RE: Serious Query Regarding Jesus
March 30, 2012 at 7:22 am
(This post was last modified: March 30, 2012 at 7:46 am by Orion3T.)
Thanks, more good food for thought.
I don't think there's any question of my promoting a lie - it's about discussing a more plausible explanation than the one she currently holds. And applying reason to determine what other plausible explanations there might be.
More scholarly folks than I have searched for truth in scripture for many years and failed to find anything they can all agree on - or if they have generally agreed then I'd really like to see that declaration of consensus! I honestly see little point in trying to discern it for myself when so many others have tried and failed.
You're right she's extremely moderate and we do have consensus on morality. She is also very much open to reason and actually has a very strong naturalistic tendency - love of nature, animals and an appreciation for the world around us. She also has a great respect for my judgement and reasoning, and admits that she does have real problems making sense of a lot of aspects of her faith. So I think she may gradually shift her views, but if she does it will take time and I'm not pinning any hopes on it.
It's not a major problem if she doesn't though, heck we've been married for 15 years and it's never been an issue, though because I have been mostly agnostic for that time. I was probably only agnostic because I didn't want to dash her hopes though, and lately I have had more and more trouble living with that concession.
I really don't think it will become an issue, but it would be nice if we could share the same world view. We have 2 young teenage kids, neither goes to church with her but both probably have some level of belief and disbelief. However we have both fostered them towards science and reason and I'm confident that will serve them well.
" Without divinity thou, reading the new testament makes Jesus out to be a complete nutjob with delusions of grandeur."
I think it could be reasoned that some of it was exaggerated in order to promote the values he was promoting. And there is still the generally dubious nature of scripture in general.
The less desirable moral aspects of Jesus which you mention presumably have already been dismissed by moderate Christians anyway. Whatever reasons they have for doing so would still stand. Besides which even if he wasn't morally perfect I don't see why that would detract from the hypothesis - it's certainly more in keeping than with the divinity claim which claims he was perfect. Moments of anger are only human and he would have to insist on the Torah just to have any credibility and not be written off as a heretic from the outset.
I'm not trying to claim this is the truth, but it seems as reasonable an interpretation as any other I have heard. Most seem utterly incoherent, including the Divine interpretation (it's hardly a sacrifice at all if he's who he claims to be rendering the whole thing ridiculous). He seemed too well versed in scripture to be totally insane.
"Not entirely unfeasible, although more likely to actually be religious, simply trying to correct things he saw as immoral."
Whether he actually believed in god etc isn't all that critical to the overall hypothesis. I suppose there are 2 possibilities:
- He didn't believe in god or the bible, and did everything he did for humanistic reasons to correct things he saw as immoral, and in at least some cases was probably right.
- He did have faith in god but saw better interpretations of the bible and that god had a purpose for him which warranted his sacrifice, but this seems to suggest his miracles were totally fabricated rather than trickery.
So I guess the religious side would depend on whether you consider the miracle reports to be even based on real events or not. Lying to people and then dying for that lie seems justifiable on the humanistic view. It seems less likely he would deliberately fake miracles if he genuinely believed in god, though I certainly don't personally rule out their exaggeration or outright fabrication.
I don't think there's any question of my promoting a lie - it's about discussing a more plausible explanation than the one she currently holds. And applying reason to determine what other plausible explanations there might be.
More scholarly folks than I have searched for truth in scripture for many years and failed to find anything they can all agree on - or if they have generally agreed then I'd really like to see that declaration of consensus! I honestly see little point in trying to discern it for myself when so many others have tried and failed.
You're right she's extremely moderate and we do have consensus on morality. She is also very much open to reason and actually has a very strong naturalistic tendency - love of nature, animals and an appreciation for the world around us. She also has a great respect for my judgement and reasoning, and admits that she does have real problems making sense of a lot of aspects of her faith. So I think she may gradually shift her views, but if she does it will take time and I'm not pinning any hopes on it.
It's not a major problem if she doesn't though, heck we've been married for 15 years and it's never been an issue, though because I have been mostly agnostic for that time. I was probably only agnostic because I didn't want to dash her hopes though, and lately I have had more and more trouble living with that concession.
I really don't think it will become an issue, but it would be nice if we could share the same world view. We have 2 young teenage kids, neither goes to church with her but both probably have some level of belief and disbelief. However we have both fostered them towards science and reason and I'm confident that will serve them well.
" Without divinity thou, reading the new testament makes Jesus out to be a complete nutjob with delusions of grandeur."
I think it could be reasoned that some of it was exaggerated in order to promote the values he was promoting. And there is still the generally dubious nature of scripture in general.
The less desirable moral aspects of Jesus which you mention presumably have already been dismissed by moderate Christians anyway. Whatever reasons they have for doing so would still stand. Besides which even if he wasn't morally perfect I don't see why that would detract from the hypothesis - it's certainly more in keeping than with the divinity claim which claims he was perfect. Moments of anger are only human and he would have to insist on the Torah just to have any credibility and not be written off as a heretic from the outset.
I'm not trying to claim this is the truth, but it seems as reasonable an interpretation as any other I have heard. Most seem utterly incoherent, including the Divine interpretation (it's hardly a sacrifice at all if he's who he claims to be rendering the whole thing ridiculous). He seemed too well versed in scripture to be totally insane.
"Not entirely unfeasible, although more likely to actually be religious, simply trying to correct things he saw as immoral."
Whether he actually believed in god etc isn't all that critical to the overall hypothesis. I suppose there are 2 possibilities:
- He didn't believe in god or the bible, and did everything he did for humanistic reasons to correct things he saw as immoral, and in at least some cases was probably right.
- He did have faith in god but saw better interpretations of the bible and that god had a purpose for him which warranted his sacrifice, but this seems to suggest his miracles were totally fabricated rather than trickery.
So I guess the religious side would depend on whether you consider the miracle reports to be even based on real events or not. Lying to people and then dying for that lie seems justifiable on the humanistic view. It seems less likely he would deliberately fake miracles if he genuinely believed in god, though I certainly don't personally rule out their exaggeration or outright fabrication.
