BlowMeIs there any real physical proof that Jesus christ ever existed?
Some people say yes, some say no. Christians, agnostics, and atheists on all sides. I hope that answers your question.
FlaxTo be fair, if someone said Jesus never existed, they clearly wouldn’t be Christian 🤣
It really isn’t so clearcut. You don’t need an actual Jesus for the words attributed to him to be true. “Jesus” works perfectly fine as a container for an idea.
Thing is, it goes against man’s desires. The other religions that took off generally allow men to take more than one wife, fight wars, etc. Christianity basically asks of one to be poor and selfless and pure
The context within which you are raised matters so much more than what’s written in your chosen scripture. That and self interest. Between those two, pretty much anyone can wrangle themselves into believing anything they want. The history of how we got here from there is similarly irrelevant.
There’s quite a bit of contrast between Christianity and Islam in terms of how scripture is presented, as Islam teaches that the Qur’an is literally the words of God. As for Judaism, it’s unfulfilled, and if the New Testament about Jesus is actually true to what happened, then the Jewish prophecies clearly point to Him. Other than that it’s a very elaborate scam made by well educated people which doesn’t really give them any benefit.
Comfort and well-being, or so they believe… for some reason. Personally I like knowing I only get one shot
They were all executed horribly
My parents weren’t executed horribly, what are you talking about about?
I’m still talking about contemporary Christian belief. Thesis: You can consider yourself Christian without belief in Jesus as a historical figure. Many Christians are happy to understand Jesus as metaphors and an ideal. Like if you took the actually good Superman stories and removed all the context, you could idealize the individual to the point of worship without believing he’s real.
The whole point of Christianity isn’t just to “do good”. The foundation is that we aren’t good enough by nature and are flawed by our own fault, but by trusting in and following God, we can be forgiven. Because Jesus literally existed and was executed for our sins.
That feels a lot like your personal interpretation. You do not get to decide how people who call themselves Christian define themselves.
I’m going to start calling myself “muslim” then, as “muslim” means “one who submits to God”
You go ahead and do that. Worth noting that Islam doesn’t have a protestant reformation thats come in to say “f this the rules are whatever I want them to be personally,” so it’s basically still in its Catholic hegemony phase.
The protestant reformation didn’t do that. In fact, it was the opposite. It was based on the Bible over everything and shedding the idea of a pope who can claim “the rules are whatever I want them to be personally”
But that’s literally the second thing to happen in the protestant reformation. King Henry saw that Martin Luther guy and said “shit if he doesn’t have to listen to the Pope, I don’t either. Let’s strait up rewrite the Bible motherfucker!” So that the parts he didn’t like didn’t apply. Are you gonna say anglicans aren’t Christian?
The reformers did not rewrite the Bible.
Public education in US… Thanks for that.
Regardless… Mormons, JWs and Seventh Day Adventists get away with being Christian, so yah, I think you can get away with calling yourself a Christian and believing whatever you want.
Mormons and JWs are not Christian. The only ones who call Mormons and JWs Christian are themselves. Mormons and JWs are as Christian as the Chinese Communist Party is Communist.
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. You acknowledge that the Catholics don’t have control over what is and isn’t Christian, and that there are secta they’d deem as heretics at best or apostates at worst. That said there are many protestant denominations that won’t. There are wildly different interpretations of the Bible, WBC for example says a bunch of things that most Christians would consider unchristian, but the same holy texts, are used as source material.
Similarly, the belief in things like miracles, transubstantiation, literally of the Bible, the invention of the bodily rapture… Oh hey, and the trinity, let’s not forget about the monophosotes (sure they haven’t really been around for like a thousand years but…) What about the coptics? Are they not Christian cause their books are different?
The trinity is in the Bible. Not the word “trinity”, but our understanding of it comes purely from the Bible. Which is why even most SDAs agree with it. Real presence (part of the doctrine of transubstantiation) and miracles are also biblical. The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures and the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price aren’t biblical. Just like how the Qur’an isn’t biblical.
Muslim means “one who submits”, so I could identify as a muslim even though I don’t even adhere to Islam- it doesn’t make me Muslim.