Rug Burn Junky on 19/9/2006 at 22:58
Quote Posted by Jenesis
RBJ - A metaphorical middle finger? Vaughan Roberts wasn't standing on a box shouting 'You're all going to Hell!' He was there to communicate with people, not antagonise them. Evangelism is only evangelism if people are actually listening. I don't know the precise reason he chose that spot (which wasn't right outside the mosque, as I recall, just nearby) - I only heard him mention the episode when he came to speak at a Cambridge Christian Union meeting - but if you want to reach a large number of non-Christians it's an obvious place to stand. It may well have been a major thoroughfare for shoppers as well or something.
Jesus really wasn't keen on hypocrites, and I have no desire to be one. You've accused me of hypocrisy, and I'd be grateful if you'd elaborate.
If you weren't blinded by your own viewpoint, the hypocrisy is quite clear: "My superstitious twaddle is the right way. All of you other people who believe other superstitious twaddle are 'lost.'" Hell, the mere fact that you can't even wrap your mind around
it being antagonistic is telling.
Especially when you frame it that you would prefer that fucktard evangelism
even if it came at the expense of muslim-christian relations, which presupposes antagonism from the get go.
What it boils down to is this: If you want respect for your own religion, don't be such a dick about supporting antagonistic practices towards other religions.
Agent Monkeysee on 19/9/2006 at 23:21
Quote Posted by Jenesis
The way to think of Jesus' sacrifice is in the more literal sense - one creature being killed
in place of another. The concept of a guilt sacrifice in the OT is straightforward: you have sinned, and hence deserve death, but you are sacrificing this creature instead, which dies in your place.
But that's GBM's entire point, that Jesus being "killed" doesn't carry the same cost, or any cost really, that anyone else being killed would. It's not a sacrifice except in the shallowest and most technical fashion. In fact I'm fairly certain you yourself just reduced Jesus' "sacrifice" to a mere simile.
Gingerbread Man on 20/9/2006 at 00:04
Yeah, but I also allow that as a demonstration it still would have had significant merit. A demonstration of faith, a demonstration of compassion, whatever. It even works as a significant act for Jesus to demonstrate his special nature by being part one of the Resurrection.
I'm not interesting in "debunking" or "poking holes in" or anything like that.
That said, I think that Jesus Christ is less of a compelling and praiseworthy figure than plain old Jesus of Nazareth would have been. I think there is a lot more to be impressed by and a lot more potency to the message / teachings if Jesus were considered a very compassionate man instead of some sort of divine avatar, the exact nature of which is still being debated.
It's kind of like my problem with Kant... An obligation or a necessity to act in a moral fashion is nowhere near as laudable as a choice to act in a moral fashion. If I prevent an injustice because I am not capable of even considering there was another thing to do or if I believe that I cannot or must not do anything else, then I really haven't done anything worthwhile. If I prevent an injustice after realising that I can just as easily do nothing about it, then I've done something with merit.
oh god I hate Kant
fett on 20/9/2006 at 00:35
That's the main problem with Jesus - if he was just a compasionate man, he purposely lied to people about being God in the flesh, and therefore he was either an opportunistic liar, or psychotic to some degree (not to mention suicidal). Some would say the remaining option is that he actually was God in the flesh.
I think I forgot my point.
Scots Taffer on 20/9/2006 at 00:43
I guess I'm alone in my vague classification of Jesus as a mostly ordinary man and Jesus as a resurrected deity. The miracles that Jesus worked was actually God working through him, even he says that he is basically the will of God. I know it's vague and probably not the clarity that is being sought here, but I see a quite obvious difference between alive (human) and dead/resurrected (divine) and the sacrifice is still quite obvious as Jesus is sacrificing his human life for God and God is sacrificing his human son so that he can join him after the world rejected him.
oudeis on 20/9/2006 at 00:47
if you rub the pope's tall hat, will it make him impotent?
yes, l know how l left myself open on that one. you are all welcome.
