Jesus Christ

Quoted from aldi_01

Proof is a funny word when considering religion, in this case, Christianity.

There are smatterings of proof regarding scripture, the people and even a possibility that a chap called Jesus or similar did roam the planet back then.  We know that the bible is fundamentally and allegory, not be read as fact, more a guide, allegorical messages intended to help people have faith and provide life guidance.

I while back on one of my many occasions in Italy a local who had denounced Catholicism provided me a copy of a book/article that explored the idea that the Catholic Church has one of the largest research/archeological budgets in the world but uses little of it. Not because there’s nothing to explore but because there’s a risk that they uncover nothing or indeed proof it’s all fake...that ruins the religion and all those people who need faith lose it.

Like I say, places have proved that things do indeed support statements made in the bible.

In post modern society, a society that is arguably more self aware, religion is primarily used to guide and offer solace. Faith and a sense of community in a somewhat community-less environment.

It’s a personal choice and should remain that way...I take the positives with actually feeling thr need to believe; it’s given us some amazing pieces of architecture...

In general I like your sentiment Aldi. For me I take a open minded view. Yes Iam a cradle Catholic and believe Jesus touched into the divine origins of this whole universe. As for the that book that denounced  Catholicism thats all what it is. A book shaped by ideas of one person . For me the Catholic church is essentially something good but throughout history has deviated from the original teaching of Jesus of which its originally  based on since the time of the first apostle Peter. Hopefully the current Pope can change this and clean it up which is what he is trying to do  now and get back to the pure essence of Jesus's teachings which is to create a kingdom of God on this earth shaped by love and trying to do good.

I often look up at the night sky and see the stars and wonder at the vast nature of  our ever expanding universe. In the grand scheme of things we are not even a pin sharp object in the ocean.

Often in my life the best people I have met have been religious from all walks of life .This stems from Catholic priests, to  my Sikh Math teacher and to Muslim women who have shown me so  much warmth carried by their faith in Allah.

Its why I have respect and love for all religions now. Growing up you change and are constantly adapting your views depending on how life shapes you.

For me the best religion comes from following ones heart and not trusting noone bar  what you see with your own eyes.

Quoted from Humbercod

Come on DB you’re clutching at straws WW1 and WW2 is factually recorded with video evidence witnessed by millions of people around the world.
Jesus resurrection was witnessed by his cult and lady of the night, it’s just pure fantasy, but I will echo Pete’s thoughts if that’s what you want to believe then carry on.
I would love to read some religious stuff that could get me thinking.....just maybe!

Brilliant article written on Jesus by Edward Kessler MBE who is the Founder Director of The Woolf Institute and a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, and is a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge as well as a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation .Bit long but I think its worth a read if your interested like you seem to be.

By Ed Kessler
One of the certain facts about Jesus was that he was a Jew. He was a child of Jewish parents, brought up in a Jewish home and reared among Jewish traditions. Throughout his life, Jesus lived among Jews and his followers were Jews.

No other Jew in history has rivalled Jesus in the magnitude of his influence. The words and deeds of Jesus the Jew have been, and are, an inspiration to countless millions of men and women. Strange, is it not, that Jews have given little attention to the life and teaching of this outstanding Jew? Yet, this is true because the Christian followers of Jesus came to cherish beliefs about his life that no Jew could hold.
When the Church persecuted Jews in an effort to convert them, Jewish indifference to Jesus turned to hostility. It is a sad fact of history that the followers of this great Jew have brought much suffering upon the Jewish people, so that for centuries it was very hard for any Jew even to think of Jesus without difficulty. Up until recently, most Jews have chosen not to think of him at all.
Now we are witnessing a significant change and although Jewish indifference to Jesus has not by any means disappeared, the signs are encouraging.

Jesus and his family would have been observant of Torah, paid tithes, kept the Sabbath, circumcised their males, attended synagogue, observed purity laws in relation to childbirth and menstruation, kept the dietary code - one could go on. While the Gospels record disputes about Jesus' interpretation of a few of these, the notion of a Christian Jesus, who did not live by Torah or only by its ethical values, does not fit historical reality.

