The Son of God? An Atheists view please.

by Miss Worldly 17 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Miss Worldly

  Please bare with me on this.

  Firstly, I do not intend to cause offence to anyone. I apologise if what I am saying is blasphemous to some. I appreciate your views and mine may differ. I was just wondering, if you are an Atheist, for what reason do you think the bible was written?

  My view? I have come to two conclusions. 1- The bible was written to frighten or control men by men who wanted that control. The whole thing is made up stories to aid a monumental control of the people in a time when no other sources of information were available.

  Or 2- Jesus did exist. A man who either wanted power over people or had some sort of psychosis or other mental health problem that lead him to believe he was the son of the creator of all things. In a time when no one knew any better, people believed him, loved or feared him. Maybe even a hereditary condition passed on from his mother as she believed he was the son of God.

  If someone today believes they are the son of God or Satan or whoever, no one would believe them. They would be treated for mental illness.

  Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my uneducated random musings. Miss W.
• 

  punkofnice

  if you are an Atheist, for what reason do you think the bible was written?

  I don't believe the bible was written as a whole document as such. It was a collection of old legends and fairy tales that was bunged together by some religious blokes to control the sheeple.
  

  Jesus did exist

  I am not aware of any convincing evidence for him outside of the bible. Some rabbi or hippie might have existed around that time but not the son of god.

  I am so convinced the bible is not a divine writing and jesus as we saw him in that book, never existed, that I am overcome with apathy at the subject.
  
  
  
• 

  tor1500

  Hi Miss Worldly,

  I'm a witness and believe in God...and the son of God...

  But what I want to say is this it don't matter who wrote the bible or if Jesus was the Son of Man or is he God himself, at the end of the day, no matter what you believe....

  Are you your brother's keeper, do you feed the hungry, will you help someone in need, would you give a thirsty man water, plainly speaking...WOULD YOU HELP ANYONE???????..

  You don't have to be an atheist or a bible thumper to answer that question....

  We all put too much attention on whether there is a God/Jesus or not...that's not the issue at all we are all fellow human beings....and we are our brothers keepers, if we don't help one another who will ?

  Tor
• 

  Caedes

  I think if you look at the bible from the point of view of an atheist the thing that first becomes obvious is that the books are clearly not all related. If you compare Ecclesiastes to the Psalms or to Revelation and if you compare the gospels to Paul's writings you can see that the different books of the bible have some very different messages.

  I think your first conclusion is correct for most of the bible, the second conclusion I am not sure about. I think there probably was a figure that the biblical Jesus was based on but I don't think we can assume what that figure claimed for himself since the new testament was written so long after his life. The first mention of the gospels doesn't happen until the second century. But I would agree that he was certainly popular enough to give rise to Christianity even if I don't believe he was the son of god.

  You are definitely correct that believing that you are the son of god would count as a mental illness today. We do have a resident poster who does think this but I don't know what username they use now or if he is still a contributor, he has some very strange ideas and regularly gets told to get help with his condition.
  
• 

  TheWonderofYou

  Hey Miss Wordly,

  if I was an atheist I would still believe that the bible is an important work of world literature. It tells after all about the world, dear Miss Wordly, how worldy things pull down and how holy things build up, wordly and holy things that happened with people in this world.

  1. The bible was written to frighten or control men

  Its a message of hope, freedom, mercy. The bible is the text that evolved, emerged and was collected along a long road in which the nomadic shepards and shepardess became permanent settled, urbanized and built a temple and got a state. Their picture of god changed from a mountain god or local god to a universal cosmic god that is in heaven. Thats for me a fascination story, and it is varnished with heroic tales and sayings about importance of values like friendship and mercy.

  As athesist I would like to read the Psalms or to read the bible book "song of songs", in which a horny shepard falls in love with a girl, the texts about his longing and desire and I would understand that this text was written to give people hope and to teach a merciful tangible close god in contrast to a distant majestic "Zebaot"-god. Both different images of god existed in the world and Israel made a decision for the merciful god. Alone this story besides the many titles that were given to gods, how much people were interested in a religious life in those times and how they made their gods to look like they wanted.

  The most important part of the Old Testament was the Thora, it was not seen as control instrument, but as guidance, thus say all old rabbis. Besides that there was a civil legislation.
• 

  Caedes

  Its a message of hope, freedom, mercy.

  Apart from all the nasty bits of course.

  Israel made a decision for the merciful god

  Apart from all the killing and slavery of course.

  how worldy things pull down and how holy things build up,

  Apart from the fact that isn't true of course.

