Quote:
| But you'll probably just find fault in that statement also, and we'll really get off subject rather than talking about - topic : WHO IS JESUS? |
Yup.
So let's get back on topic - Who is Jesus? I'll elaborate on my answer.
For most of my life, I merely accepted Jesus Christ's historical reality as a given. I never believed he was divine (even at the young age when I believed in God), largely because I was never taught much about it. I honestly can't remember being curious enough about it to ask. Even when I began to research religious ideas and became an atheist, I never looked into Jesus further. I just assumed he was a real man whose story has been heavily modified by Christians to include miracles and such. That's my dad's opinion, I know. But as I read more, I learned that Jesus' historical reality is actually debatable. I don't like to have opinions on topics I'm not knowledgable about, so decided not to have an opinion on this until I had the time to research it further.
It stayed that way until earlier this year when I searched the internet for information. Of course, the internet can be notoriously unreliable, rife with inaccuracies, delusions and unfounded personal assertions. So you have to be careful, checking the sources and such. But what I saw suggested there is very little evidence for Jesus' existance. As much as Heracles' (=Hercules, who is mythological of course) or less. There are no records of him from when he supposedly lived, the gospels were all written long afterwards, and modified from each other. The story of Jesus is a combination of features from other Gods who were worshipped earlier in that area of the world (virgin birth, crucifiction, three days before a ressurection, etc.). But like I said, it's easy to lie on the internet, so I checked out pro-Jesus arguments too. I was quite disappointed. I can't remember finding a secular site arguing for his existance, for instance. They all seemed to start with religious premises. One started with the nature of sin in the Garden of Eden, a story I know is fiction. One said the resemblence between Jesus and earlier gods was due to Satan knowing how Jesus' life would unfold, and planting similar pagan beliefs centuries beforehand to make Jesus' story less credible! So since I couldn't find any arguments that weren't based on faith, I decided to have the opinion that he's a fictional character.
However, I recently read the excellent book
The God Delusion, by noted aggressive atheist (and personal hero) Richard Dawkins. In it, he says that he thinks Jesus probably existed, though a good case can be made for him not existing. And because Richard is unabashedly rational, I know that means he thinks a better case can be made
for him existing. So I plan to write him and ask for good references that brought him to this conclusion, so that I can make my opinion more informed (regardless of whether I decide it's necessary to alter).
As an aside, Richard thought Jesus was a great role model, fictional or not. In fact, he once wore an Atheists for Jesus shirt. Though I've never read most of the New Testament, I must agree Jesus sounds better (turn the other cheek, Golden Rule, etc.) than many of his most vocal followers in today's society. Similarly, Thomas Jefferson held the moral teachings of Jesus in great esteem, even though he was a deist (he believed in an impersonal god, and certainly not in Jesus' divinity). So regardless of whether people think Jesus was real or not, it seems we can all agree on one valid answer to the question of "Who is Jesus?" -
The New Testament's interpretation of Jesus Christ is that of a man whose morals we should for the most part respect and try to follow ourselves.
