A 21st century Jesus

[BeRational]

Maybe you should try putting your brain in gear before engaging your mouth. Everyone, whatever their religion or lack thereof, agrees that Jesus was a good, patently honest and sincere person, but you want us to believe that he was a con-man.

I do not agree with that.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Seriously? Lewis's daft trilemma?

There are so many things wrong with it, for example: the accounts of what Jesus said may well be inaccurate or embellished, even if they could be considered accurate, it's questionable if he actually thought he was god, and, even if that were the case, being delusional about being god doesn't somehow prevent him saying some sound things about morality - people (and delusions) are more complicated than that.

I would be interested in your warrant for the above especially when the ''lack of grounding in religion'' light and bells ring out whenever you comment on these matters.

What has been lacking from every opponent of Christianity on this is a lengthy treatise which doesn't resort to materialism, a non sequitur diversion into science FFS, or ad hominem on Christians. Perhaps you'd like to change that.

[Stranger]

I would be interested in your warrant for the above...

Rationality. That really is a daft question - if you think something is wrong with it, point it out.

...especially when the ''lack of grounding in religion'' light and bells ring out whenever you comment on these matters.

Again, do enlighten us as to how that would be relevant to the specific point.

What has been lacking from every opponent of Christianity on this is a lengthy treatise which doesn't resort to materialism, a non sequitur diversion into science FFS, or ad hominem on Christians. Perhaps you'd like to change that.

I don't recognise your characterisation and why would anybody write a "lengthy treatise" on a forum like this?

[Dicky Underpants]

Of course he was a man of his time - he was fully man as well as fully God. Therefore, he accepted the universal beliefs of his time.

You're a puzzle, Steve. You opened a thread once, talking about your 'non-realist' Christianity, but later admitted that you're not entirely committed to this view. Well, few of us - apart from bigots of whatever persuasion - would claim absolute certainty in our philosophies of life. Whatever, most of us get the idea that you're some sort of liberal Christian. Fine and dandy.
Then you come out with assertions straight out of the repertoire of traditional Christian dogma - and then go on to show further confusion by citing Lewis' boneheaded 'trilemma', as if this hadn't been exposed as full of holes as a rusty colander lost in the bottom of a lake. Just as Stranger etc have pointed out. I know you have the brains to see the ludicrously simplistic nature of Lewis' argument, so I'm at a loss to know why you feel the need to cite it here. In any case the whole thing has been deconstructed, hanged, drawn and quartered on this site many times, by quite a number of people.
Your attitude strikes me as a bit like some of the automatic responses of Dr Strangelove - despite having been 'socially re-educated' by the Allies after the war, his right arm can't resist an urge to swing upwards in the Nazi salute (not that I'm comparing Christianity with the Nazis)
I do however understand your irritation with Littleroses, who still talks like a fundamentalist in reverse (as Rhiannon has intimated)

[SteveH]

I was putting the traditional Christian view, to point out that his accepting the contemporary cosmology was not a problem. I should've made that clearer. As for Lewis's trilemma - I don't know what I was thinking of, to be honest, as I had serious doubts about that even when I was a full-orbed evanjellycule.

[Nearly Sane]

I was putting the traditional Christian view, to point out that his accepting the contemporary cosmology was not a problem. I should've made that clearer. As for Lewis's trilemma - I don't know what I was thinking of, to be honest, as I had serious doubts about that even when I was a full-orbed evanjellycule.

Kudos for that.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Rationality. That really is a daft question - if you think something is wrong with it, point it out.

By all means demonstrate how rationality opposes Christianity....without confusing rationality with incredulity that is.

[Stranger]

By all means demonstrate how rationality opposes Christianity....

That actually wasn't my claim (on this occasion) - you really do need to pay more attention. I listed some rather obvious alternatives to Lewis's simplistic trilemma and you asked for my "warrant" for doing so.

The alternatives that I listed are bleedin' obvious if you consider the matter at all. However, if you think one or more of them is impossible for some reason, it's up to you to say why.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

That actually wasn't my claim (on this occasion) - you really do need to pay more attention. I listed some rather obvious alternatives to Lewis's simplistic trilemma and you asked for my "warrant" for doing so.

The alternatives that I listed are bleedin' obvious if you consider the matter at all. However, if you think one or more of them is impossible for some reason, it's up to you to say why.

I don't think Lewis trilemma.....did he ever use the term trilemma?.....is meant as a scientific formula.

