 |
 |
Easter: Message of Jesus?
| February 19th, 2018 at 8:01:58 PM permalink | |
| Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25013 |
You can't plan right times for historical events, they just work out that way. Jesus got good PR, like Barb said. The right people in the right place, it was a fluke. Like Rockefeller being a young man when oil was coming into it's own, he was in the right place at the right time. The founding fathers of the US, a bunch of extremely bright men all in the same place at just the right time, another fluke. They say present humans are the result of genetic mistakes and mutations that gave us brains far bigger than we need. Another fluke, right place at the right time. Nature and evolution, hang around long enough and you'll see everything eventually. Trump as president, the most recent example of being in the exact right place at the exact right time. Events were lined up perfectly for him. Jesus too. He happened to be just where he needed to be for his myth to flourish. I wouldn't read any more intoit than that. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
| February 19th, 2018 at 8:14:26 PM permalink | |
| FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
I am using your definition of sin and making it understandable for someone who refuses to believe in God. You have said many time that the concept of sin is foreign to you and every culture. You are wrong. Just like you recognize we can transgress against a friend, so we can transgress against God. I really don't see what is so hard about this to understand. I know you don't believe in God, but you seem to be using that strange fact as a kind of shield to stop thinking about a bigger notion or concept of sin. By the way what book are you getting this definition from and why in your mind is it the only possible definition of sin that could possibly ever exist. It is it from some atheist dictionary where the FSM reveals to you what every person must agree the definition of sin is or suffer your ridicule? Nevertheless I am fine using your definition if you just acknowledge the concept of sin in a non-religious sense is not made-up or even strange to you, me, and every culture. “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
| February 19th, 2018 at 8:30:00 PM permalink | |
| FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
I feel for you I really do. I can see your brain trying to find comparable people or events to Jesus and you just can't. I understand, no one can. You also seem to completely miss that your comparisons are all examples of good times to be in the right place and the right time. Think about if Rockefeller was a young man when there was no oil around at all and the government and his family were out to kill him and his friends had all run away and he had no possessions. This is more akin to what you have the audacity to call the "right time and the right place". As I said I get it though you are grasping at straws to keep avoiding the real possibility that Jesus was who He said He was. Keep trying or you could just admit that Jesus is God is a reasonable and likely answer but not the only one and you reject it.
Statements like this make me realize how close to faith you might be. Comparing Jesus to the evolution of human beings over all of the rest of creation is surprisingly apt. Human beings are so far above and beyond the rest of the animals in such a short time (evolutionary time that is) that you very reasonably conclude that there is something almost divine in us or guiding our evolution. Pretty amazing isn't it?
Sure and he got no help from Russia either. (sorry you set yourself up for that one) “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
| February 19th, 2018 at 8:38:34 PM permalink | |
| Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25013 |
Try this one: "The Bible defines sin as 'the deliberate disobedience to the will of God'." What does this definition have to do with all the half baked weird ones you keep coming up with? And what about original sin, did Jesus die for it or didn't he. Why is that such a hard question for you. Read your own catechism, there is a ton of stuff there about original sin. I've read it, have you? If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
| February 19th, 2018 at 8:50:32 PM permalink | |
| Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25013 |
Save your phony pity. The problem is we look at Jesus very differently. I see him as a homeless guy who went from town to town preaching for his supper. The end is coming, repent, repent. We still have those same guys now, they eek out an existence preaching end of times nonsense. You see Jesus thru the eyes of the myth that grew after he died. You bought the myth that mostly Paul created, about a son of a god that died for our sins and all the rest of that mumbo jumbo. You're the country bumpkin at the carnival who pays a dime to go into the freak tent and really believes everything in there is real. You have built the Jesus fantasy up in your mind so out of proportion to what's true that you can't even see truth anymore. The fantasy is your reality. You're living proof of what I always say, we create our own realities. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
| February 19th, 2018 at 9:24:23 PM permalink | |
| beachbumbabs Member since: Sep 3, 2013 Threads: 6 Posts: 1600 |
Thank you for such a thoughtful answer. You're right: I am heavily influenced by Christianity, but I do not consider myself a Christian in the modern sense. I revere Jesus, but question his divinity.
