do you believe there was a historical figure the Jesus story was built on?

[johnlucas]

185. The truth is that HISTORY contains the word 'story'

What we are told to be history most likely is not what happened or a distortion of what happened.
In truth we can't really know the past.
All we know is what people TELL us the past was like.

Historians shape the views of the future.
And what they put in or leave out create the picture of what we see.

In the present we know that George W. Bush was an abomination.
But what if 500 years from now, historians paint a picture that he was a great leader?
500 years ago might as well be 1,000,000 years ago so how will most people know any different?

In the year 2014, how much do you care about the people who lived in 1514?
Don't you take the story of people from that time for granted?
Don't you pretty much accept what you're told?
And that's just for the people who actually HAVE an interest in history.
Others won't even care about THAT!

Hell, you don't even have to go back 500 years to get this effect.
Just 50 years ago & people are doing this.
How many people only think of Martin Luther King Jr. as the "I Have A Dream" guy?
How many people have already forgotten what the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did to the political parties?

If you're already seeing this effect in the span of a half-century, then imagine the effect of about 2 millenia.

It's better today than it was in the past, thanks to modern recording technologies.
The printing press, movies, radio, TV, & computers make it much easier to accurately record the realities of the times.
And EVEN THEN you're not gonna get the full picture!
You still have to watch for the inherent human bias & what's omitted & added into reports.
But you'll get a better sense of things today than you would 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago.

Details about people may be different but the themes remain the same.
It may be near-impossible for current people to relate to people of the past who they didn't see in life.
You even see this with people 1 generation apart.
Adult kids usually can't see their parents as sexual beings.
Logically they know that exists but their minds chooses to see their parents in a different way.
To know that your parents really ain't that much different from you.
To know that the things your parents were scolding you from partaking in, they themselves partaked in when they were younger.
Image. That's all it is.

There MAY have a been a person or persons that the figure Jesus Christ was based on.
It COULD have been an entire fabrication to motivate/suppress/control a populace.
It COULD be a bit of both.
Today the end result is a LEGEND.

That's why I worry about the fickleness of the internet, the World Wide Web.
I see so much valuable historical resource with people's words on isolated blogs, random forums & dedicated websites.
But as soon as that web hosting bill lapses, it's 404. Gone forever.
An opinion with so much factual knowledge that it could shape the way people think about an issue forever...
...and when you go back to find it, it's gone.

That's why I put so many sites into my favorites.
But I NEED to print these things out for posterity before they inevitably disappear.

Most people's thinking about a forum is that if it isn't new, it doesn't matter.
People don't like old threads resurrected. They don't like zombie threads.
How much knowledge exists in Democratic Underground since its inception?
The "Old Obsolete DU" as well as the new DU?
How many people appreciate it? How many people look in those old threads?

It just emblematic of how most human beings are.
They don't really care about the past.
So only the historians control the keys to the past.
And once they decide how the STORY of HISTORY will be told, you'll just have to take their word for it.
Whether it's truth, half-truth, or outright lie.
That's how things become Legends.

All you're left with is the Legend of Jesus much like the Legend of Zelda.
You may derive useful lessons from this legend.
Just because something is fable doesn't mean it can't inspire you or teach you something.
I learned "Work Smarter Not Harder" from a cartoon character named Scrooge McDuck from 1987's Ducktales.
Even fiction can be useful.

That might be all we're left with.
Maybe none of us will ever REALLY KNOW the Past.
John Lucas