Do you believe in God and why

[ericthai]

22 hours ago, Tagged said:

If you start on page 1, and read trough all the posts, you will find the members answers to your questions asked and answered or avoided several times. The most correct answer on the believers point of view, is to read and understand the bible! Others make up their own personal view inspired by what they have found out from studying scripts and life itself. 

 

What do you think yourselves about a god, superpower or coincidences of the art of life, art, nature, space and so on? 

 

Why are we here? (Not why we are on TV, but why are we at all here at this place called the blue planet earth)

I've read the bible, went to catholic school, was an alter boy etc.  I understand all that.

 

why are we / the universe here??   

[ericthai]

19 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

All your questions been answered several times.

maybe to your satisfaction, but not mine, but exactly who answered them? 

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

You can do what you want of it, but that theory it's worth consideration imho.

 

Btw, not many atheists know that Noah, apart from saving humans and beasts from the flood, possibly invented the wine, as he's historically recorded as the first man in history to get drunk.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwicjdXMl9vmAhWz7XMBHaJbBjUQFjABegQICxAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNoah%27s_wine&usg=AOvVaw3AUxrM5-BBVyQcUhkbI2Pe

PLEASE tell me you don't truly believe that children's fable! ????????

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, Skeptic7 said:

PLEASE tell me you don't truly believe that children's fable! ????????

Why not, as a wine lover, i see Noah as a hero, if i was not too lazy, i would start a "Noah Cult".

[Tagged]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Why not, as a wine lover, i see Noah as a hero, if i was not too lazy, i would start a "Noah Cult".

Could be a hit as well. What could possible go wrong with that? 

[Tagged]

1 hour ago, ericthai said:

 

 

why are we / the universe here??   

Yes, thats the Q?

Edited December 29, 2019 by Tagged

[Tagged]

1 hour ago, Skeptic7 said:

PLEASE tell me you don't truly believe that children's fable! ????????

We are all children of Noah. Something to think about!

Edited December 29, 2019 by Tagged

[Skeptic7]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Why not, as a wine lover, i see Noah as a hero, if i was not too lazy, i would start a "Noah Cult".

I love wine too but there isn't enuff wine in France to make me believe a 600 yr old drunk dude built a boat with 1 window and herded all those species, from all over the world, inside and rode out a global flood, which never actually took place! ????

Edited December 29, 2019 by Skeptic7

[yodsak]

[oldhippy]

On 12/20/2019 at 1:11 PM, AsianAtHeart said:

There are simply too many evidences in our world of the validity of the Bible and the existence of God for anyone to take lightly a decision to reject them.  While there are vastly more than these, the following stand out in my own mind, personally.

Science: Consider the instincts of animals--where do they come from?  How can a bird, for example, weave a nest without its parents ever having taught it.  In many cases, the nest builders have never even seen one built by another bird, as is the case in some notable examples like the bower bird that must build a very large nest that will keep the eggs at just the right temperature and humidity for incubation.  Consider, too, the guidance of the small sandpiper that flies to islands near Hawaii from the Aleutian islands in Alaska on barely enough fuel (fat reserves) to make it, and without any bird in the formation ever having made the journey before (the parent birds already preceded them by several weeks' time).  These "instincts" are unexplained by modern science, because chemicals (DNA) don't store information like this.

History: Consider the Chinese language, arguably among the oldest in the world in terms of having a system of writing (Google "oracle bones" for one example).  Some of the Chinese writings are thought to be from 5,000 years ago.  Now, the interesting thing is that the originators of the Chinese characters appear to have known the Bible story well. But the Bible wasn't written yet!  So the story would have to have been known by them experientially, having become part of their history.

Take a look:
⺅    =    Person    
果    =    Fruit
-----------------------        
倮    =    Naked
        

How would anyone associate "fruit" + "person" with nakedness if they did not know the story of Eve eating the fruit before becoming naked?       
        
羊    =    Sheep    
我    =    I/me
-----------------------        
義    =    righteous
        
Without knowing that the righteous of the Bible sacrificed sheep to God, this would make little sense.       
        
