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Judaism is more believable than Christianity

Thunder

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sure, I was raised Jewish..which makes me kinda biased.

but still, I firmly believe that Judaism is more believable then Christianity.

you don't have to believe in Adam, Eve, Noah, even Abraham, to be a Jew. You don't have to believe that Moses received the Ten Commandments, to be a Jew. You can just believe that he was a bright man who was "inspired" by God, and wrote down the commandments.

in fact, much of the Jewish faith does not have to revolve around firm faith in miraculous events, you can just believe its all "divine inspiration".

now, Christianity is different. can you really consider Mary to be significant..if you do not believe she was REALLY a virgin? not really. cause then Joseph or some other dude, is the actual father..and NOT God.

secondly, can you simply see Jesus as divinely inspired...and not the ACTUAL son of God? not really. Jesus being God's literal son..is all of it. you can't really be a Christian while denying this.

and thirdly, Christ's resurrection. can you believe that this didn't actually occur..and imagine it was just some sort of hallucination? nope. if Jesus did NOT rise from the dead, then his whole existence, is meaningless.

see, Christianity is ALL about Jesus....as the SON of God, born of a VIRGIN Mary, died for the sins of ALL mankind, and ROSE from the dead.

deny any of this, and the whole thing comes tumbling down, like a Jenga game.

Merry Christmas. :p
 
Yeah, Judasim is far more believable, if you ignore that whole "believing in God" thing.
 
Balancing all the religions against common sense, the scales never begin to move no matter how many religions you pile on that side of the scale.
 
Maybe formally,

In practice, there are plenty of Christians who value the metaphor and don't necessarily need to believe in the literal supernatural events, and plenty of Jews who hold to a strict literal interpretation of things like the parting of the red sea and other supernatural wonders.
 
Sigh... So sad. Every year at this time Jews compare their dradles and pencils to their friend's Hot Wheel tracks and Transformers, then they lash out...
 
parky76 said:
sure, I was raised Jewish..which makes me kinda biased.

but still, I firmly believe that Judaism is more believable then Christianity.

you don't have to believe in Adam, Eve, Noah, even Abraham, to be a Jew. You don't have to believe that Moses received the Ten Commandments, to be a Jew. You can just believe that he was a bright man who was "inspired" by God, and wrote down the commandments.

in fact, much of the Jewish faith does not have to revolve around firm faith in miraculous events, you can just believe its all "divine inspiration".

now, Christianity is different. can you really consider Mary to be significant..if you do not believe she was REALLY a virgin? not really. cause then Joseph or some other dude, is the actual father..and NOT God.

secondly, can you simply see Jesus as divinely inspired...and not the ACTUAL son of God? not really. Jesus being God's literal son..is all of it. you can't really be a Christian while denying this.

and thirdly, Christ's resurrection. can you believe that this didn't actually occur..and imagine it was just some sort of hallucination? nope. if Jesus did NOT rise from the dead, then his whole existence, is meaningless.

see, Christianity is ALL about Jesus....as the SON of God, born of a VIRGIN Mary, died for the sins of ALL mankind, and ROSE from the dead.

deny any of this, and the whole thing comes tumbling down, like a Jenga game.

Merry Christmas. :p
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You don't have to believe in anything to be a Jew. And that makes it better than Christianity?

:boggled:

Forgive me but, I see no difference in Jewish god beliefs and Christian god beliefs.
 
Kinda like saying Spider-Man is more believable than Superman though isn't it?

