The Romans posted guards at the site. I don’t think that was a common practice as they crucified many. I would speculate they feared someone would take him down.
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Jesus hates religion
- Thread starter outdooraddict
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gordon 2
Senior Member
I would suggest that for people for which the religious is an essential and important part of their lives-- even defining a life really and successfully lived-- than a better religion would be where an individual's conscious life would be spiritual independent of religious life. In other words it would not be the spiritual nature of his religion that made the man, but the spiritual nature of man possible by the religious experience.
Different religions and non-religions form different spiritual individuals and natures. This is partly the point and the parlee of Christianity. Man and society can be based on religions that serve both natural consciousness or emotional consciousness. It is possible to make value judgements on which form of religion is better from which consciousness is deemed most vital to a really lived life.
It is therefore that some religions have their source in the "world" or from a religious experience natural to the nature of the world while other religions have their source from the supernatural world or of an supernatural consciousness in league with man's emotional consciousness so as to make this consciousness the baseline for acting in the world or the bedrock for the choices we make which are opposed to a natural bedrock from a simpler direct systematic and methodical observation so in step with the natural processes.
It is therefore very possible to make distinctions between religious traditions and experience from the sources they derive from. Do they derive from an abandonment to natural processes or an abandonment to supernatural processes. I suggest it is possible to distinguish between religions and their religious processes just as we can distinguish that man is different and unique as a man and yet may well be a natural animal like all other animals. And as I count man's intellectual capacity as simply natural and on which some religion can be made to stand on, I account it inferior to other religion that stands on man's yet matured emotional consciousness and its potential to make man stand out as a real stand out in all of creation.
An easy way perhaps to distinguish between what is better is to ask where does a religion's god come from. The source is not always supernatural, nor do all the gods address man's emotional consciousness as if from outside of nature when I look closely with all the intellect I can muster... The better religions source their god from outside of natural processes. This is possibly why proof of God is impossible in the natural paradigm or extremely unconvincing as when religions attempt to use elements of nature as their proofs.
The proof for God must be in the discursive processes of man's emotional consciousness. Yet it is difficult to articulate, we know by emotional intuition that God is love if we are to some religions discipline which sources its spirituality outside of natural orders. To count the ways of this love is so far the grist of artists, poets and the rare saints. To the intellectually inclined these are mostly entertaining bards-- but to the emotionally inclined there is a greater emotional consciousness outside of nature that informs their emotional consciousness so as to make living life especially real and able to infer differences between religions... This emotional consciousness, both the greater and the lesser in man, are not intellectually derived, and so far are said to be discerned by faith which itself is difficult to define. Perhaps one day it will be. If I have doubts it is that it will be someday understood intellectually or by natural process.
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bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Guards at the Tomb: The Discipline of the Roman Soldier - SntJohnny.com
The Jews were not inclined to be sympathetic to the Romans. The idea of dead Roman soldiers must have been, in the main, a very pleasant one to turn about in one's mind. However, what if balanced against this highly desirable prospect was a very undesirable prospect, that Jesus' followers...
sntjohnny.com
Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
Personal, including non belief - carries a ton of weight where “bias” is born.
Some non believers on this Forum have stated that a part of their non belief is based on their own personal experience.
Good read……thanks.Guards at the Tomb: The Discipline of the Roman Soldier - SntJohnny.com
The Jews were not inclined to be sympathetic to the Romans. The idea of dead Roman soldiers must have been, in the main, a very pleasant one to turn about in one's mind. However, what if balanced against this highly desirable prospect was a very undesirable prospect, that Jesus' followers...sntjohnny.com
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Very true about personal experience, but whatever or whoever a person attributes their experience to does not make it anymore true or less true than the next person who's experience points to Allah, Mithra, The Sun or whatever else they have convinced themselves is responsible.
When looked at in the big picture everyone is on equal ground as far as personal experience equating to their reality of the supernatural. There are either a LOT of Gods out there or none going by personal experience.
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
He has links to articles that pertain to Roman Guard traditions and practices below his articles.
Bottom line is that sending 2 Guards to a place where they expect trouble goes against Roman protocol. Both of those guards falling asleep meant death. Whoever wrote the story about 2 guards at the tomb did not have knowledge of Roman military procedure.