To me it's main point is the reaction to the claims of Jesus....that he is more than just an ordinary Joe and of existential importance to the individual....comes in three 'flavours'...…..Jesus is deluded due to brain and mental aberration or psychological malformation or educational deficit because that cannot possibly be held by any rational or right thinking person, He is bad and deliberately trying to hoodwink people or it might be true.


I don't think Lewis aimed his trilemma at anyone who hasn't dismissed the idea Jesus as God.


Ok turn it into a quadrilemma if you will but I don't think it's logical to say because Lewis calls it a trilemma rather than a quadrilemma therefore Jesus as a figure existentially important for the individual cannot be true.

[Stranger]

To me it's main point is the reaction to the claims of Jesus....that he is more than just an ordinary Joe and of existential importance to the individual....comes in three 'flavours'...…..Jesus is deluded due to brain and mental aberration or psychological malformation or educational deficit because that cannot possibly be held by any rational or right thinking person, He is bad and deliberately trying to hoodwink people or it might be true.

Lewis deliberately rubbished the idea of people thinking of Jesus as a moral teacher:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.  That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

From: Lewis's trilemma

This assumes that the accounts we have of what he said are fully accurate, that Lewis's interpretation of them is correct, and that he cannot have had some level of delusion and still come up with some sound moral teaching.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Lewis deliberately rubbished the idea of people thinking of Jesus as a moral teacher:

That remark is non sequitur.

Of course Jesus was a moral teacher but not solely a moral teacher.

[Stranger]

That remark is non sequitur.

Of course Jesus was a moral teacher but not solely a moral teacher.

Did you actually read the quote? Here it is again:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.  That is the one thing we must not say.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Did you actually read the quote? Here it is again:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.  That is the one thing we must not say.

I think that's fair enough. Jesus doesn't come to us through history as just presenting himself as just a moral teacher without the implications and explicit idea that he is something more or that his relationship with God is just a bolt on.


Therefore seeing someone who is prepared to bullshit and gull people into believing he is the son of God AND AT THE SAME TIME being a Great moral teacher has no warrant.

[Shaker]

... which, to nobody's surprise, is every bit as much a bullshit assertion as was Lewis's own original wibble.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

... which, to nobody's surprise, is every but as much bullshit assertion as was Lewis's own original wibble.

Feel free to demonstrate that.

[SteveH]

Lewis deliberately rubbished the idea of people thinking of Jesus as a moral teacher:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.  That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

From: Lewis's trilemma

This assumes that the accounts we have of what he said are fully accurate, that Lewis's interpretation of them is correct, and that he cannot have had some level of delusion and still come up with some sound moral teaching.

It also ignores the fact that Jesus was decidedly cagey about his relationship with God. He certainly never said "I am God", nor even "I am divine". He said "I and the father are one", and "he who has seen me has seen the father", but neither statement need mean anything more that unity of purpose and complete agreement. (This is where LR comes in with her usual crap about Jesus being "up himself", which she thinks is ever so original and daring.)

[Roses]

I wonder if the real Jesus was nothing like the way he was portrayed by the gospel writers, many years after his demise?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It also ignores the fact that Jesus was decidedly cagey about his relationship with God. He certainly never said "I am God", nor even "I am divine". He said "I and the father are one", and "he who has seen me has seen the father", but neither statement need mean anything more that unity of purpose and complete agreement. (This is where LR comes in with her usual crap about Jesus being "up himself", which she thinks is ever so original and daring.)

''He who has seen me has seen the father'' though is a far cry from just claiming to be a moral teacher though.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I wonder if the real Jesus was nothing like the way he was portrayed by the gospel writers, many years after his demise?

What warrant do you have for this?

[SteveH]

I wonder if the real Jesus was nothing like the way he was portrayed by the gospel writers, many years after his demise?

Since there's no way of knowing, it's something of a pointless question.

[Nearly Sane]

Since there's no way of knowing, it's something of a pointless question.

Which as you have already noted applies just as much to Lewis as to LR.

[Nearly Sane]

What warrant do you have for this?

Do you have a bet with yourself that every time you use the word 'warrant' in a nonsensical manner that you get to eat one of the Ritz crackers that you spunked on last night?

[Shaker]

''He who has seen me has seen the father'' though is a far cry from just claiming to be a moral teacher though.

But is equally empty a claim nonetheless.

[Roses]

Since there's no way of knowing, it's something of a pointless question.

Well you would know all about pointless,  judging by some of your posts.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But is equally empty a claim nonetheless.

Non sequitur to the question ''is it right/sensible to refer to someone you think as mad or bad enough to claim that if you see him you have seen God the father, as a great moral teacher?''