(August 18, 2015 at 9:54 am)Neimenovic Wrote: Same question. Why does it need to be conscious?
And how exactly would Jesus make the connection? That doesn't make sense. What of Muhammad, John Smith, thousands of other prophets? They don't fill the logical gap between the first cause and a theistic god. You're doing the same thing Mystic did: approaching it in reverse. You're starting with Jesus and ending up with first cause. The logical order is exactly opposite. Through what process of elimination did you arrive at Jesus Christ, starting at first cause?
Thanks for answering btw, both of you.
Vic, you are right, at least in my case at approaching it from reverse. I certainly started at Jesus and tested backwards for logical consistency and coherence. I looked in to Islam and pantheism as well. Muhammad was a mere man who when he was getting the revelation from Allah did not know what was happening and it was his wife Khadijah who took him to her Christian cousin Waraqah who claimed it Gabriel revealing this to Muhammad. Islam borrowed many things from Judaism and Christianity and refer to Deut. 18:18 as the prophecy of Muhammad. Jesus on the other hand did not claim to be a messenger or receiving revelation from God. He claimed to be God. He performed miracles, forgave sin, paid the ultimate price and rose again. Far different from Muhammad. But if you don't accept any of those things happening in Jesus life, or even that he existed at all I can understand the difficulty in leaping.
Every religion in the world if you remove its founder or the leader of its movement, it could continue on, with the exception of Christianity. If you remove Christ, from Christian, you are left with IAN and Ian can't help you.

Christianity has a uniqueness in it. In every other religion, you pay the price for your mistakes. In Islam, your good deeds must outweigh your bad and you must follow the Five pillars. In Hinduism every birth is a rebirth paying for the previous life until you achieve moksha. In Christianity, Christ pays for all mankind's mistakes and one simply has to accept the gift of salvation by grace.
We are not made happy by what we acquire but by what we appreciate.