I think that if a group of people decide to write down their own code of conduct and then another group comes along a thousand years later and rewrites it to fit their own agenda they don’t get to tell the first group what the original books said. You are more than welcome to worship Jesus or any other Jew as much as you want but when you tell us that he is our Messiah and we’ve our books and your books telling us otherwise, you can expect us to change our beliefs as much as you change yours whenever Muslims tell you the new versions of your books.
And if you could stop killing people in the name of Jesus that would be great. I’ve listed what Jesus was not. I think he also was not the kind of person who wanted his followers to kill everybody. His message was about love as far as I can tell. If you think enough of him to edit our books to make him look better then you should think enough of him to follow his main principle and be nice to each other.
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15 comments:
"Every Christian in the world will disagree with me on this."
And with good reason too. I don't know how much you're serious about and how much you're throwing out there as food for thought, but your characterisation of things like the Holy Trinity seem designed more to make a cheap shot than anything else.
Reverence for the Pope can sometimes go overboard, but it's drawing a very long bow to describe it as worship.
Regarding the claim of thousands of witnesses at Mount Sinai, did they all make independent testimony, or do we have the word of a few who vouch for the thousands? There is as much evidence as anything presented in the New Testament.
Regarding revised editions, well of course! Humanity grows a lot over three thousand years and we often need setting straight on previous misinterpretations. If the world were exactly as it was in Moses' time, then I would agree that such revisions would be redundant.
Regarding the virgin birth, personally I don't care. The point is not *how* Jesus was born, but *that* he was born. But Christianity has no monopoly on pretending there's no such thing as sex. The Old and New Testaments are equally guilty of portraying women as either virgins or whores.
Regarding your inference that only Jews get to decide who the Messiah is, you're absolutely right. Millions of Jews recognise Jesus as the Messiah and now they're called Christians. That's how Christianity began. They were Jews who followed Jesus before they split up into all the different factions we have today. Other Jews disagreed, and that's their prerogative.
If someone came who was recognised as the Messiah by a large number of Jews, there will probably be another such schism. There will be those who follow the Messiah and those who disagree. But when the Messiah does come, he or she will probably look at the wish-list and say, "Dude, be realistic!" Jesus said something similar in His own way.
I'm glad you acknowledge how it's slightly immature to expect a single mortal to bring on such a golden age without anyone else doing anything but wait for it. Jesus didn't come to do it all for us. He came to show us how. The absence of peace can be put down to our (Christians, that is) failure to follow His message properly.
I appreciate your explanation of the Jewish position on the Messiah. I don't know who is telling you to change your beliefs, but if any Christian has, then I'm sorry. I would never tell you you're wrong. Surely it is possible to discuss and debate the meaning of Holy writing without it turning into another I'm right/you're wrong scenario.
My guess is you'll get a whole lot of criticism for this, but I don't disagree with you at all. I was raised Christian, but I am pretty much an atheist now. All organized religion seems a bit silly to me.
That said, I've always had this view in mind that Jesus was just a garden variety megalomaniac. Someone like Jim Jones or David Koresh or something. Even in times when people were far more educated they were able to convince people that they were more than human. Of course, and this will really get some people's goats, I know, but I've always figured that Jesus, the Buddha and Mohammed are all pretty much the same guy.
My goodness, what a great post. Let me say, I am sick and tired of reading posts that have pictures of ducks on them. AND those folks set themselves up as the arbiters of the other blogs.
I had a conversation about a similar topic as this post, just the other day. I was raised a Christian, in the Anglican Church, and Christianity has never made any sense to me. In my estimation, Jesus was a politician. His main purpose in life was to get rid of the Romans who were occupying his land. That was pretty much his message, and the Romans killed him for it.
Any other interpretation of his message came centuries later, and a religion grew up around it.
I might add ... I do not believe in any organized religion, but I do believe in individual spirituality.
I'm all for discussing religion without assigning blame. In my experience that's easy with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, other. Christians are the only people who say you have to believe what they believe or burn in hellfire for eternity.
I'm open to the possibility that Mary was a virgin. You can get pregnant without penetration. It's unlikely but possible. But I really don't think God knocked her up and I don't understand why Jesus loses his powers if his mother had sex. Whatever Mary and Joseph did or didn't do in the backseat of his ox cart has nothing to do with the Messiah anyway.
I don't think millions of Jews became Christians. I believe the number was much smaller. I'm sure there were more Romans who converted. Once the Romans got on board that's when it really took off. I could be wrong. I slept a lot in Hebrew school.
