Religion, God, Jesus and Myths Page

by Robert J. Bradbury
 
Given my emphasis on extending the human lifespan, I am often asked my perspectives regarding god and religion. With regard to god, I would say: Some people like to focus their attention on Jesus Christ, with regard to him, if he existed, I would say: My rationale for these statements is as follows. My interpretation of current theories of physics and cosmology would lead me to believe that the universe originated 10-15 billion years ago as a result of a quantum fluctuation. The universe does not require a god, it simply requires that one wait long enough for it to come into existance. There are speculations that other physical universes may exist which may function according to different laws due to alterations in underlying physical constants.

The development of conscious intelligence on a number of planets is a distinct possibility given the age and size of the universe. The logical end point of evolution of intelligent life on these planets given the capabilities of nanotechnology should lead to the creation of megaminds with integrated intelligences which exceed the total intelligence of all humans on the planet earth by millions of times. It has been maintained that:

So, a megamind should have technologies that so significantly exceed current human capacities that they would appear to have god-like powers to us. These powers could include such things as regular use of anti-matter for their purposes, disassembly and reassembly of planets as construction exercises and the creation of any life form currently known on the planet earth. In my opinion, the creation of the universe would be beyond the capacity of a megamind, but the creation of our solar system, the planets and life on earth would be a relatively simple exercise. So, we owe our existance to either a random and perhaps not uncommon occurance in the universe based on the laws of probability or we may be simply an experiment or field test of a megamind. If the later is in fact the case, I personally doubt that a megamind would have a significant personal interest in our day to day activities. As seen from Nervous System Capacities the difference between a megamind and a human should be greater than the difference between a human and a snail. The retorical question is, "How much attention do we pay to the activities of the average snail?". Thus, what we consider to be god in a traditional sense is a very fuzzy concept.

With regard to Jesus, there is a at least some evidence that Jesus spent part of his years between childhood and adulthood in India. If this is true, or even if it is not, there are common elements in statements and perspectives outlined by Jesus and more ancient religions such as Hinduism or Buddism. My personal perspective is that Jesus may have tried to transmitt some of these teachings into the Hebrew culture and what we know of his life now is a distorted view of what he tried to teach.

In any case, Jesus presumably taught primarily in Hebrew and those teachings were interpreted in the context of a Hebrew culture which no longer exists. The Hebrew language most certainly has evolved in terms of the sublties of word uses and meanings since the time of Jesus. Furthermore, the teachings of Jesus existed only in oral form for several hundred years before they were recorded in written form. After being recorded, they were translated into Greek, Latin and finally English and other modern languages. It is a reasonable assumption that in each of these translations some of the original context and meaning were lost. There is an additional problem that whatever Jesus intended, his stories and meanings may have been varied by his followers or the church to meet their own agendas.

I like to ask the question of whether the average person knows exactly what Nixon thought, intended or actually did in the Watergate affair? If the answer is "no", given the fact that we have audio tapes, interviews, and piles of written testimony all in the original language, then I find it doubtful that we can understand what Jesus actually said or was trying to teach the people of his time. 

In an effort to supply curious individuals with a starting point for understanding God, Jesus and Religious Myths, I would like to offer the following list of books as references.

Other Sources

If anyone knows of any evidence or claims which contradicts information in any of these books I would appreciate email about it. 
Creation date: January 20, 1997
Last Modified: February 10, 1998
Author: Robert J. Bradbury