"If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More then that, we are then false witnesses to God, because we testified that he raised Christ from the dead, when he did not.. And if Christ was not raised, then your faith is useless.. and those who have died believing in Christ are the deadest of the dead. If therefore, our hopes in Christ are limited to this life only, we are the most pitiable and foolish of men." -1 Cor. 15: 12-19
The above passage from the Bible is the foundation of all Christianity - the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And pretty much says it all. (Think about it). Makes sense, right? In other words, if Jesus did not rise from the dead as the Bible says to begin with, then Christianity is basically bullshit! And that means, that all the miracle stories attributed to Jesus are most likely bullshit as well. (Or somewhat mythological, like the biblical account of Adam and Eve). Or some kind of legendary fable. That is, it has to be one or the other. Can't be both. (For the most part, anyway). Think about it...
And while we are on this subject, in relation to the Easter Season (and Passover) and the main reason for this post, there is a very interesting book called: The Lost Years of Jesus, by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. There is a fascinating section in the book, where she writes the following: "John begins his gospel with a quote from the Vedas. (The most ancient Hindu scriptures, of all things!) As Sir John Woodroofe notes: The fourth gospel opens grandly, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' These are the very words of Veda: 'In the beginning was Brahman: with whom was Vak or the Word, and the word is Brahman.' " Wow. If true, I don't get it myself. (Haven't read the Vedas yet). But it kinda lends some credibility to those who say there is a relationship between the two religions in some way. For instance, the term Monastery and Monk are used in some of the Eastern religions, and in Catholicism. Just some food for thought there...
Just one last thing though, that I think is VERY interesting (and very important) regarding the whole crucifixtion story in relation to Jesus, and why he was handed over to the Romans to attempt to have him crucified in the first place, that you just NEVER hear from any Christian preacher, for some reason. (Or at least I've never heard it). Yet it's the whole key to the story, as to why his enemies wanted him dead to begin with. It can all be summed up in this one verse: "Pilate knew, of course, that it was out of jealousy that they had handed him over." -Mt. 27:18 That is, if the whole story is true to begin with, because it sorta' like reflects real life, and therefore lends some credibility to the story itself; as it also provides motive, and some insight into the psychology of those who wanted his demise. And important (like any good story, tale, or legend) because it teaches a meaningful lesson as well, if nothing else...
But anyway, I posted a 'Note' on my Facebook page back in April of 2012, in relation to the Easter Holiday Season, and a brilliant Catholic Monk and Mystic by the name of Thomas Merton as follows...
EVERYTHING THAT IS, IS HOLY
by Thomas Merton
The following are fascinating writings and excerpts from a book (that I have had on my bookshelf for many years now) called: "New Seeds of Contemplation", written by a brilliant Catholic mystic (and monk, of all things!) by the name of: Thomas Merton, that definately makes allot of sense, in reference to quite possibly how some very strange religous mentality may have arisen over the centuries. And let me just state here, in that same spirit of insight into human psychology, I do not mean this in relation to myself, (or any other particular individual), but share it here in honor of the two ancient religous holidays of Easter and Passover, (that many are celebrating right now) for meditation purposes, ("contemplation", if you will), if nothing else. (And, for whatever it's worth). I think it is an incredibly brilliant insight into some types of human and "religous" psychology, that has greatly influenced my own views about spirituality and religon over the years. I hope, maybe, like myself, some will get something from it, if one does need hope that is, and is also disillusioned by some of the things that are perpetuated by those individuals who (may, and) have used religon as a form of control, instead of compassion; or, as especially significant of Passover, which seems to tell a story about: 'justice that comes from compassion'. Here are some of the very wise insights (and highlights) from the above referenced chapter...
"We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God. There is no evil in anything created by God, nor can anything of His be an obstacle to our union with Him. The obstacle is within our "self", that is to say in the tenacious need to maintain our seperate, external, egotistic will... It is then the false self that is our god, and we love everything, for the sake of this self. We use all things, so to speak, for the worship of this idol which is our imaginary self. In so doing we pervert and corrupt things, or rather we turn our relationship to them into a corrupt and "sinful" relationship. We do not thereby make them evil, but we use them to increase our attachment to our illusory self....
Those who try to escape from this situation by treating the good things of God as if they were evils are only confirming themselves in a terrible illusion. They are like Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the serpent in Eden. 'Woman has tempted me. Wine has tempted me. Food has tempted me. Woman is pernacious, wine is poison, food is death. I must hate and revile them. By hating them I will please God...' These are the thoughts and attitudes of a baby, of a savage and of an idolater who seeks by magic incantations and spells to protect his egotistic self and placate the insatiable little god in his own heart. To take such an idol for God is the worst kind of self-deception. It turns a man into a fanatic, no longer capable of sustained contact with the truth, no longer capable of genuine love. In trying to believe in their ego as something 'holy' these fanatics look upon everything else as unholy...
Some men seem to think that a saint cannot possibly take a natural interest in anything created. They imagine that any form of spontaneity or enjoyment is a sinful gratification of "fallen nature". That to be "supernatural" means obstructing all spontaneity with cliche's and arbitrary refrences to God. The purpose of these cliche's is, so to speak, to hold everything at arms length, to frustrate spontaneous reactions, to exorcise feelings of guilt. Or perhaps to cultivate such feelings! One wonders sometimes if such morality is not after all a love of guilt! They suppose that a life of a saint can never be anything but a perpetual dual with guilt...
A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner, making no formal refrences to God, drawing no attention to his own piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed through the pores by the crushing restraint of a spiritual straight-jacket. They come from his direct docility to the light of truth and to the will of God. Hence a saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit refrence to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory to God and arouses a greater love of God then the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain himself to make an arbitrary connection between creatures and God through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so feeble that they make you think that there is something the matter with religon. The saint knows that the world and everything made by God is good, while those who are not saints either think that created things are unholy, or else they don't bother about the question one way or another because they are only interested in themselves...
To worship our false selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of "nothing" is hell. The "false self" must not be identified with the body. The body is neither evil nor unreal. It has a reality that is given it by God, and this reality is therefore holy... Let him not desecrate his own natural unity by dividing himself, soul against body, as if the soul were good and the body evil... If the two are seperated from one another, there is no longer a person, there is no longer a living, subsisting reality made in the image and likeness of God... For these the body becomes a source of falsity and deception; but that is not the body's fault. It is the fault of the person himself, who consents to the illusion, who finds security in self-deception and will not answer the secret voice of God calling him to take a risk and venture by faith outside the reassuring and protective limits of his five senses..."