What famous person from history would you bring back to hang out with for a day?

Ronald Reagan :)

Tough call between Leonardo Da Vinci and Jules Verne.

They were both thinking so far ahead, I would love to hear them switch between, “Oh yeah, I knew you’d do that.” and “OMFG How did you do that!!!”

Alexander Hamilton or James Madison; that was such an interesting time in history. Or Benjamin Franklin, because I’m sure he was privy to all the gossip and could explain a lot about the Founding Fathers.

I think it would be fascinating to give someone like Da Vinci or Isaac Newton, etc. a glimpse of modern technology and see what he could invent or propose to invent…

George Carlin

Ben Franklin and Leonardo DaVinci

Theodore Motherfucking Roosevelt.

The manliest badass to ever walk the planet.

Nikola Tesla

I want to hang with Cleopatra, too. Maybe Scheherazade, as well. Do I really need to explain why? ;-)

Simo Haya would be pretty cool too.

Dang, add Ben Franklin and Tesla to my previous answer.

Rita Hayworth is also welcome to visit me anytime, anywhere, anytime.

FDR, Houdini (I read his biography- fascinating), Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, Thoreau (actually, Thoreau would be number one on my list)

Oh, and Clara Bow.

I would bang her into the 21st Century

Einstein.

I’d also like to learn a few pointers from Marquis De Sade :-p

Bertrand Russell.

As a side note as I thought of Bertrand I realized we’d probably spend a lot of time talking about sex which got me wondering which person from history I’d like to bone….

@noelleptc, what’s wrong with havin’ a little fun? ;-)

@fundevogel : agreed. I was just thinking about that!
Paul Newman (circa 1970), by the way…

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Oh, and Clara Bow.

She’s OK. But she’s no Louise Brooks.

@jenandcolin I would be really interested in hitting up one of Crowley’s orgies if I wasn’t convinced they were circulating more syphilis than booze.

Bruce Lee. Then I could ask him why he always liked to paint the Japanese as the bad guys in all his movies, then I’d kick his butt and send him to hell. Lol.

Terrence McKenna, Timothy Leary, and Jack Daniels.

Georges Méliès, or maybe Tesla.

If only I spoke French and Serbian. A day full of historical handgestures would ensue. Although I suppose Tesla would have picked up English…

I gotta go with Tesla here too.

I am happy to see that people here even know who he is!

Oh, Jerv, give us a little credit, please! I just think Franklin and Davinci would be a lot more fun! From what I’ve heard about Nikola, he was a bit of a stick.

Michael Jackson, Marylin Monroe, Mae West, Frank Sinatra, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Bettie Page, Einstein, and Jesus . Just to name a few.

Tough one between these three: Nikola Tesla, Michael Faraday and Oliver Lodge (who sent the first radio signal one full year before Marconi).

@Blondesjon lurve for Terrence McKenna! I’d love to talk to him about the Timewave as the novelties get closer and closer.

Oh yeah, Issac Asimov as well. Very interesting man.

Oscar Wilde, for sure.

Dusty Springfield

Hey, @Russell_D_SpacePoet Party, my place, Saturday night! You bring Asimov and I’ll bring Einstein and we’ll….we’ll….we’ll….just sit and listen! What a trip that would be.

@Dutchess_III I would have to be taking notes or recording or something. I’d have plenty of questions for Einstein.

Accepting him as a historical figure for argument’s sake, Jesus is my choice. Above any other.

I think there’s a ton that we need to clear up with him.

@iamthemob . . . what part of love and help each other don’t you understand?

@Blondesjon Barring subjective understandings of “love” and “help,” we simply don’t have the message except through hearsay. I’d like to get the primary source.

I would think that “turn the other cheek” and “do unto others” are pretty self-explanatory.

Historical figure, messiah, or mythical creation, Jesus taught some very simple lessons. No matter what method you use to dissect it you still get the same message. Leave the world a little bit better than it was when you found it.

We are the ones that muddied shit up.

@Blondesjon – Clarity in the message is necessary for it to have power. As it stands, we have no “Gospel According to Jesus.” Everything that is said by him is attributed to him by another party.

That’s why I’d want to talk to him. To find out what he said, why he said it, why he said it the way that he did, what he thinks, and what he wanted.

@iamthemob . . . You mean kind of the way he spoke to his disciples?

I still don’t understand where the messages I referred to above are lacking in either power or clarity.

if he didn’t mean for folks to get along and help one another i don’t think i’d like to have that discussion

@Blondesjon – We don’t have a record of how he spoke to his disciples that exists separate from a rhetorical presentation or subjective interpretation.

For instance, it’s not clear our relationship to law as it is altered (or if it’s altered) through the New Covenant. The relation of the sources of the writings in the NT to Christ are subject to debate. And does help mean just the general sense of help, or does it require witnessing? How can we really interpret love as it relates to Christianity? And if we’re not clear on how forgiveness works on earth, how do we know that we aren’t helping someone to condemnation instead of grace (as Christians see it)?

