The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[Cyberman]

Do you think the September 11 hijackers were justified in their actions? Why would they die for a lie?

They believed it to be true and no they were not justified.

If the disciples knew that Jesus had not been raised then why would they die? They were done and afraid after the death of Jesus. No one excepted Him to come back to life even though He told them that he would.

They didn't have to know it to true; they simply needed to believe it. You acknowledged that yourself with the September 11 hijackers. I think the person who wrote the first part of your post needs a chat with the one who wrote the second half and collaborate on a consistent opinion.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Well Hun, while the disciples were with Him they excepted Jesus to come in and remove the Roman authority over Israel and rule on earth. They did not expect Him to die and no just a regular mans death but a death reserved for the worst of criminals. ( psalms 22) What do you think they thought would be their fate would be since they were with Him? They were not those types of people to boldly keep up this lie. Peter wasn't even able to keep cool and denied Jesus when a servant girl confronted him about His association with Him. This is before Jesus hadn't even been crucified yet. (John 18) So you are telling me this guy who at the end of his life was willing to be crucified upside down, out of reverence for God, was doing it out of will power? Peter was done with being Jesus' disciple. He went back to fishing and Jesus had to come to him and call him back to being his disciple.

Also the tomb that Jesus was placed in was common knowledge to the leaders in Jerusalem. That is why they were able to seal the tomb and place guards at the tomb. Also Jesus' female disciples knew where the tomb was. They expected to go there and dress a dead body. If they expected Christ to be alive then why even go back to the tomb? When the disciples went to the tomb and found it empty they didn't start walking around telling people Jesus rose from the dead. It wasn't until they saw Jesus and even then they didn't go around spreading the news about Who Jesus was.

So if it was their intention to usurp Rome they would have the have a weak story. The guy who was a Jew and was crucified has all authority. We are pretty sure he rose from the grave but we don't really know. Yeah and the first one to find the empty tomb were women who's testimony is not accepted in court. Also we don't have any special training we are just some dudes who were fishermen, an tax collector (who were the worst in society). Yes of course this will work.

They were not being disruptive they were living their lives and in some cases because they were Christian they could not work and were considered the worst of society. Paul even says be at peace as much as you can with the people around you. Also obey your government authority. These were not revolutionaries just people who knew that Jesus is God and has risen from the dead.

What I have heard from you is that we don't know where Jesus body is but some guys who could have easily went back to a quite life deiced to hold on to a lie so that in the end of their lives a bunch of people believed the same lie an died like they did. Some even died by bing impaled and burned like lanterns in Nero's garden. It is one thing to believe a lie and take your own life. It is another to allow someone to throw your own child to lions and still believe that Jesus is God. I promise you if I didn't know Jesus and I could save my child's life by just denying it I would.

That is why paul says 1 cor 15:14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Rome considered such people revolutionaries. Jesus was crucified for his claim to be King of the Jews (or at least, for refusing to deny the question), meaning that he was in defiance of the Roman authorities. The disciples, who claimed that Jesus was the Davidic Messiah, were similarly in defiance, regardless of how you see their position. The Romans clearly did not see it that way, as evidenced by the terms/phrasing used by Josephus and Tacitus when describing the Christian religion. 

Whether people are willing to die for their beliefs is not evidence that the beliefs are true. That is why I cited the Branch Davidians, who died almost to the last man, woman, and child when the authorities came for them.

And there is no evidence, not even in the Bible, that anyone was crucified upside down. That's an apocryphal legend. Similarly, there is nowhere in the Bible it says all were crucified except for John; that is a legend that comes from Eusebius in the year 325, three centuries later, in a book he wrote called Ecclesiastical History.

[Redbeard The Pink]

So you can't account for uniformity. If there is nothing out there that is making things stay in order why do you assume that there will be order?

Because, regardless of why it happens, we can observe the Universe behaving in a more or less orderly, consistent fashion. There is evidence that order exists, even if there is no evidence to explain why the rules exist the way they do.

Being a true Christian isn't like a job or being a fan. If you thought I was something like that then that is further proof that you weren't a Christian. Christianity isn't just holding a set of beliefs it is transformational. It is kind of like being of a certain race. I can't undo my color because it is written on my DNA. I can't undo my faith in God because I am now a new creation. That is why God spoke about being born again. You can try but you don't get to make up your own definition about what being a Christian and what Christianity really is. You can call that indoctrination I would just call it being consistent with the truth.

I didn't always think of it in those ways, but now that I'm not a Christian I certainly do. When I was a Christian, I thought more or less like you; I thought that my beliefs were based on evidence from scripture and the world around me, and I thought that anyone who didn't believe it just didn't know Gaud like I did. Like you, I was indoctrinated into using the No True Scotsman fallacy to explain/describe people who didn't meet my perceived Biblical standard for what "Christian" meant.


