What did Jesus have to say about...

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Hagoth
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What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by Hagoth » Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:40 pm

For any Christian conservatives out there waving the Bible around in support of current political topics, let's discuss what Jesus had to say in the pages of that Bible about:

Abortion: Nothing

Same-sex marriage: Nothing

Guns: Nothing

Family values: Actually, he had a lot to say on this topic:

"A man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

"The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father of the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death."

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own live also, he cannot be my disciple."

When informed that his mother and brothers had come to see him: "Who is my mother and who are my brethren?" Pointing to his disciples, "Behold my mother and my brethren!"

To his mother when she spoke to him at the wedding feast: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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jfro18
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by jfro18 » Sat Sep 17, 2022 8:51 am

Hagoth wrote:
Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:40 pm
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own live also, he cannot be my disciple."
This is truly stunning given that members of the church will often call themselves disciples of Christ.

ETA: What is the apologetic to this verse? I saw a Bible commentary that Jesus is saying you can't love family more than him... but that is absolutely not what Jesus is claiming to have been saying here.

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deacon blues
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by deacon blues » Sat Sep 17, 2022 9:35 am

Jesus reportedly said some wise things in the New Testament. He also said some things that surely were metaphorical: "cut off your hand, blind your offending eye, etc. It has been noted in history that, sadly, some people took these metaphors literally and and did bodily harm to themselves.
If we take Jesus's words on their own merit, I think we can learn a lot, for example: the Mote and Beam, the Prodigal Son, The Good Samaritan and many other examples.
Sadly, there are instances of people who tried to be Good Samaritans, who were killed for their efforts.
Christians of different persuasions may understand the same saying very differently. Capitalists may emphasize the Parable of the Talents literally. Others may emphasize the Parable of the Reapers, some who reaped all day, others only one hour.
We obviously interpret Jesus's words based on our own experience, and perspective, and downplay or even ignore different interpretations.
Personally, I grew up with the New Testament, and its stories still influence me, even though I have gone from TBM to skeptical Christian. Jesus is still a hero to me.
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

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Hagoth
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by Hagoth » Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:14 pm

deacon blues wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 9:35 am
Jesus reportedly said some wise things in the New Testament. He also said some things that surely were metaphorical: "cut off your hand, blind your offending eye, etc. It has been noted in history that, sadly, some people took these metaphors literally and and did bodily harm to themselves.
If we take Jesus's words on their own merit, I think we can learn a lot, for example: the Mote and Beam, the Prodigal Son, The Good Samaritan and many other examples.
That's why I directed my comments to Evangelicals. Jesus' words (and the entire Bible, for that matter) can really be a big problem for people who believe it is the literal, inerrant word of God. The rest of us can look for the value of metaphor, and can factor in the fact that the authors of the gospels were just compiling a bunch of hearsay and adding their own expectations, which in some cases were modified and appended much later by others.

But I don't know how an inerrantist can resolve 1) the inconsistency and outright contradictions of the Bible, and 2) the fact that it doesn't really say the things that they claim, in a very loud voice, it does.

For one thing, Jesus is very schizophrenic in the Bible. One second he is the Prince of Peace, telling us to love our enemies and forgive seven times seventy, and the next he comes not to bring peace, but a sword.

As someone who believes in a historical Jesus but not a supernatural one, I just want to know whether he was a peaceful radical who was killed for his condemnation of hypocrisy, his attitude of forgiveness and peace, and a belief that we can overcome our differences and create a kingdom of God in the here and now... OR... the apocalyptic self-absorbed rebel rouser who demonized anyone and anything that distracted people from devoting all of their adoration to him.

I choose to embrace and respect the kinder Jesus who encouraged love and forgiveness, but had no respect for people who used claims of authority to oppress and take advantage of people.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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deacon blues
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by deacon blues » Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:38 am

Me too. I see Jesus as one who whether God, man, or both, chose to live among the poor and give his best to them. Whether he claimed the messiahship for himself, or had that foisted upon him by his followers, he doesn't seem to have intentionally exploited the poor. He didn't say, "Give your money to me," but rather, "give your money to the poor." According to the scriptural account he didn't try to defend himself like Joseph Smith, with a borrowed pistol, but instead said, "I am Jesus who you are seeking, let these others go." And later, "Forgive them father, they don't know what they're doing."
But I could be wrong. ;)
Some revolutionaries may see his humility as a model for keeping the masses subjected political or economic power. You know: "Religion is the opiate of the people." Marx.
The New Testament is a contradictory collection of writings. We can't know their context well. They were written in a different time and place. But the gospels have touched my heart as no other LDS scripture ever has. :)
They still do, even on the days when I'm a skeptic.

Just don't go hate your family, or cut off your hand to get to heaven. ;)
God is Love. God is Truth. The greatest problem with organized religion is that the organization becomes god, rather than a means of serving God.

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alas
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by alas » Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:42 am

deacon blues wrote:
Sun Sep 18, 2022 7:38 am
Me too. I see Jesus as one who whether God, man, or both, chose to live among the poor and give his best to them. Whether he claimed the messiahship for himself, or had that foisted upon him by his followers, he doesn't seem to have intentionally exploited the poor. He didn't say, "Give your money to me," but rather, "give your money to the poor." According to the scriptural account he didn't try to defend himself like Joseph Smith, with a borrowed pistol, but instead said, "I am Jesus who you are seeking, let these others go." And later, "Forgive them father, they don't know what they're doing."
But I could be wrong. ;)
Some revolutionaries may see his humility as a model for keeping the masses subjected political or economic power. You know: "Religion is the opiate of the people." Marx.
The New Testament is a contradictory collection of writings. We can't know their context well. They were written in a different time and place. But the gospels have touched my heart as no other LDS scripture ever has. :)
They still do, even on the days when I'm a skeptic.

