Just wanted to comment on the Christian comments on Jesus. I was raised on Christian scriptures and began to pursue an understanding of all things that even claimed to be scriptures (so Ive read through the Quran a few times and also Jewish text and everything available that I can find as far as commentary etc) because of an obsession with the God of Abraham. I'm still working on it, but one thing I have noticed among Christians is a very poor understanding of the description "son of God" - what does that mean?
that God had intercourse with Mary? (no)
that God Himself was fully present on Earth and Jesus knew all He knew? (no, specifically denied by scripture, he didn't even know the last hour)
that the FLESH of Jesus was God and had been adult and formed for all time? (no he grew normally and wasn't teleported from the beginning of time)
what does the "son" of God MEAN, really?
There are a lot of complicated explanations of what that is supposed to mean, some people have a very mistaken idea (they repeat the line but don't think about what the words mean, they would argue all day with someone who just was offended at the idea that it was claiming that God had intercourse with Mary), and basically it usually comes down to .... no one exactly understands what that means physically and spiritually, except that it doesn't mean the usual meaning of son, or the usual meaning of God.
In Biblical scriptures the line "son" or "sons of god" is used multiple times for multiple meanings from the old testament on. Why exactly does it have to mean something confrontational when no one is exactly sure what it means except that faith is required since understanding is limited?
I don't claim to know. The more I learn about God the more I realize that even as my understanding of the back of my own hand is so limited that I would be foolish to act as though I comprehended the cells of my own body, so it seems that to claim to really know the specific interactions of physical and spiritual as they relate to God seems kind of far-fetched. I tend to go with Solomon and think that God doesn't demand more than is able to be given, and what is able to be given amounts to some variation of belief (and Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness) and acting in accordance with treating other creatures as you would treat yourself while trying to gain a better understanding and better actions in relation to your capacity and comprehensional possiblities. The variations on this are endless (demoninations abound) but sincerety is the foundation from which a working interaction with God and truth springs.
If one thinks about the defenitions of words instead of the words themselves then one discovers that there are less arguments among the sincere than thought (like Paul, don't spend time in foolish arguments about words...though I sometimes do...instead focusing on the things you know God loves, protecting the innocent, hating wrongdoing, treating animals and others kindly, facilitating the lives of the helpless, love, etc.)
(This will probably get me flac, I couldn't even get my own mother to hear this whole paragraph out without tears at my potential blasphemy for saying that I cannot reasonably define the word "son" in such a way as to physically define Jesus as something specific) oh well.
Thanx for all the interesting posts and great links, I have been having fun surfing the web all day reading all these awesome blogs about the world's beliefs, I love reading about God and seeing people take an interest in comprehending God, even if I don't always specifically agree...
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Jesus