There is no official Jewish view of Jesus but in one respect Jews are agreed in their attitude towards Jesus. Jews reject the tremendous claim, which is made for Jesus by his Christian followers - that Jesus is the Lord Christ, God Incarnate, the very Son of God the Father. On that belief, Jews and Christians must continue to respectfully differ. Jews believe that all share the divine spirit and are stamped with the divine image and no person - not even the greatest of all people - can possess the perfection of God. No one can be God's equal.
Jesus lived his life not as a Christian but as a Jew, obedient (with very few exceptions) to Torah. Yet within a few years after his death, the Jewish followers of Jesus espoused a rather different kind of religion from that followed by most Jews. Judaism, like Islam after it, is strongly rooted in religious law; Christianity ceased to be so. Judaism, also like Islam, has a strong belief in the unity of God; Christianity came to place such great store in Jesus and subsequently in the doctrine of the Trinity that it has seemed to many other monotheists to be, in essence, a refined form of polytheism. Gradually, Christian religion came to look less like an authentic, even if eccentric, form of Judaism, and more like a completely different religion.

During the Second Temple period, there were many internal arguments about what it meant to be Jewish. Did religious law permit one to acquiesce in Roman occupation, or to fight it? How did the law reconcile justice and mercy? These must have been common debates, which one can see mirrored in the gospels' accounts of Jesus' disputes with contemporary religious leaders.
We cannot be certain of Jesus' views, for the gospels are a highly interpretative genre of literature, coloured by their contributors' and editors' reflections on events that had happened 40 and more years before, in the light of the momentous events that had occurred in the intervening years. Even so, his attitude towards dietary laws recorded in Mark's gospel shows little interest in the minutiae of what they require that Jews eat and drink. This unusual interpretation eventually became common for Christians: certainly the food laws gradually became a thing of the past, as accounts in Acts and the Pauline letters illustrate. Moreover, although Jesus' message of the kingdom of God was clearly within mainstream Jewish tradition, the Christological references about him and his meaning are less so.

The belief that Jesus was God is an impossibility for Jewish thought. But not so the belief that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. Several Jews have in the course of 2000 years, claimed to be the Messiah - sent by God to inaugurate God's kingdom on earth. Simon Bar Kochba in 132 CE and Shabbetai Zvi in 1665 CE are two examples among many. But the association of Messiah with terms like Son of Man and Son of God, which developed a profusion of meanings, soon led to exalted claims for Jesus that few Jews felt able to follow. Even within the New Testament this is so; by the time of the full-blown Trinitarianism of the 4th century creeds this gap was unbridgeably wide.
Jesus was put to death by the Romans on the charge that he claimed to be the Messiah. Jesus made it clear to Peter that he regarded himself as the Messiah (Mark 8:29) as he did to the High Priest (Mark 14:62). Some Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah, believing that he would redeem them from the bitter yoke of Rome and bring the messianic age. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem he was acclaimed, "blessed is the Kingdom that comes, the kingdom of our father David" (Mark 11:10). Other Jews rejected the claim.

The charge against Jesus on the cross and his mockery as 'King of the Jews', his execution between two villains, the appearance of the royal messianic motifs - these all suggest that Pilate faced a man charged with sedition. Jesus was not crucified because he denied his Jewishness, abandoned the Scriptures, or disowned his people. He remained a Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, the Jew from Galilee and was executed for political rather than religious reasons.

To claim to be the Messiah, if it was an offence against Judaism at all, was certainly not (as the Gospels contend) an offence against Jewish law for which Jesus could have been put to death. The Gospels say that Jesus' claim to be the Messiah was blasphemy, but in Jewish law, blasphemy was to curse God using God's sacred name. Jesus did nothing of the sort. For Jews, history has shown that Jesus was not the long-awaited Messiah, for Jews were not delivered from the yoke of Roman bondage and the Golden Age did not come. However, some Jews have suggested that Jesus was following in the footsteps of the biblical prophets (cf. Mark 6:15, Matt 21:11).
"What commandment is the first of all?" he was asked. Jesus answered as any Jew: "the first is: Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. The second is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31). Every Jew will recognise in Jesus' answer the Shema, a Jewish declaration of faith, which is recited at every Jewish service, day and night. The famous command of Lev. 19:18 is also a fundamental precept of Judaism.

