What Do You Make of Jesus?

What do you believe about Jesus? Check all that apply.


  • Total voters
    51
Re:
"Kevin, seems like I always have to answer 'other' to your polls! :rolleyes:"

Tisk tisk tisk. There you go. Always going against the grain. Can't you just be a little bit of a conformist and order what's on the menu? :)

Anyway, your post would have been too long to write out next to a poll box. ;) So "other" was the perfect category. (And I did consider doing a "don't know" poll box for this thread, but decided agnosticism plays a smaller roll in this particular topic.)

I agree that whatever helps people treat others well is a good thing, at least for those people. Like you, I don't like it when people twist religion to serve rather ungodly purposes.

Kevin (wants-to-know-what-everyone-else-thinks) T.
 
Tisk tisk tisk. There you go. Always going against the grain. Can't you just be a little bit of a conformist and order what's on the menu? :)

Nope. :D

(Actually, IRL - I hate to be a bother at restaurants and always DO order what's on the menu...the most I am willing to deviate is "no tomatoes" - but if they forget, no biggie, I just take them off.:p I'm a conformist in that I follow the "little rules" - it's the BIG ones that I tend to rebel against!:rolleyes:)
 
Oh sure, rebel against all the big rules, see how well that goes over. :cool:

You're a good sport JQ. Thanks for contributing to my crazy polls.
 
I agree, that's very possible.
 
@ Magdlyn ... do the Jews believe and/or hope there'll be a messiah comparable to Moses? not a god, but a great prophet?

Well, I am not an expert on what "the Jews" believe, but Torah observant Jews expect a Messiah, who has to be descended from King David, will some day come. He will not be a prophet, but a king.

Messiah, mosiakh, anointed, all have the same meaning as the Greek word Christ. Oiled.

I have read the Davidic Messiah will be accompanied by a great prophet, ala Elijiah, but prophets do not need to come from the monarchical descent, necessarily, but from any family.

Just get it out of your mind that a Jewish messiah will be a god. That is total blasphemy to Jews, whose god is too great to ever be in human form. It's the first commandment, after all.
 
Riiight; just wrapping my mind around the Moses thing -- which I take as, Moses was just a man, but God performed a number of miracles on Moses' behalf. That's what I was driving at.

Elijah and Elisha were I believe a couple of other examples of prophets who, while mere men in and of themselves, did receive a number of miracles from God on their behalf. Lots of Old Testament stories of mere men who received miracles from God.

So no, I get that the Jewish messiah is not a god. Just curious as to whether any of the Jews anticipate any God-performed miracles to accompany their anticipated messiah.

Hope that is more clear on my part.
 
For me, Jesus is primarily symbolic. He may or may not have literally existed, but it's no more an issue for me than whether a tortoise ever raced a hare.

Being Panentheist, I view the trinity in general, and Jesus in particular, as being symbolic of god's being both transcendent and immanent, both seperate and 'out there' but also 'down here' and in the world.

I don't see him as the unique son of god, but as both human and divine the way we all are.
 
That makes sense. Thanks for that input.
 
I said he never existed, as well as he's an amalgamation of other myths, partly because there are very similar themes in many religions, and partly because the christian church borrowed or re-purposed so many things from other cultures and religions and wrapped them up in the Jesus package.

I grew up ELCA (fairly liberal) Lutheran, and was extremely involved in church life, to the point of actually planning to go to seminary after college. But one day I realized that while I love the people, relationships, rituals, traditions, music, drama, service trips and projects, and everything else, I don't actually believe in "god." Oops!

Fortunately, unlike many people, I had a wonderful church experience, and do not feel at all damaged by christianity. I think I'm one of the lucky ones :)
 
That is lucky.

I lean 27% in your direction of Jesus not existing (at all, past or present).
 
Fortunately, unlike many people, I had a wonderful church experience, and do not feel at all damaged by christianity. I think I'm one of the lucky ones :)

I, also, am one of the lucky ones. I don't feel damaged at all by my experience of spending the first 18 years of my live as a church-goer (United Methodist for the record). I was active in the church. I had no issues with the actual people - a number of whom I still revere as some of the "best" people I have ever met. But I never "believed" and the theology always seemed to be superfluous to me. ("Be a good person" seems axiomatic - why do you need a reason?)

I once had a door-to-door Christian evangelical come to the door...and when I stated that I wasn't a Christian he first asked if I was familiar with the Church. I explained that I spent the first 18 years of my life attending and knew that it wasn't something that I believed in...his next comment insinuated that "some congregations are like that...they drive people away" - I was rather offended.

But I suppose that it is easier to blame fallable people than the "infallable" church...

PS. RainyGrlJenny - it's the "rituals, traditions, music, drama" that I wish I could easily recapture - the participation in something that binds people together - humanity struggling toward something larger. Community theatre/band/etc. recaptures parts but not the sum of the fellowship...
 
Last edited:
A Messiah with the (rather supernatural) powers to put all those large empires at bay? and what of their ongoing hostility with the outcast Palestinian people? How does that figure into the Jewish dream of freedom from oppression? I have to wonder about such things.

