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.