⼝    =    mouth    
八    =    eight
⺝    =    moon/month        
-----------------------        
船    =    ship/boat        
艤    =    to moor a boat to the bank

Notice that adding eight mouths plus month equals a ship, patterned after the first ship, Noah's ark.  Noah was righteous (see the symbol for "righteous" in place of the eight mouths), and his boat safely landed on the bank of a mountain after the flood.  And there just happened to be eight people in the ark.  How did the Chinese know?

 

oh my god!

Even I would never ridicule believers like this poster does.

 

 

[sirineou]

On 12/28/2019 at 12:02 PM, Sunmaster said:

I don't think that was one of my quotes, but nevermind.

I did not mean to quote you, simply to reply to your post that contain information attributed to others, 

So the question that I asked but you did not answer is.

"If you pose the question "I wonder what my next thought will be " wouldn't then that be your next thought? "

On 12/28/2019 at 12:02 PM, Sunmaster said:

Imagine you could stop the inner chatter that you hear all the time in your head. Close your eyes now and do a test! See how long you can witness a thought before another one quietly slings around your leg and has you in its grip and before you know it you will have followed half a dozen scenarios in your head before remembering to stand back again and be a witness of your thoughts. 
What happens if you eventually are able to not get attached to the arising thought forms, even for just a short time? Are you still there? Is your identity still intact? Who are you at that point? Are you not still aware of your environment? If a fly lands on your nose, will you not scratch it?

Have you lost consciousness?

 All the things you describe above, though poetic , don't stop from being different forms of thinking.Observation requires thinking.experiences require thinking , otherwise how do you know what you are experiencing? 

Where you re between thoughts? you are at the realm of infinite possibilities, What you get out of it is limited by tour nature, and your nurture, if you only have square holes you can't put round pegs in them,

 

[soalbundy]

7 hours ago, ericthai said:

I've read the bible, went to catholic school, was an alter boy etc.  I understand all that.

 

why are we / the universe here??   

A quote from 'The Open Secret' by Tony Parsons a British businessman who had a startling revelation while walking through a park in London which changed his life completely, he realized that not only had he ceased to exist but that he never had existed. :- "There is no separate intelligence weaving a destiny, and no choice functioning at any level. Nothing is happening, but this, as it is, invites the apparent seeker to rediscover that which already is . . the abiding uncaused, unchanging, impersonal silence from which unconditional love overflows and celebrates. It is the wonderful mystery.. ."

[soalbundy]

5 hours ago, Skeptic7 said:

I love wine too but there isn't enuff wine in France to make me believe a 600 yr old drunk dude built a boat with 1 window and herded all those species, from all over the world, inside and rode out a global flood, which never actually took place! ????

Actually a huge flood did take place, traces of which have been found by archeologists all around the world obviously due to climate change and ice melting however a Noah who had all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices that I admire didn't exist, at least not as a keeper of a floating zoo (I wonder where he got the polar bears from)

[soalbundy]

5 hours ago, Tagged said:

We are all children of Noah. Something to think about!

No it isn't, switch on that huge brain that has mistakenly been given to you because you obviously aren't thinking at all.

[canuckamuck]

On 12/29/2019 at 6:53 AM, soalbundy said:

Because the absolute isn't something out of Harry Potter nor is it personal ie the absolute doesn't answers Joe Bloggs prayers, Joe Bloggs is of the absolute, his body and mind are manifestations of the one consciousness, what happens to the manifestation Joe Bloggs isn't important. Religions, all religions, only point to a truth that can't be explained in words or understood by the mind so stories, parables and metaphors have to be used especially in the iron age of the old and new testament where education of the farmers and fishermen would have been minimal at best.

As a modern man with a western education do you really believe in a virgin birth ? (because sex is sinful ! )

That a man destroyed by crucifiction rose from the dead ?

That the absolute spoke to Abraham behind a burning bush and wrote down the 10 commandments on a stone tablet (without a hammer and chisel obviously)

Adam and Eve, the rib, the fruit of knowledge, the talking serpent.

The six day creation story (oh and a God has to rest for a day, all that creating can take it out of you)

 

Jesus (I believe such a spiritual teacher existed) was born a Jew and died a Jew, he was a product of his time as well as being charismatic and having great spiritual insight that he himself couldn't fully understand. No he didn't live without sin nor was he perfect, just a man on a mission to fulfill the prophesies of the Jewish religion.