P.S: I was going to say Batman instead of Spider-Man but he was way too high on the believability scale compared to the subject(s) at hand.
 
parky76, what's your opinion of Kabbalah? And of Christian Kabbalah?
 
parky76 said:
sure, I was raised Jewish..which makes me kinda biased.

but still, I firmly believe that Judaism is more believable then Christianity.

you don't have to believe in Adam, Eve, Noah, even Abraham, to be a Jew. You don't have to believe that Moses received the Ten Commandments, to be a Jew. You can just believe that he was a bright man who was "inspired" by God, and wrote down the commandments.

in fact, much of the Jewish faith does not have to revolve around firm faith in miraculous events, you can just believe its all "divine inspiration".

now, Christianity is different. can you really consider Mary to be significant..if you do not believe she was REALLY a virgin? not really. cause then Joseph or some other dude, is the actual father..and NOT God.

secondly, can you simply see Jesus as divinely inspired...and not the ACTUAL son of God? not really. Jesus being God's literal son..is all of it. you can't really be a Christian while denying this.

and thirdly, Christ's resurrection. can you believe that this didn't actually occur..and imagine it was just some sort of hallucination? nope. if Jesus did NOT rise from the dead, then his whole existence, is meaningless.

see, Christianity is ALL about Jesus....as the SON of God, born of a VIRGIN Mary, died for the sins of ALL mankind, and ROSE from the dead.

deny any of this, and the whole thing comes tumbling down, like a Jenga game.

Merry Christmas. :p
Click to expand...

You haven't talked to many Christians, Parky?

You know that, for example, the followers of Pelagius considered themselves Christians too? They considered Jesus to be more or less just a good role-model, and that you can get saved even without him. And Adam just set a bad example in that view, but otherwise they had no Original Sin.

Even about Jesus and Mary, pre-Nicean doctrines included:

- Psilanthropism, i.e., the view that Jesus was merely a perfectly normal human, who was an agent of God, but merely human nevertheless

- Docetism, i.e., the view that Jesus's physical body was just an illusion, that he was an incorporeal spirit, and basically that he didn't die on the cross in the first place. That was an illusion too. And I figure that neatly denies the virgin birth too, since, really all that was born was an illusion. (This was a long lived heresy too, surviving at least into the 13'th century.)

And then were the Gnostics. Ooer. Now those could get creative with the reading of the bible. E.g., the Ophites saw the Serpent in Genesis as an agent of the true God, and Yahweh as basically the adversary who was trying to keep humans from achieving their true potential.

And again those too considered themselves Christians. Valentinus even was a disciple of Theudas, which in turn was a disciple of Paul of Tarsus. Far from considering himself the proponent of a new religion, Valentinus was very convinced that he got Christianity right and everyone else got it wrong.

That's how diverse "Christianity" was before Constantine standardized it.

But I'm not bringing that up just as a historical oddity, but really my impression is that most self-professed Christians today are really followers of some self-brewed version Pelagianism, Arianism, Nestorianism, etc, going all the way to essentially Deism, but still consider themselves Christians.

But, generally, what makes you think that Judaism is unique in that aspect? There are enough people of any religion who take it as just a divine metaphor, to various degrees. Or not even that. See Deism again.
 
Cavemonster said:
Maybe formally,

In practice, there are plenty of Christians who value the metaphor and don't necessarily need to believe in the literal supernatural events, and plenty of Jews who hold to a strict literal interpretation of things like the parting of the red sea and other supernatural wonders.
Click to expand...

Forgive me for asking but don't you have to believe in the literal and actual resurrection of Jesus to be able to call yourself a Christian?
 
parky76 said:
but still, I firmly believe that Judaism is more believable then Christianity.
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- It is much easier to find people who believe that Jesus was born 2000 years ago than people who believe that the first human on earth was created 5770 years ago.

parky76 said:
see, Christianity is ALL about Jesus....as the SON of God, born of a VIRGIN Mary, died for the sins of ALL mankind, and ROSE from the dead.
Click to expand...
Obviously you have never heard of unitarian Christianity (or Jehovah's Witnesses), who believe that there is only one God (the same as in Old Testament), Jesus was created by that God, Jesus is not that God, Jesus prays to that God, and in everything obeys the will of that God.

