badabellisima wrote:
Splishak, that was one of the most profound and concise grapplings with the incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity that I have ever heard! In my faith (Catholic), we believe that God is One in Three Persons, Father Son and Holy Ghost- All at one time. Even my priest doesn’t attempt to explain it- he just directs us to the great Mystery of it with the humble sort of apology that he cannot grasp it, and that no one can, really. Might be what we’re all here for.

As for the physics aspect, right now, there are some interesting challenges to String Theory that sheds light on some inconsistencies in how we view the quote Big Bang Theory, and I think it then comes full circle and allows for re-examination of how we view The End according to our Christian beliefs- or whatever our faith is. I love science and physics for the beautiful way it can reflect cosmic and spiritual understanding, and at the same time, Religions (all of them to an extent), still surpass the scientific explanation in the last “analysis”. We can never fully “know” God with any scientific study. But our attempts are beautiful in and of themselves. God didn’t give us the capacity to grapple these complex mysteries for no reason.

Anyway- I have been so busy for months with my awful commute and new job that I am unable to get to all your posts yet. But I will. (Even if someone doesn’t respond doesn’t mean they aren’t listening…).

Here in Ireland we are all taught in school about how St.Patrick used the shamrock to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The idea being that the ONE shamrock has THREE leaves. This is why the shamrock is the national symbol of Ireland. Just a bit of trivia you might be interested in.

Holy shit. That's all I will say.

Thanks dsweeney. Actually, i was raised in a Catholic school which was primarily staffed by Irish nuns from the Sisters of Mercy order. The main Pastor was named Patrick, and we had a huge stained glass window of St. Patrick and they too, used the shamrock analogy. We even danced irish jigs! Never got over there, but my Mom has gone, and my nieces went to Kylemore Abbey boarding school in Connemara/Galway (where they filmed "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara). Apparently stunning in its beauty, like everything Irish!

I am chalking this up to visual and auditory hallucinations while in the hypnagogic state.

JLTucker wrote:I am chalking this up to visual and auditory hallucinations while in the hypnagogic state.

You are free to draw your own conclusions, of course, but, as thoroughly explained in the account, the "hallucinations" were neither auditory nor visual but entirely metaphysical. There was perception of purple light and mild burning in the forehead, but I can only roughly describe the sensations as being real without having concrete physical origins or causes.

As for my physical state, I had never fallen asleep. I had just laid down for a matter of a minute or two before being suddenly impelled to sit up in bed, and I couldn't have been more wide awake, alert, and in tune with the realities around me when the experience happened. My heart rate and respiration increased, and my eyes were wide open.

Hypnagogic Hallucination

By Brandon Peters, M.D., About.com
Updated: January 18, 2009
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board
Glossary


Definition: A hypnagogic hallucination is a vivid, dream-like sensation that is heard, seen or felt and that occurs near the onset of sleep. It is one of the four cardinal symptoms of narcolepsy.
Examples: As I fall asleep, I experience intense hypnagogic hallucinations and imagine people in my room.

Doesn't sound like Fly's experience was dream-like at all, but rather, very personal. Very real.

Fly-

Out of curiosity, and somewhat on a whim, although it ties into the thread and Easter season, I was wondering what you thought of Passion of the Christ.

I was incredibly moved by it, and it somehow made me think of this thread and wanting to revisit it.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

AJColossal wrote:Fly-

Out of curiosity, and somewhat on a whim, although it ties into the thread and Easter season, I was wondering what you thought of Passion of the Christ.

I was incredibly moved by it, and it somehow made me think of this thread and wanting to revisit it.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Hi AJ,

Sorry I didn't see this sooner.

I did see Passion of the Christ in the theater, although, for reasons I won't go into, I was a few minutes late getting to my seat and was distracted a few times during the screening. The movie had already started by the time I was seated, which kind of bummed me out from the get go.

Overall it was certainly a very affecting movie to me, and one I have vowed to see again at some point, although it was (from one viewing, anyway) not my favorite depiction of Christ onscreen. For a full treatment, I'm partial to the Greatest Story Ever Told, and for depiction of the sheer charisma of Jesus and of the power of his message, I still think Ben Hur (Heston version) did it better than any film. Just like I thought Sophie's Choice distilled the horrors of the Holocaust as effectively in two minutes as any 3 hour movie I've ever seen, Ben Hur, particularly in the scene where Christ bathes the face of Ben Hur in water over the orders of the Roman soldier (and by merely standing and facing him causes him to cower away in shame) is goose bump material of the highest order.

