Some here believe Christ is a Bad Joke.

Some here believe Christ is a Bad Joke.

Would those of you who have thoughtfully reached this conclusion please list the primary reasons you feel support your position.

This conversation should have legs since the topic opinion is held by an overwhelming majority of posters to this forum. Thanks.
.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Some here believe Christ is a Bad Joke.

Would those of you who have thoughtfully reached this conclusion please list the primary reasons you feel support your position.

This conversation should have legs since the topic opinion is held by an overwhelming majority of posters to this forum. Thanks.
.[/b]

Originally posted by divegeester
This is not the general forum

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Some here believe Christ is a Bad Joke.

Would those of you who have thoughtfully reached this conclusion please list the primary reasons you feel support your position.

This conversation should have legs since the topic opinion is held by an overwhelming majority of posters to this forum. Thanks.
.[/b]

Originally posted by avalanchethecat
You think? The only person I've seen on this forum who has evinced an opinion even approaching that of the OP is Dasa, and he's clearly none too tightly wrapped anyway.

Confusion of knowledge is worse than ignorance, though some love it because its shadows provide convenient places to hide (in public).

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Confusion of knowledge is worse than ignorance, though some love it because its shadows provide convenient places to hide (in public).

Originally posted by googlefudge

Talking gibberish is worse than silence, though some people love it because it's shadows provide convenient places to hide (in public).

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Confusion of knowledge is worse than ignorance.

Originally posted by Rank outsider

No it isn't.

Some people actively look for and gain knowledge throughout their lives. Sometimes they find it all hard to assimilate and occasionally they become confused as a result.

Other people rejoice in their lack of knowledge and their lack of desire to enquire after more. As a result, they remain ignorant.

The difference is that the former is normally temporary, but the latter is always permanent.

I may have one positive contribution to this thread.

I do not think Jesus Christ is a bad joke.
I do not think He is a good joke.

But humor and joking is bassed on an element of surprise.
And surprise can make one LAUGH.

C.S. Lewis wrote about his turning from Atheism to Christian belief in a book entitled "Surprised By Joy".

Surprise can cause laughing as if one HAD heard a joke.
Surprise can be so ironic as to cause a chuckle.

And one might be caused to laugh for joy and surprise upon discovering that God is real - not a good or bad joke but a ironic sense of surprise.

Thus the title of C.S. Lewis's book - "Surprised By Joy" . As a hardened and intellectual atheist he never knew God could be so real.

(Alright, I can hear it already - "I was surpised by joy to find that God was not real." )

Anyway - My experience with laughter and touching the reality of God's corporate expression in the normal church life was like that of the returned Jews from Babylon to the Promise Land -

"When Jehovah turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream. At that time our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with a ringing shout. " (Psalm 126:1 RcV)

It was too good to be true. It was like a dream. Their mouth was filled with laughter. They broke out shouting and singing. It was too wonderful.

I had a moment like this when I discovered a lot of other people who were experiencing Christ as I was. My cheeks literally hurt because a grin had not stayed on my face for so long ever in my whole life. The muscles in my face ached.

It was not a joke to touch the Body of Christ. But it was a great moment of surprise.

Originally posted by sonship
I may have one positive contribution to this thread.

I do not think Jesus Christ is a bad joke.
I do not think He is a good joke.

But humor and joking is bassed on an element of [b]surprise.
And surprise can make one LAUGH.

C.S. Lewis wrote about his turning from Atheism to Christian belief in a book entitled "Surprised By Joy". ...[text shortened]... It was not a joke to touch the Body of Christ. But it was a great moment of surprise.[/b]

...........
Questioning Our “Reasonable” Assumptions:

LaBerge is a psychophysiologist who established the phenomena of “lucid dreaming” as a reality that is now part of routine sleep and dream research.

In a nutshell, LaBerge had the capacity to lucid dream, and it was something that interested him. As part of his field of study, he ended up doing research on the history of the phenomena and discovered many historical accounts of it and references in the writings of some prestigious individuals. He decided to present a paper on the history of lucid dreaming, drafted his idea and submitted it for presentations and publication at symposiums and in professional journals in his field. He was rejected across the board. And the explanation given was that there was no evidence this phenomena was what he interpreted it to be.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with a lucid dream, it is the phenomena of becoming aware that you are dreaming, while you are dreaming, and continuing on in the dream while conscious of the fact you are dreaming. For people who have had this experience routinely, the response is generally something like “Oh yeah, I’ve done that,” along the lines of “Yes, I’ve had the dream where I’m in a room full of people in my underwear.” For people who have never had this experience, there can sometimes be doubts about this even being possible. And LaBerge encountered this sort of reaction among his peers.

The criticism was, “How do you know you are conscious while you are dreaming, and not that you are dreaming you are conscious?” In other words, is this simply one more form of dream, such as the “maze” dream, the “underwear” dream, the “unprepared for a test” dream, and the “dreaming I’m awake while I am dreaming” dream?

