Thank you for proving my point.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
- Start date
Thank you for proving my point.
Now who's "fecking stupid".
It's funny you talk of morals. My first thought when I heard the Joss Stone case was "poor girl, that's going to haunt her". Your first thought was "rape".
Are you religious by any chance?
you cannot prove or disprove God. Its a matter of faith.
Salip. Just calm down. Respect others views and others will respect yours.
The key to understanding other views is to have an open mind. To accept it is probable we don't have all the answers. Believe me no one has.
Salip. Just calm down. Respect others views and others will respect yours.
The key to understanding other views is to have an open mind. To accept it is probable we don't have all the answers. Believe me no one has.
Is what a psychologist might say.
i think most of us respect people either way, if they choose to believe in god or not its their choice but saliph your just a cock
Saliph's a wum I suspect, or a fecking dullard. One of the two.
I fear he is genuine. The sad thing is he believes every word he says.
Wtf!
Norway? Ahh, that explains it.
Wtf!
I suspect this guy is not a complete idiot.
dont worry sal, can i call you sal? i wouldnt believe in god either if i was from norway
Do you never get bored of being wrong?
Well you know what they say about them!
Well this is a hard one. Religion can be an extremely positive thing for a person setting out some principles that help them live a happy and healthy life. Religioun has also been the cause for an enormous amount of war and death. While I don't believe in any particular religion myself I don't have a problem with those who do. It can give your life meaning. The problem is when extreme beliefs in a religion seem to override right and wrong.
I think there's generally a big problem in the ways different people understand what religion actually means. For example, I personally dislike (even hate) religion, but I love Christianity. And even within Christianity I often find a great difference between Christianity and Jesus where I'd describe Christianity as a religion and Jesus as a movement, or Christianity as a bureaucratic institution and Jesus as a practical and personal reality.
In that sense even the initial assertion ('religion is bollocks') is meaningless as it is deeply ambiguous and subjective because it depends on what one personally associates with it.
I know this whole debate has been done to death one here a million times - and nobody will ever change their mind - but that particular statement always bothers me.
How would you "disprove" anything? And why?
Well, it works very practically in the fields of social justice and human rights. Check Martin Luther King, for example, or the South-American liberation theology movement where Jesus is used as an example of how to relate to the outcast the poor, the oppressed, and any other marginalised people in a society. There is this clear idea that the only way in which one can fully demonstrate that he believes in God is only by the way in which he relates to the people around him. So in the Gospels you get the picture that Jesus is constantly putting the emphasis on the way one treats 'his neighbour' and if someone does not love, help, sacrifice, forgive, etc. he has not understood anything about God and in fact couldn't be further away from him.
This is why I think that religion and Christianity very often give Jesus a bad name as what he actually stood for has been perverted (intentionally or unintentionally) beyond recognition.
Why Jesus and not Christianity? All that "be nice to your neighbour" shtick is common to the religion as a whole. There are also loads of other religions that preach social justice and a duty of care to those less well off than yourself. Islam being a particularly good example.
In fact, those themes are so common it's fairly obvious that there's a shared humanity which underpins all the fictional constructs that differentiate one religion from another.
What do you mean by why Jesus and not Christianity?
Being nice to your neighbour is more then just a shtick. As for Islam, in my opinion it is only an offshoot of Christianity and Judaism anyway, and for that matter even 'Christianity' is just a sect born out of Judaism. So I don't really see that there are so many different religions out there preaching this- and the three Abrahamic ones have the same origin anyway.
Because my original question to you related to the distinction you made between the two. They're one and the same to me.
Isn't Jesus an historical figure? And isn't christianity a cult that was built around him?
That's what I thought. Although, as far as I know, he's a historical figure with no concrete evidence of his existence (could be wrong on this).
However, I was responding to a post which described him as a "movement" and a "practical and personal reality"
Arrrgghh...I know you're not specifically talking about this, but it's just a really annoying feature of religious arguments to me that the Golden Rule is somehow some excusory facet to religion that gives it legitimacy and (in some theological arguments, not necessarily yours btw) a reason for it's need in society, when the Golden Rule is one of the earliest (if not THE earliest) philosophical and moral maxims of human civilisation and it's useage dates back well before any religion (or certainly any Abmrahamic religion's) appropriation of it...
