RE: Do you think you'd still be a believer if the bible were more pleasant/accurate?
May 4, 2016 at 4:13 pm
(This post was last modified: May 4, 2016 at 4:17 pm by Crossless2.0.)
(May 4, 2016 at 9:42 am)Chad32 Wrote:(May 4, 2016 at 7:59 am)Mudhammam Wrote: Well, don't forget that Jesus sometimes fell into fits of madness which spawned such unfortunate sayings as:
I mean, sure, apart from his utterly grotesque message of the perils that await nonbelievers after death, and his advocating blind adherence to authority rather evidence or reason, he was a "cool guy."
Some of the things he says are wrong. Like abandoning your family, and giving away every one of your possessions. Of course most people can say some things that are wise, and then some things that are stupid. My church didn't focus much on the stupid things Jesus said.
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Many of the things Jesus is claimed to have said really don't make much sense unless the reader bears in mind that Jesus and many of his contemporaries seemed to believe that the present order of things was about to pass away and that the Kingdom of God would be imminently inaugurated. And this wasn't some nebulous "It could happen any time in the next few millennia" belief. They seemed to think it could happen any moment. There's a frantic quality about much of the preachings. Time is short. Repent and accept the Good News before it's too late.
Of course, today's believers try to have it both ways. Jesus doesn't "really" want them to abandon their families or sell their possessions -- that would be crazy! Meanwhile, they carry on with the nonsense about the End Times: it's coming really soon, any minute perhaps! Be ready! Repent and accept the Good News!
The elephant in the room of Christian claims is the obvious sense in which Jesus (and Paul and John the Baptist) were wrong about the coming Kingdom. Yes, I know that modern believers have devised all kinds of excuses why the plain meaning of the Gospel passages in which Jesus speaks about the time being short and how some would not taste death until they've seen the Kingdom arrive is not to be taken literally. But no matter how often they bleat about 2 Peter and how a day to the Lord is a thousand years, they can't quite disguise the fact that their "god" is a failed prophet.
