by pointing out to his interlocutor that the interlocutor's position commits him to the shameful claim that taking it up the ass is good.

But all this is academic. Plato thinks that all sex is degrading. That's why the Symposium ranks it below friendship. It's essentially the way that animals participate in a form of immortality, but since we humans are immortal there is really no need for it.

[Nostromo]

I've seen it. The photography was fine. The torture scene was very graphic. But I think Gibson went overboard. Frankly, I don't think someone could survive such a beating and remain conscious, let alone carry a cross on his back. That said, I found the movie incredibly boring. After one hour, I was saying to myself: get crucified and die already! die! die! die! It doesn't even come close to Zephireli's movie or, for that matter, Scorsese's.

[Ned]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking

Jesus existed. This is a fact that no serious historians debate. He is generally considered a prophet by Judaism and Islam. Only Christians consider him divine.

He was a Jew, an activist, and he was put to death by the Romans, as he was a destabilizing political influence, who were aided by the Pharisees, whose established dogma Jesus threatened.

Backwards.

Pilate washed his hands of Jesus's guilt.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Yes, they DO debate it. While it might be convenient for you to just dismiss the scholarly research into the matter as not being "serious," it is a matter of serious debate by serious scholars, although now they aren't in the majority in their viewpoint.

Boris, one can never prove that Jesus did not exist.