For us, all of this is up in the air at this point. And because of the issues out in the open today and how Christianity should deal with those issues (e.g., marriage, homosexuality, abortion), I would like to talk to the source to see what he thinks.

On the most basic level, asking what’s unclear is besides the point. I want to speak to him because whenever we hear “Someone said this,” to be honest, in order to determine if they said just that we want to go to the source. To accept what John McCain says the Pentagon report on DADT says isn’t the same as reading the Pentagon report. Basing arguments on hearsay is problematic, which is why it’s forbidden unless proven independently reliable, and thereafter accepted as less valuable than first-hand testimony. That’s why, in the end, I want to talk to him.

Does any of that really matter if the end result is the same?

For all we know Jesus may have been the biggest dick in the world, a guy who was just in it for the chicks and the blow. Does that change the fact that the bare bones message of New Testament Christianity (and most other religions) is that we all work together to create a world without hate, war, and poverty? Do you really need a quote on abortion from a guy who was not even familiar with the term or the practice as it is preformed today? Do his musings on the rules of getting into a Heaven that doesn’t even exist have any bearing on whether or not homosexuals can get married?

Most people (myself included) are selfish, base assholes and could benefit from a good healthy dose of Peace and Love. So what if he got misquoted here and there? There is a lot of racist, homophobic, misogynistic bullshit in the Bible but Jesus, and what he is purported to have said, represent the antithesis of all that. What could he possibly clear up now that would personally benefit you, here on Earth, besides a selfless way of life?

The real world is not a courtroom and there are no absolutes in life except that we are finite. Useless rhetorical arguments and literal thinking are what got the J-man hung on the cross to begin with. Sometimes the message is much larger than who gets credit for delivering it.

Of course, you are allowed to speak with whomever you wish. It’s your answer to thread and you have every right to express it. Remember, I’m the guy who would have tripped with McKenna and Leary while Daniels poured the shots.

For all we know Jesus may have been the biggest dick in the world, a guy who was just in it for the chicks and the blow. Does that change the fact that the bare bones message of New Testament Christianity (and most other religions) is that we all work together to create a world without hate, war, and poverty?

Absolutely – because then we can get past the fact that one needs to be a Christian in order to truly do this. If what people said Jesus said turned out to be bullshit, then we can see that it’s the message that matters, figure out why it matters, and why it’s important. Many would be less obsessed with the “What would Jesus do?” mentality and we could get to a “What should we do?” mentality.

There is a lot of racist, homophobic, misogynistic bullshit in the Bible but Jesus, and what he is purported to have said, represent the antithesis of all that.

But a lot of what he is purported to have said supports a lot of that. For instance, Jesus never even comes close to expressing disapproval of the enslaving of other human beings, and many statements attributed to him reveal a tacit acceptance or even approval of that inhuman institution. Throughout the Gospels we read passages like:

A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master (Matt. 10:24)

Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. (Matt. 24:45–46)

What could he possibly clear up now that would personally benefit you, here on Earth, besides a selfless way of life?

Well, that’s why I’d want to talk to him, since that was the OP’s question, first of all. Secondly, since Christians use the NT in order to support certain issues, I’d like to clarify what they’re doing right or wrong, in order to get rights that I find are denied me. It would be nice, potentially, to show them what was really meant.

Sometimes the message is much larger than who gets credit for delivering it.

And sometimes it’s not. You can’t say that it wouldn’t be revelatory to talk to him, and I’m not claiming that it would be. That’s the whole point of the hypothetical. If we accept that statement, then there’s no reason to talk to any historical figure for any reason that isn’t “it would be cool to hear what the person had to say about what that whole situation was like for him/her.” But we all have other reasons a lot of the time, even if those don’t pan out.

Of course, you are allowed to speak with whomever you wish. It’s your answer to thread and you have every right to express it. Remember, I’m the guy who would have tripped with McKenna and Leary while Daniels poured the shots.

Indeed.

oh, dear. Now this thread’s gone all funky, too. Damn.

@iamthemob . . . So what it boils down to is you are hoping that, by speaking with him, you will be validated in some way? That it will reveal some greater truth? That you will be able to finally sue a church for “false advertising”? Do you honestly believe that if Jesus were to return to Earth and tell folks, who have been using his name to further their own personal agendas, what they are doing is not what he wanted that they would actually listen to him? The very people you would like to prove wrong with your hypothetical don’t give two shits about Jesus or what he taught. That’s why they have no problem doing what they do.

Or is it simply for the fun of the debate? If it is, I would expect you to know that your quotes from Matthew are not slavery endorsements but era relevant examples used to teach a lesson. It should be obvious that the symbolism of slave and master is used to emphasize the roles man and God play. Up until that point you were spot on but throwing some out of context bible passages into the fray was kind of a let down for me. Especially after you spent your previous posts establishing that the New Testament was based on nothing better than rhetorical presentation or subjective interpretation.

for the record, i would have blown a doob with jessie too

@Blondesjon Sounds to me like he just wants to get it from the horse’s mouth. I’m a primary source ‘ho myself and for something with such far reaching influence it seems like a prime candidate for as much clarification as possible.

