Quotes by Thomas Daniel Nehrer

The religious and scholarly alike arrive at conclusions as to Jesus’ nature based on the world-view they hold, the belief structure that shapes their interpretation. Inaccurate views of the function of reality can only lead to erroneous conclusions.

Understand that religion, at least western versions of it, rests on a type of thinking called Revelation. This mode holds that truths concerning the workings of reality are hidden, masked by, through or behind a deity such that only a few privileged souls are able to see through the veil and “reveal” those truths. . . But (around 1600) revelation as a means of understanding began to be challenged by two other methods of differentiating truth from fallacy: Reason and Empiricism.

However, just as earlier, when Christianity was introduced it didn’t eliminate pagan conceptualizations, but layered new beliefs on top of them, so science simply added to the western mindset. It didn’t fully displace religion, luck, fate, etc. Science just heaped other definitions onto the average person’s already conglomerated psychic truckload.

You encounter, at its core, a subjective Reality, one based on meaning and value reflective of your own Self, not an objective universe, cold, particle-based and indifferent as science projects.

Various visionaries through time came to see with some degree of clarity that Oneness, that intrinsic connection between Self and experienced Reality.

The fact is: Jesus wrote not a solitary word that survives. Equally astounding is historical silence: not a single historical account refers to him during his lifetime from any source whatsoever, Roman or Jewish, official or personal.

Josephus is the first historian to make note of Jesus having even existed – and that happened six full decades after his death.

The authors of the gospels, like all writers in all time periods, either reference information they have at hand – including things they’ve heard or read – or they make things up. . . For reference material, the author of Mark relied not on Jesus himself or any writings from him. . . . His sole source(was): oral traditions passed along by word-of-mouth for four decades.

That means 19 or 20 of the books of the NT (New Testament) are anonymous. Many are blatantly pseudepigraphic (forgeries, see next section), with famous names applied to artificially promote veracity.

The gospels, never meant to report, butrather to convince, are in no sense objective and dispassionate biographies. They are glowing accounts meant to persuade people of the writers’ convictions.

Of course, the original (anonymous) writer of (the Gospel of) John didn’t use quotes – as they didn’t exist in written Greek – but the translator/publisher of the modern Bible does. And that style strongly implies a validity that is pure illusion.

Regardless of type, however, the mechanism of a religion works like this: children, from the time they can communicate, are taught to see reality in a certain way. They are indoctrinated with a pre-defined belief structure and value set. Naive, open to such teaching, given only the religious viewpoint and perhaps punished or ostracized if they don’t accept it, most ultimately absorb and mimic the religion outright.

The scientist would look at a sphere, measure the surface in great detail, categorize the skin qualities and components, then predict evolving surface tensions and potentials. The use of that sphere, however, along with its beauty and potential would not be of interest. Science would count the bricks of a house, but not care about living in it, thus missing the point – but thinking that, by quantifying the physical, everything had been covered.

You are the only real authority in your life, but you yield that status to so many externals by believing in them, by having been punished or forced into accepting them.

Because your life is a reflection of your inner Self, causality comes exclusively in changing your own nature, not trying to change the external world out there by manipulating it.

There is no “other self” to the unconscious, no independent entity with its own agenda; it is only information and stored value relationships – a broad array of raw information that undergirds the more superficial “knowledge” learned through rational processes and impacts in all ways the emerging Reality that each conscious Self encounters.

When, and only when, you clearly see the inner roots to an outer condition, can you change them and thus it.

The key realization to delving inwards to deal with the roots of outer symptoms is this: once you have clearly identified the core, inner roots to a problem, you then have authority over the situation. . . If, though, you never delve within. . . you will not eliminate the inner source of theproblem and thus never fully extinguish the external symptom.

There is no other force, no other determining factor, no external cause to the cohesive unfolding of your life’s episodes – only your composite inner nature. Change that and you change your life.

Since the effects of your life that lead to pain and annoyance are always consequences of inner elements, what you commonly regard as “problems” are more accurately seen as outer symptoms of inner, causal problems. The practical approach is to begin looking at those specific aspects of your life that are not as you desire to find their source, rooted in your mindset.