The Golden Rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Again, not that you're arguing this, I could easily be taking your words out of context, but it seems to me that if we're being fair and saying (rightly) that all the bad aspects often thrown at religion, such as it's imperialism and war mongering, are actually often dependent on mostly political factors, then it's also fair to say that all the good aspects of it are too. The Golden Rule is the highest and most respected form of human understanding, our very definition of empathy, so whilst it's true that many of the wars fought in religions name would still have been fought without its appropriation, it's also just as fair to say that humanity is very capable of altruism & empathy without religion too....As we invented this very maxim without it to begin with..
Religion has undoubtedly helped spread it, but it's also helped spread a shit load of undesirable things too. So if religion isn't needed to rile people to war or cause divisions in society, it also isn't needed to bring it together and cause peace & understanding. You can't take one but not the other IMO. All of it is an appropriation of fundamental human traits and desires.
There are ancient roman records which talk about him, so I believe he did exist. It's not concrete but it's good enough for me, although I suspect that his life has been the subject of huge exaggeration since.
You could argue that Christianity has become too institutionalised. You can have a structured, Christian denomination with a congregation that isolates itself from the society, becomes exclusive, pompous, self-righteous, plays no active role in the community, develops certain standards and criteria which only makes it more self-orientated, etc. Quite the opposite of how the NT views Jesus and his little group of followers.
All of which are roughly 100 years after he lived. There are no roman records which talk of Jesus during the time of Jesus (that I know of.)...There are one or two Jewish records who talk of him earlier, notably Josephus, but again, in about AD 90, and they are certainly not concrete...
Personally I agree that there may have been someone called Jesus, as it is more likely (and convenient) to hang your myths on an existing influential figure than just invent one, but that's still really just an opinion.
As for exaggeration, well we just need to take a look at how some people hagiograph (Get in Pogue!!) their heroes these days despite there being countless almost relentless and consistant documentation of everything...And how many people still debate that there may have been historical basis for the legends of Robin Hood & King Arthur despite them being 15th & 6th Century figures well after the time of Jesus, which again, no one can verify...So just imagine what that mentality would achieve in an age with very little modernity and no indisputable verification, and a hundred years after he was dead...
In fact the only sensible conclusion to draw from that is that there is no chance the possible historical Jesus bore any relation to the mythological one at all....
I think you took me out of context a bit as I was kinda comparing and contrasting Jesus vs. organised religion. But I do understand your points and agree with most of them. I agree, for example, that religion isn't (necessarily) needed to cause peace & understanding- although I think it could/should be the driving force behind it and that it ceases to be a 'religion' in the very moment it fails to do so. You know what I mean?
I think where I see the difference with Jesus though is the concept of being pro-active as opposed to being nice and kind whenever an opportunity arises. 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you' does not promote just an occasional act of kindness but calls you out to actively put yourself into service for others. This is where I find the essence of divinity, when you shift the focus and attention from yourself and actively look for ways in which you can contribute to improving the life of your neighbour. There would basically be no war or any kind of aggression if this principle would be applied consistently.
I agree, the NT does preach pro-activism and it's influence has surely motivated others to do the same...but again, so has basic altruism. The Red Cross, Amnesty International, Unicef etc...All famous organisations that put themselves out just to help people without any need of religious motivation, or indeed spreading a religious doctrine with it.
From what I've gone through during my studies of Second Temple Judaism and the Historical Jesus research, there's no doubt that he existed. It's another question altogether if he thought of himself to be God and if other viewed him that way.
May I ask, what it is you've gone through that lead you to believe there's "no doubt" he existed?
"No doubt" is taking it too far. Apart from the bible there is not a lot of contemporary evidence for his existence.
No, Jesus is not a historical figure. He is in the mind of the Church but if you go to a historian he will laugh at you.
It's quite simple, actually, just look at the number of prominent figures and various sects that arose during that time, the emergence of the Pharisees and Saducees, then the resistance groups and their leading figures (the Maccabees), the well-known sect of the Essenes, the various self proclaimed prophets and messiahs (Paul mentions some groups), various religious teachers and Sanhedrin members such as Gamaliel, rabbies and sages, ben Zakai, rabbi Yeshua bar Yosef, then there's the most prominent Eleasar ben Jair, up to bar Kokhba, etc.
Basically there's always been a number of prominent individuals- teachers and revolutionaries- that there simply wasn't any need to completely make up and invent a figure, out of nothing. The important thing was to prove the person's credentials, for example you have Yohanan and his followers enquiring about Jesus if he really is the one they've been waiting for, and so forth.
Know many historians, do you?
He probably did exist, but the original texts have been messed with over time. And, of course, he almost certainly looked nothing like Western-art depictions of him.