you can take one of 2 options

[spaminator101]

ok not many people will say that Jesus never existed-OK thats been proven

But past that is where everyone messes up
people say oh Jesus was just a good person a good moral example for how we should live our lives

Sorry folks but it doesnt work like that.
Either Jesus is who he said he was or he was an unmoral lunitic.

If you beleive he existed these are the only 2 options

If the things he said werent true then what did he do.
-He would have led millions of people on a lifelong journey for Godliness that we can never acheive cause it doesnt exist. IF what he said wasnt true he fooled millions of people into wasting their lives.

-IF what he said was true, then well i think yall know.

So you see theres no inbetween in how you veiw Jesus he was a lunitic that caused many people to die and suffer and waste their lives for nothing or He was the Christ Jesus who saved us all cause we couldnt save ourselves

[cliff]

To be fair, there should be a third option...

3)he existed and did not say some or all of the specific things attributed to him by his followers, particularly Paul who never met him while he was alive. In which case he could have been sane, crazy, good, bad, or any reasonable combination of the above.

[J. Stew]

What makes you think people didn't follow Jesus because he 'got' something that they kind of knew but didn't really know how to explain it so they followed his guidence because by following it they actually physically felt like they were living a more genuine existence. This creates the other option that people follow Jesus because they are themselves guided by Universal truth rather than the conceptual truth that is always in Universal truth's wake and therefore not the whole story. To say that Jesus caused suffering would be to misunderstand the point. The point is that there is no self, only God. If people miss the point or don't realize themselves, they should do that and that is what religion tries to do. People misinterpreting religion doesn't mean that the thing religion points is not truth.

[Lestat]

Not only are you wrong about there only being only two possibilities, but...



[ QUOTE ]
IF what he said wasnt true he fooled millions of people into wasting their lives.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the MOST likely one.

Those who debate on the side of Christianity, should want you off their team.

[Lestat]

[ QUOTE ]
To be fair, there should be a third option...

3)he existed and did not say some or all of the specific things attributed to him by his followers, particularly Paul who never met him while he was alive. In which case he could have been sane, crazy, good, bad, or any reasonable combination of the above.

[/ QUOTE ]

He also could've been a propaganda tool for some political or religious movement. There are many possibilities for the truth surrounding this man.

[cliff]

agreed, given how many statements made by living people are misrepresented, I can't see how anyone could ignore this possiblity for someone who lived thousands of years ago (if at all). There is also at least one alternative set of records for his supposed teachings in the Agnostic gospels which I understgand differ freatly from the christian canon.

[thekiller]

What part of what he said are we to believe is true:

for example, should we believe the parable of the prodigal son was true?

[Maddog121]

That's the Gnostic gospels not the Agnostic gospels.

[evolvedForm]

A third option:

Jesus's words have been misinterpreted to mean that he was really the son of God, when in fact he only said he was a child of God in the sense that all are children of God.

A fourth option:

Jesus never claimed to be the son of god at all, was never a cult leader (or maybe was), but only a philosopher/activist (like Ghandi) who was exalted by his followers, who portrayed him as a god and added mythical stories of miracles and resurrection.

[cliff]

I stand corrected.

[Maddog121]

No problems with your main point just a little bit of a difference between Gnosticism and Agnosticism.

[cliff]

Understood and agreed. I should have caught this in the original post (i.e. I should have read the preview option before hitting o.k.). I've never gotten a clear read from any evangelical types I know what their feeling is on these works.

On an unrelated note, I have also never gotten a clear read on why they don't follow Kosher, Leviticus, etc. I know the (or at least one) historical reasoning is that Paul dropped these to make the church more palatable to the Greeks and there was some dissent on this matter. The only argument I have heard is based on the "new covenant", but in this case I think Christians (or at least evangelicals) should drop all arguments based in the Old Testament, as they are selective in following the laws specified therein. Sorry this is a bit off of the thread.

[chezlaw]

I'll assume an act of kindness on your part by not attributing this to CS Lewis.

Here's a pretty good exposition. here (http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/trilemma.htm)

chez

[guesswest]

[ QUOTE ]
ok not many people will say that Jesus never existed-OK thats been proven

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no historian so I don't really feel qualified to comment on this. Except to say - I remember people used to actually debate this issue. It seems to have slowly been accepted as undisputed fact. I find it hard to believe that new and compelling evidence has been found over the last decade or so - what's up with that?

[MidGe]

3)he existed and did not say some or all of the specific things attributed to him by his followers

[MaxWeiss]

on your first point. If he was a good person but what he said wasn't true (assuming that could be proved) that doesn't make him amoral. He could in fact have been just crazy---which doesn't not at all mean he was amoral, as is indicated by your use of the phrase "unmoral lunitic." Why does being crazy necessitate (I don't know if I spelled that correctly.) being amoral??? If you can provide a good answer to that, then you can MAYBE give us those options and expect a reasonable anser. Of course, there is no way to prove/disprove god, so it really doesn't matter.

You cannot disprove that lobsters are flying to Jupiter every night at near light speeds unbeknownst to and with technology superior to man. That doesn't make it reasonable to believe.

So you see in fact there is plenty of inbetween on just this one issue--one of many dealing with this situation.

[cliff]

>You cannot disprove that lobsters are flying to Jupiter every >night at near light speeds unbeknownst to and with technology >superior to man. That doesn't make it reasonable to believe.

This might explain why so many UFO sightings are in the area of oceans (and at night)! But what do they want with Jupiter?...

[surftheiop]

Holy crap - i posted this same topic like 5 minutes ago without seeing this one. so yeah sorry about the double topic.

[madnak]

Thanks for reminding me why I hate Lewis.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for reminding me why I hate Lewis.

[/ QUOTE ]
/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[AceofSpades]

[ QUOTE ]
That's the Gnostic gospels not the Agnostic gospels.

[/ QUOTE ]

The Agnostic Gospels:

In the beginning was the, well we really aren't sure, but possibly something, or maybe nothing, either way who knows....

[AceofSpades]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ok not many people will say that Jesus never existed-OK thats been proven

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm no historian so I don't really feel qualified to comment on this. Except to say - I remember people used to actually debate this issue. It seems to have slowly been accepted as undisputed fact. I find it hard to believe that new and compelling evidence has been found over the last decade or so - what's up with that?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I'm not so sure about that. The comment in josephus is most likely a forgery, and the city where jesus was supposed to be born didn't exist at that time. We have no mention of jesus in documents that were written during the time he was supposed to have lived. Nothing in the roman records about conviction of him. Nothing written at the time about people rising from the dead or an earthquake in jerusulem. No mention of the 3hr eclise that was supposed to have happened following the cruxifiction was ever written about by the astronomers and astrologers at the time, anywhere in the world. In short, if jesus did exist at that time then Tammy Faye Baker gets better press than him.

[guesswest]

Well, I have no idea to be honest, I don't know enough about it to form a view. It's just I remember when I was a kid (I'm only 26) there used to be articles in major newspapers and documentaries on TV and the like debating this issue, as if it was a great contention point of history. Yet in the last decade or so it seems to have gradually moved into the realm of undisputed fact, despite the fact that (I assume?) no new evidence has been found. And now the idea that Jesus didn't exist is the domain of obscure pseudo-scientific homepages and the like. It just seems really strange is all. Really, I'm much more interested in the reasons behind this shift than I am the actual question of whether Jesus existed.

I also always get nervous when I hear academics talk about 'consensus' opinion, because that generally means they don't understand what's going on.