If somebody comes along and creates a rift with some Jews thinking he's the Messiah and some against then by definition he's not the Messiah. The Messiah's supposed to be accepted by all Jews universally. That scenario could create another new religion but it's not prophecy.
Personally I don't mind if the Messiah doesn't do all the things he's supposed to do. I think if all animals lived in peace it would upset the balance of nature and I really don't want everybody who ever lived to come back to life. Some of those people deserve to be dead. But they're not my rules.
Jews and Muslims worship God and nobody else. Christians worship God, Jesus and that ghost spirit. That means Christians can't be monotheists. I don't know how that's a cheap shot. It's not a judgement. Hindus have many gods and I've nothing against them.
You [the Queen's you] can argue that Jewish scripture is just as unlikely as Christian scripture. It doesn't make any difference if it's thousands of witnesses or 1 disaffected young man if it's all fiction. But I'll naturally believe the thousands over the one.
If you [Bill and Queen's] agree that God's word needs to be updated from time to time then why aren't you Muslim or even Mormon? People live very differently than they did thousands of years ago but the word of God is timeless. I think he's able to get it right the first time. God doesn't need an editor to make his word hip and fresh.
Alissa, I don't mind criticism but I think all the people who will ever read this already have. And I disagree with Jesus being like Jim Jones. Jesus never killed anybody as far as I know and he never told his followers to kill themselves. They murdered a lot of people after he died but he never told them to.
Jesus and the Buddha said a lot of the same things but I think Jesus got more of his material from Confucius. There are a lot of people who believe Jesus and Muhammad are the same person. And not in a derogatory way.
I'm not trying to kick Jesus. I've nothing against all the peace and love he preached. My point is that he was never the Messiah. That doesn't make him a better or worse person.
But I think it's interesting that I meet so many ex-Christians who think so little of their former faith. I never see that with other religions. There are lots of apathetic Jews but they never say bad things about Moses. And I've never met a former Muslim.
And I like ducks. They're cute.
I don't trust people. People lie. The same way people tell children about Santa Claus, why they wouldn't lie about religions, Gods, etc?
The Messiah is death carrying a scythe, in my opinion.
I don't see him coming but I see him taking me away from this hell called Earth when I am 80, tired and my vagina is looking like raisin. I will be more than glad to leave.
Seriously, no one will come here and save us from ourselves.
If there are wars, poverty, misery etc, we will have to fix it, sorry, but this is the reality.
Religions are paternalists for a reason: they need to pay their bills.
Some people think Jesus was the reincarnation of Buddha that's why they talked about the same thing.
"According to your faith, so be it unto you"
It's one of the few good things about the Bible and the most ignored because people don't want to think for themselves and learn how to use their inner power, they need given beliefs and blind faith and anything easier to be assimilated.
As for ducks, I like them. I can't say the same about the boring royal family from England and their fans. I can't resist the Beatles and that's all...Ah, and the Kinks.
I don't think Jesus died in the cross. He was to smart. People killed him in their imagination.
"According to your faith, so be it unto you"
I just love the combination of these little words.
Sorry for the bad spelling =)
I meant JESUS WAS TOO SMART and he didn't kill anybody because he wasn't a Christian. =D
"If you agree that God's word needs to be updated from time to time then why aren't you Muslim or even Mormon?"
Fair question.
It depends on whether you trust who is doing the revision. I disagree that people were as sophisticated in their thinking and understanding 5000 years ago as they are now. Probably more than we give them credit for, but not as much as today. For example, telling them that women are equal to men would sound as absurd as telling them the world is a ball. We learn more about the world, physical and spiritual, when we are ready to. I can't explain the Holy Trinity and more than I can explain string theory, but if history has shown us anything (and occasionally, it has), it's the that more we learn about something, the more we realise how much there is we don't know. Every answer raises more questions. I think it would be naive to assume that the nature of God is any different and I think it absurd to expect all aspects of God to easily make sense to any mortal at any stage of our development.
If one wants to make it all about numbers, then I could say that I'll see your thousand witnesses and raise you five thousand tuna sandwiches. Now if you were to say that not all the 5000 gave independent testimony, then you're absolutely right and I would say exactly the same thing about Sinai. And the four Gospels were chosen from a list of many others.
Now if you want to talk about the crimes that have been committed in the name of Christianity, I have no argument with that, as you well know. Christianity is not alone, in being perverted by zealots in order to justify murder. Christianity is not the problem, religious chauvinism is the problem. No faith has a monopoly on that.
