Did Jesus respect other people's beliefs?

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If you think about it, Jesus didn't respect other people's beliefs.
Think about that for a second. It's true, isn't it?
He didn't allow other people to continue to believe their own beliefs were valid,
but rather, He taught them His beliefs, and corrected and often even berated those who disagreed with Him.

He taught His own beliefs, openly and harshly crticized those who challenged them,
and drew this line in the sand -- this ultimatum:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark 16:16)

That is the real Jesus. Not Mr. meek-and-mild; that's a fairytale.

The quote above is hardly the same thing as today's in-vogue, politically-correct "Well, I respect your beliefs, and they are true for you, blah, blah, blah (insert cowardice)..."

No, Jesus said, throughout his entire ministry, the exact opposite of this modern, lip-service sentiment.
He said 1) that He is the Christ, the Messiah of Israel, 2) that He is God, 3) and that there is no way to escape Hell without Him.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

That doesn't leave much room for Buddha.

Jesus did not get Himself beaten, spat upon, and crucified, by being tolerant of people's beliefs.
So, this modern notion that Jesus was some kind of pacifist hippie is revisionist in the extreme!

Last edited by Ragtime on 30 May 2008, 12:59 pm, edited 6 times in total.

If Jesus had ever existed, been a real flesh and blood man, this would be pretty appalling behaviour, like that of leaders of certain cults/sects etc.

But as Jesus is actually an archetype, a symbol for an inner psychological/spiritual experience/process, it is simply an expression of how essential this step in the process is.

Would His statement be appalling if it were true? Or only if it were false?

Jesus wasn't just anybody. The followers of Jesus believed he was who he said he was. Lots of people did. But obviously he had enemies, who thought he wrong to make such claims. If you're the prophesied Son of God, you're entitled to make a few grandiose claims.

What are you trying to make Jesus out to be? I don't understand this. Either you are a believer or you aren't. If you question Jesus as Lord, you're not a believer. If you have any doubt about that, you are not a believer. If you believe that he was God, you qualify as a member of the faithful.

Ah, but are they grandiose? Aren't they true?



Exactly who He is, from His own words.



Do you believe that one truth effects everyone, as per logic's law of noncontradiction?

Jesus' words, "He that believeth not shall be damned" clearly indicate that everyone
will be finally judged at the end by whether or not they believe in Jesus.

Last edited by Ragtime on 30 May 2008, 10:54 am, edited 2 times in total.

No human being can be the "answer"/way or life to someone else. It is disastrous psychologically to believe anyone could be.

I agree.

The idea that a person resembling a man but not human lived in the middle east, in the first half of the first century AD, is science fiction.

Reading the Gospels literally is like believing that The Lord of the Rings is about real events.

True, but Jesus was not a mere human being. He was God incarnate, in other words. And as such he was the univeral "answer" by dying on the cross to atone the sins of all mankind. Which was what he'd come to earth to do. You can either believe that or reject it.

You have some strange ideas. Why are you so anti-Christian?

Comparing the Gospels to LOTR?

This is not a criticism of either book. I think "The Lord of the Rings" is a very powerful narrative highly susceptible/amenable to use for psychological growth and self-understanding. I think that the Gospels are probably, or were once, even more powerful stories to elicit awakening in people.

The trouble is that they have been covered over by the mass of arguments arising from trying to present them as historical documents,; all the inconsistencies and ambiguities, rather than functioning as challenges provoking insight/illumination, have become matter for debate about empirical material things, evidence, accuracy etc.

It's not anti-Christian. She was illustrating that treating the Bible as a literal history book (as opposed to a moral guide...for better or for worse) is not only inaccurate, but rather missing the point.

At least that's what I took from it.

Well, actually I think it probably is, because the Christianity of the last 1800 years has pretty much insisted on treating the Gospels as historical records.

Not believing that Jesus ever had flesh and blood existence as a man in the first century AD is in fact distinctly anti-Christian.

However you are right in thinking that I am not hostile to the Gospels. I just wish it was possible to read them like a great Batman story, no-one arguing about whether the Penguin could ever have been brought up in the sewers, or Catwoman could really have been resurrected by cats.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 May 2008, 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

When Jesus said he was the way, what does that mean? If I say "I am knowledge, none can see without me," that is a perfectly good literary construction. It doesn't mean I personally am omniscient, doesn't mean my words are infallible, doesn't mean that you can't be knowledge as well. It is merely a uplifting of the idea of knowledge.

I am knowledge
I am light that pierces the darkness
I am the sound that echos off the mountain walls

I am knowledge
I am the idea that connects
I am the equation that predicts the rising of the sun and the fall of the tide

No-o-o-t really. There aren't any historical proofs for "The Lord of the Rings", whereas, as even my
enemy Quatermass admits, Jesus' existance is quite certain, and, as he says, probably more established then King Arthur's.

Well, when coupled with "the truth, and the life", it means He's basically all the answers, of all types, in the entire universe.
Hence, He is God.