Jesus a fictional character?

[Bum Grasshopper]

Seems plausible, but the Vatican is too powerful to let this one slide.

 

http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm

[RongzomFan]

A lot of mainstream scholars are changing their minds on the existence of Jesus.

 

Arthur Droge, professor of early Christianity at UCSD, Kurt Noll, associate professor of religion at Brandon University, and Thomas Thompson, renowned professor of theology, emeritus, at the University of Copenhagen believe that you cannot say whether Jesus existed or not. Thomas Brodie, director emeritus of the Dominican Biblical Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and Robert Price, who has two Ph.D.’s from Drew University, in theology and New Testament studies, and Richard Carrier, Ph.D. in ancient history from Columbia University, are certain Jesus never existed.

So I would say Jesus is a fictional character.

And then all mainstream scholars believe the gospels are not histories.

[Apech]

Interesting debate ... I've read and listened to Carrier and others and their arguments seem strong. I haven't however been able to shake the 'feeling' that they are wrong ... and this is not due to some cultural programming as I wasn't brought up a Christian ... my parents are atheist (or agnostic at best).

[Protector]

Hold on, let me time travel real quick

[thelerner]

Personally I go with real person, probably a good one, Jewish rabbi, rebel with mystical bend, living in a violent superstitious and chaotic time who's life was mythologized with add ons from other traditions.

 

I didn't expect to find skeptics going over the movie Zeitgeist because it is debunking movie. But when solid researchers did they found it riddled with errors. People don't do research and accept notion after notion blindly. Not that it is proof for Jesus one way or another, just that with out looking a little deeper into internet sources, we're become misinformed pawns of those with agendas. People write lie after lie and with no research its just accepted.

 

Here is a link: http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/

 

sample from the site: "

Horus

This is Horus. He is the Sun God of Egypt of around 3000 BC. He is the sun, anthropomorphized, and his life is a series of allegorical myths involving the sun's movement in the sky. From the ancient hieroglyphics in Egypt, we know much about this solar messiah. For instance, Horus, being the sun, or the light, had an enemy known as Set and Set was the personification of the darkness or night. And, metaphorically speaking, every morning Horus would win the battle against Set - while in the evening, Set would conquer Horus and send him into the underworld. It is important to note that "dark vs. light" or "good vs. evil" is one of the most ubiquitous mythological dualities ever known and is still expressed on many levels to this day.

 

At this time, he was the god of the sky, and Ra was the god of the sun. Perhaps inevitable, since he was the sky, eventually the moon and the sun were considered his eyes. At this point he was known as Heru-khuti, and by-and-by he was combined with Ra as the god "Re-Horakhty"[13][11]. While there was a battle between Set and Horus, it was hardly every night. In fact, the battle really only happened once, and had more to do with testicles and semen than night and day[14].

In fact day and night in Egyptian Mythology was much more complicated than the film suggests. The goddess of the sky was called Nut (or Nuit), her name also means "night". At dusk she would swallow Ra, the son god, and he would stay in her uterus until morning when he would be reborn. She wore a blue dress that was covered in stars[15]. Set was the God of the desert, primarily because Horus cut off one of his testicles and he became "infertile like the desert". At this time, Set was not considered evil, it was not until around 100 A.D. that the Romans in Egypt turned Set into a demonic figure[16].

Broadly speaking, the story of Horus is as follows: Horus was born on December 25th of the virgin Isis-Meri.

 

His birth was accompanied by a star in the east, which in turn, three kings followed to locate and adorn the new-born savior. At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 he was baptized by a figure known as Anup and thus began his ministry. Horus had 12 disciples he traveled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water. Horus was known by many gestural names such as The Truth, The Light, God's Anointed Son, The Good Shepherd, The Lamb of God, and many others. After being betrayed by Typhon, Horus was crucified, buried for 3 days, and thus, resurrected..

