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Goodbye Jesus

What Is The Nature Of Jesus?


R. S. Martin

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yet you claim fact where there are not facts and you even admit there are no facts and admit the historians can verify nothing of which you claim. why?
Sorry to disappoint you, Dave, but I truly, truly respect your right to believe what you want to or don't want to believe.
You disappointed me by not answering my question. I said nothing about your respecting my rights or not.
I embrace freedom of and freedom from religion as foundational cornerstones to happy living. I am happy to believe that the tomb existed, the women existed, and the tomb was empty. I trust you are happy to believe otherwise. We'll know for sure when we leave this existence, or maybe we won't. But for now you and I, Dave, will have to agree to disagree.
couldn't answer the questions? Why believe? And, specifically, why believe in a religion that says, not believes, but makes it a law, that you should be dead? Why be a salad bar christian, just picking the pieces you want and ignoring the rest? How do you know what to ignore? Why bother?
What are you trying to sell me, Dave? :Hmm:
Nothing.
Seriously, I get your point. But everyone is a salesman.
I got nothing to sell here.
We are wise to turn a cynical ear to just about everything we hear, if not everything. Not necessarily a rejecting ear, but a cynical one.
I did, and gods couldn't hold up to an honest, sincere, not even cynical, inquiry.
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Here is my ex-timonial.

It's a pretty short story. My posts (just like my telephone conversations) are usually brief and (occasionally) to the point.

 

Thank you for the link. I read your ex-timonial (new word for me) and all the posts that followed it.

Very interesting story to read.

 

My current-timonial is that my family was not religious. My parents never took me to church, not even once. But from early childhood, I was the weird kid who was interested in religion, read the Bible, went to Vacation Bible School and Sunday school. At age 10, I was baptized in a Southern Baptist church; no one from the family came. It was just me. (My parents weren't neglectful or uninterested in their son's life, just not interested in things religious.)

 

At 13, we moved from that area of town and there was no church in walking or bike-riding distance, so I stopped attending. I'd still watch religious television on Sunday mornings. (I was a weird kid, I tell you.) At 16, I could drive and within two months I was driving to an Assembly of God church and I quickly got very involved: CA (Christ's Ambassadors) leader, Sunday school teacher, newsletter editor. It was my life for the next few years.

 

Then a closer reading of Romans in a non-KJV translation set me free to stop believing that I was rotten and dirty and wicked (funny enough, I was sitting in the car reading Romans while my mother was inside the gynecologist office having her annual "female exam" when the epiphany hit me). From then on I grew to believe that I was, by faith, "the righteousness of God." Not because I was good, but because this righteousness had been given to me, spiritually. (Still have to "work out" this salvation in the flesh.)

 

The first A/G I had been involved in was very rural and simple. Not acting superior, just saying that while the people were great and loving and kind, I needed something else, so I started attending the A/G "in town" that was more "uppity." The change was good, but still I wasn't satisfied. My spirit was not being fed. I remember the day I asked that my membership be withdrawn from the church. The pastor made a beeline to me as I sat in the pew to talk me out of it. There was no talking me out of it. I was 21. That was the last time I was a member of any religious organization or attended anywhere regularly. (Yes, I have had the "forsaking not the assembline of yourselves together as the manner of some is," thrown at me over and over and over.)

 

Somehow, I was never hurt by religion. I was able to "cast my care" about things. I'd work them out. Many gay people are very hurt by abusive forms of religion. I have known I was gay since I was 8 years old, and somehow I was never seriously hurt by religion around this issue. Of course, there were moments of discomfort, disappointment, etc., but I survived intact. I call that grace.

 

Over time, I have continued to study and read and seek answers to questions. These days I'm working on a master's in religion (my first master's is in history). Through it all, I always end up at the tomb and I always find it empty and I always feel free indeed.

 

I think we all are very different -- genetically, culturally, temperamentally, etc. What a terrible world it would be if everyone wanted to be a math teacher or everyone wanted to spend their day playing piano or everyone wanted to be a professor of history. We need a few people to do all these things, but only a few. I think the same is true of religion. If everyone prayed for three hours a day (as you once did, Mythra) and everyone wanted to lead music at church, and everyone wanted to be a Bible scholar, the world would crumble around our feet.

 

We all have different genes. If there is a "god gene," I was born with it. So it makes sense to me. As Martin Luther said, "Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen." (Yes, I know he was an anti-Semite, but if I threw out the window everyone who was an anti-Semite or a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or a slave-owner or a name-your-sin, I'd have no one to quote!!)

 

-CC in MA

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You believe in a literal, flesh and blood Jesus that died and rose again. Yet you respect the views of someone who might interpret Jesus as being metaphor. Is that about right?