It was in his attitude towards the Torah that Jesus seems to have departed from the Judaism of his time. In their teaching, the rabbis would state, "thus says the Torah." Jesus showed independence by standing above the Torah and speaking as one "having authority". (Mark 1:22) He dared to base his teachings on "I say to you" and it was this daring which brought him into conflict with contemporary Judaism.
It is highly improbable that Jesus told his followers to ignore the Torah; rather, he emphasized that "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) i.e., follow the deepest instinct for truth and love in your heart for therein, not through Torah, lies salvation. This was a courageous message; one which made some Jews unbounded in their devotion to him and others to regard him as a heretic.
Geza Vermes and Ed Sanders are two scholars who in recent years have drawn wide attention among Christians to Jesus' Jewish origins, though Christians earlier in the 20th century (R. T. Herford, George Foot Moore) had also explored this trend, which has now become widespread and crucial within Jesus studies. At least until the 1970s, it was common for New Testament scholars to portray Jesus as a kind of prototype exponent of idealism. Many betrayed an instinctive antisemitism. They depicted Judaism at the time of Jesus as 'late Judaism' (Spätjudentum), as if Jewish religion had ended with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, or should have. This position was based on the conviction that post-exilic Judaism had ossified and betrayed the prophetic faith of Israel. It contends that Jesus stands outside such a hardened, legalistic religion, a stranger to it, condemning the scribes and the Pharisees who were the fathers of Rabbinic Judaism and who have thus misled modern Judaism into perpetuating this sterile, legalistic religion.

Jesus was a Jew, not an alien intruder in 1st-century Palestine. Whatever else he was, he was a reformer of Jewish beliefs, not an indiscriminate faultfinder of them. For Jews, the significance of Jesus must be in his life rather than his death, a life of faith in God. For Jews, not Jesus but God alone is Lord. Yet an increasing number of Jews are proud that Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew.

Rick and DB, I respect your faith but none of the ‘proofs’ you have offered is anything of the sort. You are doing more harm to Christianity than good by continuing to make these ill-advised claims.

When there is proof, actual proof, believe me, it will be the biggest news in history. Until then, keep your faith in the Lord but your powder dry.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

When there is proof, actual proof, believe me, it will be the biggest news in history. Until then, keep your faith in the Lord but your powder dry.

I can understand that  though and Iam the same .I need evidence and have often wished more would be  forthcoming from the divine aside from an one off event I had when young which gives me my faith. I have often wished more people would experience what I did.

Having gone deep on the issue from reading ,talking to others of differing faiths and direct personal experience is I genuinely think something divine did cause this universe to happen. All major religions touch on this and all believe that life is a battle between good v bad.

Quoted from Rick12

I can understand that  though and Iam the same .I need evidence and have often wished more would be  forthcoming from the divine aside from an one off event I had when young which gives me my faith. I have often wished more people would experience what I did.

  I suppose and  this will be my last message on the subject  is my philosophy now after having gone deep on the issue from reading ,talking to others of differing faiths and direct personal experience is I genuinely think something divine did cause this universe to happen. All major religions touch on this and all believe that life is a battle between good v bad.

You do not need evidence, if you do will not get any, at what age did you stop believing in the tooth fairy? There was proof of them existing, the tooth disappeared and money miraculously turned up in it’s place.  I have a relative with a university degree who absolutely believes in the myth of Adam and Eve as the first humans and doctors working for us who are completely rational until it comes to religion. We are quite happy to have national saint who is famous for killing a dragon is this more believable than a tooth fairy?
If we had evidence there would be only one religion, people would rebel against what they saw as unfair about it and god would be smiting folk down right , left and centre to keep control.
With evidence there is no need for faith which is the whole point of religion, it’s whole premise is the power of belief and control.

Quoted from codcheeky

You do not need evidence, if you do will not get any, at what age did you stop believing in the tooth fairy? There was proof of them existing, the tooth disappeared and money miraculously turned up in it’s place.  I have a relative with a university degree who absolutely believes in the myth of Adam and Eve as the first humans and doctors working for us who are completely rational until it comes to religion. We are quite happy to have national saint who is famous for killing a dragon is this more believable than a tooth fairy?
If we had evidence there would be only one religion, people would rebel against what they saw as unfair about it and god would be smiting folk down right , left and centre to keep control.
With evidence there is no need for faith which is the whole point of religion, it’s whole premise is the power of belief and control.

