Quote:
Originally Posted by SATCHMO
Now this is the crux of the problem. (And I'm noy directing this at you schredds I'm just using your post to highlight some things)
The aspect of Christianity that surrounds placing your faith in the idea that Christ was any more or less divine or god-created than anyone else is a man-made and borrowed concept.
Fundamentalists and atheists alike put all of their energy into proving and disproving, respectively, the historical accuracy of and biological validity of supernatural events, and in that apologetic process the wisdom that is inherent in the gospels gets swept under the rug, because apparently its not about "loving thy neighbour as you would love yourself" its about how the hell is it possible that mary got knocked up by a deity......its not possible. We try to make it about whether or not Jesus was resurrected from the grave and not about the personal rebirth and transformation that we are all called to to elevate ourselves to our next level of enlightenment. and it's not about whether or not god exists,but whether our lives and society benefit from believing that he or she does.
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So whether or not something is false doesn't matter as long as you consider it beneficial to society? Jesus wasn't the greatest moralist of all time - in fact the ancient Greeks contemplated morality far more extensively than the writers of the Bible and hundreds of years before them too. I think there's this tendency in people to treat it like religion and religious figures can lay claim to morality.
I think that some morality is innate in us but for the most part I think are ethical standards are far more societal. As far as reaching some sort of "enlightened" state of mind by following the teachings of Jesus there's no actual proof for that. You could reach a certain level of inner peace with yourself and others but you could just as easily reach that same level of peace by reading Aristotle, Kant, Smith or Kierkegaard. Jesus isn't the only path nor is he necessarily the best path.
I think by accepting faith (and there's no evidence Jesus actually existed so it would be faith, specifically in regards to how he was created) you're setting up a standard that is dangerous. By using religion as your basis for morality you then have to logically respect anyone else you uses religion as the basis for their morality. Meaning you have to except the abuse of woman and terrorist attacks as moral actions; unless you're willing to be a hypocrite or place Jesus was more "right" than Muhammad and there's no basis for that whatsoever.