LaBerge’s initial reaction was disbelief that people would doubt what was, to him, a very mundane occurrence. But as the rejection letters piled up, he began to understand his critics and reassess his own assumptions. Ultimately he realized no matter how subjectively “real” this phenomena “felt” or “seemed” to him, he honestly did not have any way to know it wasn’t a dream about being conscious, rather than really being conscious. His subjective experience, and the experience of others, did not provide anything to differentiate between those two possible scenarios. And so, “belief” in one or the other scenario was not merited. For LaBerge, it didn’t become a quest to prove he was right. It became a quest to actually determine if he was correct or confused in his interpretation of his personal experience. And it is a perfect example of how all of us should approach such assumptions that are based on “it seems to me,” and not verified or verifiable.

Why Verification Matters:

But, how to demonstrate or verify that a person who feels conscious in a dream, really is conscious within that dream, and not only dreaming they are conscious? If I’m honest, I would, personally, probably have thrown my hands up and declared we’ll never know the answer; because how, exactly, one would test for this would not have occurred to me. But LaBerge knew he was obligated to demonstrate this, not only for his peers, but for himself, if he wanted to know what was really happening to him, and if it really was what it “seemed” in the subjective experience. Were his interpretations reliable?

He chose body parts that do not go into paralysis routinely during sleep, and he focused on the eyes. LaBerge found subjects who claimed to be efficient at entering into lucid dreaming, and controlling the dreams. He also worked with other researchers who study eye movement during sleep to come up with what they would agree were not normal REM eye movement patterns. Then he instructed his subjects to enter a lucid dream, and move their eyes in an agreed-upon, nonrandom pattern, that could be tracked during sleep, to signal they’d entered the conscious dream.

The research was a success. The subjects were shown to be able to enter dream states and signal the eye patterns, repeatedly. LaBerge did all sorts of testing and signaling for many different reasons, and opened the door to a lot of new information about how similar or different dreams are to the brain than is reality. But the main thing to take away was that he showed that his subjects recalled the instructions given to them while awake, took them into their sleep/dream states, and were able to relay that information back to researchers while sleeping. So, the consciousness the subject experienced was not a dream of consciousness, but the same consciousness experienced while awake.

When LaBerge began working on lucid dreaming, his work was based on “It seems to me” this is something real. It just “made sense” to him. He felt no need to verify, because it was so obviously true, in his mind. But confronted by critics, although he initially was defensive, he ultimately realized he wasn’t justified in his belief this was what he interpreted it to be. He realized he could be wrong, and the only way to know if his belief was true or not true, was to find some means to verify it—to differentiate between being in a conscious state versus dreaming you are in a conscious state. Without that, he could not say lucid dreaming was what he claimed it to be. He could not call it true. He could not be justified believing it. “It seems to me” is not justification for accepting an idea as true. It was not sufficient justification to expect others to accept it. And it was not even sufficient justification for him to believe it, once he realized that was all he had. No matter how strongly he felt that his consciousness in the dreams was legitimate conscious brain activity—he really could not justify or honestly promote it as correct.

When he was able to verify his claims, he was congratulated, and his findings accepted—most of all by his critics.

Carl Sagan’s “Dragon in My Garage” essay, in his book Demon Haunted World, is a wonderful example of the need for verification in order to justify beliefs—ideas we label as true. His summary is quite correct that “If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.”

LaBerge went from being unable to differentiate between a world where his interpretation was correct, and one where his interpretation was not correct, to being able to differentiate. While you cannot make that differentiation, labeling something as “true” because it “makes sense” to you, is sloppy reasoning that shows an utter lack of concern for the truth value of claims you accept as being true. ...............

Originally posted by sonship
I may have one positive contribution to this thread.

I do not think Jesus Christ is a bad joke.
I do not think He is a good joke.

But humor and joking is bassed on an element of [b]surprise.
And surprise can make one LAUGH.

C.S. Lewis wrote about his turning from Atheism to Christian belief in a book entitled "Surprised By Joy".
It was not a joke to touch the Body of Christ. But it was a great moment of surprise.[/b]

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Some here believe Christ is a Bad Joke.

Would those of you who have thoughtfully reached this conclusion please list the primary reasons you feel support your position.

This conversation should have legs since the topic opinion is held by an overwhelming majority of posters to this forum. Thanks.
.[/b]

Originally posted by JS357

Time once again to post a humorous story about a divinity. More of a tragicomedy. The humor does not detract from the message. So humor is not in itself, disrespectful of spiritual tradition. IMO.

It is imaginable that this story could have found its way into the OT, given time and travel. As a sort of Job-ish story.

"What Took You So Long?"
From What To ...[text shortened]... ren desert. Smiling serenely, Vishnu asked teasingly: “Sweet Narada, what took you so long?”