WaltL1
Senior Member
I remember going to the brig was motivation enough to be alert and attentive on guard duty, never mind having your head chopped offGuards at the Tomb: The Discipline of the Roman Soldier - SntJohnny.com
The Jews were not inclined to be sympathetic to the Romans. The idea of dead Roman soldiers must have been, in the main, a very pleasant one to turn about in one's mind. However, what if balanced against this highly desirable prospect was a very undesirable prospect, that Jesus' followers...sntjohnny.com
oldfella1962
Senior Member
Very interesting! At the risk of getting too off-topic: if any of the Roman soldiers - or legal authorities - or anybody involved with the crucifixion in any way had witnessed Jesus' miracles and/or believed that he was divine, I wonder if they had moments of second-guessing what they were doing?
oldfella1962
Senior Member
Or if anybody had seen the movie Spartacus where the Romans crucified the many slaves involved in the rebellion and put them all along the road for everyone to see.
WaltL1
Senior Member
How could they not? A dude who can perform miracles would change the game a bit I would think.Very interesting! At the risk of getting too off-topic: if any of the Roman soldiers - or legal authorities - or anybody involved with the crucifixion in any way had witnessed Jesus' miracles and/or believed that he was divine, I wonder if they had moments of second-guessing what they were doing?
oldfella1962
Senior Member
Human nature - we all have faulty memories and the more people passing along stories (also with faulty memories) the less stories (whether fact or fiction) resemble the original story. No doubt humans noticed this humanly trait many thousands of years ago. Everybody swears their own memory of what happened is accurate until they hear the other people who were with them tell their versions.
oldfella1962
Senior Member
I wonder if the Roman Army "sick call" was suddenly filled to capacity that day with soldiers having sudden unexplained crippling back pain or stomach cramps!
oldfella1962
Senior Member
A valid concern! If Jesus was considered a bit unhinged, no doubt his followers would be unhinged too. We see that even today with cult leaders (not saying following Jesus was a cult in today's terminology!)
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
I absolutely agree.Human nature - we all have faulty memories and the more people passing along stories (also with faulty memories) the less stories (whether fact or fiction) resemble the original story. No doubt humans noticed this humanly trait many thousands of years ago. Everybody swears their own memory of what happened is accurate until they hear the other people who were with them tell their versions.
One of my peeves is "The God Factor". People will tout the magnificence and capabilities of a God. They will put all their eggs in the miracle basket and argue for the absurd.
But then when hit with common sense reality, all of a sudden it is explained away that humans are idiots, they are fallible if not incapable, they make atrocious witnesses when in fact they are present and view happenings with their own eyes. They say people who didn't follow Jesus just didn't notice his miracles due to being biased. Then in the next breath they are touting the incredible human ability to record conversations between Jesus and Satan when NOBODY else was there but Jesus and Satan. They rely on the writings of people who never met Jesus, never saw him, and some who never lived when Jesus lived. Stories written decades to lifetimes later. When contradictions, inaccuracies and flat out historical untruths are shown to have been committed by those same writers...then again...well people are fallible and unreliable, totally forgetting that their God was supposedly involved in ALL of this and that he supposedly chose who was to tell his tale because, well, I guess he just didn't want to do it himself.
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
Jesus had at least 12 dedicated men who were in their prime 20-30s that were completely capable of fighting.
Rome says, hey we better send TWO soldiers to guard the Tomb since there may be at least a dozen radicals that could cause trouble. Grab those two guys from our narcoleptic division. Private Nodsoff and Private Doze are just the type of go-getters we need working on the EM-50 project.
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Spotlite
Resident Homesteader
Agreed
oldfella1962
Senior Member
"their God was supposedly involved in ALL of this and that he supposedly chose who was to tell his tale because, well, I guess he just didn't want to do it himself". - Bullethead
There is a well referenced and argued explanation for that. God inspired and guided the writers of The Bible, but allowed their own personalities and emotions and flawed "humanness" to be expressed. Also, something about "free will" I think. This is not my explanation, I'm just saying that many Christians say this.
There is a well referenced and argued explanation for that. God inspired and guided the writers of The Bible, but allowed their own personalities and emotions and flawed "humanness" to be expressed. Also, something about "free will" I think. This is not my explanation, I'm just saying that many Christians say this.
bullethead
Of the hard cast variety
If excuses are needed for God then the argument is already lost.
oldfella1962
Senior Member
Also why is that "stone" in front of the door of the tomb always depicted as being perfectly round and smooth, so that it could be easily rolled out of the way by almost anybody?
I'm not saying that the tomb has to be Fort Knox or anything, but that stone barely functions as a deterrent to "keep honest people honest" if you ask me! I bet there was a long & sturdy plank semi-hidden in the bushes nearby for leverage too. 
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