What do you think about Jesus?

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People like Jesus because of the Golden Rule, but he's said some pretty lousy, messed-up stuff, too, which is why I'm not in the Jesus Fan Club (JFC). Views comparable to the Golden Rule certainly existed before Jesus. That shouldn't be surprising because it's rather basic and obvious.

Luke 14:26-27: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Matthew 19:23-24: Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Matthew 19:29: And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 8:21-22: Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

I can't look up to him more than anyone else because of his attitude towards family, unreasonably high expectations for followers, his upholding of the Old Testament, and not speaking out about its injustices. However, I don't blame him for being a product of his time period and, perhaps, a few cards short of a full deck, assuming that he actually existed and believed himself to be the son of God.

I think he very likely existed. I don't think the scriptures about him are inerrant, but they probably captured something of the real man. It's just hard to know which bits they made up and which are the truth. I think he was a somewhat revolutionary preacher that the authorities executed. I always liked the man of the legends because of his philosophy of compassion and gentleness, but I don't agree with everything he's supposed to have said. OTOH it's hard to interpret some of it because of the emotive language. I don't think there were any miracles because in my experience the laws of nature can't be broken.

I've seen the "you must hate your parents if you want to be my disciple" thing explained away as an exaggerated way of saying "you must put me above your parents....." Don't know if they just made that up or not. It's hard to find a scholar of ancient languages that doesn't have their own agenda about such matters. It's easy to see how a religionist might want to play the statement down, and how an atheist might want to use it to critique Christianity.

Going with the assumption that he actually said those things, I think that he meant that he should be placed way above family, not that people should hate their families. I believe that that’s wrong. I could never love anyone more than my own son, especially not someone who has no real impact on my life and who may have never existed.

I find certain things he said just incredibly harmful/distasteful. Of course, other people view things differently than I do.

I’m a skeptic in all things, including religion. I can’t just ignore the Bible passages that I don’t like. I think people often love the idea of Jesus more than the actual figure that’s depicted in their holy book. Of course, most people aren’t that familiar with the Bible.

I think the Bible was more about other's experiences with Jesus rather than about Jesus specifically. Assuming Jesus really did exist, different Apostles & others probably had some slightly different beliefs, thoughts, & opinions about him. Jesus & probably the time period in general also relied heavily on metaphors. The times are very different now in some ways so it's very hard for anyone to really know exactly what Jesus meant back then & apply it for today's standards.

I won't address all of your quotes, but for the above, Jesus was anti-materialistic. He saw a danger in material wealth, and the yearning for it, as a distraction from spirituality. It is true that a danger of wealth is that people can become obsessed with it. Counting their gold, instead of looking after their soul.

As for hating self and family, that means you have to leave self and family behind in order to follow Jesus as a disciple, like the twelve. I think Jesus was talking about his time, not ours. His disciples did have to leave behind family. They did have to forego their ambitions in life to follow him. Jesus is plainly warning them, hey, you follow me... you sacrifice a lot.

It is fun to pick out quotes from Jesus. Even the ones taken out of context that seem harsh, if you know the history and the times, then it makes sense.

Even he wasn't supposed to know when the world will end, so why have some many religious doomsayers claim they know the exact date when it will?

I think that he's very real and I have a strong bond with him.

Yes, according to scripture he said only his dad knew, but scripture is so open to interpretation that some idiotic religious leaders think they can calculate the date, and they've done so many times, yet we're still here.

I'll be frank. Countless people around the world were tortured and put to death because of this man. He was obviously doing something very wrong.

Idk I'm a satanist but I figure if jesus was real he'd just be kind of chill probably more likely to hang out with socialists and liberals and even satanists instead of conservative Magas. My beef isn't with jesus it's with the messed up religion.

I feel it is part of a belief system that allows you to avoid taking responsibility for yourself. Instead of saying that all human beings are like myself and I trust them to make the proper decision; this belief system gives one a delusion of influence and makes one think they know how someone else should live their life as well.




P.S.: This is in response to Sweet leaf posting "we will not go back" I live in Virginia and we currently have a Trump sycophant as governor (Glenn Youngkin). He recently tried to stump for Trump and couldn't talk ; any time he tried to speak the crowd chanted "we will not go back"

A belief system can look terrible when judged by the human beings espousing it... The criticisms I hear about Christianity mainly have to do with the abuses of the Church over two thousand years of history, and current political matters. Anytime a church takes a political side, that causes reactions on the other side.

But, the same is true of other religions, and of no-religion, atheism. There is no pure system in existence that has not been tarnished by human beings doing bad things. You cannot point to any one system and say, ah ha! These people are always good and never do anything wrong.

That is the problem with human beings, it takes more than a belief system to make them good. If things were that simple, then we would all be good.

You look about you in the world, and what is there? There is this ancient religion available, a belief in a Supreme Being that created all. You can reach out to God, it is not a closed circuit, the line is open. I think to myself, why not take advantage of that? It is a resource available to me. What is the necessity, or the advantage, in denying God and closing yourself off from that power?

This meme makes me think of extortion. Except instead of giving protection money to a mobster to not have your business damaged or worse, your following organized religion hoping that you'll be protected from the problems organized religion is causing like war & restricting individual rights & freedoms.

Get it together like his big brother Bob.

Agreed. Considering the heaven-or-hell incentive, it's something of a mystery to me why those who believe it don't behave any better than atheists.

Somebody did a survey or two that made it look like Christians are morally superior to atheists, but somebody else found out that it's only true (if it's true at all) in societies that have a large Christian majority, so they reckon what happens is that the atheists, being somewhat excluded from the dominant society, don't feel quite so keen on being nice to it.