christianity question

[BluffTHIS!]

Yes Potato that is the trilemma, as opposed to an often stated view that Jesus was merely a great religious man/prophet etc. without being the Son of God as he claimed to be (or as you are trying to argue, having the gospels writers claim untruthfully that he was). The crux of my last post is that since the Jesus we know is the Jesus as portrayed in the gospels as written, then it is that Jesus that the trilemma must apply to and not one of an infinite number of possible Jesus' dreamed up by the 'historical Jesus' crowd.

I will leave you with one other thought. If you were to write a list of all that Jesus, again exactly as portrayed in the gospels, stands for in terms of divinity, purpose on earth, meaning of his passion and death, how you should deal with others, etc., all those items on that list form parts of an integral whole that cannot be separated. The only point of the 'historical Jesus/gospel writers made stuff up' arguements is to be able to pick and choose those parts of Jesus' message that appeal to one and say he was a great prophet, while rejecting the rest of his message that is most hard to accept by attributing that part to writers who made it up.

[turnipmonster]

all those items on that list form parts of an integral whole that cannot be separated.

why can't they be separated? would you say the same thing about pythagoras?

[dr_venkman]

Jesus was a brown skinned, Mid-East terrorist (Function: noun: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. I.E: threat of plagues, disasters and an eternity in Hell) bent on unbalancing the power of the Roman government, reducing the amount of control they had on their citizens, and ultimately destroying the legitimacy of the Ceasar. He was so intent on proving that he was Lord that he went so far as to embrace martydom... not much unlike Jim Jones or David Koresh.

If he were alive today he'd be in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba... with all the other terrorists, under the watchful of the eye of the American military.

So when Bush says Jesus is on our side, he may be speaking both religiously and literally. Jesus is on our side alright... neatly trussed up, hogtied and locked away somewhere safe. He won't be causing any more headaches for the current bunch of Imperialists, by God.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
all those items on that list form parts of an integral whole that cannot be separated.

why can't they be separated? would you say the same thing about pythagoras?

[/ QUOTE ]

The reason they can't be separated is that if Jesus isn't the Son of God then he didn't perform miracles (they must have been made up), his passion and death couldn't redeem the sins of mankind (being a mere human only his death would not have been the perfect sacrifice and atonement necessary for same), his admonition to forgive and love your enemies as opposed to the lex talionis of the Old Testament would make no sense (if God doesn't forgive our sins by virtue of a perfect sacrifice by his son then we have no reason to be correspondingly merciful to others), and without a new covenant by virtue of his passion and death the old one would still be in effect and his all his teachings were merely false whose purpose in undermining the still legitamate old covenant of Judaism was morally wrong since he couldn't have been sent by God to do so.

If you read the gospels then the Jesus portrayed is someone who was an integral person, that is all his teachings and actions served the same purpose, namely the glorification of his Father and the serving of his Father's will in offering up himself as the perfect sacrifice for mankind's sins so that they might have the possibility of attaining eternal salvation. To say that you want to accept part of Jesus' teachings but reject the rest is to say you want to accept only that which you find easy to believe and accept and live while you reject that which is hard. This is akin to chopping off an arm of Jesus and saying you thus possess him, while you reject the rest of his body.

No one is forced to accept Jesus and his teachings, either intellectually or spiritually. At least if you accept or reject him and his teachings then accept or reject him in his totality rather than trying to cut him up into pieces. This is not just the only true choice, it is the only honest choice.

[PotatoStew]

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Yes Potato that is the trilemma

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You say "yes" but your agrument is adding to it. The trilemma says "*Jesus* was either a liar..." but you are saying "Jesus or the gospel writers were liars..."

The two are not equivalent -- you're adding in an option that isn't part of the trilemma as it's stated. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I have time to do this justice -- I barely feel like I'm able to get into as many poker-related posts as it is -- so I'll direct you to this link which seems to have a more detailed discussion of the point I was trying to make:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...trilemma.shtml

Again, I'm not trying to argue against Jesus divinity here, just against he trilemma. Thanks for your patience in the discussion, even though we seem to be talking past each other. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[PotatoStew]

[ QUOTE ]
Jesus was a brown skinned, Mid-East terrorist (Function: noun: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. I.E: threat of plagues, disasters and an eternity in Hell) bent on unbalancing the power of the Roman government, reducing the amount of control they had on their citizens, and ultimately destroying the legitimacy of the Ceasar.

[/ QUOTE ]

You've got to be trolling... uh, I mean kidding. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's..." That doesn't sound at all like someone trying to destroy Caesar's legitimacy. Jesus was rather apolitical, and didn't really seem to be too concerned with Roman rule. I would love to see you actually try to back up your assertions with some data or reasoning.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes Potato that is the trilemma

[/ QUOTE ]

You say "yes" but your agrument is adding to it. The trilemma says "*Jesus* was either a liar..." but you are saying "Jesus or the gospel writers were liars..."

The two are not equivalent -- you're adding in an option that isn't part of the trilemma as it's stated. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I have time to do this justice -- I barely feel like I'm able to get into as many poker-related posts as it is -- so I'll direct you to this link which seems to have a more detailed discussion of the point I was trying to make:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...trilemma.shtml

Again, I'm not trying to argue against Jesus divinity here, just against he trilemma. Thanks for your patience in the discussion, even though we seem to be talking past each other. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll make my last comments on this as well. I am not adding an option to the trilemma, just saying that the trilemma applies to Jesus as he is portrayed and known from the gospel writers.

[turnipmonster]

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If you read the gospels then the Jesus portrayed is someone who was an integral person, that is all his teachings and actions served the same purpose,

[/ QUOTE ]

right, but things can be interpreted in lots of different ways, especially when you're talking about a text that has been translated over and over.

[ QUOTE ]

No one is forced to accept Jesus and his teachings, either intellectually or spiritually. At least if you accept or reject him and his teachings then accept or reject him in his totality rather than trying to cut him up into pieces. This is not just the only true choice, it is the only honest choice.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is what I'm curious about. why is it all or nothing? the above paragraph doesn't explain that for me, and I am honestly curious.

I found out that CS Lewis has an essay on the trilemma, so I am interested to check that out.

[BluffTHIS!]

Because they are all inter-related/interwoven, i.e. parts of an integral whole that each have no true meaning or purpose without the rest. A thorough re-reading of the 4 gospels would probably make this clear. The key C.S. Lewis book you might be interested in is 'Mere Christianity', which details his conversion and theological thoughts (he 'converted' from atheism).

[andyfox]

If someone today said he was the son of God, and believed it to be so, we'd think he was crazy, no? One would think there'd be a much higher chance of him being crazy than it being true.