I’ve had conversations where I’ve asked people to tell me who they think is among the greatest humans to have ever lived. Unsurprisingly, Jesus is a common answer. And for a long time I didn’t disagree. After all, the things Jesus said really aren’t represented by the religious, so it isn’t so much to say he was a good person. Of course, I’m granting that he really did exist, but that’s another discussion.
But I’ve been thinking. Sure, Jesus said some good things. Of course, other philosophers have said the same good things – and done so with actual, ya know, reasons – but good is good. Except that pesky detail about using reason is where things get sticky. Okay, Jesus wasn’t great at arguing his case logically (that part is well represented by the religious), and that obviously doesn’t make him a bad person by any means, but consider the way he did argue his case: he lied. He claimed he was a divine being from some magic place. He said he had a mandate from the one true god to save the world. Whether it was an actual man named Jesus who said those things or if scribes simply made them up along with the miracles they invented, none of it is true. Not a bit. It’s all a lie.
I don’t know about anybody else, but I have trouble ranking a fundamental liar among the greatest people the world has ever seen.
Filed under: Religions | Tagged: Jesus was a liar, Thought of the day |
For the Sake of Science 
How exactly do you know, assuming the man existed, that he lied?
Aside from the fact that his existence is premised in Adam and Eve being real – and we know they weren’t – he also had to have been born a virgin. Ignoring for a moment that that is not possible, if it was true, he would have been genetically identical to Mary anyway. Plus there are all those details about the need to suspend the laws of physics throughout his existence.
The guy, if he existed, premised his entire life on lies.
The issue is over his divinity if I’m not mistaken. You can’t say he was or was not a liar without making some untestable assumptions.
If you say he was what he said, than the issues you speak of are largely irrelevant, All powerful God don’t you know. You have to assume there is a God, untestable.
If you say he isn’t what he said you said, than those are some serious issues indeed. Unfortunately you have to make the assumption there is no God, an equally impossible thing to test.
Wouldn’t the scientific thing to do be to set the issue completely aside until a reproducible test(s) can be formulated? I don’t think there is any data that supports either side that we possesses. It’s one thing to say there is no evidence for God, it’s another to use the lack of evidence as evidence.
Frankly, no one is right until they can produce proof. You can operate under certain assumptions based on the lack of evidence, but I fail to see how you can make a claim, its merely an assumption with a currently higher likelihood of probability.
I’m not making an argument either way, I just see some issues with your statements. An extremely improbable event does not an impossible event make.
His divinity is premised in things which cannot happen. As I said, the existence of Adam and Eve as well as being born of a virgin. Since we know Adam and Eve never existed, and since we know virgin births do no occur in humans (and since we know, even if human virgin births did happen, Jesus would have been a woman), we can say Jesus was not of divine origins in the way he purported.
As far as God goes, I am assuming his existence. The fact that he probably does not exist just goes further to show that Jesus was almost certainly in no way divine.
I don’t agree, particularly when you are claim to be assuming an all powerful God. I can grant you Genesis as at best being the best a person of inadequate understanding could describe even had they been show such event on a jumbo-tron, but if you are already assuming an all powerful creator, I don’t see how a pesky thing like XY matters at all.
One would also assume with an all-powerful god that there would be some of that pesky evidence.
I’m not willing to suspend the laws of physics on the claims of some writers from thousands of years ago. In fact, I’m not willing to suspend the laws of physics for anyone.
Than I guess you were not assuming any such thing.
Jesus and Raphael were not liars at all. Jesus and Raphael were never liars, but in John 8:44 calls Satan a liar and the father of lies, not Jesus (God’s Son) nor Raphael (angel of healing). To call Jesus a liar is blasphemy and it perverts the truth what Christ said in the Scriptures of the Holy Bible. Jesus and Raphael are not liars, remember that.
OK Angel, please clarify something: what’s the current waiting period for divine retribution over blasphemy? In the Old Testament, Jehovah lays waste to entire cities because they contain blasphemes. Flaming swords, plagues, infestations, rampant armies of enemies, death of children, rape of women… All pretty instantaneously.
Still, I guess the population was a bit less then… Especially after all those Biblical God-given brutal massacres of the unbelievers he created and then decided he didn’t like.
Do we just pick a number and sit around trembling these days?