 

Horus was not born on December 25th, he was born on the 5th day of the "Epagomenal Days"[3], which does not even take place in December on the modern or ancient calendars, but rather between August 24th and 28th, but in terms of the rising of Sirius (August 4), they are July 30th through August 3rd[4]. His mother was also not a virgin. Horus's father was Osiris, who was killed by his brother Seth. Isis used a spell to bring him back to life for a short time so they could have sex, in which they conceived Horus[5].

I, as well as several others, as well as several Egyptologists you can find on the Internet, know of no reference anywhere to a "star in the east" or "three kings" and "new-born savior"; it is simply made up. I cannot find any source or information proving he was a "teacher when he was 12 years old", that he was "baptized at age 30", that he "walked on water" (but on the Internet, I did find several places that suggest he was "thrown in the water", but I have no direct source at this time for that). More so, I cannot find any evidence he was referred to as "The Truth", "The Light", Lamb of God", "the Good Shepherd", etc.

Also lacking is any evidence that he was betrayed by Typhon. In fact, Horus never died, at any time, he later merges with the sun god, Ra -- but never dies and certainly never is crucified, and therefore could not have been buried for 3 days and resurrected. If you want to look it up yourself, you can find documentation of Horus and Isis and Osiris here [6] and here [7]."

Edited October 11, 2013 by thelerner

[Apech]

Hold on, let me time travel real quick

 

Will you be back before you leave?

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I think there was a guy called Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago preaching stuff (some of it brilliant), as I doubt Christianity could have started without some seed.

 

Whether this man was crucified after angry Jews complained, IDK. As for all the miracles and the history in the bible, I'm very, very sceptical.

Edited October 11, 2013 by Seeker of Tao

[RongzomFan]

Seems plausible, but the Vatican is too powerful to let this one slide.

 

http://uk.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11201273.htm

 

 

Dr. Richard Carrier, PhD in Ancient History from Columbia, on this Atwill guy:

 

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4664

Edited October 11, 2013 by alwayson

[thelerner]

In Roman times in Judea if anyone was pegged 'King of the Jews' by friend or foe, they were dead. You didn't need a crowd complaining about them or formal charges filed. They'd be killed quickly. Herod was a Roman pawn and the slightest whisper of any usurper meant there death. Thus Herod murdered his wife and 2 sons. Pontius Pilate was a historic character, there's a plaque to him in Caesaria, but I believe he was not the dithering character made out in the Gospels. Ancient historian Philo writes that Pilate had "vindictiveness and furious temper" -^ Philo, On The Embassy of Gauis Book XXXVIII 299–305. Historian Josephus is also unflattering.

 

From our vintage point it hard to 'get' how bloody the Romans were. The leaders killed there relatives regularly. They'd lose 100,000 soldiers in battle and send 100,000 more. Non Roman subjects toed the line, or die en masse.

[thamosh]

If your saying Jesus isn't real then anyone who was associated with him wasn't real either. To disprove one you must disprove the others.

[gendao]

Very interesting...?

Self-Professed ‘Bible Scholar’ Makes Explosive Allegation About Jesus That He Believes Could Rock the Christian Faith to Its Core

By Billy Hallowell

 

On Oct. 19, self-professed Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill is planning to make public some very flammable allegations. At a day-long symposium called "Covert Messiah" in London, England, he's set to unveil purported evidence that Roman aristocrats manufactured Jesus Christ - a claim that, if substantiated, would devalue the core of the Christian faith.

 

The only problem? Most Biblical experts disagree with the scholar's pronouncements.

 

A press release announcing the purported new evidence claims that Atwill has discovered "ancient confessions" that purportedly prove that Romans invented Jesus Christ in the first century. He has long argued that the faith system was used as a political tool to control the masses -- something he says is still going on today.

 

"I present my work with some ambivalence, as I do not want to directly cause Christians any harm, but this is important for our culture," he said of the alleged debunk - one that he believes will eventually be universally accepted.

 

In the release, Atwill said that governments often create "false histories and false gods" and that this is often done in an effort to secure social order.

 

Rather than a theology, Atwill believes that Christianity was concocted as a government project that was used to control Roman citizens. During a time in which Jewish residents were waiting for their Messiah, he says they were a constant source of insurrection, leading the Romans to seek out an equalizing and tempering force.