Just don't go hate your family, or cut off your hand to get to heaven. ;)
This is kind of where I am at. I take what is in the New Testament with kind of a grain of salt, because we don’t really know much about who Jesus really was. We have some of his followers ideas, as they morphed into him being God himself come down. But the New Testament does not support the idea of the Trinity. But the Jews had insisted that there was only one God, right, so in order for there to be one God, and for Jesus to be God, yet he has a Father who is also God, then there was that dove who came down when he was baptized, and, we have a problem.

Was Jesus really God, the Son of God and a God in his own right? I don’t think the New Testament answers that. The Jews believed in a Messiah who was to be the son of God, but not God himself. Not the one God. So, the Christian Jesus does not fit the Jewish Messiah. The Jewish Messiah was going to liberate the Jews, and be some sort of hero like Hercules, but not God.

The whole concept of a son of God came into Christianity straight out of paganism.

But who was the historical Jesus? I have read speculation that why Judas betrayed Jesus was that he was trying to make Jesus fight the Romans like the Messiah was supposed to do. You know, start the war. But Jesus didn’t do that. He up and died. Which was why Judas hung himself. It did not turn out how he expected. I have also read speculation that what Jesus was trying to do was bring back worship of the mother God, a much more loving and nurturing God than the father God. This claim was that up until the time of Josiah that the mother God had been openly worshipped, but that men wanted the Father God to be the only God and declared worship of the full Godhead as paganism. Most of what this sect of Judaism believed has been lost. But there was a father, mother, son, and a ;)daughter. In this sect the son was a member of the Godhead, and there was not one God, but a Godhead. The Mother was Wisdom, and there is still mention of Wisdom in the Bible, also the Holy Ghost. Who the daughter was has apparently been lost and the only mention of her that I have found was in an encyclopedia of Judaism. But we don’t know much about the different sects of Judaism from the time of Jesus. But just like paganism has survived 2000 years after Jesus in spite of Christian attempts to stop it out, the paganism in Judaism had survived until the time of Jesus, but was an underground belief because it could get you killed, just like paganism could get you killed as a witch in the 14th century or during the Spanish Inquisition.

Anyway, we just don’t know how much of the New Testament is history and how much was myth. Christianity changed a lot between the time of Jesus’s death and when it became Christianity. If we had had the internet 200 years after Jesus death, we could debunk Christianity like we can now debunk Mormonism. ;)

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stealthbishop
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by stealthbishop » Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:45 am

My POV about Jesus for what it's worth is that his movement was a peaceful movement otherwise Pilate would have slaughtered his followers and hunted them down at the time of the crucifixion and also afterwards. They would not have been able to set up a Christian community in Jerusalem after the crucifixion if it was a violent movement. The idea that Jesus supports guns and is a 2nd Amendment Messiah is absolutely laughable. There is a story in Luke (I believe) that he chastises one of his followers for trying to cut the ear off of one the guards and then he heals the guards ear. There is no evidence IMO that the Jesus movement was violent. Quite the opposite.

As you said, absolutely nothing about being gay or same-sex marriage at all. Nothing about abortion.

This is one of the very reasons why I struggle with the word "Christian" or "Christianity" especially the American spin on that. The merging of right-wing politics with American "Christianity" is so far removed from Jesus that I can't really wrap my head around it.
"Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess"

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Hagoth
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by Hagoth » Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:42 pm

stealthbishop wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:45 am
My POV about Jesus for what it's worth is that his movement was a peaceful movement otherwise Pilate would have slaughtered his followers and hunted them down at the time of the crucifixion and also afterwards.
That's a great point. The gospel writers were obviously kissing up to the Romans by making Pilate a sympathetic character and the Jews the fall guys. Contemporary sources paint Pilate as a no-monkey-business dictator who wouldn't stand for anything that smelled like an uprising. Since Jesus was the only crucifixion casualty of that movement, Pilate obviously wasn't too concerned about his followers, and assumed that if he cut off the head of the movement the body would die.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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stealthbishop
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by stealthbishop » Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:49 pm

Hagoth wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:42 pm
stealthbishop wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 11:45 am
My POV about Jesus for what it's worth is that his movement was a peaceful movement otherwise Pilate would have slaughtered his followers and hunted them down at the time of the crucifixion and also afterwards.
That's a great point. The gospel writers were obviously kissing up to the Romans by making Pilate a sympathetic character and the Jews the fall guys. Contemporary sources paint Pilate as a no-monkey-business dictator who wouldn't stand for anything that smelled like an uprising. Since Jesus was the only crucifixion casualty of that movement, Pilate obviously wasn't too concerned about his followers, and assumed that if he cut off the head of the movement the body would die.
Exactly!

Another area in which Jesus (and his Jewish tradition) would really deviate from right-wing politics is concern for the other, the stranger, or even an enemy. This Judeo-Christian ethic of concern for the other transformed our modern world. But, many right-wing American "Christians" actually have much more in common with the ancient pagan world in this regard than Jesus and would like to see us go backwards to pre-Christian times.
"Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess"

-Depeche Mode

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moksha
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Re: What did Jesus have to say about...

Post by moksha » Mon Sep 19, 2022 5:15 pm

A number of Saints are now getting promptings from the Holy Q. Is there any way Church HQ can tap into that?
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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