You have to think of the political tensions existing at the time, the Jews with their religion were being oppressed by the unassailable maschine called the Roman empire, they yearned for freedom, for a messiah, anybody who could free them and along came a spiritual teacher who could maybe do that, he was of course completely misunderstood but at the same time probably felt he had to fulfill the prophesies (and maybe believed in them) and so he died in agony and a legend was born. The Romans probably at first encouraged the flowering religion, what oppressor wouldn't want the people to have a peaceful religion. Nero ruined any further diplomatic measures and in a way furthered the myths.

Think of things that happened in the history of the European nations just 500 years ago or a thousand years ago and what myths have grown up around historical events that modern archeologists have to painstakingly correct, how much more confusion would there be after more than two thousand years. All religions have their myths and mysteries and all are misunderstood because the mere pointing was mistaken as the absolute truth. Jesus didn't think it necessary to have temples to worship in, so they built him cathedrals, the Buddha considering the question whether there was a God said that could never be known therefore the question was irrelevant so the made him into a deity and built temples (something he also thought was unnecessary) and myths of miracles grew up.

Adults are like little children when they don't switch on the enormous brain that they have, truth is their birthright but they reject it for myths.

That whole speech is just conclusions you have decided are true. If you want your opinion to have weight make a specific point.

Edited December 30, 2019 by canuckamuck

[mauGR1]

6 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Actually a huge flood did take place, traces of which have been found by archeologists all around the world obviously due to climate change

Although i am sure there must be inaccuracies in the Bible's story of Noah, the ark and the flood, the legend of Atlantis is present all over the planet in various cultures.

Even Plato is talking about it, and he has not a reputation of being a clown.

According to many researchers, the event took place around 12.000 years ago.

[soalbundy]

4 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

That whole speech is just conclusions you have decided are true. If you want your opinion to have weight make a specific point.

What is faith in a religion but a conclusion, a self convincing, faith isn't knowledge it is an opinion only. At the very least I have tried to use logic and am backed up by many physicists of the modern era. I am not evangelizing, what you think of my post isn't important, if the bible, koran, advaita vedanta, dhamar etc. rocks your boat so be it, pick the religion that your society holds to be true. I find that the physicists who hold that reality is only experiential and not a truth in itself and that the basis for everything is an impersonal consciousness to be near the truth, a truth that we shall never know.

[soalbundy]

8 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Although i am sure there must be inaccuracies in the Bible's story of Noah, the ark and the flood, the legend of Atlantis is present all over the planet in various cultures.

Even Plato is talking about it, and he has not a reputation of being a clown.

According to many researchers, the event took place around 12.000 years ago.

Many regard Plato's Atlantis to be a story that he wrote and not a reality that he saw with his own eyes.

[canuckamuck]

5 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

What is faith in a religion but a conclusion, a self convincing, faith isn't knowledge it is an opinion only. At the very least I have tried to use logic and am backed up by many physicists of the modern era. I am not evangelizing, what you think of my post isn't important, if the bible, koran, advaita vedanta, dhamar etc. rocks your boat so be it, pick the religion that your society holds to be true. I find that the physicists who hold that reality is only experiential and not a truth in itself and that the basis for everything is an impersonal consciousness to be near the truth, a truth that we shall never know.

Your first sentence is true. I can't see how you are backed up by physicists though. Your physicists are just using advanced imagination. Mocking a belief in creation while postulating that reality is an illusion is fantastically ironic.

Edited December 30, 2019 by canuckamuck

[Mike Teavee]

1 hour ago, sirineou said:

So the question that I asked but you did not answer is.

"If you pose the question "I wonder what my next thought will be " wouldn't then that be your next thought? "

Surely that would be your current thought....

 

Your next thought may be something mundane or might completely change your whole life...

 

E.g. 2 months ago I had a thought that questioned why was I still working, it just didn't make any sense as I wasn't happy & I didn't really need the money (OK we can all do with a little more of that) so the thought came to me "Why not retire", before I had that thought I was just going through the routine day-by-day, meeting-by-meeting, meaningless bollax-by-meaningless bollax... After that 1 thought I took steps and 1 month later was retired. 

