What Do You Make of Jesus?

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


  • Total voters
    51
Be patient, I'm getting there...

I have learned that it’s easier explaining my belief in Jesus to a polyamorist than it is explaining my belief in polyamory to a Christian.
 
I don’t know what a trained counsellor licensed by the Commonwealth would advise us if we dated but who knows she might make an exception.

She'd probably say you're too Christian for me, what the heck am I doing.

What my therapist recommends for me might not be what she would recommend for someone else. I can’t speak for her when it comes to your or anyone else’s situation.

True. I usually date people younger than me, after 30 years with a man 2 years my senior. I try to stay up to date, and most men in my age bracket seem old fashioned and boring me. I had made an exception for my last bf however (as I am open minded), and we did make it for 2 1/2 years.

Personally I’m very happy for you that you are living in a love relationship.

Thanks. I am really grateful for miss pixi.

This points out the danger of sharing our most intimate thoughts and feelings with strangers who have distinctly different experiences with a variety of triggers. I don’t know what comes to your mind when I mention the frog pond. My ex hated the place but my wife can’t get enough of it.

Not really a "danger," IMO, but a stimulating challenge and diversion. I'd never want to talk to only people who agree with me all down the line. Hmmm, I don't think that person exists anyway. But I don't waste my time talking to conservative right wingers much, that's for sure.

I can fully accept your rejection of Christ even if you think He’s a fantasy of my imagination.

Reject Christ? I don't reject him. I spend a lot of time reading about him and thinking about him and talking about him. I just don't think he is "God" or "God's only son," except as a common archetype of the dying and rising grain god such as Osiris, Tammuz, Mithras, Adonis, and John Barleycorn.

I sure don't think Jesus and his dad are up in heaven, like Santa Claus, seeing me when I am sleeping and awake, seeing if I am naughty or nice, and all that, and putting me on the naughty list or in some big book til I get to those pearly gates. LOL. Come on. That's so childish. No wonder when kids figure out there's no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy, they ask, "Does this mean Jesus isn't real either, Mommy?" Mom looks horrified. "No dear, that magical person really does exist!"

It doesn’t change my opinion of you. I am sapiosexual like so many Bostonians who have been surrounded by and immersed in a sea of intellectual growth and development.

Hm.

However, if you’re a Yankees fan, we do have a problem that even Big Poppy can’t remedy.

At last something we can agree on. I was raised in NY and even then, my family were Mets fans and Yankee haters. Now, 40 years in Massachusetts has made me something of a Sox fan.

Although I must admit that it might have been one too many acid trips that knocked me off center...

But your faith healed you from the drugs and their effects? My drug addict daughter (who is mentally ill) has found Jesus this year and has been clean and sober since April. She is a newly born fundie and hooboy, it's like a new addiction. But as her dad and I say, "Jesus. He's better than crack."

...and isolation does make me crazy.

How does this fit in with the bad acid trips knocking you off center?

John on the other hand claims to have had a personal relationship with Jesus. John is an eye witness, or so the story goes.

It's a story. John was written much too late to have been the memories of an eye witness. And his story goes way off. The more complex a story, the less likely it is to be true. Everyone embellishes a story on the retelling. No one simplifies it. The simpler story (Paul's and Mark's) are much more likely to have more truthiness in them.


Who unlike Paul’s wife is encouraged to speak her mind wherever and whenever she chooses so long as she’s loving and considerate...

Did Paul have a wife? I think some early Christian proselytizers had women they traveled with whom they called sister wives. But they were all celibate or chaste.

I do appreciate you telling me what “bugs” you about me and why. I have a lot to learn. :(

Well, it's nice that age 66 you're still open to learning. However, if you don't step out of your comfort zone much you won't be learning much... Unless Jesus is telling you very interesting things. Far be it from me to wrest you of your comfort in the bosom of Jesus. I just don't think we could ever be a couple!
 
The way I see it, all the world's religions really only taught us two big things:

1. expand the circle of beings that you care about
2. want fewer objects

I consider myself a good Christian (childhood religion), but am probably also a decent Jew, Muslim, Buddhist and many other things on this criteria.

Many a war has been fought over the small things though.
 
I hate religious wars ...
 