  So apart from the facts you are spot on!
  
• 

  TheWonderofYou

  ----

  2. If someone today believes they are the son of God or Satan or whoever, no one would believe them. They would be treated for mental illness.

  The title "Son of God" has nothing to do with illusion of mental illness. It has historical basis in jewish world. It was a common term in the jewish theology and enthronement rite and not a term for a biological son of god but a honory title.

  The titel "Son of god" appears in the old testament of the hebrew bible already before Jesus Christ lived at all.

  Hosea 11,1 calls the people of Israel "the son". In the Psalms the enthroned kings are called "sons" of god. Of course the jewish kings did not think that they were biological sons of god, but adopted the ancient oriental tradition where the at the kings courts the honory titel "son of God" was used at the enthronement ceremonies. So the term came to Israel from oldoriental, babylonian enthronement rites.

  Psalm 2 uses this oriental royal court language in the enthronement scene. But here in Psalm 2 with this formula the king is not the biological son of God but is chosen and adopted and gets obligated legally to act as minister in the place of god, representing god. The kings were also anointed with anointed oil, like christians today do at the confirmation, what underlined this ministry.

  6 Saying: “I myself have installed my king+On Zion,+ my holy mountain.” 7 Let me proclaim the decree of Jehovah;He said to me: “You are my son;+Today I have become your father.+Psalm

  The king David was Son not because he was it biological, but because he was adopted as son, in the language. Therefore the PROCREATION, another term, is the act of chosing by god. Israel is likewise called the chosen Son of God. The kings are chosen, the anointed are chosen ones. - There is no biological procreation.

  With that in mind the term "Son of God" was alread well known in the jewish world and should not mean that Jesus is the biological son of the father but rather it meant a king or Messiah.

  But of Jesus is told that he was killed because he agreed to be the "son of God". It was the blasphemy for what he was killed to say to be the son of god. Was it because no one else was allowed to use the title than the real king the awaited Messiah.?

  Of course it could be that a wannabe-Messiah who wanted to become king or messiah lived and was killed and that he was so ill that he said he was even a biological son of god and not that Jesus he was like in the gospels a great teacher a intelligent rabbi.

  or it could have been that the story of a Wannabe-messiah was only a creative invention of the later church to have a hero, but he was in reality a looser, but who wants a looser, a crucified, as founder of a religion, the romans who wanted to defeat the Jews?

  __

  the dead sea scrolls dating about 200 - 100 BCE often combined the title "Messiah" with Son of God and Son of the highest. Another fact that shows that it was a common term.
• 

  TheWonderofYou

  Caedes -

  I see the stories of the bible as report about eternal struggle between the pagan origin and the humanity. The Thorah was only the underlay for the silverware and plates, not to be understood literally but to be used as basis of the interpretation by the important theologians, man, priests and rabbis, what they are doint even today. As the interpretion was the purpose of writing and collecting the bible texts, therefore it exists yet.
• 

  OUTLAW

  Jesus did exist.

  Of course, you have overwhelming proof, right?
  

  for what reason do you think the bible was written?

  Ancient Goat Herders Needed to Be Told..

  Not To Shit Inside Their Camp..
  

  
• 

  HowTheBibleWasCreated

  There is no evidence for Jesus and in fact there is some evidence he didn't exist. The main historian (Philo) of Jesus time was sitting with Herod on the Passover when Jesus came into the room and then was taken back to Pilate. Even if Jesus was a simple prophet he would have been mentioned by Philo, The idea of the Logos battling Satan and defeating death was already a concept in Judaism at the time.

  The two famous mentions in Jospehus are 1. An interpolation (As earlier texts omit it) and 2. Not the same Jesus (High priest int he 60s)

  Tacatis mention is too late and is using christian legends.

  As for the TORAH (Not Thorah) It and other 'historical' books of the OT were likely written in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE taking material from Plato, Borosus, Manetho, Homer, Herodotus and previous legends.

  The most accurate of these works is the book of Kings and even this distorts history by making Jeho Israelite (he was Syrian according to the Tel Dan Stele) and making Hezekiah a hero when he was a coward etc.

  Works like the prophets Amos, Hosea, Isiah etc contain cores of early prophetic sayings but have been edited by later propagandists.

  Psalms, Proverbs etc are scattered all through history. Ex. Psalm 45 is about Ahab and Jezebel. Psalm 110 is likely about Cyrus. Psalm 30 is likely from theyear 164 CE when the temple was redicated etc