How do I deal with the belief that maybe... Just maybe... God exists and I'm...

[Jehanne]

His family thought that Jesus had lost it, and they, like any good family, went after him:

When his family[a] heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21)

[Ahriman]

So what if you end up in Hell? It could be Heaven for you.

[Angrboda]

Jesus didn't make that distinction so this is just pointless pettifoggery.

John 7:5 - "For not even His brothers were believing in Him."

According to your rigid interpretation of the words "believing in" Jesus's own brothers thought he did not exist?   Thre are many more examples where the clear and plain meaning of belief entails a degree of trust. Thankfully the Word protects its spiritual sense from being profained by disingenous interpretation.

Unbelievable. I accuse you of pettifoggery, and in response, you give a textbook example of it.

Well, you've managed to convince at least one of us, Neo.

[The Grand Nudger]

Tons of response, but let's go at the root of it all. Yeah, sure, maybe whether god exists, or not. Maybe...whether you perform all the proper rituals, or not.

You're still going to hell. Well..okay, maybe. What did you do....?

[Belacqua]

Just to be absolutely clear, I did specify intellectual belief because this is a case of semantic ambiguity. Kind of like faith, in theology, is generally understood to imply some level of trust.

Jesus didn't make that distinction so this is just pointless pettifoggery.

The Greek word for "belief" there had connotations of trust, reliability, and being persuaded by argument. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis

So it normally looks to me as if "believe in Jesus" means to trust him or to be convinced that what he's saying is true. 

Do you know of any texts in which this reading is untenable? For example, a text in which the only reasonable interpretation of πιστεύεις is belief in the existence of something?

[Jehanne]

Jesus didn't make that distinction so this is just pointless pettifoggery.

The Greek word for "belief" there had connotations of trust, reliability, and being persuaded by argument. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis

So it normally looks to me as if "believe in Jesus" means to trust him or to be convinced that what he's saying is true. 

Do you know of any texts in which this reading is untenable? For example, a text in which the only reasonable interpretation of πιστεύεις is belief in the existence of something?

For the umpteenth time, the words of Jesus do not exist, as he did not write anything. Socrates did not write anything either, but at least scholars have Socrates words vis-à-vis Plato, although, it is debated how much of Plato's writings are Plato and how much are Socrates. None of that exists for Jesus of Nazareth.

[Angrboda]

Jesus didn't make that distinction so this is just pointless pettifoggery.

The Greek word for "belief" there had connotations of trust, reliability, and being persuaded by argument. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistis

So it normally looks to me as if "believe in Jesus" means to trust him or to be convinced that what he's saying is true. 

Do you know of any texts in which this reading is untenable? For example, a text in which the only reasonable interpretation of πιστεύεις is belief in the existence of something?

You are confused.

[Belacqua]

For the umpteenth time, the words of Jesus do not exist, as he did not write anything.  Socrates did not write anything either, but at least scholars have Socrates words vis-à-vis Plato, although, it is debated how much of Plato's writings are Plato and how much are Socrates.  None of that exists for Jesus of Nazareth.

Yes, I think everyone here accepts the fact that the words we have attributed to Jesus were written by someone else. People who have studied the subject even a little bit are perfectly fine with the fact that the Jesus we read about may well differ significantly from the one who really existed. The writers were making the points they wanted to make. Plus we know that they interpolated elements of traditional biography which are used to indicate a character's significance. 

But when anyone says "In the Symposium, Socrates says....." it is acceptable to discuss the statement and what is intended by it. We can debate the meaning of the text without specifying every time that this Socrates is at least partly fictional. Debates about just how accurately Plato depicts the character of Socrates are interesting from a historical perspective, but not important when working on the philosophy. 

I'm sure you're right that certain literalists or sola scriptura types will insist on everything in the Bible being an accurate transcript, but I don't think anyone like that is posting here. And it doesn't affect the point that was being made.

[Ahriman]

Enough of this pissing contest. God isn't going to send anyone to Hell, literally not a single person.

[Jehanne]

For the umpteenth time, the words of Jesus do not exist, as he did not write anything.  Socrates did not write anything either, but at least scholars have Socrates words vis-à-vis Plato, although, it is debated how much of Plato's writings are Plato and how much are Socrates.  None of that exists for Jesus of Nazareth.

Yes, I think everyone here accepts the fact that the words we have attributed to Jesus were written by someone else. People who have studied the subject even a little bit are perfectly fine with the fact that the Jesus we read about may well differ significantly from the one who really existed. The writers were making the points they wanted to make. Plus we know that they interpolated elements of traditional biography which are used to indicate a character's significance. 

But when anyone says "In the Symposium, Socrates says....." it is acceptable to discuss the statement and what is intended by it. We can debate the meaning of the text without specifying every time that this Socrates is at least partly fictional. Debates about just how accurately Plato depicts the character of Socrates are interesting from a historical perspective, but not important when working on the philosophy. 

I'm sure you're right that certain literalists or sola scriptura types will insist on everything in the Bible being an accurate transcript, but I don't think anyone like that is posting here. And it doesn't affect the point that was being made.

The historical evidence is that the Jesus of history is not the Christ of faith that people believe in.