 

It only takes that one thought to spark you into changing your life... 

• Maybe you'll decide to quit your job or come up with a radical idea that gets you a huge promotion
• Maybe you'll decide to leave the wife or marry the girlfriend
• Maybe you'll invent the "Next Big Thing" or maybe you'll decide to top yourself
• ... Or just maybe you'll decide to have  a slap up tea at Mrs Miggins Pie shop [Blackadder]

Anyway you think about it, your next thought is just that... YOURS... and that's free will 

 

[mauGR1]

9 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

Many regard Plato's Atlantis to be a story that he wrote and not a reality that he saw with his own eyes.

In fact it is told that he heard the story from the Egyptians, i think Plato was living around 3000 yrs ago.

Many ruins under the sea, all over the world, are testimonies of huge catastrophes happening in the not too distant past, and disappearances of ancient civilisations.

[soalbundy]

36 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

Your first sentence is true. I can't see how you are backed up by physicists though. Your physicists are just using advanced imagination. Mocking a belief in creation while postulating that reality is an illusion is fantastically ironic.

See the cognitive Scientist Donald Hoffman (space-time is an interface for consciousness) youtube. He has written mathematical equations describing consciousness (they resemble the equations in part to those used in Quantum mechanics and peer review can find no fault with them) He has used these equations in tandem with the equations used in the theory of evolution and built a virtual world in a computer peopled by beings with various amounts of reality awareness. Those beings with only an awareness for fitness (food and procreation) and nothing else prospered, those with complete awareness of what they were and what their surroundings were didn't even make it to first base. His thought is that reality has been veiled from us through evolution, we and everything else are conscious agents, the more complicated are combinations of thousands of conscious agents into a unit of one. What a conscious agent is he has no idea. He first came upon his theory while working on artificial intelligence (he additionally studied neurobiology to work in that field) His theory complements the work done by the Nasa physicist Tom Campbell and an Italien theoretical physicist and mathematician whose name I forget (the death of space-time)

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by soalbundy

[Sunmaster]

8 hours ago, sirineou said:

I did not mean to quote you, simply to reply to your post that contain information attributed to others, 

So the question that I asked but you did not answer is.

"If you pose the question "I wonder what my next thought will be " wouldn't then that be your next thought? "

 All the things you describe above, though poetic , don't stop from being different forms of thinking.Observation requires thinking.experiences require thinking , otherwise how do you know what you are experiencing? 

Where you re between thoughts? you are at the realm of infinite possibilities, What you get out of it is limited by tour nature, and your nurture, if you only have square holes you can't put round pegs in them,

 

Ok. I'll try to answer this to the best of my knowledge.

 

"If you pose the question "I wonder what my next thought will be " wouldn't then that be your next thought? "

I would say, yes and no. It depends who is asking the question.

 

If you have a look at my drawing below, you'll see a 'cross section' of our inner world. It's like a cross section of the sea. On the surface you can see big waves that arise from the water, come to their apex and then disappear into the sea again. This thought forms (1,2,3,4....) are produced constantly and normally we get attracted and caught up by them.
Something like this:
I see a bottle of milk. I think I need to go buy some more. Probably will go to 7/11 around the corner. Will take the bike to go there. (TF 1)
Do I have enough gas? <deleted>, need to stop at the gas station first. Where's the money? (TF 2)
Gas has really gone up in price! When will this stop? It's very expensive as it is already. (TF3)
And my pension obviously hasn't gone up like the gas. Need to economize more. Gotta stop with the beer I guess... (TF 4).

 

We all get caught up in this sort of chatter, and if you ever tried to close your eyes and just witness these thought forms, you know how difficult it is not to get trapped by them and get carried away on those waves. For many, this level of consciousness is the only one there is, because it's where they spend most of the (waking) time in.

 

Through the practice of meditation, you learn to step back (or go deeper, under the surface) and reach levels where the waves are observable from a distance. 

This is where I think I can answer the question "I wonder what my next thought will be ".
If you can step back and become the witness of your thoughts, you don't identify with them but you identify with something else. As a witness, you can watch the thought forms arise, grow and dissipate without getting carried away by them. The witness can wonder what the next thought form will look like.
 

