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its simple. it doesn't matter if Jesus existed or not. to a literalness it does, but for the rest us its irrelevant.
it doesn't matter that he existed when one buys into he died and rose for our sins
it doesn't matter if he existed to follow the memes that he taught. Like love thy enemy.
It only matters to a select few.
That's very true. It's a select few, targeting a select few. I was taught Greek Mythology in grade school and there was no outrage. It was simply learning about another culture. Of course, Greek Mythology is nonsense for some people. But exploring it as well as other myths, religions, classifications, algorithms: i.e. snake-handling, etc. allow for a better cultural understanding and as and result aids humanity
That's very true. It's a select few, targeting a select few. I was taught Greek Mythology in grade school and there was no outrage. It was simply learning about another culture. Of course, Greek Mythology is nonsense for some people. But exploring it as well as other myths, religions, classifications, algorithms: i.e. snake-handling, etc. allow for a better cultural understanding and as and result aids humanity
If the Christians just left it at that, the way you simply let the Greek myths be, then everything would be peachy-keen. But it's their relentless assault on ordinary good people that drives folks insane, constantly walking up to them and saying,
"Excuse me, but do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Are you aware that if you walk away from me at this moment and die in your sins you will burn eternally in the fires of hell?"
Don't you just want to slap those people silly 'till they're red as a tomato?
If the Christians just left it at that, the way you simply let the Greek myths be, then everything would be peachy-keen. But it's their relentless assault on ordinary good people that drives folks insane, constantly walking up to them and saying,
"Excuse me, but do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Are you aware that if you walk away from me at this moment and die in your sins you will burn eternally in the fires of hell?"
Don't you just want to slap those people silly 'till they're red as a tomato?
No. If it's a reportable offense, report them to the local authorities. If it's not a reportable offense, lobby your government to make it reportable.
No. If it's a reportable offense, report them to the local authorities. If it's not a reportable offense, lobby your government to make it reportable.
Well, it's not reportable and I'm not going to lobby my government against free speech. I usually just say,
"And are you aware I'm a former Christian who investigated Jesus and found that he doesn't appear in a single history book from the 1st century? Are you further aware that Jesus is a myth invented by the Christian churchmen?"
That usually stops them. They know I'm not one of these dumb Okies that fell off the turnip truck yesterday--their favorite prey.
If the Christians just left it at that, the way you simply let the Greek myths be, then everything would be peachy-keen. But it's their relentless assault on ordinary good people that drives folks insane, constantly walking up to them and saying,
"Excuse me, but do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Are you aware that if you walk away from me at this moment and die in your sins you will burn eternally in the fires of hell?"
Don't you just want to slap those people silly 'till they're red as a tomato?
yeah, thats a problematic theme. 'go out and save ... weather they need it or not."
I am not offended at your posts, Thrill. I am concerned that you have thrown out the baby with the bath water. Your denials and rejections go farther than you can possibly support intellectually. You are operating with certainty in an area where no such certainty is possible. We do not disagree that the fundies have corrupted and misunderstood the Christ narrative and the result is evil and lack of love. They do not understand syncretism and the spiritual template that underlies the various Savior or Avatar narratives. But the existence of that template as the way humanity is to evolve their spiritual understanding of God is the important point, not your focus on historicity and tearing down every semblance of the narrative as fiction which it is not. Fiction is a deliberate creation and use of imagination. That is NOT what is going on here.
Mystic, if you don't understand one pertinent fact about me then you don't understand me or my posts at all. I am a complete pragmatist. For you Christianity is fluid, it is in shades of grays--it is very esoteric. There are no grays for me when it comes to Christianity. It is either right or wrong--accurate or inaccurate--truthful or untruthful. There is one determining factor for me and that is what the history record says. If there is no history record, then I have to default to the position that the person as described in the Bible never existed. This would include Jesus as the pre-incarnate son of god described in Genesis 3:15 and, according to you, prophesied all throughout the Old Testament--from everlasting to everlasting and all this other nonsense. I allow that an ordinary man named Jesus may have lived in that time and was a zealot who got crucified by the Romans for sedition. I can't even prove that--nobody can. They all accept it as probably factual because all this supernatural dressing in the gospels had to be hung on someone but we have no historical record who that someone is.
Now add to this what I have already said before:
1. Jesus appears NOWHERE outside the New Testament far as historical record goes. Nor does Paul, nor do the apostles.
2. The gospels were written anonymously 50-100 years after the events they portray. There's not a single eyewitness to all of this. So how on earth do you accept as fact that what Jesus says in the gospels is what he actually said?????? THIS is the mystery to me about you. You're far too intelligent to let it get past you that stuff people said that is lost to time doesn't magically appear in some anonymous writer's gospel 100 years later as completely accurate quotations. It's obvious from a rational perspective that the guys writing the gospels had to fill their storylines in with dialogue and so they just made it up on the fly. If the fact that story of the woman taken in adultery never happened--that it was added by a scribe 600 years after Jesus doesn't convince you of this--then I fear you can never be made to see reason no matter how vigorously I shake you and say, "Wake up, Mystic! Here are the facts! In black and white!" Some Christians--Christians around here anyway--will never be made to see what I have just outlined. They will go to their graves denying the obvious: there's no historical record for Jesus, no historical record for the apostles, no historical record for Paul, therefore the likelihood is they were made up and everything they said and did was made up. We've got no other direction to go. There is no 3rd choice. It's either/or as I see it.
3. And most important: we assume God wants us to believe that his son, Jesus is the savior of mankind. Why else would He have sent Jesus here?! But if God isn't going to care enough about us believing in Jesus to leave reliable records that no person in their right mind could dispute, then the only logical reasoning is that Jesus simply was NOT the son of God. Again, it's one of those black and white things that nobody can logically argue:
If Jesus was the Son of God, then God would have left indisputable evidence of Jesus. If Jesus was NOT the son of God, then God would NOT have left indisputable evidence of Jesus. It's that simple, it's that black and white. There's no other way to analyze the facts and come to any other conclusion.
If you can find a way around that totally rational deduction without a thesis-sized explanation filled with mumbo-jumbo I'd be very interested in hearing it. Explain why Jesus is the Son of God but God left no indisputable evidence of that fact. I'll wait around for it.
Mystic, if you don't understand one pertinent fact about me then you don't understand me or my posts at all. I am a complete pragmatist.... There are no grays for me when it comes to Christianity. It is either right or wrong--accurate or inaccurate--truthful or untruthful. ...
That's not pragmatism. ( Pragmatism is an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. A pragmatist, like myself, takes from it what works for them and chucks the rest.) It's fundamentalism: black and white, all-or-nothing-ism.
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Your denials and rejections go farther than you can possibly support intellectually. You are operating with certainty in an area where no such certainty is possible. We do not disagree that the fundies have corrupted and misunderstood the Christ narrative and the result is evil and lack of love. They do not understand syncretism and the spiritual template that underlies the various Savior or Avatar narratives. But the existence of that template as the way humanity is to evolve their spiritual understanding of God is the important point, not your focus on historicity and tearing down every semblance of the narrative as fiction which it is not. Fiction is a deliberate creation and use of imagination. That is NOT what is going on here.