The leap of faith you make between these paragraphs is where you lose me, not that I stopped reading. I have no cynicism about Jesus. I accept him and his teachings wholeheartedly. His are civil societal rules to live by. I have a great deal of cynicism about his followers. I look at the priests and leaders who have done the worst sinning in his name, killing, torturing, subjugating, and converting "infidels" and I am sickened. I look at the vast horde of hypocrites who see him as a free pass to sin and trespass and hurt, as long as they show up to church on Sunday, and i am angered. I look at the multitudes of sheep who blindly cede the greatest gifts God has given Man, their minds and souls, to any shyster who claims he speaks for the Lord, and I despair. "Christianity" surrounds me every day in the USA, from the athletes who claim Jesus took their side in victory, to pious adulterers and thieves, to exclusionary snobs who condemn all outside their narrow faith to hell, to money-grubbing, judgmental businessmen who claim divine right to their particular brand of bigotry, to .... Oh, Jesus save us from the manipulations of your followers while trampling your good Name. And then I see, while typing this rant, the Toyota commercial of the girl-child born without feet who won a paralympic gold medal by "getting up again" on prosthetic limbs a million times first. And finally skied down that mountain faster than anyone else. Certainly faster higher stronger than me, with two perfectly good feet. That is faith. That is belief. And it is supported by science that built the legs that God forgot. But it is first in the child to believe and persevere. Her faith may well be Christian; I don't know. But God helps those who help themselves, they say. So I help myself every day, and perhaps God walks with me, perhaps I am persevering on my own. I don't know which. But I do not seek false comfort. Never doubt a small group of concerned citizens can change the world; it's the only thing ever has |
| February 19th, 2018 at 11:12:49 PM permalink | |
| Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25013 |
I'm more than sickened and appalled, I'm incredulous with disgust. It's one one of the reasons I reject all organized religions as shams, groups led by egocentric men hiding behind their pious scripture and high horse ideals. One of the wisest men of the 20th century said: "Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. It becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of the absolute, unconditioned truth." J. Krishnamurti, August 3rd, 1929, as he disbanded the Order of the Star of the East. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
| February 20th, 2018 at 3:58:01 PM permalink | |
| Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25013 | It says right here in the NT, plain as day, that Jesus died for original sin. This is what he supposedly saved us from. The first human, Adam, was created perfect, without sin. However, he chose to disobey God. Adam’s disobedience, or sin, profoundly affected all his descendants. “Through the disobedience of the one man,” the Bible explains, “many were made sinners.”—Romans 5:19. Jesus was also perfect, he never sinned. Therefore, he could be “an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 2:2; footnote) Just as Adam’s disobedience contaminated the human family with sin, so Jesus’ death removed the stain of (original) sin from all who exercise faith in him. So what did Jesus say about this, about being the savior? It's a pretty big deal, what exactly did he say about it. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
| February 20th, 2018 at 4:28:07 PM permalink | |
| FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
For goodness sake you are the one who keeps coming up with these definitions. You have already said you don't think there is anything half-baked or weird about actions that can sever relationships. This is the common idea or concept of what sin is. Do you not get this? And please I already know you don't believe in God so don't keep saying sin is only a transgression against God and that is why you don't understand it. You understand perfectly well transgressions that strain or rupture relationships. If you had a relationship with God you would get it as easy as you got it when I asked you a few posts ago if there was something a friend could do that would break your relationship. You get sin and you understand the concept. “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |
| February 20th, 2018 at 4:37:23 PM permalink | |
| FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 |
Yes you do look at Jesus very differently. You sound like a flat Earth supporter. It is painfully obvious what the Earth is but that doesn't stop people from seeing things as they want to see them devoid of all connection to reality.
I see the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith as one. These myths, as you call them, didn't grow from nothing. I know a large part of your argument depends on disparaging the ancients and saying they were just a stupid and superstitious lot, but they were careful - much more than we are in who they put their faith in and call the Messiah, especially when it costs them everything including their life to do so. Paul was writing in the lifetime of the Apostles and contemporaries of Jesus. He didn't create anything but put into words the early faith of the Church.
If this is so do you think that perhaps you are doing the exact same in the opposite direction and making up your own reality of who Jesus is. The problem for you is that mine is based on historical facts, supernatural miracles, philosophy, the witness of billions, and my own personal experience. It might be you who can't even see truth anymore. “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” ( |