Trinitarian theology (three = one) is nowhere defined in the Bible, with any clarity anyway. It was clearly defined (and declared as the only orthodox form of Christian faith) a few hundred years AD.
 
Hux said:
Forgive me for asking but don't you have to believe in the literal and actual resurrection of Jesus to be able to call yourself a Christian?
Click to expand...

Obviously at least one of the major pre-Nicaea christology school of thought called themselves Christians without believing that Jesus even existed in a proper human body, nor that the crucifixion was anything more than, basically, a good show. The idea would be later absorbed into other gnostic and heretic sects, e.g., the Cathars. Who didn't think they were anything else than Christians either.
 
Hux said:
Forgive me for asking but don't you have to believe in the literal and actual resurrection of Jesus to be able to call yourself a Christian?
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No, that is a doctrine. Not a universal, now it is a commonly held beleif but again there are xians who do not hold with the literal resurrection.

It is part of the original 'jesus people' movement that many believed that jesus was just a human, not the son of god anymore that 'we are all the children of god'. I find it ironic that most jesus people went on to become born again.
 
JJM 777 said:
- It is much easier to find people who believe that Jesus was born 2000 years ago than people who believe that the first human on earth was created 5770 years ago.
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i bet i could find 100 Rabbis who would say that you don't have to take such things literally in order to be a Jew....and even a good Jew.

could you find 100 priests who would tell you it is not necessary to believe that Jesus was the literal Son of God, and they he literally rose from the dead, in order to be a good Christian?

i doubt it.
 
Since it makes no sense to call yourself a Christian without believing in Christ to be a God, and since every major Christian sect refers to itself as monotheist, I do agree that Judaism is slightly more believable than Christianity.

On the other hand, I think Zoroastrism (Mazdaism) is slightly more believable than Judaism. They have a reasonable solution to theodicy. According to Mazdaism, although Ahura Mazda is the only God and the most powerful one, who will eventually realize his ultimate goal, he is not immediately all powerful and it will take some time before he defeats the evil Ahriman.

But then I would find almost any polytheistic religion more believable than the monotheisms.
 
parky76 said:
i bet i could find 100 Rabbis who would say that you don't have to take such things literally in order to be a Jew....and even a good Jew.

could you find 100 priests who would tell you it is not necessary to believe that Jesus was the literal Son of God, and they he literally rose from the dead, in order to be a good Christian?

i doubt it.
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1. It seems to me like you're equivocating between being Jew by descent and by religion.

2. In the same sense (i.e., equivocation too, pretty much) you can even be an atheist Catholic, because once you got baptized, there's no way to stop being counted as a Catholic by the church. (The state's census might have a different opinion, but that's secular authorities for ya.) Dunno what they put in that baptism water, but no detergent gets it off you ;)

3. I see your 100 priests/rabbis and raise two popes. (Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.)

Seriously, the current "anonymous christian" doctrine is just that: you can be a Christian, even a good Christian, without even knowing it or even having heard of Jesus. It's the official Vatican doctrine, too. I'm not kidding.

In fact, you can think you're a devout follower of Judaism, or a devout Tibetan Buddhist monk, but count as Christian enough for that doctrine, if you're a really nice person.

See, the traditional view before Vatican 2.0 was that you won't be saved unless you believe in Jesus and pray real hard. Since, you know, you can only be saved through Jesus. Which meant that a lot of otherwise good people would go to hell, just by virtue of being the wrong religion or sect.

The Anonymous Christian doctrine was formulated in the 20'th century more or less to solve this problem. It says that basically you can have the grace of Jesus and do His work, without even knowing it, so you're going to heaven anyway.

And, oh, your non-Christian holy books get their good parts from Jesus too, even though you might not know it :p

So there you go, straight from the Vatican itself: you _can_ be a good Christian and saved, without actually believing that Jesus even existed.

ETA: just in case it wasn't already clear: you can even actively _deny_ Christianity or the Christ, and still be an anonymous Christian. Roll that around in your head :p
 
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