InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
What do you really think about Jesus?
Please choose an option.
Please choose an option.
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Who was Jesus Christ?
- Thread starter InvestigateTruth
- Start date
Pete in Panama
Active Member
Let's get together on this. The word "Christ" is Greek for "Messiah", just as the name "Jesus" is the Greek form of "Joshua". There are people who talk about following the teachings of Joshua the Messiah as others would be thinking of Jesus the Christ.
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
OK, so, which one of the options is closest to your view, if anyone at all?
Kelly of the Phoenix
Well-Known Member
I feel like he was probably something like the Trump of his era. Or Bin Laden. Someone who inspires riots while claiming to be a holy savior.
InvestigateTruth
Well-Known Member
Those who do not believe Jesus was truly the Messiah, then you think for two thousands years, all these Christians were tricked, delusional, stupid to go to churches and pray? Do you even know what that means? Do you even know how many churches were built in the world? What kind of world do we live in, when billions of people are delusional?
By the way, I am a Bahai, so, I believe Jesus was the Messiah. But I am talking about those who don't believe Jesus was the Messiah.
By the way, I am a Bahai, so, I believe Jesus was the Messiah. But I am talking about those who don't believe Jesus was the Messiah.
Jesus is Messiah as well as God incarnate.
If I had to bet:
Mostly myth, likely with a real person at the core of the myth (who bears little to no resemblance to the Jesus figure of any religion).
Basically, I think he was an itinerant apocalyptic preacher - possibly mentally ill but certainly not privy to any special messages by God - whose story snowballed after his death, initially fed by his followers' attempt to reconcile his execution with their belief that he was "supposed" to be there to see the impending apocalypse happen.
I also don't discount the possibility that the Jesus character we have today started as an amalgam of multiple historical figures (plus a ton of myth).
For most of those two thousand years:
- the average Christian wasn't exactly in a position to verify the claims of the Bible. They didn't necessarily have the knowledge we have now that calls the Gospels into question.
- Christian churches were often brutal in enforcing discipline. Even skipping mass could get you fined. Saying in public that Jesus wasn't real could get you killed. Most doubters would have kept quiet out of self-interest, not stupidity.
All that being said... these people weren't stupid, but yes: many of them were tricked. Yes: we know better now.
As for all the churches in the world: Christianity has proven itself an excellent parasite. It has been very good at extracting wealth from its host societies and using this wealth to aggrandize itself. This has resulted in many pretty, ornate churches, but it isn't exactly the point in favour of Christianity that you're making it out to be.
There are many millions of Christians today who think creationism is true and science false, even satanic. So yes, humans do believe in all sorts of irrational ideas. We can't blame believers for belief in irrational concepts until the last 200 years or so, since the Enlightenment. Those people had no options, as there was no formal knowledge to be had. Only in the last few hundred years since the age of reason can we educate the young with verifiable knowledge, which happens to contradict a lot of religious belief. Modern people tend to believe due to social learning, cultural identity, and the habit of belief. There are more atheists or non-religious all over the first world. The third world still sees a lot of belief, and that can be explained as the high level of ignorance.
There were surely many teachers in that era, and perhaps even a Jesus character who was especially good. But the myth of Jesus is not original as there are many other similar myths in the Middle East before the time of Jesus. It's more likely the Jesus Christ myth rose for the dead ideas that already existed. The birth of Christianity wasn't exactly rapid, it took about 400 years and Constintine deciding to make it the official religion of his empire. And of course, they had to decide what the Bible is, so they met numerous times and whittld the Bible from over 200 books down to 66 or 72 depending on what kind of Christian you are. Not exactly solid.
King Phenomenon
Well-Known Member
Indeed
King Phenomenon
Well-Known Member
He’s a janitor at a high school in kentucky
I voted anyway, but I think your vote is not very informative as it has one *yes* vote option or perhaps two, but splits the *no* vote across many subtle types, so if you get a higher percentage of yes votes than any particular *no* vote it may not have been without perhaps unintentionally unevenly splitting the votes. Perhaps this could have been addressed by allowing multiple votes.
Also I think you should have either included an "other" vote or at least included post #7 as an option as i suspect that is closer to what many of us believe than your other no options.
In my opinion.
Yes. Like the followers of Muhammad as well, and now Bahais or Mormons.
Messiahs do not exist.
But that does not mean the spiritual life of Christians or Muslims or Bahais are futile. As I have said before..the Absolute exists in everything. Sincere effort using anything at all as focus (a Jesus like figure or a stone by the roadside...whatever that connects with your psyche) will produce constructive results.
I can't choose any of the options either - mine being - I don't know and I'm not that bothered to even try to figure out who he was - if he actually existed as depicted by some religious texts. I might appreciate whatever was attributed to him as an individual, as for any other supposed prophet, but I very much doubt he was as depicted - as for all other prophets - and in my view he was just a marker in the evolution of religions.
That Christianity has lasted so long I think says more about the receptive nature for such religions to thrive within human communities and especially within the human mind. Such beliefs possibly being the easier route for many to explain existence rather than the much harder one that science has been attempting since we discovered such methods. Why am I so lazy? Because there is much more to understand in other areas and I choose to look at these in preference. Given that I might have to do the same amount of work in other religious beliefs to be fair to all. And that just isn't going to happen.
PS I did have the usual Protestant school education so I already had enough information as to who Jesus Christ was supposed to be and as to his life, so my views aren't based on no evidence.
That Christianity has lasted so long I think says more about the receptive nature for such religions to thrive within human communities and especially within the human mind. Such beliefs possibly being the easier route for many to explain existence rather than the much harder one that science has been attempting since we discovered such methods. Why am I so lazy? Because there is much more to understand in other areas and I choose to look at these in preference. Given that I might have to do the same amount of work in other religious beliefs to be fair to all. And that just isn't going to happen.
PS I did have the usual Protestant school education so I already had enough information as to who Jesus Christ was supposed to be and as to his life, so my views aren't based on no evidence.
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Kelly of the Phoenix
Well-Known Member
People who are suffering will latch onto anyone who makes them feel better. Jerks who want to manipulate people will latch onto anybody who makes it easier for them.
lukethethird
unknown member
A figment of the imagination of Paul, or whomever or however those epistles were derived or based on. Boils down to just not knowing.
dybmh
דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
You identify as "Xian" here on RF. This statement above and many others in other threads is extremely confusing to me.
What does it mean to be an "Xian"?
Pete in Panama
Active Member
None of the choices seem to be right.
Both "Messiah" and "Christ" mean "anointed one". The four gospels have a number of accounts of Jesus' head or feet being anointed. That means he was a Christ and a Messiah just as anyone else who was anointed automatically (and technically) became a Christ and Messiah. Whether one of the anointments of Jesus was the particulr anointment that Moses was thinking of is hard to defend considering the differences in place and time.
That kind of world that is populated with people who offer ...
- Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, as Moses had foretold, but he was a false Messiah
- Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and truly He was same Messiah Moses had foretold
