Would Jesus condemn or condone Yahweh for his crimes against

I know too much about both. Have a chuckle on me.

youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4

Regards
DL

Yeah I love that video :slight_smile:

If Jesus was a myth, then discussing whether he would have condemned or condone Yahweh is absurd. I think it’s more likely that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person whose story was mythologized by the church after he died.

Hello Felix

I agree, but, the experiences of Marcion differ greatly from the common jew I was talking about. He inherited Christianity much more than judaism. He is the product of the Gospel of John than the Gospel of Mark. For him, in my opinion, religion was not a way of life because it was still for him an object of study and subject, in need of correction.
Ortega y Gasset described the distinction as “Creer y Pensar”. Think about “creed” as unconscious beliefs that are necessary for our current life to flow. Through them we arrive at “pensar”, thoughts about belief that have been abstracted into ideas, facsimiles though they be of those unreflective beliefs. So, I hold the opinion, that there were many God fearers who could be the potential converts of early Christianity, though many of them saw Christianity as one in a forrest of other possible alternatives, other mystery religions still available. Christianity at that point had not yet coalesced and the reason perhaps was that the religion was often much more an object of thought than of that sort of belief that exist from ingrained tradition.

Sacred History is the answer. The idea of a Messiah, of a restitution to glory, goes back perhaps as far as the Babylonian captivity period. The idea is that human beings were the ones who earned God’s wrath. The future was always in their hands to affect, to repent and return to his good graces. The kingdom of god Jesus was preaching about held this idea at heart. Through the virtuous life of one, the community would be saved. Jesus’ last gasp in Mark reflects that he expected something to happen that didn’t happen. The world around him, as bad as it was, was animated by that “creencia”, that underlying and unquestioned belief that what we do still could change it all in a flash.
You are right about the original role of Satan. A lot of its evolution resulted from Persian influences it received from Zoroastrianism. The world however was not that much worse overall. Yahweh’s followers doggedly held to a principled monotheism which is why Yahweh was as terrible. It was not a fault to be corrected but a feature of their belief. I believe that even the super-Satan of Christianity was not su much a feature of judaism but an exceptional belief that flourished in the polytheistic garden in which Christianity grew.

I disagree about a unified response. There were many, evident in the controversy recorded in Galatians. Once the center in Jerusalem was lost, Christianities flourished in the resulting diaspora.

I wasn’t implying that there was a unified response. Modern archaeological work has recovered a number of texts that reveal religious diversity in the early years that has provided the basis for revising the traditional view of a unified response as presented in the Book of Acts.

The emerging picture of early Jesus movement is of one awash with contending beliefs. The competing “Christianities” each insisted that they upheld the true teachings of Jesus and that they possessed writings of apostles that supported their claims.

But, history gets written by the winners. In this case it was the so-called “proto-orthodox Christians”–those who eventually compiled the canonical books of the New Testament and standardized what became orthodoxy i.e. “The Christian Faith” codified in the official church creeds.

The scriptural basis for The Faith began with the theology of Paul who transmogrified the Jesus of history into the Christ of Faith. The other “Christianities” were the groups that the emerging orthodoxy denounced as heretics and persecuted accordingly.

Too true for comfort.

Regards
DL

This question, be you a believer or not, is designed to have the reader show his moral position.

Not mythologized, literalized, stupidly, as he began as a myth.

youtube.com/watch?v=oR02cia … =PLCBF574D

Regards
DL

I think we can discuss whether fictional characters would have done this or that. What would Frasier Crane say about it? That’s why I said “the jesus character is the opposite of the father character while the holy spirit character is rarely, if ever, personified.” Whether they are real or not is inconsequential to whether they are the same personality.

Maybe so, but it would be awfully coincidental that so many others were: born of a virgin, had 12 disciples, died on a cross, resurrected 3 days later. There also isn’t much historical evidence supporting the existence of Jesus.

But whoever created the words of Jesus was pretty smart and whoever distorted them, wasn’t.

This one is hilariously funny. Uploaded 2010, I don’t know why it took so long for me to find it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk[/youtube]

There were Pagan gods who were said to die and rise again. So, I get the idea that Jesus was made up as a Jewish god who died and rose again. The problem is that we have these ancient letters written in the first century by this guy Paul who mentions in passing that he knew Jesus’ brother, James, and he knew his closest disciple, Peter and he talks about things they did. If Jesus didn’t exist, you would think his brother would know about it, so I think Paul is probably pretty good evidence that Jesus at least existed.

