Why Jesus?

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I'm gonna have some stream of consciousness going on here, so....deal with it.

This is coming from a combination of ideas I've been thinking about.

boomers riddle naming life events normally attributed to Jesus, but the real answer being Horus.
My reading Riddley Walker, I'm just about finished with it.
Watching Jesus Camp on YouTube
Reading the Wikepedia posting on Stanley Kubrick
My Catholic upbring

I'm not a Catholic.
I'm not an atheist, or agnostic.
I don't classify myself as anything.

As a kid, I was taught by the nuns that the Adam & Eve/creation stories were allegorical. That was good, because no way would I have believed that God "poofed" not only the planet Earth, and everything on it, but the entire universe into existence.
Taking God out of it, it seemed to me the lesson was that at some point in time man developed ethics.

Jesus? I've never been able to get a handle of this "dying for our sins" concept, but that's the subject for another thread. I think there was maybe, maybe not a person named Jesus. God? No. A person? Yes (if he indeed existed)

Watching Jesus Camp, and any other Evangelical video, writings, I'm always struck with why it's always "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus" if you are a believer, why not just use the word "God"? I'd asked this before, on A2K, and found the answers unsatisfying.

Then, reading the entry on Stanley Kubrick on Wikipedia, I see this, regarding the move 2010 ..."I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God...."

Antropomorphic. That struck a chord with me.
Is it that many people can't/don't want to deal with the concept of a god that has no human component?
In order to believe in a god, they must create a human aspect of one?

Thoughts?

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I'm gonna have some stream of consciousness going on here, so....deal with it.

This is coming from a combination of ideas I've been thinking about.

boomers riddle naming life events normally attributed to Jesus, but the real answer being Horus.
My reading Riddley Walker, I'm just about finished with it.
Watching Jesus Camp on YouTube
What?
Reading the Wikepedia posting on Stanley Kubrick
My Catholic upbring

I'm not a Catholic.
I'm not an atheist, or agnostic.
I don't classify myself as anything.

As a kid, I was taught by the nuns that the Adam & Eve/creation stories were allegorical. That was good, because no way would I have believed that God "poofed" not only the planet Earth, and everything on it, but the entire universe into existence.
Taking God out of it, it seemed to me the lesson was that at some point in time man developed ethics.

Jesus? I've never been able to get a handle of this "dying for our sins" concept, but that's the subject for another thread. I think there was maybe, maybe not a person named Jesus. God? No. A person? Yes (if he indeed existed)

Watching Jesus Camp, and any other Evangelical video, writings, I'm always struck with why it's always "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus" if you are a believer, why not just use the word "God"? I'd asked this before, on A2K, and found the answers unsatisfying.

Then, reading the entry on Stanley Kubrick on Wikipedia, I see this, regarding the move 2010 ..."I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God...."

Antropomorphic. That struck a chord with me.
Is it that many people can't/don't want to deal with the concept of a god that has no human component?
In order to believe in a god, they must create a human aspect of one?

Thoughts?

Ok, I can't answer this. Too dumb to absorb, once you got to camp. But I had to read through the questions to be decisive on that..

1 Reply

Oh yes.

We anthropomorphize our pets, our cars, our boats, ad nauseum...why should our gods be any different?

I wouldn't characterize this as a "fault," though. The tendency to anthropomorphize things that mean a great deal to us is a trait that runs very, very deep in humans. It is one of the basic ways we relate to things.

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@Eva,

Why doesn't this occur in Judaism then?
Or in Islam?

It seems to be a trait more of evangelical/pentacostal faiths.

Even Catholics don't engage in such exclusive worship of this person.

Could it be partly because of their status of being the "new kids on the block"?

Trying to brand their form of Christianity, to the annoyance and detriment of others?

2 Replies

@chai2,

I'm on my way to bed...eyes closing...so this will have to be my last post for tonight.

I'm a Christian, so I won't attempt to speak for followers of Judaism or Islam. In fact, there are a lot of Christians who would not appreciate me speaking for them, so I'd best just speak for myself.

Worshipping Jesus is a central component of all Christian churches, not just evangelical/pentecostal ones. In light of all the theological differences between the various branches of Christianity, this may be the one thing we have in common. That is why we are all called "Christian."

Some of us are just more "in your face" about it than others. Sorry about that. We're kind of like an extremely extended family, and like every family, we have our share of weird relatives that regularly embarrass the rest of us.

G'nite!

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I'm gonna have some stream of consciousness going on here, so....deal with it.