Epos Nix on 20/9/2006 at 00:55
Quote:
That's the main problem with Jesus - if he was just a compasionate man, he purposely lied to people about being God in the flesh, and therefore he was either an opportunistic liar, or psychotic to some degree (not to mention suicidal). Some would say the remaining option is that he actually was God in the flesh
So what do you think of (
http://www.meherbaba.org/) this guy? Opportunist, liar, psycho, or Yet Another incarnation of God?
Gingerbread Man on 20/9/2006 at 01:03
Quote Posted by fett
That's the main problem with Jesus - if he was just a compasionate man, he purposely lied to people about being God in the flesh, and therefore he was either an opportunistic liar, or psychotic to some degree (not to mention suicidal). Some would say the remaining option is that he actually was God in the flesh.
I think the more realistic option is that after this man had died, his students / apostles / friends realised that one of the best ways to make sure that they could continue to spread these ideas and teachings and still manage to have people take them seriously was to pump up the legend of Jesus to the point where their own personal lack of whatever charisma or skills in oratory or even just flat-out presentation wouldn't be a problem.
I can easily see it being a mix of personal aggrandising (hay guys my teacher wasn't just a man he was a kind of part of god or something so u better RECOGNISE) and a need to have an answer when the people they were talking to said "why should I believe any of this?"
I think it's pretty clear from the more obviously-objective parts of things that Jesus was able to command pretty decent audiences to hear what he had to say, and was able to say things in a convincing and articulate fashion. Chances are the apostles had no such off-the-cuff skills with oratory.
I mean, if I had been taught something I felt was a very important worldview that would benefit a lot of people if they'd only listen to it and agree to adopt it themselves, I'd be looking for any angle I could use to lend it that extra impression of legitimacy and authority. I think perhaps that if anyone was a borderline-psychotic opportunist with the agenda to intentionally (though with no malice and with understandable motives) mislead or trick people, it was probably Paul.
Also, Scots: See, what you're outlining is also a way to look at it. It certainly works for the Buddhists to a certain degree, and I don't find anything inconsistent or even that far offside in it. Surely one of the basic ideas in Christianity is that those who are righteous and adhere to God's way will find peace and happiness, if not on this earth then in heaven after death. And if that's the case, we can maybe assume that -- once we shed the flesh and rejoin God in heaven (where, presumably, we all came from before putting on these meatsuits like scuba gear and wandering the Earth in a weird cloud of amnesia) -- ummm...
Fuck!
It had something to do with the Godhead being a composite of all consciousness which fragments itself and distributes itself throughout creation in order to fulfill some plan or experiment or lesson which is vitally important to the Godhead's existence or understanding. And there was something about returning to that and then having, as part of the godhead, the ability to return and teach anew -- bodhisattva-styles.
Man. My brain is wicked small. :(
Scots Taffer on 20/9/2006 at 01:24
Well, I always look at Jesus as God's second attempt to teach mankind that also "failed" in a sense. I believe that he sent Jesus down to shake shit up and to allow people to get through their heads that all the fractitious goings-on in Judaism were precisely the opposite to his point.
Also, if you believe in manifestations etc as well like say, the Virgin Mary appearing to those kids at (
http://www.medjugorje.org/) Medjugorje, then even the celestial visits are at an end as the apparition told the kids something along the lines of
this is the last time I will appear to anyone, the world doesn't want to listen.
Gingerbread Man on 20/9/2006 at 01:27
No, I don't believe in any of that apparition shit. I know far too much about temporal lobe disturbances and things to lend it any credence whatsoever. And I don't understand how people find it easy to accept the virgin Mary appearing to someone but think that alien abduction reports are a load of bollocks, because they're exactly the same thing.
Anyway, I do not trust a human who says they have had direct contact with something supposedly divine. Not unless they're a gibbering mess with a cerebral cortex that looks like a plate of burned spaghetti. And I don't have a witty rejoinder to the inevitable "Ah, but God fortified their constitution so that they could receive His message unharmed" other than "fuck off, even sodding MOSES was told to look away you ass" but I'm working on one.
