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Why doesn't Jesus sound smart?

I can't love my enemies because I do not have any. People I do not care for I just disregard because if I do not like them I don't want to invest the time or effort it would take to make them proper "enemies," and if there were anybody (I know of none right now) who does not like me enough to invest that sort of time- well, at least they are thinking about me.
 
jjramsey said:
Yes, which is why the Black Panthers were so much more effective than Martin Luther King.

Um, wait a minute...
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This, of course, is a vast oversimplification.

MLK was a brilliant tactician. He understood that modern media would broadcast the acts of Bull Conner and others to parts of the world where segregation was unacceptable.

Passive resistance only works when you have a way of spreading your message and a sympathetic mind that will accept it.

Do you think pagans tried sit-ins during the Inquisition?
 
jjramsey
There is also the matter that if Jesus were wholly mythical, we should expect the New Testament to look radically different than it does.
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How so?
We would probably see a portrayal that was more consistently idealized and larger-than-life. Jesus' purported activities would be about as hard to fit into a historical timeframe as Robin Hood's.
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Like the 10 years separating his birth, or the wholly illogical journey of his parents to Bethlehem.
We probably would not even see him portrayed as having been crucified.
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He had to die in some manner, otherwise the authors would have had to explain away the new kingdom which didn’t exist, that the messiah was sent to form.

stamenflicker
If that's your standard then say bye-bye to most of history. Also, how do you consider the gospels self-referencing if Jesus didn't write them? Or how do you interpret letters from Paul and others regarding "an event" as self-referencing?
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The bible, when used by such as ruach1 is self referencing and contradictory. Not until you take it apart and examine each does is it understandable in context; however, the believers are loath to do so for it might tear apart a favorite bit of text.

As for my statement of the historical Jesus being settled, it hasn’t been. There are a few likely contenders for the existence of a person ultimately used as a sort of blueprint for Jesus, but Jesus having existed, as most Christians believe, is unsubstantiated at best.

teacher
If you are being genuine (but not too bright or well read) or awkward or superficial (or otherwise mis-reading the text), then don't try to deceive or burst the bubble of millions of people who have read and believed the texts as most see them,
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Point: most of the millions that believe the text haven’t actually bothered to read them. They merely parrot what they’ve been told the texts say.

Ossai
 
Ossai said:
the wholly illogical journey of his parents to Bethlehem.
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A wholly illogical journey that would be quite unnecessary in a mythical Jesus who could have been "born" in the right town in the first place.

Ossai said:
He had to die in some manner
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Not necessarily. He could have been taken up to heaven like Elijah. That said, you are missing the point, which is that Jesus is portrayed as having died a death that in the eyes of most Jews disqualified him from being the Messiah, yet he was proclaimed as Messiah anyway. It also looked pretty ridiculous to the pagans. If you are going to pick a death for a mythical savior, crucifixion is one of the worst choices, which makes it a very odd thing to make up.

Ossai said:
As for my statement of the historical Jesus being settled, it hasn’t been.
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Tell that to Robin Lane Fox. Tell that to just about any classical historian. What is also telling is that the few who do try to argue that Jesus was mythical consistently end up with a web of distorted facts and speculation.
 
pgwenthold said:
The only "internal inconsistencies" are in different versions of the same story. That is perfectly consistent with 4 different authors writing about the same legendary character, sort of like if four different authors wrote about Robin Hood.

If they all came up with different stories, would that be evidence that Robin Hood existed?
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Not when you have them borrowing from each other. What you likely have instead is one common document (Q) and supplemental material based on an author's experience with or hearing of the other material. Of course I lean to the former (experience of).

If you were going to re-write legend, you'd fix more than you'd mess up. And you'd dress up more than you'd uncover. The gospel compilations apparently were less concerned with fixing or dressing up and more concerned with getting something penned pretty quick. (John being the exception.)

Flick
 
There are a few likely contenders for the existence of a person ultimately used as a sort of blueprint for Jesus, but Jesus having existed, as most Christians believe, is unsubstantiated at best.
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Os,

I agree, although I'm guessing I accept more of the blueprint than you do. But "unsubstantiated" is correct and I agree that there really isn't a historical leg or pair of legs that hold my positions up.

Flick
 
jjramsey said:
If you are going to pick a death for a mythical savior, crucifixion is one of the worst choices, which makes it a very odd thing to make up.
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I am not sure why that is. If your saviour is going to stay dead then it might be illogical. If your saviour is going to come triumphantly back to life then it makes for a nice dramatic contrast.
 