 

Yes, that's right. While I disagree with many viewpoints, I rarely feel that the disagreement is grounds for disrespecting the other person. Even the issue close to me: the gay thing. Take Dr. James Dobson, for example. I disagree with him on this issue. I think he's flat-out wrong about the gay thing. I might get impatient with him and even angry with him about it, but he's a man of his era (my father used to say "I don't want a queer within a mile of me"), he's likely not going to change, he does do some good work, I'm sure he loves his children and is a good man in many ways.

 

To disagree is not necessarily to disrespect and rarely should one lead to the other.

 

(For the record, my dad changed his views when he learned that he son was "queer," and was a very accepting father. He died, unexpectedly, five days before Christmas two years ago. We found his Christmas list on his kitchen table...my partner's name was on the list! He and my partner got along very well.)

 

-CC in MA

 

yet you claim fact where there are not facts and you even admit there are no facts and admit the historians can verify nothing of which you claim. why?
Sorry to disappoint you, Dave, but I truly, truly respect your right to believe what you want to or don't want to believe.
You disappointed me by not answering my question. I said nothing about your respecting my rights or not.
I embrace freedom of and freedom from religion as foundational cornerstones to happy living. I am happy to believe that the tomb existed, the women existed, and the tomb was empty. I trust you are happy to believe otherwise. We'll know for sure when we leave this existence, or maybe we won't. But for now you and I, Dave, will have to agree to disagree.
couldn't answer the questions? Why believe? And, specifically, why believe in a religion that says, not believes, but makes it a law, that you should be dead? Why be a salad bar christian, just picking the pieces you want and ignoring the rest? How do you know what to ignore? Why bother?
What are you trying to sell me, Dave? :Hmm:
Nothing.
Seriously, I get your point. But everyone is a salesman.
I got nothing to sell here.
We are wise to turn a cynical ear to just about everything we hear, if not everything. Not necessarily a rejecting ear, but a cynical one.
I did, and gods couldn't hold up to an honest, sincere, not even cynical, inquiry.

 

Good morning, Dave. I respect your choices. Very much so.

 

-CC in MA

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.....Good morning, Dave. I respect your choices. Very much so.
That's alright. I knew you wouldn't answer those questions anyway. They really weren't supposed to be answered here, but are for you to think about and ponder awhile before giving yourself the honest answers.
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.....Good morning, Dave. I respect your choices. Very much so.
That's alright. I knew you wouldn't answer those questions anyway. They really weren't supposed to be answered here, but are for you to think about and ponder awhile before giving yourself the honest answers.

 

Sounds good to me. Trust me, I ponder all the time. Love pondering. I appreciate the cud you've given me to chew on!

 

-CC in MA

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That's alright. I knew you wouldn't answer those questions anyway. They really weren't supposed to be answered here, but are for you to think about and ponder awhile before giving yourself the honest answers.
Sounds good to me. Trust me, I ponder all the time. Love pondering. I appreciate the cud you've given me to chew on!
Be careful and remember what Martin Luther said:
Reason, the Devil’s bride, a beautiful whore, and God’s worst enemy. There is on earth among all dangers, no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason, especially if she enters into spiritual matters which concern the soul and God. For it is more possible to teach an ass to read than to blind such a reason and lead it right; for reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees it must put out of sight, and wish to know nothing but the word of God
(Quoted in Walter Kaufmann, “Critique of Reason and Philosophy,” pp305-307. First printed 1958. Reprinted by Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1972.)
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CC, I have not had a chance to read the entire thread. You asked if I did not mean the invitation for anyone to add their thoughts literally. Frankly, I had not meant that for Christians. I wanted to discuss it with other exCs. Hear their take on things, etc.

 

You asked if I want you to leave. The others in this thread seem to like having you here so I assume you can stay. However, the thread has seriously deviated from its intended topic and I have a problem with that. Seems like most of the stuff here should be on a thread about inconsistencies in the Bible rather than on the nature of Jesus.

 

I have major problems with the way you smooth-talk and butter over all the inconsistencies in the Bible. You refuse to look stuff in the face. You slither and slide around stuff that makes you look bad. You seem like a nice enough person but when a person acts like you're acting I have majpr misgivings. I like to discuss issues, not just state beliefs. You seem to do nothing but state beliefs.

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CC, I have not had a chance to read the entire thread. You asked if I did not mean the invitation for anyone to add their thoughts literally. Frankly, I had not meant that for Christians. I wanted to discuss it with other exCs. Hear their take on things, etc.

 

You asked if I want you to leave. The others in this thread seem to like having you here so I assume you can stay. However, the thread has seriously deviated from its intended topic and I have a problem with that. Seems like most of the stuff here should be on a thread about inconsistencies in the Bible rather than on the nature of Jesus.