Magdlyn already explained this, but Jesus is only recognized as a metaphysical being by the Christian faith. Which is so interesting. As people that have grown up in a culture where Jesus is almost synonymous with the dominant religion, its been my experience that many people forget that one of the largest religions in the world (Islam) only recognizes him as a prophet, and that one of the most powerful religions in the world (Judaism) doesn't recognize him at all. Fascinating. I'm from the south and Jesus is practically a given--every fucking where here, so the idea that a people (the Jews) that were so highly regarded by the church in my youth don't even recognize him of the core Christian beliefs. Sorry, I studied religion in school, so I'm going to be a nerd about this lol.

Anywho. I answered, "A man, just a man" and a "great teacher and prophet". In my opinion Jesus, even as just a fictional character or an idea, is awesome. He, or the idea of him, fundamentally changed one of the world's greatest empires. Imagine some young, hippie, punk coming and fracturing America--a world (or at the very least hemispheric) hegemon with a message of peace and love and goodwill (along with some "miracles", most of which can be explained by medical/mystic knowledge or just plain science).

That's insanity.

He gave people a message that said that the government wasn't the highest authority, and taught them to disregard the social order by helping those that had been ostrichized by society (aka lepers and cripples and the like). His message represeted a direct threat to the current socio-political order....of course the Romans couldn't stand for that lol no self-respecting political structure would. (On a similar note, you can actually say the same for Muhammad and the dominant Quarysh Tribe in the Arabian peninsula, but that's a total tangent lol. )

The point to all of that being that if this man named Jesus Christ actually exsisted, then he was one of the most radical and influential political and social thinkers of all time! How awesome is that?!
 
Yes, he left quite a footprint on our world. 2000 years later he is a very popular guy!

My favorite "take on Jesus" is the book "Illusions" by Richard Bach. Jesus doesn't appear anywhere in the book, but implications about who he was (and how Richard Bach explains the supernatural) crop up everywhere.

Alas I no longer subscribe to Richard Bach's belief system, yet I still love it as much as ever. If anyone hasn't read "Illusions," I highly recommend it. It's a short book and an easy read. Hard to put down.
 
Yes, he left quite a footprint on our world. 2000 years later he is a very popular guy!
I think that another footprint he'd leave, if he were around today, would be a sweltering red one on the butts of a lot of the folks who are most vocal about how popular he is with them. ;)
 
Sadly "Jesus'" message of peace, love and goodwill is lost.

We just had a houseguest stay with us who was born and raised and lived all her life in Tennessee. About time she got out of there, at age 49. Sounds like a hellhole, when it should be the most peaceful goodwillish place on earth. A church on every corner. 99% of people are Christians. Our friend told us there are as many churches in Tenn as we have Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts.

MOST of the churches, on their little outdoor billboards, have messages of hate, prejudice, hell and exclusion. This is why I can't get behind Jesus or Christianity. Whether he existed or not is moot. So much hatred and killing in his name. Inquisition and autos da fe anyone?

We seem horrified Jesus was killed on a cross. What about all the tortures and burnings at the stake in his name? Sheesh.

The Inquisition still lives. Exorcisms still happen. Our friend is of an alternative gender and sexuality and her own "loving" Christian mother threatened her with exorcism! The previous Pope was head of the current day Inquisition, which is against bad Catholics but apparently in favor of assfucking young boys, ruining their lives. Give me a break.

Jesus never existed, Paul was wacky and conflicted, and Christianity was created to be a tool to control the populace for the benefit of the rich and "noble."
 
Jesus being married should be an easy one to contemplate. A more challenging idea that I've heard was that Jesus may have (also) had homosexual relations with his disciples.

An even more challenging proposition is that he actually existed to begin with :D
 
There's historical evidence for Jesus the man to have actually existed. The question is whether he was actually the Son of God, or just charismatic and extremely intelligent.
 
No arguments here ...

These matters draw to my mind one of my favorite movies, "The Name of the Rose." Any who wouldn't object to the sex scene in it should watch it. It does a good job of portraying life and the Church in the Middle Ages.
 
I generally vote for the man having actually existed, and having been charismatic and extremely intelligent, but otherwise being no more God than you and I.

Though if I found out he was a completely fabricated character in the various mythologies, I also wouldn't be surprised.
 
There's historical evidence for Jesus the man to have actually existed. The question is whether he was actually the Son of God, or just charismatic and extremely intelligent.

I'd like to see your historical evidence. I have not seen any. The one mention in Josephus has been shown to be a later addition.

Judaean sages (Pharisees, rabbis) of that period were making the same kinds of interpretations of their Scriptures as Jesus is made to say in the Synoptic gospels. However, their words are documented first hand, not written down decades later, as Jesus' so-called words were.

All male Jews are sons of their god. Jesus is often made to say he is a Son of Man, which means human being. He rarely made a big deal about saying he was a son of God. The real problem is, is he God Himself? Jews say no, Christians say yes.

As a kid I was very confused about how Jesus could be the son of himself.
 
Back
Top