That said, I assume you may be alluding to some of the controversy surrounding The Passion. My recollection is that that controversy involved the extended/exaggerated depiction of flogging as well as the depiction of the Jewish high priests as essentially "responsible" for the execution of Christ.

I don't claim to be a real historical scholar on this, but I do think the Gospels and other treatments I've been exposed to over the years support the rough dimensions of what was depicted in the film, which was that Pilate wanted an excuse not to have to make the decision himself (kind of like Tony with Ralph and Jackie Jr. -- how's that for a Sopranos tie in!), and he was more than accommodated by the Jewish elders, who felt their authority and the survival of Jewish law as they knew it was very threatened by Jesus. They wanted him dead and felt he'd blasphemed sufficiently to deserve that fate. Of course the crucifixion was carried out by Roman soldiers, so there was ample collaboration between Jews and Romans in the execution, as I understand it.

For the life of me, I can't understand why intelligent people of the 20th century would find that history either reason for or incitement to antisemitism. Jesus was at least as threatening to the Jewish establishment as he was to Rome, and so it only makes sense that the fervor to stop him would be felt first and foremost among Jewish leaders. How this is any different from any number of revolutionaries or persecuted persons in history, ultimately meeting their demise in whole or in part at the hands of "their" own people, is beyond me. That doesn't in any way distinguish the Jews of that era from people of myriad creeds in myriad other eras, whether you're talking about the Roman Catholics that put Galileo under house arrest or the Salem puritans that killed teenagers in their own community for practicing what they deemed "witchcraft".

In my opinion, that line of reasoning is how the ridiculous "Christ killer" propaganda used by some to fuel antisemitism should be answered, not by a denial of the basic truth that some of Jesus' Jewish compatriots wanted, and did their part to help bring about, his death. And the other way to answer it, of course, is to remind its purveyors that . . . duh . . . Jesus was a Jew and so were nearly all of the important early Christians. There would be no Christianity today if it weren't for the courage and willingness to die by a small circle of Jews defending the notion that this Jewish guy from Nazareth was literally the embodied son of God.

I just realized that I wrote an awful lot based on the assumption that this controversy was underlying your question about my opinion of the film. I hope I didn't assume too much, LOL, cause otherwise I just wasted your and my time. But to sum up, yeah, I thought it was a very well-made film, one I plan on seeing again, though not my favorite depiction of the Jesus story.

Appreciate you sharing your thoughts, Fly.

I can respect your choices on some of the other films you mentioned, but there seemed to be an authenticity to Passion that I didn't quite feel with some of the other ones; namely, a you are there feeling. I really felt that this could have been the way it really happened.

Granted, the scope of what they were trying to do with Passion was really much more limited, and I would have liked to see more of Jesus and his teachings (like the flashback scenes), but that just wasn't the story they were telling.

Another aside -- there was a very interesting program recently on The History Channel called "The Real Face of Jesus?" which explored the Shroud of Turin. Very interesting scientific research being done where some scientists are beginning to doubt earlier claims of the Shroud being fraudulent.

AJ, I'll take your praise of Passion as reason enough to keep my vow and see it again. Sometimes your frame of mind influences your judgments disproportionately (in one way or another)of a movie or other experience, and my frame of mind wasn't the best that day.

I hear you on the shroud. I don't know if the program you mentioned is the same one I saw, a year or two ago, but the one I saw produced a very plausible explanation for the results of the carbon 14 dating tests that were run and dated the shroud at somewhere in the 5th century (IIRCC). Turns out the tiny fragment of the shroud that had been taken for the test was from a corner that had been damaged in a fire in medieval times (12th or 13th century?), and the curators of that day tried to patch the area as seamlessly as possible by actually weaving in contemporary linen (dyed to have the same color as the shroud) so that the shroud would appear to the naked eye as to have never been damaged by fire. But under a microscope, you could plainly see the differentials in the fabric as well as the ratio of new threads versus old threads in the weave.

It was extrapolated by experts that, based on the ratios of fibers and the dates involved, carbon results should have shown exactly what they did show -- a date of about 5th century, in between Jesus' day and the 13th century. So far, the Vatican has not allowed a test to be done of another, non-damaged part of the shroud to confirm that it's of the right age. But I think they should, since the first test needlessly placed the authenticity of the shroud in doubt from ill thought-out sampling.