The "Historical Jesus" and Christian Faith

by Narkissos 75 Replies latest jw friends

Terry

Here is, perhaps, a fresh thought. (Or, a thought from a fresh guy :)
It seems to me that WORSHIP is man's natural reaction to encountering transcendance in the form of person's possessing it.
Awe leads to humility. Humility leads to a extreme admiration and subjection to what is perceived as superior.
Are you still with me?
Any time a human comes in contact with something they cannot explain away...
Any time a human encounters something perceived to be "divine"...
Any time a person is filled with awe, wonder, surprise and an intellectual inability to encompass the grandness of a person or idea...
the result is WORSHIP.
On a primitive level, there is the worship of objects which represent ideas said to be transcendant. We call these idols. The worshippers call them icons (aids to worship).
Beyond all that....
Christianity, in particular, seems to have made the Jesus character and story into their own personal icon and the bible into an idol.
The fundamentalists seem to worship the Bible itself. They refuse to entertain even the slightest hint that the stories of scripture aren't 100% accurate in every way.
Beyond all that...
A lot of the comments here seem to indicate a strong QUID PRO QUO stance about Jesus and the bible.
I get X from my belief. It does X for me.
This is not worship! This is scratch my back and I'll scratch your back. Or, make me feel "saved" or forgiven and give me a purpose and I'll serve and defend and believe as a result of the service you are providing for my self.
See what I am saying?
Facts about Jesus are almost beside the point. Christianity was, in the earliest days, largely a social movement consisting of assertions of fact and embraces of naive credulity. The strength of worship relied on the level of utter lack of skepticism.
Intellectually, the idea of even being skeptical was almost unheard of by the people (whose level of education was spotty at best) who experienced total committment to the ideal of JESUS and his Kingdom.
Today, however....
Jesus is a name brand.
Jesus is like mouthwash, deoderant and make-up. He has been marketed as a product no sane person can live without.
The usefulness of Jesus has transitioned every time the needs of Christian Society has changed. He is merciful and forgiving when we need mercy and forgiveness. He is an Avenger and Warrior when we need Christian soldiers to fight an enemy. Jesus is charitable and charismatic when we join certain movements and Jesus is angry and revolutionary when we align ourselves to other sorts of work.
One size fits all!
Bottom line?
I work in a bookstore. The only people who actually read fact-based writings on Jesus are Seminary Students. The average layperson reads Christian Fiction and tepid apologia by Josh McDowell and Lee Stroble.
Christianity today isn't based on a knowledge of actual historical facts about Jesus. (It tried that during the Age of Enlightenment).
Christianity is retail establishment marketing a line of sundry products with the Jesus Brand attached.
Ask Joel Osteen and Rick Warren how profitable Jesus is without thorns and condemnations.
Ask the "God wants us to be rich" crowd what Jesus means to them.
Ask the "Jesus is coming and boy is he pissed" crowd who Jesus is.
Ask JW's how important Jesus is to the preaching work. (What has Jesus been doing since 1914 anyway?) :)
hillary_step

Narkissos,
An interesting thread. Were I a believer I would try hard to find a theological compromise in 2). However, as we noted on another thread, the believers faith is like water and can find any level and fill any void it needs to to survive.
Though the shock of having to seriously consider 1) might throw the believer into trying to prove 2), eventually both viewpoints will be embraced into some sort of new theology.
Looked at without dimensions, if a man told us that a voice instructed him to kill his son as a measure of his faith, we would rightly suppose that the person was suffering some sort of schizophrenic delusion. The believer however sees moral and prophetic purpose within this cameo. For this reason 'believers' are imo intellectually untrustworthy as both 1) and 2) would be viewed as a challenge to overcome, rather than a decision to be made.
HS

nvrgnbk

but it leaves the individual subject a psychologically groundless "orphan," bound to "function" as a good cog in the machinery or get out of its way

Profound observation.

Thanks for your latest post, Burn.

I mean that sincerely.

However, the belief in an afterlife, in itself, is not erroneous.

Explain to me why it isn't, please.

"Creatures are not born with 
desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger
well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there
is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a
thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world
can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another
world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that
the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to
satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so,
I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for,
these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the
something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage.

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.

The need itself is evidence.

The desire to live on after cessation of organic life as evidence that we do is an interesting concept, but does it fit reality?

Let me see if I follow you.

e.g.:

I have the desire to get Burn to admit that his clinging to God is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Creatures are not born with
desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. 