"When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare," Atwill explains in the press release. "They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system."

 

And that's when Jesus was allegedly created - a man who advocated peace rather than violence. Atwill contends that the Christ that billions embrace never actually existed and that he is a "fictional character."

 

He bases his theory on a study of "Wars of the Jews," a book by Josephus, a scholar who provided insight and documentation first-century Judea. The historian contends that the prophesies of Jesus line up with Josephus' writings about the Jewish-Roman war and are, thus, proof that "the biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar."

 

"Is this the beginning of the end of Christianity?" the press release cryptically asks.

 

While Atwill doesn't think it is, he did say that the purported discovery will give those who are looking to leave the Christian faith the perfect motivation to do so. He maintains that his evidence shows exactly where Jesus' story came from.

 

"Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history," he said. "To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East."

 

Patheos blogger James R. McGrath, though, doubts that the symposium will be groundbreaking. Of Atwill's claim to be a Biblical scholar he wrote, "there is no evidence that he has relevant qualifications or research to his name."

 

Atwill's biography claims that, while he went to school for computer science, he has spent years studying the origins of Christianity.

 

Professor James Crossley from the University of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England, agreed with Atwill's critics, telling The Daily Mail that theories like Atwill's are not accepted among academics.

 

"These types of theories are very common outside the academic world and are usually reserved for sensationalist literature," he said. "They are virtually non-existent in the academic world."

 

Atwill's views are no surprise. Online articles and a book he wrote in 2005 entitled, "Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus," all include similar themes. His view that Jesus was manufactured is well-documented. Most mainstream Bible scholars, though, don't seem to be buying into it.

Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ'

Biblical scholars will be appearing at the 'Covert Messiah' Conference at Conway Hall in London on the 19th of October to present this controversial discovery to the British public.

London (PRWEB UK) 8 October 2013

 

American Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill will be appearing before the British public for the first time in London on the 19th of October to present a controversial new discovery: ancient confessions recently uncovered now prove, according to Atwill, that the New Testament was written by first-century Roman aristocrats and that they fabricated the entire story of Jesus Christ. His presentation will be part of a one-day symposium entitled "Covert Messiah" at Conway Hall in Holborn (full details can be found at http://www.covertmessiah.com).

 

Although to many scholars his theory seems outlandish, and is sure to upset some believers, Atwill regards his evidence as conclusive and is confident its acceptance is only a matter of time. "I present my work with some ambivalence, as I do not want to directly cause Christians any harm," he acknowledges, "but this is important for our culture. Alert citizens need to know the truth about our past so we can understand how and why governments create false histories and false gods. They often do it to obtain a social order that is against the best interests of the common people."

 

Atwill asserts that Christianity did not really begin as a religion, but a sophisticated government project, a kind of propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire. "Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century," he explains. "When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

 

Was Jesus based on a real person from history? "The short answer is no," Atwill insists, "in fact he may be the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources. Once those sources are all laid bare, there's simply nothing left."

 

Atwill's most intriguing discovery came to him while he was studying "Wars of the Jews" by Josephus [the only surviving first-person historical account of first-century Judea] alongside the New Testament. "I started to notice a sequence of parallels between the two texts," he recounts. "Although it's been recognised by Christian scholars for centuries that the prophesies of Jesus appear to be fulfilled by what Josephus wrote about in the First Jewish-Roman war, I was seeing dozens more. What seems to have eluded many scholars is that the sequence of events and locations of Jesus ministry are more or less the same as the sequence of events and locations of the military campaign of [Emperor] Titus Flavius as described by Josephus. This is clear evidence of a deliberately constructed pattern. The biography of Jesus is actually constructed, tip to stern, on prior stories, but especially on the biography of a Roman Caesar."

 

How could this go unnoticed in the most scrutinised books of all time? "Many of the parallels are conceptual or poetic, so they aren't all immediately obvious. After all, the authors did not want the average believer to see what they were doing, but they did want the alert reader to see it. An educated Roman in the ruling class would probably have recognised the literary game being played." Atwill maintains he can demonstrate that "the Roman Caesars left us a kind of puzzle literature that was meant to be solved by future generations, and the solution to that puzzle is 'We invented Jesus Christ, and we're proud of it.'"

