Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: djo@pacbell.com (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Missed Point Message-ID: Date: 13 Dec 90 10:19:05 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA Lines: 97 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article spock@maths.tcd.ie (Tommy Hayes (Thanks Dr.W.)) writes: > Why can't everybody just realise that Jesus was just an ordinary, > albeit very ahead of his time,person who had a lot of brilliant > ideas about how we should live? > There is absolutly no need to bring in god,heaven or anything like > that to explain anything... It's been mentioned before, and probably in this newsgroup, but: IT IS LOGICALLY INFEASIBLE TO ACCEPT JESUS AS "JUST A TEACHER." First, all we know about Him is what the Gospels say. Most people who want to see Jesus as "just a teacher" try to drop the Resurrection and the miracles and go just on the basis of what Jesus said: Well -- leaving aside the question of the miracles and the Resurrection -- they have him claiming, repeatedly, to be the Savior, the Son of God, the Son of Man, etc. Now, it is possible to claim that these are later interpolations or additions by scribes etc., but if you choose to do this, how can you assume that any of his "brilliant ideas" were not such interpolations or additions too? In other words: we either accept the Jesus of the Gospels or forget Him entirely. Okay: so we have this guy with all these brilliant ideas who *also* claims to be divine. This leaves us with four possibilities: 1) He was lying. In which case, I'd say that He was not a good man or teacher at all, but evil. Given the other things He said, his "teachings," I reject this idea. 2) He was mad. (You can have this one if you want it; it isn't logically flawed, but I find it inconsistent with the idea of Him as a "great teacher.") 3) He was speaking of His divinity in some esoteric sense like that of Buddhism. I find this as illogical as the first possibility; nothing else in His life resembles esoteric religion. 4) Jesus was what He claimed. As Sherlock Holmes used to say, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true." Now let's bring back -- for just a moment -- the question of the Resurrection. That was, of course, for those who believe in it, the final proof of Jesus's divinity. What evidence do we have for it? Four eyewitness accounts, the Gospels, plus some further such in the "Gnostic Gospels." The testimony of Paul who claimed to have met him "on the road to Capernaum" long after the Crucifixion. Enough eyewitness accounts, in other words, to establish in any court of law that an event (murder, etc.) took place. Many events in history are accepted as truth on less than that (there are, for example, only _two_ accounts of the death of Socrates, and both of them are second-hand.) If you want to claim that these witnesses were lying, you have to give an explanation for it -- and then you have to give an explanation for why we should take the word of such liars about the "teachings" of the man they're already accused of lying about. In other words, logically, you have an all-or-nothing situation. > I remember one of my many religious instructors in school once gave > a very cutting address against people like the dreaded 'Moonies' > and 'Born Again Christians' who kidnap people unbeknowns to them > and brainwash them for a couple of weeks into their way of thinking. Yo -- I'm not fond of cultoids, but they generally *don't* do this. They invite people to dinner, to weekends, etc., and serve them up with loving propaganda; people join these cults for essentially positive reasons -- it fills a hole in their lives, often left by the loss of faith in their religions, their families, or whatever. You know who *does* do this? The deprogrammers hired by the "victims'" families. > The thing is, he said he was giving the opinion of the catholic > church.Will somebody please tell me what the difference between this > and your parents doing the 'right thing' and brain-washing you for the > first 14 odd years of your life? By gosh, you're right. We shouldn't teach our children any values at all. You asked for "objective" replies, and I've done that for your questions above, but this one is such a subjective question that I don't see an objective reply as remotely possible. Sorry. Mona boba yoda, rupu dzhunay doda! -- Folk song in some Eastern European language my grandfather used to sing. I have no idea what it means. The Roach