The Carpenter from Nazareth

I had discovered that I could not fault Christianity on its factual claims. These claims had for years appeared to lack logical support simply because I had been asked to accept them as a leap of faith; asking questions was considered unholy. I finally had the courage to skeptically scrutinize the claims, and in the end I concluded:

That God had indeed invaded history in the form of a messiah, the carpenter from Nazareth;
That he had done the sensational things that one might expect of a god-man and left a trail of evidence that any honest mind would follow

That he so affected people that the mere acceptance of his message totally altered lives, turning people of no account into world shakers

That the original accounts of his life have been copied and reprinted in such great numbers and in so many languages that in all written material there is no close second

That the subsequent volume of books written of him fill whole libraries

That as a subject of world’s greatest art he has no equal

That he is the inspiration for more of the world’s finest music than all other great men combined

That his message of love immeasurably enhances the life of any person in any century who had the humility to accept it

That the annual celebration of his birth re-creates widespread feelings of his ancient themes of peace on earth, goodwill towards men – a theme that rings so forcefully across the centuries that it cannot be diminished even by the commercialization surrounding it.

That wherever his message makes inroads, societies always change for the better.

That his following would grow in numbers, now more than 1.5 billion, and would regularly take time from their schedules to meet and sing his praises, calling him their God.

That 2000 years later he would give meaning, purpose and direction to the life of a humble, mixed up person, namely me.

Quite an accomplishment for a lynched carpenter with a net worth of zero


Mark Ritchie in God in the Pits

 

An inspiring post Daniah, thanks!

 

Christ, left to himself, was a genius. Even the atheist Nietzsche, who hurled accusations at Christianity, called him a superman (a concept wherein the human transcends by bringing in new rules by breaking old laws). For instance, the concept of "love of enemies" has a different relevance, Nietzsche asserts. It's actually your adversaries who make you stronger. If we never had advesaries, we wouldn't have the drive to live.
In business, too, "C" competes with "B" so that C can be better than B. Ultimately, "C" owes a lot to "B" because "C" needed to reach a mark beyond "B". Without "B", "C" wouldn't have set any goals. Hence C will not hate B but will respect him. This is the concept of loving your enemies, Nietzsche says and goes on "He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy's life"

The mistake really lies in the first followers of Christianity. His preachings aren't meant for ordinary thinkers. Unfortunately, the people around him didn't share the same wavelength, his disciples included.

All we can do is wait and see. Nevertheless, an inspiring post for those who need spirituality in their lives.

 

whether Jesus was an ordinary man or the son of God is open to debate
but the size of his accomplishments and the fact that he operated on a shoestring budget is a mircale in itself. proof enough for anyone who the humility to accept it

 

Worst post ever. I am not even going to bother going through refuting each of your claims. A simple Google search would suffice.

 

What did Jesus think of all the dinosaur fossils in museums and how the book of genesis forgot them?

 

The dinosaurs were destroyed in the flood of Noah's day.

 

Which is why their skeletons are millions of years old?

 

Carbon dating is not accurate more than a few thousand years back. What makes you believe it's millions of years?

 

Carbon dating isn't accurate? Is that what your pastor told you?

 

Umm... I didn't ask you about Noah. I asked you a specific question.

Why aren't they in the book of Genesis? You know, when God created the heavens and earth and all creatures all at the same time.

Don't try to change this into a carbon dating argument, because you know what? The bible is so screwed up and full of holes whether you're right or wrong about the time period they existed dinosaurs did exist. Heck the fact that they weren't mentioned in the bible PROVES they existed before man. They weren't included because they didn't know! What kind of God wouldn't have known about dinosaurs? Oh that's right, we forget, God didn't write or even dictate the bible. It came from the minds of men just like all other fiction literature.

People were naive back then. They needed something to make the world make sense so they made up a God just like all the other people on all the other continents did. There is nothing wrong with that, heck I think religion is the cornerstone of modern society and it's one of the key factors that brought us out of the stone ages. So it has it's place. It's a great tool to control people and keep things civilized. It's just that some of us aren't so easily controlled and or don't need religion to keep us grounded.

You know it's amazing that God is great and compassionate yet says though shalt worship no other God before me. That sounds more like a human idiosincracy the (human) authors of the bible threw in there because they needed to feel their religion was the "right" religion. The flawed logic there is that would mean every single innocent child born into any society other than a christian one is doomed from the start because of the way they are raised.

So everyone's goin to hell except the christians.....

 

I'm not quite a believer nor a disbeliever, but people whom don't actually read his word and judge him based on his 'followers', fail to really know what substance his words have. Funny how he spoke of the 'problems of religion.'

The problem with any idea is the interpetation, especially in religion.


http://www.thewords.com/english/index.htm

 

Jesus said that he was the Son of God. He claimed to be God, and told his followers to eat his flesh. He claimed he could forgive sins, and raise people up to eternal life. I think it is safe to say that either:

1- He was a crazy lunitic
OR
2- He is the Son of God, the 2nd member of the Holy Trinity, true God from true God.

 

I'll go with #3 for $1000 Alex

He was a great man a true leader who did great things and like most other great figures in history some of his deeds were exaggerated, mis-told or in some cases just plain made up. Except his to the point where it became the ridiculous story book tale we read today in the bible. Why was his story singled out to be placed so high on a pedestal ? Why the better to control the masses my frined.

 

See that's the problem. The Bible specifically states that every word of it is the literal truth and if you disbelieve any part, you disbelieve the whole thing. A literal reading is where the Inquisition, Crusades and other fun stuff came from. Then people decided not to take it literally anymore because it is just plain ridiculous. Read Deuteronomy or Revelations and other books and you'll start to see what i mean.

I'm gonna have to go with option 1.