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The purpose of Jesus and other religious figures

[MENTION=862]Flavus Aquila[/MENTION]

That makes a lot of sense and I think your argument holds a lot of value. I can agree with this and very much understand the value to seeing it this way. Of course though as devil’s advocate I have found an issue with it. Perhaps it is your wording but my problem even with this argument is that it again seems to place more value on the infinite and unknown afterlife and less value on the finite and known life. Despite it making all sense in the world and seeming to be a very logical and rational reason to the purpose of Jesus, it places more value on death than on life. There could be many reasons to placing more value in the afterlife than in the current reality of life but to me it seems counterproductive.

We have a very finite and limited time in this life. Why not spend it doing the best we possibly can by making this world a living heaven instead of a living hell, like it is? With this idea it seems to encourage quite a few people to give up on this life and just follow the tenants of religion that way they can obtain the best after life. We see this with terrorists, religious fanatics, etc… They take their perspective on gods teachings (not actually god) and then sacrifice their life because the real world is really not that great and the infinite afterlife is amazing. Because we can trust god, this makes life have less value than the afterlife.
My argument is why not give this life equal or at least comparable value to the afterlife? I am not saying remove all struggles or anything like that. What I mean is that the story of Jesus should encourage humanity to treat this world and every person in this world with a higher value than we actually do. The problem is that people place so much value in this unknown afterlife and so little in this life which could be better if people decided to value it more. Because humanity is only here for a short time people automatically devalue it and make this world really a struggle to live in instead of making it something great.
 
jimtaylor said:
Why not spend it doing the best we possibly can by making this world a living heaven
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Aside from those who distort religion, this idea is really spot on. Connection to the Divine enlightens, empowers, lends perspective to life right now.
 
jimtaylor said:
@Flavus Aquila

That makes a lot of sense and I think your argument holds a lot of value. I can agree with this and very much understand the value to seeing it this way. Of course though as devil’s advocate I have found an issue with it. Perhaps it is your wording but my problem even with this argument is that it again seems to place more value on the infinite and unknown afterlife and less value on the finite and known life. Despite it making all sense in the world and seeming to be a very logical and rational reason to the purpose of Jesus, it places more value on death than on life. There could be many reasons to placing more value in the afterlife than in the current reality of life but to me it seems counterproductive.

We have a very finite and limited time in this life. Why not spend it doing the best we possibly can by making this world a living heaven instead of a living hell, like it is? With this idea it seems to encourage quite a few people to give up on this life and just follow the tenants of religion that way they can obtain the best after life. We see this with terrorists, religious fanatics, etc… They take their perspective on gods teachings (not actually god) and then sacrifice their life because the real world is really not that great and the infinite afterlife is amazing. Because we can trust god, this makes life have less value than the afterlife.
My argument is why not give this life equal or at least comparable value to the afterlife? I am not saying remove all struggles or anything like that. What I mean is that the story of Jesus should encourage humanity to treat this world and every person in this world with a higher value than we actually do. The problem is that people place so much value in this unknown afterlife and so little in this life which could be better if people decided to value it more. Because humanity is only here for a short time people automatically devalue it and make this world really a struggle to live in instead of making it something great.
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The infinite, eternal life of God is in itself more valuable than the short, finite, temporal life natural to us. However, the very fact that God became man - the infinite took on our mortality - points to the sanctification and elevation of the value and significance of our mortal lives.

There may be a significant difference between protestant and catholic thought on this matter. Protestants, as far as I know, believe that once you 'are saved' it's a done deal - that you just need to believe in an afterlife and your box is 'ticked.' Catholics, on the other hand approach faith and Baptism as the begining of the 'life of grace' - that is a friendship with God that can grow deeper and merit more grace throughout one's lifetime until death. There is also a fundamental difference between protestant and catholic thought on the effect of grace in one's life. Protestants think that grace sort of 'covers one' with the holiness of Jesus, so that God is pleased with them - but fundamentally they are unchanged by it: the old protestant analogy is of a piece of shit covered with white snow. Catholics, on the other hand see grace as something which intrinsically changes the person and makes it possible for their very thoughts and actions to be intimately connected to their relationship with God and his creatures. This is seen in a striving (in albeit a very few saintly individuals) a striving for the perfection of charity: to love God above all things and to love all things with the love of Christ. Catholics certainly do not see death as a radical begining of some different kind of life - but rather as the continuation of the life they have lived on earth. The difference being, that what was lived in the obscurity of faith in this life is then lived in the light of clear vision (face to face vision) of seeing God directly.
 