This is coming from a combination of ideas I've been thinking about.

boomers riddle naming life events normally attributed to Jesus, but the real answer being Horus.
My reading Riddley Walker, I'm just about finished with it.
Watching Jesus Camp on YouTube
Reading the Wikepedia posting on Stanley Kubrick
My Catholic upbring

I'm not a Catholic.
I'm not an atheist, or agnostic.
I don't classify myself as anything.

As a kid, I was taught by the nuns that the Adam & Eve/creation stories were allegorical. That was good, because no way would I have believed that God "poofed" not only the planet Earth, and everything on it, but the entire universe into existence.

Where do u stand on The Big Bang ?

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Where do u stand on The Big Bang ?

[/quote]

The first law of thermodynamics states:

Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form to another. The First Law of Thermodynamics (Conservation) states that energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed. In essence, energy can be converted from one form into another.

For me, this is the essence of why I believe in God.
heh, maybe I shoud call my conception of God "E"

So, assuming E=mc2, that expansion of E that occured seconds after the big bang, is proof (to me) of my belief.
E existed both before and after the big bang, and the big bang was a grand manisfestation of that E.

THAT, imo, is a heck of a lot more impressive than Jesus.

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@chai2,

The New Testament is harder to get your mind around than the old for several reasons, but there are a few basic bottom lines which are impossible to frame any sort of a case against.

Jesus WAS seen by large numbers of people after he had been crucified, over a period of around 40 days afterward, and this had to be some sort of a paranormal thing; had he been walking around a Roman province for 40 days in a real dead body Roman soldiers would have seen him and crucified him a second time and done whatever it would have taken to ensure that he STAYED crucified the second time.

The fact that he was going to attempt to come back after 3 days was widely known since he had announced it publicly. The idea was to entirely discredit atheism and evolutionism.

All anybody had to do to stop Christianity from day one was produce one dead body, which they failed to do despite having Jesus' tomb guarded by soldiers who must have understood that they would be killed if anything untoward occurred either three days later or at any time after that. I mean, the whole country knew what the bet involved.

Every one of those original disciples went to their deaths rather than deny having seen Jesus after being crucified. One fanatic being willing to die for a phony causes you might could believe, but a dozen or more?? I mean, in real life, twenty people about to be crucified or burned at the stake for claiming they saw Mohamed fly to heaven on a magic carpet, two or three of them are going to have second thoughts about it.

Finally, and you should look this one up on google and wiki or whatever, there is the case of William Ramsey, a major league historian of the late 1800s who set out on a trip to demonstrate to the world the fictitious nature of the Book of Acts and became converted to Christianity based on what he found. Scholars typically view Acts as crucial to Christian foundations one way or another.

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

Ok, I can't answer this. Too dumb to absorb, once you got to camp. But I had to read through the questions to be decisive on that..

Jesus camp is a documentary about the indoctrination of young christian fundamentalists, quite eye opening

Lake of Fire (about the abortion debate) is a good doc too

1 Reply

when i was about twelve i was walking through the fields behind the house, i was trying to sort out my position in life and the universe when i was suddenly struck with this over whelming sense of emptiness and the infinite, i sort of stopped believing in anything at that point

1 Reply

@djjd62,

djjd62 wrote:

when i was about twelve i was walking through the fields behind the house, i was trying to sort out my position in life and the universe when i was suddenly struck with this over whelming sense of emptiness and the infinite, i sort of stopped believing in anything at that point

I have heard quite a few people say that.

When I was a kid, I used to get up in the middle of the night, open a 2nd story window, and lean out backwards, holding on to the window frame, to look at the stars.

Considering the the infinite universe is what solidified my belief in all that power out there, spread over time and space.

That said, I don't really think it matters what you believe, or if you do.

Whatever is, or isn't there, well, it is or isn't there, period.

One's belief or disbelief won't can't change that.

THAT said, not believing doesn't seem like the natural next step to me.

sigh.
I suppose I have a benign sort of belief.

1 Reply

@chai2,

i was also very enamoured of the alien abduction story, i'd lay in bed and try my best to contact any beings that might be out there, i was more than open to the idea being "Taken" (maybe that was the problem, maybe they don't want you if you wanted to go)

in the end i had the same disappointment and disillusion i felt with religion

damn you aliens

1 Reply

@djjd62,

re: jesus camp

while this doc was disturbing on so many levels, a couple of things stuck in my mind.

As far as the children, 2 of them were singled out for indivdual interviews.