 

Is this the beginning of the end of Christianity? "Probably not," grants Atwill, "but what my work has done is give permission to many of those ready to leave the religion to make a clean break. We've got the evidence now to show exactly where the story of Jesus came from. Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history. To this day, especially in the United States, it is used to create support for war in the Middle East."

 

Atwill encourages skeptics to challenge him at Conway Hall, where after the presentations there is likely to be a lively Q&A session. Joining Mr.Atwill will be fellow scholar Kenneth Humphreys, author of the book "Jesus Never Existed."

 

Further information can be found at http://www.covertmessiah.com.

 

About Joseph Atwill: Joseph Atwill is the author of the best-selling book "Caesar's Messiah" and its upcoming sequel "The Single Strand."

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me...the Bible has always seemed "tainted" to me with a lot of ethnocentric, geopolitical, self-serving, manipulative mind control propaganda. Not saying this debunker is right...but it wouldn't really surprise me..

Was "Yeshua" a religious Columbus?

Edited October 11, 2013 by vortex

[Protector]

It's back, the op is acting weird though

But you get back the best parts of the thread, be nice this time

[h.uriahr]

This thread is going to crash. It's a matter of either having a Personal Relationship or not having one.

Jesus is Real. I have experiences that Prove He's Real. If you've never had them then He's fictional to you.

I do believe that a lot of people are being misled to believe that He's not Real. My Holy Doctrine says so.

If you don't believe in the Holy Bible then what's the point?

A debate that will end in the pit.

[silent thunder]

I suspect that the stories are based on a real person. But I'm rather agnostic on the topic since 'proof' is absent either way.

 

For me, the difference lies between knowledge of christ the man (story or not) and the experience of Christ Consciousness; and the distinction between being experiential and subjective, so it's tricky for sure to talk about, but surely not impossible. Much like enlightenment, how do you describe an experience beyond words or ideas? With care, tact and an open mind. If mind cannot remain open, mouths should close.

[SonOfTheGods]

If there are any magickians in the house who have studied Qabala, said magickian would know jesus is an archetype of Tiphareth.

 

 

Tiferet ("Adornment", Hebrew: תפארת [tiˈfeʔʁeθ]) alternately Tifaret, Tifereth, Tyfereth or Tiphereth, is the sixth sefira in the kabbalistic Tree of Life. It has the common association of "Spirituality", "Balance", "Integration", "Beauty", "Miracles", and "Compassion".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiferet

 

In Christian Cabala, Tiphereth is especially associated with Jesus Christ, 'God the Son' (as opposed to Kether, which is God the father, and Yesod, the Holy Spirit). This is because this is the Sephirah in which the divine force 'sacrifices' itself, transmutating into the forces of energy and matter, in order that creation might come to be. It is the sephirah in which 'God becomes a mortal man'. Illustrative of the process of Tipharet is Jesus' teaching in the Book of John, "No one comes to the Father except through me". Kether is raw energy as the Godhead and is as such unknowable by the conscious mind; Tiphareth (the son) balances the force and form of Kether and Yesod respectively allowing Kether to assume a knowable form. A Christian mystic, in relating to Jesus, repeats the process in the other direction, by transmutating that which is lower, in order to achieve the divine. In terms of the Kabbalah, Tipharet encompasses not only "God the Son" but also the related myths of Osiris and other sacrificial gods.

The archangel of this sphere is Raphael, and the Malachim is the Angelic order. The astrological correspondence is again the sun, and the zodiac associated with Tiferet is Leo.

Christianity primarily focuses on Tipharet as a driving spiritual force, emphasising the points of love, beauty, self sacrifice and service in its greater aspect. Particularly the Osirian sect and other derivations of pantheistic religions, with their personification of gods, emphasise the unknowable from the standpoint of Yesod. The eastern religions, particularly Taoism and Buddhism are more closely related to Kether, with their focus on unity and the indefinable aspect of the Divine.