Another reason for supposing Jesus existed is that if someone invented Jesus, they would not have created a messiah who was so easily overcome. The Messiah was supposed to overthrow the enemies of Israel. So if you’re going to make up a messiah, you’d make up a powerful messiah. You wouldn’t make up somebody who was humiliated, tortured and the killed by the enemies.

But, the mythicists are right that the NT Gospels do portray Jesus in ways that are non-historical. The historical Jesus was mythologized. In the gospel texts there is evidence of editing. But, embarrassing facts remain that run counter to the mythic narrative that wouldn’t be there if Jesus were invented whole cloth. And those facts are further evidence that he really existed.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion … arrassment

And oh yeah it is possible to discuss what fictional characters might do in different hypothetical situations. So we could talk about Jesus that way. But, there are so many versions of Jesus that it gets complicated right off. For example, based on their interpretation of the Bible some Christians think Jesus was Yahweh so the question whether he would condemn or condone Yahweh would be about whether he would condemn or condone himself. In the Hebrew Bible it does say that Yahweh repented of his actions from time to time. But, that’s absurd if one assumes that God is omniscient. So, it all seems to depend on what is presupposed. Garbage in, garbage out, so to speak.

I like how you decide for God what he can do and feel, Felix.
He needs you.

Glad I could help.

I think the ancient wrote the bible and intentionally put contradictions is as the bible was created to activate thinking and not to be taken literally. Those contradictions were designed to be debated, not believed as real.

Most have forgotten that and ignore the brighter ancient ways.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental trash that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Further.

pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, “The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it.”

Please listen as to what is said about literal reading.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, “God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning.”

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Regards
DL

I get your point, but how do we know any of those people existed? I could say I read the writings of a guy who knew Niles Crane, the brother of Frasier, but it would be a tv script.

We couldn’t make up a messiah that defeated the enemies of Israel because that obviously didn’t happen. I think the theory is that those types of gods that were “humiliated, tortured and the killed by their enemies” had been successful in the past and was simply copied and renamed into Jesus rather than Horace et al.

That presupposes what is considered embarrassing.

Reminds me of: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=192850&start=50#p2676344

What most people regard as powerful is actually weakness and the bravest warriors are the most terrified (hence why they are warriors). So I don’t see a powerful god laying its powers down as anything to be embarrassed by.

Mom is a fundamentalist and when I was a kid, we’d patronize Pentecostal churches exclusively. I’ve witnessed a lot of wild stuff and thought it was normal. No snakes or drinking poison, but not far from it. Anyway, the Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists and pretty much all bible-belt churches teach the trinity where the Father, Jesus, and Holy Ghost are all God, but separate persons (whatever sense you can make from that). They cite John 1:1 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So they say Jesus was the Word who became man while God (Father) stayed in heaven. They are two separate persons, but also the same God. They also point to the fact that Jesus had to be God because no man could have accomplished what Jesus did (defeat death).

A few years ago it became increasingly a problem to me that Jesus and Father were not the same personality and I couldn’t make sense of why the Father seemed to pass judgement and kill while Jesus forgave and revived who the Father had killed (or allowed to die). How could the same God be polar opposite to itself?

The Father says vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord. But Jesus says forgive 70 x 7 and turn the other cheek because the meek will inherit the earth. The Father causes the earth to open and swallow people for making a golden cow, but Jesus forgives those nailing him to a cross by simply pointing out that they’re confused and don’t realize what they are doing. Well aren’t the people with the golden cow also confused? So is the Father not as smart/perceptive as Jesus or is he less divine? Ultimately I decided the Father is just a natural aspect of the universe that cannot be reasoned with (a non-person force like gravity).

What the supernatural/divine had represented to me was that which is not natural, such as turning the other cheek instead of fighting back or desiring vengeance. I consider that a divine principle exceeding displays of power to defeat enemies because, ultimately, all displays of power are evidence of fear/insecurity and not divine at all! What Jesus preached was exceedingly wise, to the point of being divine, and a quantum leap beyond what evolution had instilled in the animal; above natural = supernatural. But I’ve not seen anything by the Father worth writing home about, nevermind being divine/supernatural, but more animalistic and representative of what an ancient, uneducated, animal-like people would do/say. And here I agree with Christopher Hitchens that if a God were to reveal himself, why pick some of the dumbest people in ancient history? If he had waited 100,000 years, then why not wait another 2000 until now when we have the capability to substantiate with evidence? Or why not appear to the chinese who were more intelligent than the desert people? The Father was created by a weak and stupid people who wished they were powerful, but Jesus is something else and whoever created his words was clearly genius.

