I will grant you a painless crucifixion and an exodus from a tomb when enough time had passed where Jesus could confidently be presumed "dead", per the norms of our experience. I will grant you a number of appearances thereafter, coming and going out of thin air. And if you like, i will grant you a nifty ascension in front of a large crowd.
However, these are still parables. You see, there are parables told with words, and others told WITHOUT WORDS. These are actions which speak louder than words.
Like any parable, these demonstrations are neither true, nor false, and are not offered up for belief, but rather, understanding.
There is nothing about these demonstrations that changes anything...unless they are understood.
It is the understanding that has the potential to save what will be saved, and it won't be "you", as you currently think of your "self".
I could even say that these parables are so important to understand, that "you" cannot be saved without understanding them.
So i have granted you the demonstrations, and the significance, but heartily renounce the mainstream Christian INTERPRETATION of these scenes.
As for any other "supra-natural" scene, you have nothing but an opinion. You simply don't know. I find the pretense of knowing despicable.
Besides, what does the word "supra-natural" even mean? I think it's a lame word that cops out of more nuanced philosophical analysis. It's not in my vocabulary. Things are either real, or they are not. They are either natural, or they are not. Christ is both real and natural, and unless you plan on COMPETING with Christ, i suggest you drop those pretenses as well. Laying claim to Christ's qualities for a self that denies it is Christ...is dangerous, and deadly.
I don't know if Jesus fed 5000 starting with a couple loaves of bread. Neither do you. Don't know if he walked on water. Neither do you. Don't know if he raised Lazarus from the dead. Neither do you. Given what i know about Jesus, i suppose it is possible. Given what i know about the bible, i suppose it could also be made up, like they made up the story about him appearing before the Sanhedrin and Herod the night before he was crucified.
Supposing he did do any of this, these demonstrations of power can also be parables.
Given a thorough understanding of his mind, as well as the kind of mind training Jesus would have practiced, i'm confident that anyone can repeat what he did, and do even more.
I don't see that much in the annals of Christendom, offering the world evidence that Christians don't understand Jesus.
One last word on parables. Take, for example, feeding a lot of people with one loaf of bread. This is a parable that was re-taught during the "last supper"...the idea that one loaf of bread is "broken" for the salvation of "many". Partaking of the parable and understanding the parable symbolize the same thing. If you don't understand the parable, you don't partake, and you won't be saved.
FYI, it is a symbol of the STATUS QUO, which is that in order to make many people, you have to BREAK (destroy) the unity of CHRIST, and so, destroy Christ. To the many people, this seems like a good thing, as people are most interested in their own, personal salvation, at any cost. For this reason, legend suggests that Christ died (was destroyed) "before the foundation of the world", meaning, in order for an unreal world to exist, you must first destroy reality itself, which is Christ. This is also why Jesus suggested you "lay down your life, for [Christ's] sake", which is the complete opposite of what you are trying to accomplish with mainstream salvation.
Salvation is for Christ, not man. You need to understand, and rightly, that there is a strong correlation between the life of man, and the "death" of Christ. This is NOT A GOOD THING!
So i googled supernatural because it's not in my vocabulary. It presumes the law and order fo this world is "natural" and anything breaking the normal patterns is "super" natural. Does that mean not natural?
I say that the laws and orders and principalities and dominions of "this world" are NOT NATURAL and NOT NORMAL...if you consider Christ alone to be both NATURAL and NORMAL.
Whenever the laws governing Christ come into conflict with the laws governing this strange and un-natural world, the laws of Christ will prevail. This is essentially what Jesus sought to demonstrate, when he decided to FEEL NO PAIN while crucified. No pain is normal and natural...TO CHRIST.
Likewise, LIFE, and NOT DEATH, is NORMAL and NATURAL for Christ.
But walking out of a tomb after three days dead is NOT NORMAL given the strange laws of "this world".
Demonstrations such as this, should speak loudly and clearly, that "this world" IS NOT MORE REAL THAN A STRANGE DREAM WHERE STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN.
Strange things happen only in dreams, not in the reality of Christ.
Dreams are something you want to WAKE UP from, which is exactly what the parable of the resurrection is all about!
You're the one reducing Christ to a man. Not me. When you think to elevate man by insisting that at least one man, Jesus, was able to combine all the qualities of God and the opposite of God, you insult Christ. When you think Christ intends to "descend", for any reason, you reduce Christ below Christ's nature, even below Christ's ability. You simply cannot combine opposites into one fruit, lest you repeat the "original sin", and "die" because of it.
The bible IS completely meaningless, as you simply don't know how many of it's stories are either parables, or just stories that sounded good to a class of priests who wanted to extract a livelihood from the offerings (taxes) of some sheeple. Tell me, how is the Song of Solomon meaningful, without injecting some ridiculous interpretation into it?
A parable, properly speaking, is a story or action (a story through actions), told by a teacher who actually KNOWS something ABOUT CHRIST. These need to be understood. There are other kinds of stories, told by mental cases who knew nothing about Christ. These are just stories, like the lyrics to "Stairway To Heaven", completely meaningless. But they sound good to anyone who does not give a damn about Christ, and Christ's salvation.
Notwithstanding, EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS WORLD IS AT LEAST A SYMBOL, if not a parable. Death, for example, is a SYMBOL. Death, itself, is meaningless...but you can at least understand the symbolism to the point you could position yourself, like Jesus, to completely IGNORE IT.
FYI, all death symbolizes THE DEATH OF CHRIST.
Not only this, compared to the life of Christ, the "life" of man is so destructive to the life of Christ, that it too can be considered a strange kind of "death". As such, the diversity of man symbolizes a DEAD CHRIST.
Just remember, a SYMBOL is not real. Reality is the natural quality of Christ, and Christ alone.
It's difficult to assess whether the first few chapters of the Torah were written as a parable by a wise man, or a tale told by an idiot. Since the first sentence of the Torah is ridiculous, i suggest the it's a story told by an idiot. As a teacher, this doesn't stop me from using it by offering AN INTERPRETATION that suggests your current viewpoint could very well be erroneous.
It astonishes me why anyone would think that knowledge, is evil, and faith is good! It astonishes me to hear seemingly sane people, announce that God keeps knowledge to himself, and distributes ignorance (faith) to imprisoned (embodied) souls. So i simply explain how people, even to this very day, are still eating (believing in) the "fruit" of the proverbial "tree of the knowledge of good and evil". I simply explain what the tree actually is. FYI, the tree is "this world" and everything in it, including THE BIBLE, and CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
No i taught that Jesus, when presented with any biblical text, was likely to give it new meaning. He could reduce it's complexity to something simple, and was not shy to disregard the letter (literal meaning) of words etched in stone, or penned on papyrus.
I do the same.
The first sentence of the bible bombards you with a theory of some "beginning". It is not better than junk science promulgated with an agenda. It is completely ridiculous once you can accept that Christ has no such beginning, and no other beginning is either possible or meaningful. Total propaganda.
I have my own explanation of what "begin" SYMBOLIZES. It symbolizes THE DEATH OF THAT WHICH HAS NOT BEGINNING, AND NO END.
What can have a beginning can also have an end...must have an end...since both a beginning and an end are flip sides of a coin called CHANGE (what Obama promised).
Beginnings and endings mark TIME. But did you not know? Time is an UN-NATURAL bastardization of the ETERNITY OF CHRIST.
A world of time ends when the knowledge of Christ dawns upon your mind.
I have my own take on the concept of evolution that will satisfy neither scientists nor Christians.
The very first sentence in the Torah is made up to suit an agenda. How is this better than junk science?