Tiphereth is associated with divine love, with healing, balance and harmony. In comparing with Eastern traditions, Tiphereth is usually associated with the central Anahata chakra in tantric tradition, which contains many of the same archetypal ideas.

777 attributes Tiphereth as the four sixes of the tarot as well as the Princes and Emperors cards, Ra, Rama, Buddha, Apollo, Adonis, God the Son (Jesus), Phoenix, Lion, Bay, Laurel, Topaz, Lamen of he Rosy Cross, Abrahadabra, Coffee, and Alcohol.

The pre-coronation name of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie the First was "Tafari Makonnen". This name Tafari (or Teferi) is the Ethiopic form of Tiferet.

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (or Christianity Before Christ) is an 1875 book written by Kersey Graves. It asserts that Jesus was not an actual person, but was a creation largely based on earlier stories of deities or god-men saviours who had been crucified, and descended to and ascended from the underworld.

It has been noted that Graves derived "many of the most important facts collated in this work" from the comprehensive 1833 work, the Anacalypsis, by Sir Godfrey Higgins. These works thus present an early variant of what would come to be known as the Jesus myth hypothesis.

The book is often used as a source for many Jesus myth hypothesis writers, including Acharya S, Tom Harpur and John G. Jackson. Its accuracy has been questioned by both Christian^[1] and atheist scholars,^[2] with the consensus being that the book is unscholarly and unreliable.

 

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, complete text at sacred-texts.com.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/wscs/index.htm

[silent thunder]

Truly the similarities in the christ story and the horus tale lend credence to the potential for christ being a retelling of an older tale with a new name.

That said: there is nothing that precludes both tales from being true.

Mirrored experiences happen often in life and the cycles of human experience repeat like the seasons.

[Grigory]

With all due respect, you're all approaching this issue from a wrong direction. You got stuck in this tar pit of a debate by jumping in without questioning its underlying precepts. What is history? Unless Protector shares his time machine with us, we'll have to keep defining the past as a compromise between the chroniclers from that period and the Powers That Be of today.

 

(Recall the riots and tensions that happen every few years in Asia when one side or another tries to redefine what happened during WW2.)

 

As soon as the last person who personally knew you dies, you too will become a fictional character - a sum total of stories told by your great-great-grandchildren, or biographers working with incomplete sources, or court transcripts, if you were one of the unlucky ones... The more time passes, the more your identity will be redefined, altered, reimagined. That is, of course, if you will be remembered at all.

 

George Washington wasn't a brave courageous hero his whole life. Abraham Lincoln wasn't a genius in all of his endeavors. Jesus Christ, whoever he was (or wasn't), was almost certainly not the same person described in the collection of mistranslated, edited and whitewashed tales known as the Bible. Why argue about the physical existence of someone whose philosophical legacy has been turned inside out and backwards?

[h.uriahr]

The only argument from my perspective is that the great deceiver has a grip on the world as a whole, deceiving many Christians as well but if you don't believe the Holy Bible then my argument becomes null and void to you(meaning the whole).

 

That is in fact my argument. Not all other teachings are bad. In the Book of Romans there is a mention of this. Gentiles who didnt have the Law but knew it in their hearts.

 

 

[konchog uma]

I"m afraid that you would have to prove that the bible is the unedited word of God, and that God is infallible, and neither are really possible to do. Its possible to have faith in that, because we can't prove it, but it's not possible to prove it, hence the rub with science and the scientific method. I am not bringing it up to slam Christianity or your own experience, unlike many non-theists, i think religion has the potential to help people and that mystical experiences of a religious nature can happen and are valid. I'm curious do you have anything to offer that isn't personal opinion or based on faith.

 

Its interesting because the whole power of the church and Christianity definitely came from somewhere... but there is the matter of the mithra/horus/krishna/dionysus similarity pointed out in the film zeitgeist and elsewhere.. and there is the matter of the political and vested interests of the Church and the mistranslations of the bible into the common versions now, like king james, and worse, obvious to any scholars of greek or aramaic, as well as editing out of certain select books, and also the discrepancies between the Jewish mysticism that Jesus would likely have been practicing and the modern take on it (for example YHWH was not masculine, and not anthropomorphized, and not considered a god or even God then, as far as i understand). So there is a lot to be questioned if this is the infallible work of some ultimate and supreme Deity and we are to accept it as such on blind faith.

