John Creasy wrote:Moishe3rd wrote:John Creasy wrote:I have a question. A lot of people believe that Jesus existed but was not the son of God. There is much dispute about who he really was and what he did. Take the Davinci Code for instance or the Gnostics. The Muslims revere him as a Prophet but certainly not God himself. I'm a Christian but I have been thinking a lot about this lately and having doubts. So I was wondering how you square this with the Bible as Jesus clearly calls himself the Son of God and says that he is one with the father, etc. Do you think these statements were added at a later date for some other reason?
Please refrain from trying to tell me that the Bible is all lies, etc.
First: Davinci Code is fiction. It is not meant to be anything else.
There is no reason not to take the New Testament at face value. Everybody "adds something else" at one point or another to everything. But, the religion of Christianity is based on the writings of men who claimed to be inspired by G-d. The Church then parsed through these various writings and decided which ones accurately potrayed what they conceived of as the religion of Christianity.
You either accept this as the truth or you don't.
If you believe that Jesus is G-d; he died for your sins; and if you believe that, you'll have everlasting life, then what does it matter who added or subtracted from the religious writings? You would simply use them as a tool to further examine how to get "closer to G-d" and strengthen your beliefs.
Now, my personal opinion is that Muhammad may have been touched by G-d, but that the result of this "touching" resulted in some serious abberations.
I also happen to think that it is possible that Jesus was "touched" by G-d, but that his being "touched" was radically altered by a Roman Church that needed to incoporate its own world view into Christianity.
Whatever Jesus was, I am reasonably sure that he was not G-d.
Nonetheless, if you believe that he was, go for it. Just don't kill anyone.
Thank you. I know davinci code is fiction but many people believe the essence of the story. Could you elaborate about the abberations from Muhammad?
I have noted this elsewhere, but the long and the short of it is:
Mohammad proclaimed a new religion based on revelation.
He based his revelation on the G-d described in the Torah and the Christian new testament. He proclaimed individuals such as Moses and Jesus prophets, like himself, of this one G-d, which he proclaimed was the Allah of the Arabs.
Simple enough so far.
However, he also proclaimed that the texts, the Torah and the new testament, were corrupted and the followers of these texts were corrupted and that the texts really didn't say what the followers thought they said; they said what Mohammad said they said.... Which was completely different and even opposite of what the texts that he claimed that his new religion of Islam were based upon.
In other words, Mohammad's "revelation" was that the other religions were wrong unless they believed in what Mohammad's interpretations of there text was....
Now, this is fine. Who cares?
However, it is seriously inconsistent with logic.
For instance, the Jews did not proclaim that the Egyptian religion or the Canaanite religions or whomever, were mis-interpreted. They simply said "They are wrong. Lock, stock and barrel. The pagans simply made it all up or got sucked in by demons and are worshipping wrongly."
The Christians said: "the Jews were right, but we've got the new revelation now that says our guy is the culmination of all the Jewish scriptures."
Muslims take the Koran and interpret it to mean that even though the Jews and the Christians were right, they were totally wrong. No Chosen People; No Son of G-d; No religious basis for their beliefs, except....
All of Islam is based on Judaism and Christianity.
Confused? Well, so are they.