Thank you for clarifying. I don't know much about catholicism as it is not the primary religion where I live.


Flavus Aquila said:
The infinite, eternal life of God is in itself more valuable than the short, finite, temporal life natural to us. However, the very fact that God became man - the infinite took on our mortality - points to the sanctification and elevation of the value and significance of our mortal lives.

There may be a significant difference between protestant and catholic thought on this matter. Protestants, as far as I know, believe that once you 'are saved' it's a done deal - that you just need to believe in an afterlife and your box is 'ticked.' Catholics, on the other hand approach faith and Baptism as the begining of the 'life of grace' - that is a friendship with God that can grow deeper and merit more grace throughout one's lifetime until death. There is also a fundamental difference between protestant and catholic thought on the effect of grace in one's life. Protestants think that grace sort of 'covers one' with the holiness of Jesus, so that God is pleased with them - but fundamentally they are unchanged by it: the old protestant analogy is of a piece of shit covered with white snow. Catholics, on the other hand see grace as something which intrinsically changes the person and makes it possible for their very thoughts and actions to be intimately connected to their relationship with God and his creatures. This is seen in a striving (in albeit a very few saintly individuals) a striving for the perfection of charity: to love God above all things and to love all things with the love of Christ. Catholics certainly do not see death as a radical begining of some different kind of life - but rather as the continuation of the life they have lived on earth. The difference being, that what was lived in the obscurity of faith in this life is then lived in the light of clear vision (face to face vision) of seeing God directly.
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And when I read about Buddha and all of his followers emphasizing how even he was not a god of any sort, I was hooked! As you said, if the "figure" in the religion is above-humanity, then it makes all of their accomplishes less attainable for the rest of us. In some weird way, it's almost as if the religion and the religious figurehead is speaking down to the rest of us poor mortals and instead of enlightenment, it just promotes resentment.

I don't believe Jesus ever intended for a religion to be formed around him. I do believe he thought of himself as a teacher though. When I hear people reference him as the son of God I also picture telling everyone one how they too are the son of god. I just think there was a lot of picking and choosing and manipulation taking place after his death...
 
Lerxst said:
And when I read about Buddha and all of his followers emphasizing how even he was not a god of any sort, I was hooked! As you said, if the "figure" in the religion is above-humanity, then it makes all of their accomplishes less attainable for the rest of us. In some weird way, it's almost as if the religion and the religious figurehead is speaking down to the rest of us poor mortals and instead of enlightenment, it just promotes resentment.

I don't believe Jesus ever intended for a religion to be formed around him. I do believe he thought of himself as a teacher though. When I hear people reference him as the son of God I also picture telling everyone one how they too are the son of god. I just think there was a lot of picking and choosing and manipulation taking place after his death...
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I would agree with this view. The problem though is that people state it as a fact that Jesus is the son of god which just add's a whole new demension to this. If only people where at times a little rational, just a little. It would be great if people could just look at Jesus as a man and see that he did good and that be enough. The world might be a better place if people stoped trying to reach heaven and made this life a heaven of sorts. I just will never understand putting more value on an afterlife versus the present beauty of the short time we have with our current lives. The fact that it is not infinate should give it far greater value than any infinite after life.
 
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Strange how I can be perfectly fine with "mere" Christianity and Jesus. Of course, I may have studied the scriptures a lot more than most. I could never expect people that tend to question things to be satisfied with anything less.
 
Let's look from a marketing stand point.
a) Admit it or not, There's a desire of humanity to -reach- for divinity. Think of it as role models. To go -beyond- humanity, beyond our weaknesses, our carnal desires. What philosophers had attempted to achieve, Christian 'marketers' use it. And no one's better than Jesus, right? (And if you look from the Christ' point of view, that's alright but consider this; the leaders afterwards may have denied the Son of God status Jesus -allegedly- claimed Himself to be, if they don't like it.)

b) Expanding from @Kgal ; look, before Christianity, there's Roman; Greek gods. Who lived at the heavens, watched their humans (with the occasional dallying and demigods here and there). They are simply using 'the same but more'. Look, this is like Perseus, like Hercules, only HE WALK AMONGST YOU. HE DOESN'T WANT YOUR BLOOD! He cares for you puny mortals! He's not on a holy mission to something and then poof! HE DOESN'T WANT YOUR VIRGINS! Neither does He take any unsuspecting virgins and breed them a godspawn, leaving the women to the mercy of the jealous wife-goddess!

