Senate Christianity Discussion Thread

You mean the VelociRapture?

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/did-christianity-cause-the-crash/307764/

Interesting read. Also, I love that the capture on Moviefan's video makes him look completely retarded.

 

Let me pose a question to all the non Christians.

Assuming that Jesus really lived, He was a Jew, raised on the Torah. Exodus specifically states, in the Ten Commandments, "You shall have no other gods before Me." Worshiping other gods was idolatry, as the Israelites found in Judges, Kings, and Chronicles. After the Exile, though, they never fell back into the old practices that brought judgement on them in much of the OT.

Jesus would have known that the Torah forbade worshiping anyone other than Jehovah. Yet, in the New Testament, it is specifically stated that others worshiped Him as God, a worship that He did NOT try to stop. If He was merely a man like the rest of us, and not God in the flesh, then He would have stopped them from doing so, but He did not.

Does that not point to Him being more than a mere man?

 

yes

 

Wait, are you saying that evidence for Jesus being God is that he let people worship him as God?

 

I believe it is insinuating that if Jesus was just a Jewish teacher and moral leader he could not allow people to claim him to be God or worship him as God and still be a Jewish teacher and moral leader unless he was a liar or insane.

 

You said it, not me.

Edit: Seriously, though, what was the operating theory with this question? In-text examples will get people to convert? You've got bigger issues winning over generalized non-Christians as a collective than whether or not Jesus was acting in accordance with the Talmud.

 

You're assuming that what the NT says is true. It's not.

 

He accepted the worship of those who believed in Him. Some religions simply consider Jesus a good moral teacher. How, then, could He be considered a good moral teacher if He was not who He claimed to be? If He wasn't who He said He was, then by accepting such worship He would be violating the Commandments, and how would His moral teachings have any credibility either?

 

Thanks for the helpful reply.

 

To play devils advocate. Because either the New Testament accounts are wrong and he was never claimed to be God or worshipped as God. They were but he was a liar. They were but he was insane. Or they were and he was a liar but had good thought provoking moral messages.

 

Well, I can't speak for all religions, but in mine nobody really gives a crap about violating a "no false gods" commandment.

Edit: Also, real talk, some of the vedic religions say he was a god so it's not even a lie to them.

 

jesus christ.

here's the deal with the liar lunatic lord argument you're bringing up. those things are mutually exclusive. for example, he could be a liar and a lunatic. or a lord and a lunatic. or even a lunatic and a lord. indeed, if we take the OT at literal, face value (even though probably not even jesus did this), we get a picture of a lord who is also a lunatic.

so i know you specifically asked non-christians, but i'll throw my two cents in as well. i don't think jesus was was god incarnate, but i do think he was a messiah. he was one in a long line of attempted jewish messiahs, some failed and other successful. his was a particularly mystical and revolutionary brand of judaism, which is why it was so popular (eventually) and also why it was able to be interpreted in many different ways. i think jesus let others worship him as the other jewish messiahs of the time allowed people to worship him, not because he thought he was god, but because he thought he was right about what he was saying. undoubtably, some of the stuff he is purported having said was inserted later to further a particular author's agenda. so i'm not too worried about the whole 'i am god' thing -- i don't think he was speaking literally, if he said it at all.

 

Other Jewish Messiahs? What are you getting at?

 

Brian. I think he means Brian.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Messiah_claimants

 

jesus of nazareth wasn't the first or last jewish man to claim the title of messiah. there were tons of others -- some more political, some more mystical, etc. the only reason jesus is more popular than the other ones is that his message was broad enough and appealing enough to spawn a new religion.

 

Or he was really the Son of God. At least that's the option I take.

 

Well yeah. But you can't just ignore the other stuff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

no, the reason jesus is more popular than the others is that he was executed for insurrection against the Roman state and the story of his resurrection began to circulate almost immediately.

 

Many important Jewish figures overshadowed by Jesus.

 

Occam's Razor. The option that has the fewest assumptions should be taken as true.