What do you make of John 20:1-10?

May as well include all of chapter 20.

With what understanding and vision is the magnificent, absolute, profound, and living nature of the revolution of Jesus to be expressed. It was in the loving grief of a woman, Mary Magdalene, who first saw it was not an empty tomb but resurrection faith which expressed it. Jesus predicted this.

The revolution lives on as profound today as ever. Those who choose Love are part of the Jesus Revolution whether they know it or not. The Kingdom of Heaven is open to all those who chose Love. But as with the Resurrection Faith it's Living Love that matters. That's what is "eternal". Not properly speaking religious word formulas like the rituals of the Pharisees.

You can understand this better if you understand what it means for Jesus to be "Good". And that God is Love.


PairTheBoard

PJ plays the role of "good guy atheist" really well, imo. I've often heard him defend proselytising, for example, since if a Christian truly believes they are saving someone from a fate of eternal damnation, what kind of person would they have to be NOT to try to save someone from it (their true motivation, and other details, can make it murky, however).

a story, it seems incumbent on someone to establish that it is anything more ... or else I can say me and my dog rose from the dead last week and that doesn't need any verification either ... just faith. What a magical thinking system it is.

"The Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says ..."

"Harry Potter" says, "Harry Potter" says," "Harry Potter" says ...

The appearance of stories in literature has zero to do with whether or not they are actual and real.

Consider the Roman culture of 2000 years ago. Cruelty was considered a virtue. Honor demanded revenge. Violent death was celebrated in the arena. The gods were nothing more than a technology of superstition to gain either good luck for yourself or bad luck for your enemies through the proper sacrifices. I hate to think what our culture would be like today had we inherited that Roman culture unchecked by the Jesus revolution of Living Love.

There is still much of that Roman culture in us today. And it's a shame when we see it in parts of Christianity itself. But if we have the vision we can also see the Jesus revolution of Living Love both inside the Church and outside of it. In fact it sometimes seems much more apparent outside the Church. It's the experience of that vision that connects us to the extraordinary experience of Mary and later the disciples that they expressed the way they did. But it's not that expression but that experience that is the Resurrection Faith.


PairTheBoard

1. And you don't see any agenda of combining those 66 "books," some just letters and one page BS, by propagandists for the religion. It's just like all the other religions, no different.

2. Yes I know lots of people buy the koolaid and opine about it in print. WTF?

3. Yeah he's not "all-loving" ... he is love. He murdered more than all other people plus gods put together. Out of love.

4. A fable is a fable is a fable, even if one is suspending critical thinking regarding one book only to avoid this realization.