So the purpose is, role model. Bless Him to be very virtuous to achieve that kind of popularity (I am not talking about virtues, for obvious reasons), but... yeah. Brilliant marketing point.
 
As a sensor I must point out the irrelevancy of the OP.
 
Hoggle said:
As a sensor I must point out the irrelevancy of the OP.
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Fair enough, as me; I have to point out the uselessness of you posting this as it does nothing to contribute to the conversation and only represents your one bias. Of course that is fine and I find it entertaining, so please continue. :p
 
Dont most posts only represent one persons bias?
 
Just as the point of this is not to try to convert someone who believes in Christ to not believe in Christ, trying to convince someone who doesn't believe in Christ to believe in Christ will only result in stricter refusal of those beliefs. People often make the mistake of believing that their beliefs make them somehow enlightened which as we have witnessed causes a lot of problems. It is great that you have read a lot and researched a lot of religion and just because that has convinced you it does not mean it has the ability to convince anybody else. It is your own personal experiences and thusly it cannot be applied to anybody. Also as a skeptical person I cannot place any value in books written by men and take them as fact. I will not deny the motivational aspect of them and how much they can inspire people but I cannot accept them as truth.
 
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Hoggle said:
Dont most posts only represent one persons bias?
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Most of the time but I personally like pretending to be somebody else just to see what type of responses I will get. Again playing devils advocate can be eye opening. By stating beliefs contrary to my own and then trying to defend them results in greater understanding in other perspectives.
 
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I missed the mark I was aiming at, obviously. I have deleted the post. I will regroup and try again. Sorry for any misunderstanding. No foul intended.

Not trying to convince anyone of but one thing, too: studying something helps one to better understand said subject.
 
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Thanks for being on one accord, but I am not a sistah; s'il vous pla
 
Throughout history, Jesus and other religious figures have fallen prey to mankind's own purposes. I will not eliminate the importance of Jesus and the scriptures to me as a Christian, as the life of Jesus was as important to me as the life of anyone.

Jews awaited a Messiah whose redemptive act would heal this world. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Rabbis saw Jesus as a false Messiah. The rejection of Jesus was a measure of Jewish faith. Rabbi Irving Greenburg suggested quite properly, "The rabbis confused a failed Messiah and false Messiah." The purpose of all this was to allow Jesus to turn to the Gentiles. The purpose used by the rabbis was to measure Jewish devotion to the scriptures as they saw them. Greenburg suggested a Jew could accept Jesus as a failed Messiah that did not reach His final goal, such as Moses. The Christian may have a problem with this.

It was Constantine whose personal and political reasons chose to exemplify God the Father residing over the death of His Son as an integral part of theology. Thus, once more the purpose of Jesus was changed by mankind.


It was Saint Anselm that actually helped concrete this into theology. The purpose? It blended with eleventh century violence. The sins of mankind could be adjudicated with such an immense sum of wrong as to cause the need of the death of Jesus, with His Father residing over it, as the only admissible payment for them. Maybe this mindset would garner less violence, thus helping to create a more readily controllable populace of believers.


The question would then arise, is the world redeemed or still as yet unredeemed? Temporal thinking is required of us in this world, but what about when our time here has expired? Must we think of those past living here as being part of time any longer? Are they on a schedule? Must they wake up in the morning? Must they work so much and rest so much time each day or week. I suggest they are no longer governed by time, thus opening the door for understanding of the temporal and the eternal.

The question arises if God, in the eternal realm, longs for us in the temporal realm? I suggest He does, as a parent wishes and hopes the child will do right and return to them in love. That longing from the eternal is my hope, and it gives God a different look in my heart and my mind: my very spirit. It comforts me believing God longs for my love. It comforts me believing God longs for my understanding. It comforts me believing God cries when a child dies. I live in faith believing God longs for me as I long for God. He has fulfilled my purpose for Him.

I thank James Carroll for his book and the many questions and answers it allows in the mindset. I feel we should think with studying, and study with thinking; neither without the other in such matters.
 
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