In the band that I am in, the two main song writers are extremely anti-religious, so our songs are about breaking the chains of religion and thinking for yourself. They think everyone should be lord of themselves and a servant to none. I agree with that 100%.

In one of our albums we printed: Religion is one of the greatest evils inflicted on all of mankind and should be annihilated. Think for yourself, worship thyself and be a servant to none.

Now, this does not mean we are satanists (Even the perception of what a satanist is wrong to begin with. But that is another subject.), which I am sure some of you will probably think. We just want everyone to be free with themselves and not be tied down to religion that they can't live their life the way they want to live it.
 
I have never really delved into (researched) the possibility that Jesus never existed at all. I was raised going to a United Methodist church w/ my grandparents and later my mother switched to 7th Day Adventist.

My perspective now is based on a lot of different information. I believe very strongly in the "he was an amalgamation of other religious figures" from all of correlations to Egyptian, Zoroastrian and Pagan (I forget if "Pagan" is supposed to be capitalized, no offense intended if not) mythos.

My current theory of Jesus is that he was a bit of a charismatic genius character, like Charles Manson or Russel Brand or perhaps even like some of the famous illusionists such as David Blaine. It wouldn't take too much in a time when word of mouth was the primary form of communication. A few clever and well placed tricks here and there, mixed with a message of love and peace and goodwill towards all. I can see Jesus drawing crowds with his "miracles" and then they stay for the sermon after the show.

It's quite possible Jesus was a talented illusionist who used his magic show and tricks to spread a message of peace. Many of the things he is attributed to saying could be construed as not necessarily claims to being divine in the sense that Christians interpret it (son of an omnipotent being) bur rather showing by example the divinity inherent within everyone (everyone is a "child of God").

There's tons of Bible quotes that I don't know very well and am currently too lazy to search out, but I think most people would be familiar with the one that goes something like, "In my father's house there are many mansions...". To me, that verse is very polyamorus in nature. There is a place for everyone in a heart that is full of love and each place is not some small corner, but a mansion, an incredible palace! This is a metaphor for love(God).

This is just a theory, of course, and as such is one of a multitude of possible explanations or things to believe. Ultimately I agree with LovingRadiance that it doesn't really matter all that much. We have the here and now to deal with, so unless you are sold on the divinity of Christ as being somehow more divine than the divinity inherent within each and every person, he was just another man, however extraordinary and impressive he was to those who lived in the same time and either observed or heard second hand of his amazing abilities.
 
Mentioning Zoroastrianism, and calling Jesus a magician, is interesting.

The scholar priests of the religion of Persia are called "magi." And most of us know that the 3 men from "the East," who we call "wise men," who came to visit Jesus, were called "magi" in the original text. Why did 3 Magi come to visit the infant Jesus and give him gifts of great worth? ;)
 
I'm not sure if I answered this, there may have been a Jesus but I don't believe in a god and therefore don't believe if there was a Jesus that he was born from a virgin. Even the mythos of Santa Claus comes from a non fictional character. I do like what Jesus represents and I think the whole Wwjd movement keeps people in check
 
I have set my site preferences to 900,000 kadzillion comments per page (slight exaggeration) and there are 2 pages of this thread. No time to read through it all. I voted for 5 options (5 is a magic number... as are ALL others), some of which I don't agree with exactly, e.g. "He taught us to love others." Well, that was part of his teaching, perhaps the most important part. But people were loving each other long before Jesus came along.

On my last (possibly forever, now that my mother has died) visit to my largely fundamentalist Christian family, I wrote a letter to all the members who were legally adults. (Excepting my mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer's and had fallen under the thumb of 2 MALE children. [I fought a frustrating and losing battle for her right to hold onto whatever dignity was still left to her. I was bullied into curtailing my visit by 5 weeks - the last time I ever saw her alive - by these 2 "good Christian" brothers.]) It included the following sentiment:

"I suspect that some of you resent me for the fact that your children actually like me as a person. You have always taught them that it is impossible to love others if you haven't got Jesus' love in your hearts. I demonstrate quite clearly that this is a lie. I love many - not all - of them. Mine is not a blanket love but a selective one, and I do have my favourites." [An 8-year-old nephew told me self-righteously that HE was going to Heaven, but that I was destined to "the lake of eternal FIRE". He seemed quite smug and satisfied with the travel arrangements.]