One of the biggest problems with religion (all of them) is that for all of the good believers there are still way too many people that use their religion to justify ignorance, bigotry and violence. Considering the fact that one doesn’t have to look hard to justify that sort of crap it sounds like a pretty good reason to set the record straight. It’s just way too easy for people to find what ever they want in god and ignore what they don’t like.

If @iamthemob did manage to get some face time with JC I think he should arrange for it to be a video interview and release it as the Gospel According to Jesus. Or, and this would be AWESOME, hand him over to James Lipton when you’re done and see what comes out. I’d love to know what’s Jesus’ favorite curse word is.

@Blondesjon – The point is that he did not state that slavery was wrong. That’s unclear. I agree at your interpretation, and that’s accepted. However, it required that you interpret what it means regardless of the ethics of using the example of a slave/master relationship. And of course, the analogy would have been helpful considering that the relationship was common, and therefore more than likely a successful rhetorical strategy to employ with the given audience. Indeed, that example, along with others like the good samaritan (at the time, there being no Jewish concept of a samaritan that could be good) and the discussion of forgiveness on earth being in the power of man (at a time when the pharises was thought to be the only earthly power able to forgive anyone, therefore limiting even personal forgiveness to something done at law) show that we are working with the argument framed in a way to provide meaning to a world 2000 years ago, as well as to populations that are culturally specific and different depending on the synoptic gospel we’re talking about. But those passages were resorted to in order to validate modern U.S. slavery as there was no accompanying statement that one should not own another man or woman directly. I hope that alleviates your concern about throwing them into the fray, as the fact that my concern is about the context that Jesus’s statements were placed in then as well as used now are why I don’t believe that it’s valid to argue that the central message of Christ is clear as we have it so far. If I can’t quote all statements of Jesus in a manner that demonstrates that the central message was clear, then it’s impossible to say that the message was clear in any of them.

And surely, I’d like to have my ideas validated. Wouldn’t we all? But I don’t expect it. And I don’t expect successful integration of a clear statement from Jesus on any one issue into the world so that it will be a better place. And whether I honestly believe that the return of Jesus would result him saying that they weren’t doing what he wanted, and thereafter whether they would believe him is irrelevant as to whether I would still want to see what happens. But I do believe that apologetics would have a profoundly difficult time in arguing against him if he did say it. And when you say that the very people I’m arguing about don’t give two shits about what Jesus said or wanted – well, they’ve been taught very differently in many cases, and I’m sure that they’d say the same thing about you. But if Jesus told them differently, that would have a profound difference.

@fundevogel – Indeed. Several times I’ve stated the main thing is to get it from the horses mouth. Why we are discussing why that is, or what I want to hear, or what the results would be, I don’t really know – any result would be fascinating. And I would be more than happy to hand over an hour of my day to Lipton. But I think that I’d be disappointed if JC’s favorite curse word was anything but “Jesus Christ!” ;-)

@iamthemob ‘But I think that I’d be disappointed if JC’s favorite curse word was anything but “Jesus Christ!”’

That would be pretty fantastic.

I had fun.

@noelleptc Seems this is what happens when religion gets involved. It’s a shame.

@Russell_D_SpacePoet – Amusingly, though – the entire back and forth makes sense in the absence of any concept of religion.

@iamthemob You know what I was getting at. Bring in a religious figure and it changes the narrative.

@noelleptc – Don’t kid. I’d sit in on that conversation.

@noelleptc . . . that’s fun? i prefer debating mr. c with @iamthemob .

@Blondesjon – picture debating him with anna nicole thrown into the mix…

NOW is it fun? ;-)

@iamthemob . . . give me a couple of whatever anna is taking and change the subject to the relative merits of corporal punishment and it’s on

Well, to chime in at this late hour, I’d like to get Jesus on video tape as we presented the behaviors of some of His most extreme followers, and record, for the record (mmm. that was clunky,) what he thinks of their behavior in His name.

@Dutchess_III . . . he would forgive them. that was kinda his thing.

Yabutt, if you could take Jesus’s video Word to, say, that pastor-ass who was protesting at the services of the boys who died for our country, or to the “Christian” who murdered Tiller, addressing THEIR behavior specifically…I think Jesus would have a thing or two to say to them before he forgave them…and forgive them only IF they got their shit together. I think that’s what he’s always meant—“Get your “S” together.” Just my opinion. But, he probably didn’t use the “S” word.

This thread is so close to someone being called a Nazi. Come on internet, do me proud!

What @bluemukaki? “Splain please.

WHAT? What you guys talking about?

Meh!