That would require an unbelievable amount of foresight to intentionally include contradictions which would have the known effect of causing people to dig deeper rather than reject the text due to the contradictions. And one doesn’t need contradictions to make folks perceive hidden messages.

As soon as we open the door for allegorical interpretation we’ve removed all authority from it because truth could be gleaned in a way that wasn’t intended, like people do to songs all the time. For instance the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was theorized to mean LSD or the band KISS was Knights in Satan’s Service. That’s off the top of my head and probably not the best examples, but hopefully you can see that interpretation is quite different than intention of the authors.

On the other hand, Jesus’ main strategy for conveyance of nonceptual information was through allegory and it is indeed a powerful tool to speak by analogy, but I don’t see why they needed to make the text factually incorrect or inconsistent with itself in order to implement allegory.

Regarding the intelligence of the ancients, I think the Indians (from India) and Chinese were ahead the Arabs in terms of enlightenment, profundity and scientific progress. I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if I were.

As Alan Watts used to say, the Arabs would stone anyone claiming to be god, but the Hindus would have laughed and said “Of course! It’s about time you found out! LOL” He says the good news (gospel) is not that Jesus is god, but that you are too.

The whole presentation is here:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdnZiv24fLc[/youtube]

At least start at 36:30 where he substantiates the claim that we are all the sons of god.

There are non-Christian sources that attest to the existence of these people. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus supports the NT story that Jesus’ brother, James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem.

Why put a different name on the mythical god? Why not just believe in Horus?

According to the historical criteria of embarrassment, what is embarrassing is related to what is being attested. So, for example, if Jesus and his disciples are attested to be self-consistent pacifists who didn’t carry weapons, the story that in the garden of Gethsemane they had swords is an embarrassment to that claim.

I was referring to the criteria of embarrassment in the technical sense that historians use it. You seem to be talking about it in a colloquial sense.

You’ve got some valid existential questions in there, but did Hitchens really say that? If so, it seems like he went out of his way to be antisemitic.

I honestly don’t know much about this. All I know is people who seem to know what they’re talking about make the claim that there is little evidence that Jesus existed, which carries no real authority by itself, yet when the claim is coupled with the idea that Jesus could be modeled after sun worship, that sensibility adds credibility to the overall argument which demands some counterevidence substantiating his existence, imo.

Oh did I misspell that? Oops. Well, why not go straight to the source and just worship the sun?

Yes, you’re right! And Jesus admonished the one who cut off the ear of the high priest saying those who live by the sword shall also die by the sword.

51 And, behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, and smote off his ear.
52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
54 But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?
55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me.
56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

Embarrassment is always relative. Swords are embarrassing to the pacifists while pacifism is embarrassing to the warriors. I’ve proudly done things in the past that are embarrassing to me now, so there is no one perspective on embarrassing situations that could be used as a scientific tool of substantiation.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQox1hQrABQ[/youtube]

Here he’s demonstrating the apparent reasoning of God by saying:

now we’ve got to
02:50
intervene! Now you have to believe it! You
02:58
have to believe it and the revelation
03:00
must be personal, so
03:04
we’ll pick the most backward; the most
03:08
barbaric; the most illiterate; the most
03:11
superstitious; and the most savage people
03:13
we can find in the most stony area of
03:16
the of the world. We won’t appear to the
03:19
Chinese who can already read.

That’s a valid point. Why wait 100,000 years with complete indifference to immorality and then pick the dumbest people in the roughest place to reveal yourself? It seems more likely that those people invented the religion in the image of their backward ways, but begs the question of who Jesus could have been.

Here’s an informative debate between scholars on two sides of the issue in case your interested in learning more about it: youtube.com/watch?v=oIxxDfkaXVY

That’s kinda off topic.

Again, you’re using the notion of embarrassment in a generic sense. So, we’re not talking about the same thing.

Anyway, the idea that Jesus was God laying down his powers is fantastical to the point of absurdity. It is, in all probability, a mythical embellishment of whatever actually happened to Jesus of Nazareth.

True. Embarrassment is always relative. I already acknowledged that and supplied the sword episode as a case in point. But, I explained that the criteria of embarrassment is a historical methodological technique. It’s not about being embarrassed in an emotional sense. It’s about facts in a story that run counter to the overarching narrative as presented that suggest what may really have happened.