At all levels there is an "I", but what this "I" is, is different on every level. For us it is "John Snow, born 1977 in New York, doctor, husband, father...", for someone more advanced it might be "I am the witness", for a very few it might be "I am that I am".

Does this make sense to you?

 

 

 

[Tagged]

1 hour ago, soalbundy said:

No it isn't, switch on that huge brain that has mistakenly been given to you because you obviously aren't thinking at all.

Why you so mean? Only 8 people survied the big flood. You did not read the great book Sir?

[soalbundy]

40 minutes ago, Mike Teavee said:

Surely that would be your current thought....

 

Your next thought may be something mundane or might completely change your whole life...

 

E.g. 2 months ago I had a thought that questioned why was I still working, it just didn't make any sense as I wasn't happy & I didn't really need the money (OK we can all do with a little more of that) so the thought came to me "Why not retire", before I had that thought I was just going through the routine day-by-day, meeting-by-meeting, meaningless bollax-by-meaningless bollax... After that 1 thought I took steps and 1 month later was retired. 

 

It only takes that one thought to spark you into changing your life... 

• Maybe you'll decide to quit your job or come up with a radical idea that gets you a huge promotion
• Maybe you'll decide to leave the wife or marry the girlfriend
• Maybe you'll invent the "Next Big Thing" or maybe you'll decide to top yourself
• ... Or just maybe you'll decide to have  a slap up tea at Mrs Miggins Pie shop [Blackadder]

Anyway you think about it, your next thought is just that... YOURS... and that's free will 

 

If you pose the question 'what will be my next thought' thinking stops for a few seconds after that thought, this can be lengthened during meditation, the Indian mystic Ramana Maharshi recommended that as soon as a thought appears ask 'for whom or what is this thought' an answer may follow 'for me' to which you ask 'who or what is me' a longer cessation in thinking follows, this is to be rigorously kept up as soon as a thought appears, the mind gives up. I have tried this and it works but it is exhausting and requires great patience.

[Sunmaster]

6 hours ago, soalbundy said:

See the cognitive Scientist Donald Hoffman (space-time is an interface for consciousness) youtube. He has written mathematical equations describing consciousness (they resemble the equations in part to those used in Quantum mechanics and peer review can find no fault with them) He has used these equations in tandem with the equations used in the theory of evolution and built a virtual world in a computer peopled by beings with various amounts of reality awareness. Those beings with only an awareness for fitness (food and procreation) and nothing else prospered, those with complete awareness of what they were and what their surroundings were didn't even make it to first base. His thought is that reality has been veiled from us through evolution, we and everything else are conscious agents, the more complicated are combinations of thousands of conscious agents into a unit of one. What a conscious agent is he has no idea. He first came upon his theory while working on artificial intelligence (he additionally studied neurobiology to work in that field) His theory complements the work done by the Nasa physicist Tom Campbell and an Italien theoretical physicist and mathematician whose name I forget (the death of space-time)

 

I have a hard time understanding where you're standing in all of this. In some comments you seem to object to the notion of God, but then you post stuff that basically validates what the believers have been saying all along. 
This video for example...it comes from the "Science & Nonduality Conference" (OM = mc2). I've never heard of it, but it's right up my alley. An attempt to fuse science and spirituality for a better and wider understanding of reality will always get my vote.

One thing I'm not clear about the research you mention: If a greater awareness of our condition leads to a higher percentage of fails (didn't make it to first base), why are we naturally evolving towards this greater awareness? 

I understand that if we would perceive reality unfiltered and in all of it's glory, we would perceive the whole range of sound and light frequencies, the radiation of every object and thoughts of every person we meet. This would make living as we know it impossible. 