Whether or not Jesus ever existed, the body of teachings attributed to him has been corrupted into a hate-filled system of rules, prejudice, and condemnation-of-others'-shortcomings (which aren't necessarily shortcomings at all) by centuries of anal-retentive bigots and religious fanatics of exactly the kind who allegedly crucified "their Lord and Saviour". If Jesus DID ever show up again (without IRREFUTABLE proof of identity), "his followers" would crucify him all over again (one way or another).

Come to think of it, that "IRREFUTABLE proof of identity" probably wouldn't save him. It could always be "lost in transit". Many REAL Christians wouldn't stand for Jesus' "betrayal" of "the fundamental teachings of our Lord".
 
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Thanks for the new posts and votes, guys. MrFarFromRight, I increasingly see that you've been through some pretty awful stuff. The kind of stuff for which the prayer was invented, "Lord, protect me from thy followers."

Hmmm, Jesus as a magician. I had never thought of that possibility before. Interesting.
 
Mentioning Zoroastrianism, and calling Jesus a magician, is interesting.

The scholar priests of the religion of Persia are called "magi." And most of us know that the 3 men from "the East," who we call "wise men," who came to visit Jesus, were called "magi" in the original text. Why did 3 Magi come to visit the infant Jesus and give him gifts of great worth? ;)

No takers? I will answer my own question.

from wiki:

Leading characteristics [of Zoroastrianism], such as messianism, the Golden Rule, heaven and hell, and free will, influenced other religious systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Islam.

Zoroastrianism was the religion of the powerful Persian Empire from 600 BCE til 600 CE, when Islam took over.

It influenced the developing religion of the Hebrews when the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonian Empire, and the reigning Emperor of Persia freed the Judahite nobility that had been captured by Babylon some 50 years earlier.

The proto-Judaism of the Hebrews was therefore much influenced by Babylonian religion during the captivity. The Babylonian god was El. Yahweh was determined to be a son of El, who was given Israel and Judah to rule by his father. Later Yahweh and El were conflated in Jewish theology. Yahweh was translated as Lord, and El as God. Anytime you read LORD God in the Old Testament of a Christian Bible, you are reading a translation of Yahweh El.

The months of the Jewish calendar Tammuz and Elul are named after gods of Babylonia. Prior to the captivity, the Hebrew months were only numbered, not named.

The Persian religion gave Judaism the idea of an afterlife, including heaven and hell, and made their Shaytan, a member of Yahweh's divine counsel, into a great symbol of evil, Satan. The Persian emperor, Cyrus, who freed the Judahite nobility from Babylon and allowed their return was called Messiah in the Bible!

Zoroastrianism had a dualistic idea of a good god, Ahura Mazda, and an evil great demon, Angra Mainyu. Prior to being influenced by Persia, Hebrew religion taught that everything, good and evil, came from Yahweh. After the later influence, good came from Yahweh, evil came from Satan (who was eventually conflated with the Canaanite god Ba'al, Bel, Be'elzebul, "Beelzebub").

Angelology also increased in intertestamental Judaism at this time, as a result of the influence of Zoroastrianism. Suddenly there was a great population of good and bad angels floating around in the heavens.

So, I think the Persian Magi coming to honor Jesus was a sly reference by the author to what Christianity owed to Persian religion. It seems important to the author to suggest the Magi believed the infant Jesus was an avatar of their supreme god Ahura Mazda.
 
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Hmmm, interesting idea. I have no reason to dispute it ...
 
Hi Mags
I just wanted to say I've really enjoyed reading your input in the recent religious discussions.
Evie
 
Hi Mags
I just wanted to say I've really enjoyed reading your input in the recent religious discussions.
Evie

Thank you Evie! It is my hope that some people are enjoying the information I am providing, without reactionarily and shallowly dismissing it as mere "Christian bashing."
 
I don't think it is Christian bashing ... and I think even loveboston would agree with me.
 
I think he's been absent ever since I mentioned resources about Gnosticism.
 
Awww, really? I find Gnosticism interesting and would like to know more.
 
Well it was on one of your threads, Kevin. Maybe the "love Jesus" one.
 
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