Nothing to do with the tooth fairy .Its to do with what was there before which gave rise to the big bang. For me that is God whilst others think its chance. As noted had I not seen what I had when young I would have been a agnostic so again I sympathise with your view.

As for Adam and Eve I think that's more of a symbolic story created by ancient man. We all evolved from Africa when nature was in balance. Humans came and some affected the natural delicate balance of it all through greed and power eg  chopping down the rainforests, overfishing and so forth.

I think religion comes from one heart eg somehow tied to into good  . I dont feel  no religion has all the answers. Its why there are/have been  different strands of religious thought all around the world since humans evolved culminating now in the main 5 which are Hinduism ,Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Sikhism  .Its mans attempt to understand something that is essentially above all of us even science. Its why now I take something from all faiths as I think all have truths to them.

Peace and love to you Rick.

What has always baffled me is how easily people of faith will happily maim, kill, torture, rape and wage war. Not all of course, but I've always found it sickening what is perpetrated in the name of religion. My main customer I do work for is a devout Catholic and we had a conversation about veganism recently in which she said that animals were put on this earth by God for us to butcher and eat. I found this a very strange stance.

Quoted from ginnywings

What has always baffled me is how easily people of faith will happily maim, kill, torture, rape and wage war. Not all of course, but I've always found it sickening what is perpetrated in the name of religion. My main customer I do work for is a devout Catholic and we had a conversation about veganism recently in which she said that animals were put on this earth by God for us to butcher and eat. I found this a very strange stance.

There’s a saying about this:

With atheism, bad people do bad things. With religion, good people do bad things.

The OT is about Jesus Christ. Various religions have used Christianity for their own ends, usually power and money. After the first commandment, the second commandment from Jesus is to love your neighbour as yourself.

That my friends is where Christianity ends and religion has taken over, especially in today's world. Do we actually care about our neighbours especially during the covid outbreak?, or why is it when people go to the beach on hot days with no social distancing, attended mass demo's when all mass gatherings were banned? However some people did care, help the elderly with shopping, etc. and someone to talk to.

Just look at the C of E or the Catholics and you will find 2 of the wealthiest organisations going, both of which plead for more money. To help the poor and needy they say, so sell some gold. Both have elaborate golden crosses and both ignore the fact that when the Israelites in the desert started to pray to golden images it angered God.

Then you have the declining vicars in the C of E who have the same number of Bishops. A declining workforce but the same management structure. Papal wars etc. I could go and on about religion, but it's done in the name of Jesus Christ but not for what Jesus lived for, or the true meaning of Christianity.

Ginny, would you like to ask your customer why Pope's don't have a wife? She will answer, tradition, not done, and other reasons. Then ask her if the first Pope was St Peter, as in St Peters Ballistica. She will say yes. Then point out to her that in the book of Mark it is recorded that Jesus healed Peters Mother in law, so if the first Pope had a mother-in-law, then he must have had a wife. I have mentioned this to Catholics but they were not aware of it!

Then we have all those beautiful church buildings, by the thousand. Now I must point out that I have a love of old architecture and admiration for the builders to create such masterpieces.

However why do they spend millions on the upkeep. These buildings are not needed as the fall in congregations make them to large and heating and maintainance costs to high. Purpose built modern cathedrals/church buildings would be literally maintainance free and have proper insulation with reduced heating/electric costs. The old buildings could be handed over to English Heritage, National Trust and even have their use changed to musems, or homes in the case of some chapels and churches.

To some up, my feelings and beliefs are that if everyone tried to help our neighbours as taught by Jesus Christ, and NOT the teaching of various religions , then the world would be a better place. I have tried to show proof of Jesus existance using St Peter, taking Peters life backwards to the time he was with Jesus.

Life is full of choices so at the end of the day you either believe in Jesus Christ, including his teaching, or you don't.

Your comment about the Catholics who don’t realise that there were married priests before (I think) the 12th century, touches on the 3rd part of the first commandment. “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy mind.” In my experience that’s the bit that gets overlooked more often than the first two bits.