 

I have major problems with the way you smooth-talk and butter over all the inconsistencies in the Bible. You refuse to look stuff in the face. You slither and slide around stuff that makes you look bad. You seem like a nice enough person but when a person acts like you're acting I have majpr misgivings. I like to discuss issues, not just state beliefs. You seem to do nothing but state beliefs.

 

Seems to me everything you wrote above is your belief. Matters not. I pledge from this post forward not to respond to any of your posts in order not to impose myself upon you. I'll abandon posting to this thread, as well, following this post.

 

I wish you well and I hope you wish me well, too. I'm slithering away now. :HaHa:

 

-CC in MA

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Guest rumpelstiltskin

Through it all, I always end up at the tomb and I always find it empty and I always feel free indeed.

 

I can identify with this completely, CC . In fact, your story is so like mine that I'm amazed! Don't you get very tired of people assuming that because you're a Christian you must be a literalist, a 'fundamentalist', unable to think for yourself? Thanks for a great post. You write really well.

 

R

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I have major problems with the way you smooth-talk and butter over all the inconsistencies in the Bible. You refuse to look stuff in the face. You slither and slide around stuff that makes you look bad. You seem like a nice enough person but when a person acts like you're acting I have major misgivings. I like to discuss issues, not just state beliefs. You seem to do nothing but state beliefs.

 

It is the Christian way is it not? Rather than be open minded and analytical, they make up excuses and cover the truth with subterfuge.

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Oh! You've gone? What a shame ....

 

I can identify with this completely, CC . In fact, your story is so like mine that I'm amazed! Don't you get very tired of people assuming that because you're a Christian you must be a literalist, a 'fundamentalist', unable to think for yourself? Thanks for a great post. You write really well.

 

Yes, he may write well but this is not a Christian fellowship hall. I am sure you can find a christian fellowship hall in which to fellowship with him, pat his back, and all the feel-good stuff Christians like to do to each other. This site, as is explicitly stated, is to "encourage exchristians." It's the exChristian fellowship hall where we do our own thing in our own way.

 

Jun said:

 

It is the Christian way is it not? Rather than be open minded and analytical, they make up excuses and cover the truth with subterfuge.

 

Exactly! And CC is esp. good at it.

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Gee I would forget what the orginal question was if it wasn't for the topic header.

 

What is the nature of Jesus?

 

I am still trying to sort of what the true nature of Jesus was, vs what Christianity tells us the nature of christ is. To me it is two different things.

 

The nature that I was taught to belive in of Jesus was that he is human and born with sin and is yet god at the same time. That Jesus loves us, that he is always there for us.

 

I no longer buy into the storybook feel good jesus.

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The picture I am getting of Jesus is a very fragmented personality. It's worse than schizophrenia. Even people with schizophrenia have a core personality, I would guess, because my grandmother had a core personality when she had Alzheimers. Even when she made no contact with reality for days and weeks at a time, there was a core personality.

 

In Jesus as portrayed in the gospels there is not. He's nothing but bits and pieces used to serve the various theological purposes/agendas of the writers. Tom Harpur must be right in The Pagan Christ. Jesus is nothing but a myth. He never existed. That is the only thing that makes sense. I had thought there was a consistent picture of him in the NT. There is not.

 

Had I not focused so hard on his personality as portrayed by Mark, I would continue in my blissful ignorance.

I agree that he was represented to serve theological purposes and agendas. I think much of it was purposeful and the rest was out of ignorance on what he represented. In reading some of the Gnostic gospels, I could get a better picture of what he stood for. If he was indeed real, I feel sorry for the way that others used him to better their own agenda. Just my opinion...

 

 

We mustn't forget, too, that there are the Gnostic Gospels. While written later than the canonical gospels and less "trustworthy" in their historicity, nevertheless a unique and fascinating look at the meaning of the life of Christ.

Are you sure about the dates? And why are they less trustworthy than what was compiled? I view it the other way. I found what is in the bible to be less trustworthy due to the bias, intent, and ignorance of the writers. I don't mean ignorance in a derogatory way, but ignorance of what he was teaching based on the culture of the listeners. I find it more important to drop all the hooplah surrounding what 'they' understood and just go with what he said. And in order to do that, we have to drop the interpretations of others. I don't think so much that what was recorded as to what he said was a lie, but the story built around what he said was incorrect. This removes the conspiracy theory surrounding the bible on a grand scale, but still leaves the bias and misunderstanding in tact. And of course, the destruction of any counter sayings still leaves intent, but I just don't think all of it was made up.

 

Oh...you're gone from here. Sorry Ruby.

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