You're right. I don't get to make up my own definition for Christian, and neither do you. If a person professes faith in Jesus Christ and self-identifies as Christian, that person is a Christian by the standards and definitions of all non-Christians and all the Christians who agree with that person's version of Christianity. If a person professes a positive attitude toward the Yankees and self-identifies as a Yankees fan, they are a Yankees fan by the standards of all non-Yankees fans and all Yankees fans who aren't so uppity they think they can say who's a fan and who isn't. It is the exact same thing. You're just a Yankees fan who thinks she can say that other people aren't fans just because they don't show enough team spirit or whatever.

You were not a Christian if (with scripture references)
You did not receive the revelation from God that He is God (Mt. 16:16-18)
You never gave your life to  Him in order to enjoy Him and glorify Him. ( l Cor. 10:31, Ps 84:2)
You never knew God or wanted to be like Him and became like Him. (2 Cor 3:18)
You never had power over you sin nature and you didn't enjoy your sin because of your love for God. (Romans 6:11-13)
You left the faith and turned your back on God (1 john 2:19 John 10:28)

You're not a true Christian unless you follow the teachings of Christ, and Christ taught his disciples to preach a message one time, and then dust of their feet and move on if the message wasn't received. By repeatedly proselytizing to people who have not readily accepted your message, you are blatantly ignoring the teachings of Christ, which means you obviously can't be a True Christian.

I don't mind being bathed in the blood of Christ because it is the only way I will be able to stand before a holy God and be called righteous. The Kool-aid of our generation kills.

Ok, that. That right there. You just joyfully and proudly admitted that your religion revolves around drinking and bathing in the blood of a human sacrifice. How can you not see how cultish that is? How can you not fucking see that? You wonder why I keep calling you stupid? This shit right here. If you were talking about bathing in the blood of Cthulu's slain foes, it would be crazy, but because it's Jesus and not Cthulu that makes it ok? Do you even listen to yourself? You're in a zombie vampire cult.

[Minimalist]

Rome considered such people revolutionaries. Jesus was crucified for his claim to be King of the Jews (or at least, for refusing to deny the question), meaning that he was in defiance of the Roman authorities.

And yet, in every fucking 'gospel' the Romans are portrayed as being clueless about jesus' alleged crimes while it is the jews who are screaming for him to be nailed up.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

So you can't account for uniformity. If there is nothing out there that is making things stay in order why do you assume that there will be order?

Because, regardless of why it happens, we can observe the Universe behaving in a more or less orderly, consistent fashion. There is evidence that order exists, even if there is no evidence to explain why the rules exist the way they do.

But, but Redbeard... magic,  though! The world has to work by magic or not at all!

Without a wizard keeping the trees growing, how will they grow?

[Redbeard The Pink]

You're not a true Christian unless you follow the teachings of Christ, and Christ taught his disciples to preach a message one time, and then dust of their feet and move on if the message wasn't received. By repeatedly proselytizing to people who have not readily accepted your message, you are blatantly ignoring the teachings of Christ, which means you obviously can't be a True Christian.

Furthermore, your Bible does not give women authority to preach to or teach men at all, or to speak up in church for any reason, for that matter. By coming onto this forum and trying to tell a bunch of men (and women) about Jesus and the Bible, you are violating the teachings of the man that Jesus hand-picked to deliver his word to the Gentiles. Obviously, you can't be a True Christian if you do that.


Also, your husband lets you do it, so he isn't a True Christian, either.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

You forgot to use ( tm ) on True Christian™.

[Crossless2.0]

Rome considered such people revolutionaries. Jesus was crucified for his claim to be King of the Jews (or at least, for refusing to deny the question), meaning that he was in defiance of the Roman authorities.

And yet, in every fucking 'gospel' the Romans are portrayed as being clueless about jesus' alleged crimes while it is the jews who are screaming for him to be nailed up.

[Pilate as Christians imagine him]: Please, please you heartless Jews . . . don't make me condemn this good and apparently innocent man! Oh, why must you burden me so with your lust for blood? What has he done wrong? Oh, Ecce Homo. Ecce Homo!

[Pilate as he was]: <Idly examines a fingernail then looks up> What's that? King of the Jews? Created a disturbance? Flog him and crucify him. Next!

[Minimalist]

This is what xtians think of with Pilate.

[Rekeisha]

Of course there is no more evidence for any fucking "disciples" than there is for jesus so worrying about what they did is a bit like asking why the Klingons threw their lives away fighting Captain Kirk.

where did you get that idea from?