How do atheists see Jesus' parables?

[Chad32]

Like any stories, you can sometimes learn morals from them. Though some lessons will be outdated or backwards. Like the story of the man who builds his house on sand, and another o rock. You're meant to come away thinking faith is the rock, but the need for revivals shows that faith is not a rock.

That particular story is rather odd. Who kills or abuses people just for being invited to a wedding? And why would you tie someone up before throwing him out the door, instead of just asking him to leave and come back with better clothes? Actually, who prepares a wedding before invitations are even sent?

I assume the wedding represents heaven, but I don't really know what moral we're supposed to take from it.

 You do not understand the story of the house built on the Rock, why should you understand the parable about the wedding feast and it's obvious you are not going to by the way you responded to it. Do you remember what Jesus said about the parables to His disciples, seems you are living proof of what Jesus said, and all you needed to do was look it up on a christian site to get the answer.

GC

Edit: Didn't see Huggy's first post before I posted this, it explains what Jesus told the disciples, you should read it.

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If all were freely invited he wouldn't have had to sneak in. So, either he wasn't invited and all were not welcome, or he was invited and was then kicked out. Which is it?

I think this is a wonderful example of christian charity.

 You see he was invited but he didn't want those outside of the banquet to know he entered so he snuck in, as Huggy stated, he wanted the good things without properly attaining them. You might say he was a pretend Christian, the church is full of them unfortunately. 

GC

Oh, I think I understand them well enough. They're just bad metaphors, when given enough thought. You seem to be reading more into the wedding story than what is there. We don't know why the one guy at the wedding wasn't wearing the proper clothes, or why that even matters except to show how petty the king is. We didn't need Jesus to tell us his god was petty, though. This is the same guy that had a man stoned to death for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week, after all.

There's another nice story for you. We don't know why the dude was picking up sticks that day. Not supposed to work on the sabbath, but maybe he didn't think gathering kindling counted as work. Or maybe he'd been too busy to clean his yard the rest of the week, from doing real work. Doesn't matter I guess, because he gets killed, and the topic quickly changes to clothing.

It's hard to say which stories are meant to be literal, and which metaphorical. I guess the standard could be, if the literal interpretation of a story makes god look like a psychopath, then it's a metaphor.

[Little lunch]

Everything Jesus supposedly said was parabolics.

Nice one. Very English. :-)

[Cyberman]

[drfuzzy]

AANNNNDDD cue GC to slime his way in here with more xtian "you're reading it wrong", "you don't understand", "go to ___ xtian site and we'll explain it to you".  Because their god is in desperate need of human intervention and explanation 24/7.  "His" book can only be understood after you've drunk the witch doctor's koolaid first.  (yawn)  Asking for ONLY atheists to answer a post never works around here, the preechurs are always disrespectful, thinking that we are in dire need of their instruction.  

[Godscreated]

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 You see he was invited but he didn't want those outside of the banquet to know he entered so he snuck in, as Huggy stated, he wanted the good things without properly attaining them. You might say he was a pretend Christian, the church is full of them unfortunately. 

GC

bold mine

I didn't read that anywhere in the in the OP. Can you supply chapter and verse from the bible?

 It wasn't in the parable but, it is obvious what he was doing, even the disciples understood what he did. Why else would he have snuck in, he could have come through the front door like everyone else did. He would have received the wedding garments (grace) and been just fine. Paul speaks of the wolves in sheep's clothing that will be in the church to deceive those who believe, and he says we can know them by their actions.

GC

[Cyberman]

How do atheists see Jesus' parables?

Like this, usually:

[Godscreated]

 You do not understand the story of the house built on the Rock, why should you understand the parable about the wedding feast and it's obvious you are not going to by the way you responded to it. Do you remember what Jesus said about the parables to His disciples, seems you are living proof of what Jesus said, and all you needed to do was look it up on a christian site to get the answer.

GC

Edit: Didn't see Huggy's first post before I posted this, it explains what Jesus told the disciples, you should read it.

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 You see he was invited but he didn't want those outside of the banquet to know he entered so he snuck in, as Huggy stated, he wanted the good things without properly attaining them. You might say he was a pretend Christian, the church is full of them unfortunately. 

GC

Oh, I think I understand them well enough. They're just bad metaphors, when given enough thought. You seem to be reading more into the wedding story than what is there. We don't know why the one guy at the wedding wasn't wearing the proper clothes, or why that even matters except to show how petty the king is. We didn't need Jesus to tell us his god was petty, though. This is the same guy that had a man stoned to death for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week, after all.

No you do not understand and it's quite clear you don't. Funny how atheist who have no interest in the Bible believe they can give studied responses to it, I mean really why would you expect Christians especially the ones who come and stay here to take you seriously. Like Huggy said the one giving the wedding feast supplies the garments, do you know how he knows this? Because that is the way things were in those days the parable makes perfect sense to the ones god has enlightened, dark minds have trouble with lit subjects.

There's another nice story for you. We don't know why the dude was picking up sticks that day. Not supposed to work on the sabbath, but maybe he didn't think gathering kindling counted as work. Or maybe he'd been too busy to clean his yard the rest of the week, from doing real work. Doesn't matter I guess, because he gets killed, and the topic quickly changes to clothing.

Sure we know why he was picking up sticks on the Sabbath, he had all 6 previous days to do so and so he ignored God's command. He knew what the consequences would be for a blatant act against God. As Jesus told the Pharisees, the Sabbath was made for man, man wasn't made for the Sabbath. God gave it as a day of rest from a week of toil and in that rest man was to spend his time with God not himself. By the way I doubt the man had a yard to clean up, most didn't, wasn't a luxury they could afford.

It's hard to say which stories are meant to be literal, and which metaphorical. I guess the standard could be, if the literal interpretation of a story makes god look like a psychopath, then it's a metaphor.

 Not when one studies the whole Bible with the attitude to learn. The standard is to use the Bible to understand who God is and build a relationship with Him.

GC

[ignoramus]

How do atheists see Jesus' pair 'o balls?

I like Stimbo's better though... Not his balls! You know what I mean! DOOH!

[brewer]

bold mine

I didn't read that anywhere in the in the OP. Can you supply chapter and verse from the bible?

 It wasn't in the parable but, it is obvious what he was doing, even the disciples understood what he did. Why else would he have snuck in, he could have come through the front door like everyone else did. He would have received the wedding garments (grace) and been just fine. Paul speaks of the wolves in sheep's clothing that will be in the church to deceive those who believe, and he says we can know them by their actions.

GC

So..... a christian makes things up again to fit their agenda. 

If all were invited why would he have to sneak in? Sounds to me like the king/god is just an ass.

[The Grand Nudger]

There's another nice story for you. We don't know why the dude was picking up sticks that day. Not supposed to work on the sabbath, but maybe he didn't think gathering kindling counted as work. Or maybe he'd been too busy to clean his yard the rest of the week, from doing real work. Doesn't matter I guess, because he gets killed, and the topic quickly changes to clothing.

In context of the purported time of the story, why the man was picking up sticks is so obvious that no one then hearing it would have had to ask.  To stave off death, lol.  Wood was fuel. Fire was life. He sure as hell wasn't going to roast marshmallows with it and it wasn't about catching up on his yardwork. Gathering wood was like paying your electricity bill. A productive human being, if they weren't doing anything else, was always going to be gathering wood. While it sounds inane and petty to the modern reader, the intent of the tale was to show that even the most important of human work should not and could not be done on the sabbath. No exceptions.