this is where we'll split...and where muslims and christians have traditionally split, i suppose. ultimately, Jesus is saying that faith in him is the answer. he says "if you've seen me, you've seen the father. " this equation with God would be quite a departure for Jews or Muslims. and would likely earn him a nasty death in either culture. do you understand the signficance of the "I am"?? that was the answer God gave Moses...he asked who He was and God said, "I am." And now Jesus is using it. Again....this is no moral teacher if he's lying. He's just a blasphemer in any faith tradition if he's not being truthful here. But he's more than that. I know him to be more than that. But that comes down to faith, I suppose...though it doesn't always feel like "faith" to me. Hard for me to explain.
I understand your first point. I guess we'll settle on that point since that's officially where we'll seperate on the issue. But I definitely understand the concept now. As for what his words speak, he never equated himself with God in any of those quotes. He's definitely more than a neat moral teacher, we all agree on that. At that time, you could only go to heaven through accepting Jesus' message, we all agree on that, hence the 'you will only see Heaven through me' quote. If you know him, then you will know his "father" also, we agree on that. We are from below (created from the contents of the ground), and he is from above (sent by God), we agree on that.
This can not be proved one way or the other. The first mention of the gospels by the church founding fathers was ~120 CE (and they had Mark of Gospel incorrectly as a collection of sayings). Paul's epistles of the first century do not mention Jesus as a man, but in more spiritual terms. And most of the Gospel content is dramatically missing from these epistles. There are also the early "heretical" Christian Gnostic sect who did not believe that Jesus was a real flesh and bone man. One has to wonder how this sect got its start, particularly if you believe that the Christian religion started with the Big Bang of Jesus's life and death.
1. you're gonna have to help me with the 1st century pauline epistles not talking about Christ as a man thing. i read through those and don't get that impression at all. 2. the epistles aren't a recounting of the gospels...they're instructions to churches in different areas of the world addressed for particular issues the churches are dealing with. if paul wrote a gospel account, you'd be freaking out if we ascribed any accuracy to it since he wasn't an eyewitness to those events. we do see paul, in first century writings, reciting creeds of the early church which very clearly point to the kind of understanding of who Jesus was that we see today in mainstream Christianity. 3. i find it amazing that people put so much faith in the gnostic sect some 2000 years later. like they held this great secret that no one else knew. it's a sort of "faith" in the gnostic tradition that seems to be much harder to prove up from history than the other side of the story. MOST historians today, secular historians...believe there was a real flesh and bones dude walkng around named Jesus who had some following and was ultimately executed.
Basically what max said but I will also add that Jesus only let his physical body died - not his spirit. He came back from the dead to show all that believe in Him that they will have everlasting life (essentially, the most famous verse of the New Testament - John 3:16).
It is easier to explain a Christ Cult, with a mythic, spiritual saviour, which later gets a historical leader added, than the reverse.
No Worries: This is from Phillipians 2:5-8...thought to be written around 60 A.D. We know it was written from Rome while he was in prison...so we can pen that timeframe down pretty well given other writings. Here in these verses are one of the "creeds" that I talked about: "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, BEING MADE IN HUMAN LIKENESS. AND BEING FOUND IN APPEARANCE AS A MAN, he humbled himself and become obedient to death -- even death on a cross!"
it may be easier....but the documents reflect otherwise. that makes it more mere conjecture...more reliant on faith...than the alternative. Not that what they believed was true...but that they believed it to be true. i'm not saying there wasn't a gnostic sect...but i'm saying that even when I read the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Peter I'm left with the same impression I'm left with from those that "made the cut." they describe the same guy...and many of the stories overlap even to those stories in the Bible.
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, BEING MADE IN HUMAN LIKENESS. AND BEING FOUND IN APPEARANCE AS A MAN, he humbled himself and become obedient to death -- even death on a cross!" Some of the Gnostic crowd believed that Jesus existed but was not a real man. They believed that he was a spiritual being that revealed himself on Earth as an image of a man. This is consistent with the above verse.
no worries -- made in human likeness?? sorry...i don't see that as support for the gnostic tradition at all.
It's possible he existed. It's possible he said all those things. doesn't mean i believe he is God though. Just wondering, but if Jesus was here to spread God's word then why did he only go to one part of the world to do so? why didn't he also go to India, China, Africa, etc? I guess the LDS believe he came here to America but if what he taught and did was so important to hall of humanity you would think he would go for a wider audience than just a small part of the Middle East. Max, apologies if my Paul comment offended you. I was in a b****y mood when I wrote it last night. Honestly though I really don't like the guy or when people quote him.
The most difficult thing for me with the "Christianity is truth" discussion is that the only context used to defend it as truth is the Bible. That would be like me trying to defend Buddhism as the truth using the teachings of the Buddha. If you don't believe those teachings in the first place, how can they be used as a basis for debate and discussion? Additionally, I think words like "truth," "right" and "wrong" are used way to casually. Saying something is right, wrong or "the truth" is subjective ideology based almost entirely on beliefs that cannot be proven one way or the other. Trying to draw a line between truth and fiction, right and wrong is impossible without a set of standards upon which to base that assessment and if those standards are based on belief, they are subjective and variable. I'm all for belief. I have beliefs of my own that are very important to me. But, I don't like trying to pin down the idea of truth. It is a concept we don't fully understand.
agreed that every religion requires some element of faith, at least Jeff. but outside of the first posts in this thread, i'm not sure that's what's been at issue here.
I think the Miracles are proof of a divine being, and that's a good starting point. For example, Moses split the ocean. Muslims and Christians have tons of motive to say it's not true, but they all believe in it. It's something that's been seen, been written down, been document. I mean, the Bible is a kind of documentation. If it simply wasn't true, it simply wouldn't last.
Yeah, I didn't want to get into you and Sane's "discussion." I was really just responding to the original post because I just saw it for the first time.