The girl saddened me, as she was such a mindless little drone.

This child had such a clear lack of boundaries with other people. I know that's a product of her upbringing, but still.

4 scenes with her stuck in my head.

Where she walks up to a complete stranger in the bowling ally and starts in about "God told me to come over here and tell you he has big plans for you"
The poor woman has a mouth full of corn dog, and has to swallow it to say "thanks"
I'm sure I wouldn't have been quick enough to think of this answer at the moment, but I think a good response would have been "God just told me to tell you to go back to your group over there, and to learn to respect others privacy."

In the same vein, when she walks up to a group of men in the park...."hello. If you were to die Right Now, where would you go?"
With no hesitation, the man says "heaven"
This obviously confuses her, jonesing for a chance to pounce. She hesitates, and says "Really?"
The man answers"yes"
Another long pause, finally "um....ok" and she wanders off.

Her idea of the perfect career...working or owning a nail salon so she can have a captive audience to have discussions about Jesus, while "relaxing christian music plays in the background"

Most disturbing, her impersonation of what people in "other churches" sound like....(in zombie voice) "we worship you we worship you we worship you"...."then they sing just 2 songs and listen to a sermon" she goes on to explain how you're supposed to jump around a wave you hands, yelling "praise Jesus"
Not only are we to believe, but we must express in in the proper way.

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I was afraid of being abducted by aliens.

didn't want no probe up my ass.

no sir.

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I think it's very interesting how the same experience, like teenagers looking up at the stars, can lead people to such vastly different conclusions. I find that fascinating, I really do.

Here's another example. Chai found anthropomorphism to be a good reason not to believe in Jesus, while it greatly reinforces my faith. To me, it's one of the more compelling explanations for humanity's basic need for God to appear in human form.

I'm not sure our concept of a Supreme Being is all that different, Chai. I tend to think of "it" as being more of an energy source, too. That's just a more adult view, though...there are lots of interesting studies out there on faith development. It's normal for children, for instance, to envision God as an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud, but this concept generally loses meaning around adolescence and is supplanted by a more adult interpretation. Highly personal, though.

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@Eva,

But, if it's JUST anthropomorphism, a trick of the mind, then it is not the truth.
That's saying it would be a nice idea to have the figure of a man invented, so it would be easier to worship.

If the interpretation of God changes as one becomes an adult, then is Jesus just something that should be used with children, like Santa Claus? Santa is real to many children, but as they become adults, it's realized Santa is just representative of an idea of...I dunno, I never believed in Santa myself, but something like generousity, celebration, etc?

djjd came to different conclusions while star gazing, but we don't argue with other over it. I don't claim that he will be damned to eternal punishment by this energy, for not conceiving of it as I do.

I don't see why any religion tries to convince someone from another to believe as they do, or else.....Well, yes I do see, it's about the power....but, in the sense of finding your own spiritual way, or not, what does it really matter.

Whether what an individual believes (or not) is correct/incorrect/partly correct or incorrect, etc. does not change what the reality is.

There is only one reality, although all of us carry our own version of it around in our head. Why try to convince another that your version of it is more valid than anyone elses?

Actually, there are an infinite number of realities, so why try to convince another that the one you believe you live in is more valid than the others?

1 Reply

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Antropomorphic. That struck a chord with me.
Is it that many people can't/don't want to deal with the concept of a god that has no human component?
In order to believe in a god, they must create a human aspect of one?

I think that's a big part of it.

I also think that the story of God sacrificing his Only Begotten Son is a strong narrative. (Forget the fact that it makes no sense.)

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

Why doesn't this occur in Judaism then?
Or in Islam?

Well, read the Old Testament, and Yahweh looks a lot like good old Baal with a flowing white beard riding around on a cloud.

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Quote:

Every one of those original disciples went to their deaths rather than deny having seen Jesus after being crucified. One fanatic being willing to die for a phony causes you might could believe, but a dozen or more?? I mean, in real life, twenty people about to be crucified or burned at the stake for claiming they saw Mohamed fly to heaven on a magic carpet, two or three of them are going to have second thoughts about it.

Okay.

So what about Jim Jones? 900+ people died for his cause.

Or Heaven's Gate? 39 people died for that one.

12 people seems like a spit in the ocean by comparison.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Quote:

Okay.

So what about Jim Jones? 900+ people died for his cause.

Not KNOWINGLY. They all thought they were drinking kool-ade for refreshment. Similar to the situation with demoKKKrats and others who believe in "global warming(TM)" and the like....

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