So, maybe that's what Hoffmann means.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Sunmaster

[canuckamuck]

51 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

See the cognitive Scientist Donald Hoffman (space-time is an interface for consciousness) youtube. He has written mathematical equations describing consciousness (they resemble the equations in part to those used in Quantum mechanics and peer review can find no fault with them) He has used these equations in tandem with the equations used in the theory of evolution and built a virtual world in a computer peopled by beings with various amounts of reality awareness. Those beings with only an awareness for fitness (food and procreation) and nothing else prospered, those with complete awareness of what they were and what their surroundings were didn't even make it to first base. His thought is that reality has been veiled from us through evolution, we and everything else are conscious agents, the more complicated are combinations of thousands of conscious agents into a unit of one. What a conscious agent is he has no idea. He first came upon his theory while working on artificial intelligence (he additionally studied neurobiology to work in that field) His theory complements the work done by the Nasa physicist Tom Campbell and an Italien theoretical physicist and mathematician whose name I forget (the death of space-time)

 

All of this is just brain candy for the intellectual atheist. There is no way they are modeling creatures with different levels of reality/ awareness, that anywhere compares to actual creatures. We don't even know what we are aware of, and how much of our knowledge is instinctual or pre-programmed. We certainly can't model types of reality for other creatures. We can't even model climate accurately.

But lets give them sometime to provide evidence. They will probably discover God along the way. It's happened before.

[Sunmaster]

If Buddha had remained under the Bodhi tree in deep meditation after he got enlightened there (reached the highest level of awareness), then he couldn't have gone anywhere, eaten, spoken to others etc... But he did reach that awareness and still managed to interact with this world of illusion. So, I guess greater awareness doesn't mean we're doomed to fail in this reality.

[soalbundy]

Just now, Sunmaster said:

I have a hard time understanding where you're standing in all of this. In some comments you seem to object to the notion of God, but then you post stuff that basically validates what the believers have been saying all along. 
This video for example...it comes from the "Science & Nonduality Conference" (OM = mc2). I've never heard of it, but it's right up my alley. An attempt to fuse science and spirituality for a better and wider understanding of reality will always get my vote.

One thing I'm not clear about the research you mention: If a greater awareness of our condition leads to a higher percentage of fails (didn't make it to first base), why are we naturally evolving towards this greater awareness? 

I don't think we are but we are through scientific study becoming more aware of how to formulate what we don't know. What Donald Hoffman shows is the theoretical mechanics of 'what is' but not WHY or even HOW, he says himself in interviews that of course he is just as trapped as everyone else even though when he looks at an apple he knows it is a semblance of conscious agents and not the reality that he experiences, he can't experience a conscious agent, he sees an apple just as he has evolved to see. We don't have the tool box to see reality, if we did we wouldn't exist. The mystery will therefore always remain, hence humanity's need for religion. Tom Campbell with his trilogy of 'My Big Toe' goes even further than Donald Hoffman but for me that is more in the realm of theoretical thinking than theoretical physics, in a sort of convoluted way of thinking I have considered a connection to Hinduism in his way of thinking, he has a path of higher and higher hierarchies, 'free will units of consciousness' from 'seperate units of consciousness' with data streams that go to the absolute unit of consciousness with perhaps another higher data stream, it's difficult to follow because language can't be used to describe everything so metaphors have to be used. I don't think it is necessary to KNOW, it's just interesting to consider that our death will be just as virtual as our life. Perhaps some mystica are able to,if not see reality, realize it fully for themselves, Nisargadatta an indian mystic once pointed to the earth with one hand and to the sky with another saying "I am That''

[soalbundy]

10 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

All of this is just brain candy for the intellectual atheist. There is no way they are modeling creatures with different levels of reality/ awareness, that anywhere compares to actual creatures. We don't even know what we are aware of, and how much of our knowledge is instinctual or pre-programmed. We certainly can't model types of reality for other creatures. We can't even model climate accurately.

But lets give them sometime to provide evidence. They will probably discover God along the way. It's happened before.

It is pointless arguing the toss because nobody will ever know what is. The first double slit experiment (quantum mechanics) showed us that all is not as it seems, even leaves use quantum tunneling to enable efficient photosynthesis (yeah I know, "God did it") I think that such Indian mystics as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta could realize the truth but found it difficult to transmit, in fact Maharshi would give a 'lecture' in complete silence causing some of those present to become 'aware', not just Indians but some Europeans also, Nisargadatta was able to infuse visitors with happiness just by his presence even though he would tear down their belief systems regardless of their religion, probably a characteristic that Jesus possessed.