Well, if Jesus were part of a more traditional mythological epic, it would certainly have had more historicity to evoke an idealized past.
 
jjramsey
That said, you are missing the point, which is that Jesus is portrayed as having died a death that in the eyes of most Jews disqualified him from being the Messiah,
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He was never really in the running for the Jewish messiah as he didn’t fulfill any of the OT messianic prophecies.

A wholly illogical journey that would be quite unnecessary in a mythical Jesus who could have been "born" in the right town in the first place.
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It also looked pretty ridiculous to the pagans. If you are going to pick a death for a mythical savior, crucifixion is one of the worst choices, which makes it a very odd thing to make up.
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Crucifixion was relatively common at the time. How else is society going to sacrifice someone to a god in which they don’t believe?

What is also telling is that the few who do try to argue that Jesus was mythical consistently end up with a web of distorted facts and speculation.
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I never said Jesus was wholly mythical. I said “…but Jesus having existed, as most Christians believe, is unsubstantiated at best.”

Ossai
 
Ossai said:
jjramsey
Crucifixion was relatively common at the time. How else is society going to sacrifice someone to a god in which they don’t believe?
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Actually,.... no.

The Romans had lots of different ways of administering the death penalty -- crucifixion was rare, unusual, and reserved for particularly dishonorable deaths.

If you want a modern analogy, if I were writing a screenplay about a character who for some reason, was on the run from the law, the character would be the most sympathetic if he had been wrongly accused/convicted of a crime he hadn't committed (which is why this is almost a cliche among a number of different genres -- think the old "A-Team" series). Second-best would be a conviction for some crime that doesn't instantly instill a feeling of "ick" among the viewers, such as manslaughter or some white-collar crime.

It takes a genius like Nabokov to make an admitted child-molester and first-degree murderer sympathetic. Most writers wouldn't touch that.

Crucifixion was the equivalent of a sentence for child molestation. We've lost that near-instinctive horror for that particular style of the death penalty in the intervening centuries. From a modern viewpoint, death by beheading and death by crucifixion are about the same, and if a scriptwriter wants to make a particularly horrible Roman-era death, the person is fed to the lions. That's not how a first-century Jew (or Roman) would have seen it.
 
There is also the matter that if Jesus were wholly mythical, we should expect the New Testament to look radically different than it does.
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How so?
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We would probably see a portrayal that was more consistently idealized and larger-than-life. Jesus' purported activities would be about as hard to fit into a historical timeframe as Robin Hood's.
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So you think Jesus was God because he was shown to be imperfect and not larger than life? How does that make any sense?

If human weakness is a sign of the divine then Zues and Hera seem to qualify.
 
KingMerv00 said:
So you think Jesus was God because he was shown to be imperfect and not larger than life? How does that make any sense?
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Tsk, tsk. I would think the King would know better than to confuse the issue of whether there was a historical Jesus and whether Christianity's portrait of Jesus is accurate.
 
You are right I was bit off topic.

On the other hand, why does human weakness indicate existance? If Jesus was portrayed as "larger than life", I'm guessing Christians would take this as a sign of his divinity. Seems like a no win situation for the atheists.

People really really want the Bible to be true. It doesn't matter how the New Testament is configured, people will still believe.
 
KingMerv00 said:
On the other hand, why does human weakness indicate existance?
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It is not so much the weakness itself as it is either the embarrassing nature or the shear mundaneness of some of the material about Jesus. These are less likely to be made up because no one would want to make them up.
 
jjramsey said:
It is not so much the weakness itself as it is either the embarrassing nature or the shear mundaneness of some of the material about Jesus. These are less likely to be made up because no one would want to make them up.
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Kinda like people wouldn't want to make up some of the stuff that Joyce wrote about Leopold Bloom?
 
5) Consider long term pro's and con's of my final decision.

This is a form of teleology or utilitarianism and has its flaws.

Right and wrong become subjective or dependent upon potential outcomes or consequences. Try telling your kids that right and wrong, whilst adhering to general principles, can be dodged round when it suits. A good ethic? Open to abuse?

What do you do when opinions vary on this?

How far forward do we look? Pro/con for who?

If YOU must die to fulfill 5.) would you accept it?

So lying can be justified. But if this becomes commonplace, no-one would ever know who's lying or when, so trust becomes obsolete as truth in effect doesn't work.

What if the long term goal (for me) is that there is a heaven and a God, but for you, there isn't. Do we consider the beyond death aspect or not?

We can use people if need be. Rid the world of beggers, social scroungers and the disabled and smokers and obese people and the world will be better.

Just a few obstacles to this philosophy.
 
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