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong. I certainly don't think you're going to hell. Yet I'm a Catholic - go figure! As interesting as your point of view is, I'm used to a better argument than "my book trumps your book," and defining any faith by its more mysterious aspects or freakiest exponents doesn't help anyone. Everyone takes what they want to from their faith and interpret scripture as they see fit - unless you are always careful not to wear garments of dissimilar fibres.
The Beatles didn't bring a golden age either. They did make people think about peace but far fewer people embrace the message than listen to it. John was right.
For a while, I wondered if Jesus and the Buddha might have been the same person too, until I realised the timing was wrong. I'm still not sure that they weren't though. Reincarnation is an interesting idea.
Reincarnation is an interesting idea just like you, Bill. You're probably like everything else in the world, a possibility, a concept, one idea that can't be proved. Matter doesn't make anything more real. Beliefs do or not.
"I disagree that people were as sophisticated in their thinking and understanding 5000 years ago as they are now."
I think Aristotle is ahead of OUR time. =)
"Let me say, I am sick and tired of reading posts that have pictures of ducks on them. AND those folks set themselves up as the arbiters of the other blogs."
If you don't like pictures of ducks, don't visit blogs with pictures of ducks. If you don't want people posting stupid things on your blog, make it private. If you don't want to read stupid things on blogs, avoid them. We can always avoid people. Complaining about how boring other blogs are make any difference? Mia's blog is great but thanks MY LORD IN HEAVEN there are blogs with pictures of ducks, bad poetry, recipes etc. Bad things are as necessary as good things. Do you want me to be honest? I don't like your blog and I don't like you. Do you think I will go to other blogs just to write how sick I am of your posts and of you? No.
""I think Aristotle is ahead of OUR time."
Agreed, but is scripture written for the masses, or only the great thinkers of the time?
And just to clarify an earlier point, I was not suggesting a mass conversion of Jews. Obviously the Roman conversion was a boon for Christianity, but it's clear that the very first Christians were Jews who followed Jesus and all subsequent conversions followed from that. All I'm saying is that Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, just as Protestantism is an offshoot of Catholicism.
Do you think the scripture was written for all, Bill?
It seems more likely that Jesus was Confucius rather than the Buddha. Muslims don't think he was executed either. But there are contemporary Jewish and Roman accounts that he was so I'm inclined to believe it.
Bill, your explanation that people are more sophisticated now than 3000 years ago just begs the question why aren't you Mormon? People were a lot more sophisticated in Joseph Smith's time than in Matthew, Mark, Luke's.
I'm a little disappointed that you didn't try to explain that holy ghost thing and how 3 gods can be monotheistic. I've asked many Christians about it and nobody ever has much to say. But I do agree that the more we know the less we know. I was much smarter when I was a child.
I'm glad you agree that it was mostly Romans who became Christians. When you said "millions of Jews" it did suggest a mass conversion. Jesus and his posse were all Jews but I think everybody agrees there weren't millions of them. If there were you'd think he could have avoided the axe. Then again if he were a god he could have anyway. But that just gets into dying for our sins and that's a completely different topic that doesn't make any sense to me.
I don't think there are many tuna sandwiches in anybody's bible.
I can't explain the Holy Trinity any better than I can explain relativity. But neither physics nor theology are limited to that which can be perfectly understood by my little mind.
The Trinity is not three gods. It is three parts of the same, single God. I thought everyone was clear on that. If we accept that God is all powerful and all knowing, then it's reasonable figure that the nature of God has to be dumbed down a bit for humans to perceive. That does not mean we are always going to have the same perception of the universe as we did 5000 years ago.
The question or Mormonism is a non-sequitur. I don't believe the book of Mormon is more sophisticated or has a deeper understanding than Christianity in its original form. I've met a few who do, and they're all nice people.
Fair enough about Mormons. But it seemed like you were saying the people who wrote the Christian bible were more sophisticated than the people who wrote Tanakh simply because they came later. So it seemed reasonable that Joseph Smith would be even more sophisticated since he came a lot later. But you're really saying that God's word had to be revised because the later Christians were more sophisticated but nobody's come along since who could do it any better? I think most Muslims would agree with that. Except they'd say the Muslim revision was the best one.
Everyone is definitely not clear on your trinity. That's why I keep asking people. I don't think even Christians agree. Muslims completely reject the idea of God taking human form. They consider that and the idea of anyone or anything having equal status with God very insulting. I think most Jews agree that God could make a son with the power to do the things Christians say Jesus did but that person/god wouldn't be God. I don't know anybody who understands the spirit ghost.
If God has parts then he's finite. Most of us see God as infinite.
I'm not demanding that you or anybody explain something you can't explain but whenever I ask Christians about this I always hope for something that will make sense. Most Christians don't want to talk about it at all.
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