Forums → WEPR → Jesus of History vs. Jesus of Faith

Cool i'm first to reply!

Alrighty well, hmmmm
I'll give answers (to the best of my ability) to your questions.
Many(most i would say) christians don't really have a faith of their own. They will follow and do whatever their family, denomination, or church say, without any investigation. Thus you get a lot of christians that will not listen to anything that any other religon says(or atheist/agnostic) because they are scared to have their faith challenged, so they just shelter themselves from it all. and are "hell-bent on not being open to other ideas".

The bible stands as the only way because, it is the words and teachings of God and the Israelites(OT) and Christ and the Apostles (NT). Beyond these 2 groups there is nothing else pertaining to orignal christianity. This plus the fact that jesus "said" I am the way the truth and the life, no one gets to the father except through me. So beyond following christ, there is no other way to heaven. so you either follow christianity (and the bible) or something else, there can't be a mixing of religons (amongst christianity) it contradicts the teachings of whom your following.

Thats my take on it all. Not sure if that really answers the questions, or if you are only asking to make people think...btw i like the topic, i should probably do some of my own investigation into this. What is the book?

Ah, the power of the written word. It is ironic that the purpose of writing is to preserve what is spoken, yet so much changes when ink flows onto paper.

People want to belong, and to believe helps them to belong to whatever group they live with. Eyetwitch already gave my answer to the "hell-bent" question. But to bolster that, differing ideas are seen as threats to cohesion by those leading any given group, if not every individual within it.

Also, many people cannot stand having their belief system called "wrong" by others, yet they are willing to do the same. That is, everyone wants to be right all the time.

@Drestro2
Jesus Christ of Nazarath existed, there is a lot of evidence to support that (*cough* read original post). His God powers are what is desputable.

Alright. I would like to seperate two groups out right now. Aunt Elba's and Bible Scholars. Aunt Elba thinks she knows it, but never read up on everything and took it at face value. Bible scholars do their hermeneutical background check first. I can't say I'm a Bible expert, but I don't draw conclusions that are not backed up with hermeneutics. I do know however that the Apostles were martyred for not denying Christ. (Yes, again this is subjective to history being wrong, but it is probably true.) If they knew the truth, why would they die for a hoax. They died for believing Jesus was ressurected. In order to be reurected, you need to be dead... Sorry about the spelling.

@chiliad_nodi
Oh, i have two facebook notes on that sort of thing, anyone interested in an expanded version of what he said? As well as some extra points, on it.

Well, I would actually like to see what you have. Thanks.

all of the asners are in the movie expelled and that has almost all of the ansers...

well i believe in the jesus of history more cause i dont think the new bible is the same as the old bible so i think the the JOH is more realistic to me

@eyetwitch: I think that's what Drestro2 was saying...

@Asherlee: I think the real reason that people continue in a faith is nothing more than inertia. They start in a faith, and changing faiths is a lot of work, and means leaving your friends in the old faith behind. Without a reason to change, most people won't.

@chiliad_nodi: Just because the apostles believed it to be true, does not mean it was. Hundreds of people died in the Jonestown massacre because they believed Jim Jones was their savior, but we don't believe that now.

There's also some evidence that had a historical Jesus been crucified, it's unlikely that he would have died in the few hours on the cross he is portrayed have been there. Most crucifixions took days; it's a form of torture that doesn't require much work on the part of the torturer. The reigning theory is that he would have fallen into a coma, been taken for dead, and when he woke up after a few days, everyone hails it as a miracle. This is assuming that a crucifixion even took place.

@pc123: Expelled is such a mishmash of lies, exaggerations, strawmen, and logical fallacies, not to mention copyright infringement, that I'm surprised anyone would expect it to be taken seriously.

@kanethebrain
yah i was thinkin the same thing, but i had to clarify since he said

could be

I briefly studied this thread and believe that nobody's made the kind of suggestion I'm going to make. I'm aware that it requires a fair bit of background assumptions on the nature of religion, but see what you think of it:

Let us assume that "Jesus of history" is a given. By this I mean let us assume that every significant historical event from his birth (though let's ignore the conception for a bit) to his death (let's include the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection) to be subjectively true, regardless of rationalisations (e.g. whether Jesus "came back from the dead" or "lapsed into a coma and somehow managed to survive"...point being these ultimately don't matter).

What I want to suggest here is the power of the mind. I don't mean to be at all reductionist and say "it's all in your head"...that'd be misleading. What I do mean to point out is that conviction has very real and persistent effects, ranging from the Jonestown massacre to Christianity itself. This power of conviction, the creation of a mythos through the demonstration of one's life (in this case, Jesus' can be used to such great effect...but first the seeds need to be planted, that conviction needs to be placed in the minds of other people, hence the Evangelical imperative: go forth and multiply. That the elements of the Christian faith are purportedly "real" does not matter without belief. In my case, I am saying that the converse can apply, on some levels.

In short: in the case of religion, you can make something real by believing. In light of this, exactly where do the arguments of whether something is "real" or "not real" fit?

I know that some of you will be compelled to reply using 'rophecy arguments', and for now I'll preempt with this: while retrospective matching is very impressive when it all lines up, that a large proportion of people specifically don't believe that Jesus is the man to fulfill said prophecies exist: prophecy does rely on interpretation. And just in case you then start saying "more than a billion people can't be wrong!!!" I only need to remind you of the history of the propagation of the Christian faith as well as the context of its origins.

Strop, that's the kind of answer I am looking for. So, let me try to see if I understand.

You say that it has nothing to do with the truth of the matter, it's the ideas that have been created, redone, and remixed over the years to suit the needs of the current believers, yes?

It saddens me. I've read so much on Jesus and I love his life and what he did. It is so obvious that he didn't mean to start a church or religion. I see him like Ghandi.

I think it is interesting that there are so many facts like this, and it doesn't change anything. Many of these sorts of facts are well known, such as the fallacy of Jesus' birthday (it was clearly not in the middle of winter) as well as the general consensus that Jesus was 'white'. I, being open to many different ideas, take in all this information (with a grain of salt, mind you) and find it all very interesting. I doubt that there can be a sudden change in Christianity, since I have found that many people who are very religious are very set in their ways, and believe what they believe no matter what. Hopefully, some religious leader will come across this sort of information and maybe over time, there can be an evolution of religion... wow, that concept made me giggle a little bit.

In any case, thank you Asherlee for bringing this sort of information to us. It is nothing that I would find on my own, but it is very interesting and really challenges common thoughts.

Any religeon will have fundamentalists. (Scientology) So much of Jesus' life is symbolic. His birthday replaced a pagan holiday. Jesus of history proves Jesus of faith.
We have found the tombs of Pontious Pilate and the High Priest whose name I will not try to spell. They did condemn Jesus and Jesus was crucified, or else the Roman Soldier that was not a follower of Jesus could not have reported an empty tomb. The empty tomb proves that the body of Jesus either was taken or he was ressurected. If it was taken, it would not be taken by the Romans, because they would want to show that Jesus is dead to stop the hype. If the apostles died horrible deaths for it, it would not make sense as to why they underwent so much suffering for something they knew was a hoax.
PS. If a huge stone and guards blocked the tomb, how would Jesus have been able to escape if he just woke up from a coma.
an expantion on my earlier post.

Asherlee, what is the title of this book btw? I'm very curious to look into this topic...or should i just look up anything by the author you mentioned?

@chiliad_nodi
Not just scientology, you also got the other thousand cults that have spawned from it.