“Dumbest” is your adjective not his. Were they really? If we’re talking about Abraham, I’ll grant that they were probably illiterate. Were they the most superstitious, backward or savage? I doubt it. They were probably like many other tribes at the time. I read it as antisemitic hyperbole.

Now according to the mythical narrative, it didn’t take 100,000 years, more like 6,000 from Adam till now. But, in the real world, it’s a valid question for the Abrahamic religions. It’s basically and illustrative way of framing the theological problem of evil. I don’t know what you mean about Jesus. He was most likely a first century Galilean Jew who made messianic claims, drew a small following and was executed by the Roman governor for it. His stunned followers developed a mythological/theological narrative that explained what had happened and that narrative became the foundation of the religious institution known as the church.

I have that in my library. It is an eye opener for those who can see.

My god is I am. Who is yours?

Regards
DL

Thanks I’ll check it out tonight.

I’m just following you.

So you’re suggesting that Jesus existed because facts ran counter to the overarching narrative as presented (ie embarrassment)? I’m not sure to what extent inconsistencies can be substantive.

He said “the most backward; the most barbaric; the most illiterate; the most superstitious; and the most savage people.” If that does not qualify as being the dumbest, then I’m not sure I understand what being dumb means.

I don’t think it has anything to do with being Jewish, but simply living in a warm climate had no selective pressure for intelligence. Circumcision seems a little bit barbaric to me as well as sacrificing animals and sometimes even children. Having a death penalty for just about every crime seems kinda savage and being obsessed with ritualistic ceremonies involving blood seems a bit backward.

I suppose that is true, but even then it depends who you ask and how one tabulates the passage of time relative to the patriarchs listed in the bible. But ok 6000 from Adam till now, then how long from Adam to Moses? Why wait that amount of time until the 10 commandments? And why wait 4000 years to usher Jesus onto the scene? Why not wait 2000 more? Just think of how much more that could have been accomplished if the 12 disciples had iphones streaming to the cloud. But that would remove the element of faith because with that amount of evidence, who would need faith?

That seems about right, if Jesus existed.

Since “genius” is a subjective designation, let me appeal to authority on the matter:

[i]What is Genius?

The best way to answer such a question is to describe what genius is not. First and foremost, genius does not necessarily relate to talent. Being exceptionally good at some particular task does not automatically make one a genius. In light of this, people like Albert Einstein and Johann Sebastian Bach were not geniuses, but simply very talented people. Indeed, a genius need not be very talented in any area of life at all. Or if he does have some talent, it would necessarily find its most concentrated expression in the realm of wisdom. Genius is a function of one’s relationship with Ultimate Reality and thus is a function of consciousness. The more one is conscious of the true nature of Reality, the more one is a genius. By this definition, people like Jesus, the Buddha, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Weininger, and Socrates were geniuses to greater or lesser degree.

Albert Einstein, although gifted with a prodigious intellect, had a very poor relationship with Reality. The highest he ever reached in this relationship was a sense of awe and wonder at the Universe, which means that his connection with Reality was largely emotional and subconscious. It was, at bottom, little more than an emotional reaction to his own limited understanding of Reality as a whole. Einstein failed to take the all-important conceptual leap into full understanding of Reality, and thus he failed to reach the level of genius. The chief characteristic of a genius is independence of mind. This independence is attained through his having a clear and conscious grasp of the nature of Reality, which results in his mind being unmoved by the myths and fashions of his culture. Indeed, everything he thinks, says and does is performed with authority, a quality that arises when one’s knowledge is permanent, complete, and beyond doubt.[/i]

theabsolute.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=128

Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone. Genius! Only he who is without sin has any pretense to condemn a sinner.
The meek shall inherit the earth. Genius! He expanded the proverb “pride cometh before a fall” to the invariable conclusion that only the humble could endure to the end without self-destruction.
Forgive them for they know not what they do. Genius! For in understanding it is impossible to be angry.
Always take the lowest seat. Genius! For those who exalt themselves shall be abased while those who humble themselves shall be exalted.

Jesus was truly a pioneer of novels ways of thought relative to a primal culture that focused upon the most immediate desires. Whoever played the character role of Jesus was, without a doubt, a genius who was in touch with some deeper aspect of reality which wasn’t readily apparent to the people of the time and still isn’t even today.