It gives my heart a warm and tingly feeling to think of Jesus as a family Man in Kashmir. If only that story could have been better known and included in what people have studied for the last two thousand years, an example of heavenly life on earth may have been codified in words.
As the old soul song, by Smokey Robinson, said, "I second that emotion." As you read in Part 1, and as I mentioned again in Part 2, as a child, I found what was being presented to me as truth, in Christianity, to be painful. I even cried. And this was long before I had any ability to step through doctrine independently.
One passage in the Bible that troubled me tremendously was the Garden of Gethsemane episode where Jesus prayed to God to relieve him from having to be crucified. Yes, he was willing to follow God's Will, as he said in his prayers. Nevertheless, that God rejected his request to be saved from death on the cross trouble me, as a dedicated Catholic, immensely.
I was being motivated simply by my heart. I accepted the verses because that was my religion. And I kept quiet--for a while.
When, in 1976, I bumped into the Jesus-in-Kashmir theory, OH BOY!! It was my HEART, not my brain, that moved me to believe in that theory instantly. It was later that I began to get deep into the theory, through reading books. The evidence offered is evidence I accepted and still accept.
In absolute terms, it can't be proved, probably. But, as I'd said in the article, it's the accumulation of circumstantial evidence that causes me to believe it.
One other thing motivates me: It is more important--WAY more important, in my view--to read, believe, and accept the TEACHINGS of Jesus/Yuz Asaph that are recorded in the Bible, than the doctrine that says he died for our sins.
It gives my heart a warm and tingly feeling to think of Jesus as a family Man in Kashmir. If only that story could have been better known and included in what people have studied for the last two thousand years, an example of heavenly life on earth may have been codified in words.
As the old soul song, by Smokey Robinson, said, "I second that emotion." As you read in Part 1, and as I mentioned again in Part 2, as a child, I found what was being presented to me as truth, in Christianity, to be painful. I even cried. And this was long before I had any ability to step through doctrine independently.
One passage in the Bible that troubled me tremendously was the Garden of Gethsemane episode where Jesus prayed to God to relieve him from having to be crucified. Yes, he was willing to follow God's Will, as he said in his prayers. Nevertheless, that God rejected his request to be saved from death on the cross trouble me, as a dedicated Catholic, immensely.
I was being motivated simply by my heart. I accepted the verses because that was my religion. And I kept quiet--for a while.
When, in 1976, I bumped into the Jesus-in-Kashmir theory, OH BOY!! It was my HEART, not my brain, that moved me to believe in that theory instantly. It was later that I began to get deep into the theory, through reading books. The evidence offered is evidence I accepted and still accept.
In absolute terms, it can't be proved, probably. But, as I'd said in the article, it's the accumulation of circumstantial evidence that causes me to believe it.
One other thing motivates me: It is more important--WAY more important, in my view--to read, believe, and accept the TEACHINGS of Jesus/Yuz Asaph that are recorded in the Bible, than the doctrine that says he died for our sins.