 

Its convenient to think that if i agree to the party line and invite this character into my heart and become "saved" from further inquiry, that i will live in heaven forever. But Christianity accepted reincarnation until the council of Nicea in the 4th century. (does that mean that Christ taught reincarnation? google "gilgulim") So these bishops and cardinals have been about altering the word of "God" (in quotes because so many different words and names get translated as "God" in the modern bible) for almost 1700 years... you can change a lot in that time.

 

Anyway, if you or anyone else can address any of that factually or even scientifically, without faith or circular logic (the bible says god is perfect and god wrote the bible so it must be true, etc) that would be really interesting.

Edited October 14, 2013 by konchog uma

[h.uriahr]

The ol' Mexican stand off.

[konchog uma]

in my tradition we are taught to evaluate things critically and not take anything on blind faith, but only after evaluating it and holding it up to the light of logic, reason, and the greater good. Christianity hasn't withstood the test yet. But if that's your answer, maybe someone else could explain those things to us.

[h.uriahr]

I don't have any evidence that I can share with you. I know that in very deep prayer things that at unexplainable have happened..but I don't have video of it so what's the point?

[Apech]

The evidence in what would be normal historical record/archeology for jesus is extremely weak if non-existent. the Gospels were not contemporary and are full of contradictions. Historical writers do not mention him except Josephus and his account was tampered with in the middle ages. See Bart Ehrmann and others on this. So what is factually known outside of dogma is very little.

 

All the writings of Paul (who did not meet jesus) address him as a kind of spiritual entity i.e. Christ not Jesus.

 

However the comparison with Horus is laughable if you know anything about Egyptian Myth. there is some iconography borrowed from Egypt such as the Madonna and Child = Isis and Horus but this is due to cultural borrowing.

 

So its very hard to get positive proof.

 

The testimony of individuals of the spiritual presence of Christ is a different kind of knowledge (or Gnosis perhaps) which needs to be addressed in a different way. It is quite possible for instance to understand a mystical Christ consciousness even if there was never a man Jesus.

 

I would be very surprised though if there was no actual person around whom all the Gospel stories were written - whether he died on the cross and resurrected is another question of course.

[h.uriahr]

in my tradition we are taught to evaluate things critically and not take anything on blind faith, but only after evaluating it and holding it up to the light of logic, reason, and the greater good. Christianity hasn't withstood the test yet. But if that's your answer, maybe someone else could explain those things to us.

 

There is no blind faith in Christianity. You either have a direct relationship with Christ or you don't. I don't blindly follow. I follow because I surrender. I can plead for the Blood of Christ and get washed from the top of my head to my feet. I mean a physical manifestation. Many other things as well, all in the Name of Christ. My Faith isn't blind. On the contrary, my Faith is a Gift and I thank The Lord my God, Christ Jesus for His Grace and Mercy.

 

I don't think an article is valid evidence for the argument against Christ.

[Nungali]

Literalism! It doesn't matter if Jesus is 'real' or not ... the whole dynamic of such an event is not based on 'reality' it works just as well if Jesus is 'real' or 'a fictional character'. Why waste your time? If you believe that should be enough ... if you believe then you are wasting your time trying to prove a ' literal reality ' you should be doing something about and with the dynamic reality you feel in yourself. If you believe in some other religion, prophet, or magico/mythical system and you give THAT literalistic reality .... you will be trapped in ignorance like any one else that does that.

 

The spiritual and religious world is about symbolism and analogy ... to try and 'prove' it has literal mundane existence seems, IMO to short circuit the whole process , before long ... people obsessed with this approach will end up father away from being spiritual and religious and possibly devolve into a qlippoth of an empty dogmatic fundamentalist shell that oppresses society and the human spirit of light, life love and liberty.