Therefore, Burn will admit that his clinging to God is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Am I getting it?

Sad emo

Terry, for once I agree with you - on your description of the situation today at least!
Too many spoon fed Christians who are either not prepared or too frightened to challenge or be challenged on their beliefs.
That's when the real pretenders get weeded out...
BurnTheShips

Christianity, in particular, seems to have made the Jesus character and story into their own personal icon and the bible into an idol.
*sigh*
The fundamentalist mind virus plagues even those that have abandoned belief. Bible first Christianity is an innovation of the last 500 years, Terry.
Burn
Borgia

IMO, faith and especially Christian faith has nothing to do with historical fact.

The NT itself focusses on the weak point of the whole story by only denouncing opinion contrary to the historicity of the dealings of JC like 1 John without giving so much of a single shred of evidence. Historical JC deniers are to be evaded and not to be received in ones house or even greeted.

Paul's writings suffer from the same ailments. i.e 1 Kor 15 about the resurrections is a classic. Instead of saying hello to long list of faithful, he'd done better to sum up the names of the ones still alive who were witnesses to the resurrections of JC. Case in point is Paul himself because he claims to be a witness to JC's resurrections, thus enforcing the idea of an historical Jesus, due to his alleged encounter on the road to Damascus. But nothing has been furnished to that effect. What we are presented are the stories based on contemporary and older traditions like Krishna and Mithra who share an almost chilling resemblance with the life and times of JC.

Justin Martyr too had noticed this and simply dismissed the critique with a slight of hand saying: "the devil did it".

Whatever the outcome on your question Narkissos, I would say, it makes no difference. People will cling to that what has been ingrained into them for 2000 years. To undo it, we might need some more time than just a few years of enlightenment at the beginning of the 21st century.

Cheers

Borgia
Rapunzel

I would say that, from a Christian perspective, number one would be worse; from the perspective of a believer, it would be devastating.And yet, although I'm not a believer in any revealed religion, I think that choice number one is how it is.
As I have said before, human beings are creatures that have always sat around and told stories to each other. All of our "truths" are merely stories and narratives. And because Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all religions of the Book - the [printed] Word - our foundational cultural narratives have been put down in writing.
If I may, I would like to quote a passage from the author, Imre Kertesz, who writes in the novel Liquidation - "I believe in writing - nothing else; just writing. Man may live like a worm, but he writes like a god. There was a time when that secret was known, but now it has been forgotten; the world is composed of disintegrating fragments, an incoherent dark chaos, sustained by writing alone. If you have a concept of the world, if you have not yet forgotten all that has happened, that you have a world at all, it is writing that has created that for you, and ceaselessly goes on creating it..."
moshe

I would prefer #1- to find out I was completely bamboozled, rather than find out Jesus had morphed over a period of centuries into what we have today. -Mass hysteria can become fact in the eye of the beholder..
BurnTheShips
Let me see if I follow you.
e.g.:
I have the desire to get Burn to admit that his clinging to God is nothing more than wishful thinking.
That is your particular desire. It is not a universal human imperative. So no, that is a bad example.
What do you offer me Nate? In my view my belief has salvific power. Yours has none. The most you can offer me is a life better lived and I can argue that it does not. If it did, why have the vast majority of people preferred to live their lives with some form of religion and belief in the numinous?
Creatures are not born with
desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.
Therefore, Burn will admit that his clinging to God is nothing more than wishful thinking.
Am I getting it?
You believe what suits you, what is in accordance with your own nature, personality and prejudices, no different from anyone else.
Burn
Tuesday

How many followers of the Khmer Rouge, Stalinists, Maoists, and others that followed atheism justified their actions with the idea that there is no God, and because of their atheism? I find it odd that the anti-theist refuses to realize that everytime they point a finger at other religions that three are pointing back at them.
I didn't want to let this comment pass by. I'll ask you the actual question, can you show how many followers of Khmer Rouge, Stalinists, Maoists actually have put in writing that they were committing atrocities because they didn't believe in God? Did Stalin even commit his atrocities BECAUSE he was an atheist or because it suited what he wanted to do? So I guess that's a challenge; prove that atrocities have been committed in the name of Atheism, for the sole reason that the person didn't believe in God. I'm sure people have committed atrocities that were atheists, there's a difference between people doing bad things and happen to be something as opposed to doing bad things BECAUSE of something. I'll await your examples.

The "Historical Jesus" and Christian Faith

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