If someone were to tell you that drinking a certain mixture of chemicals would render you invisible, would you ask for proof of this statement?
If someone were to tell you that your wife or girlfriend was unfaithful to you, would you ask for proof of this statement?
Now please explain to me how it is possible for anyone to accept, without evidence, the concept that a human being called Jesus was, in fact, conceived by the union of the deity of monotheism and a virgin human woman? How is this different from the story of Hercules? What if the name of God was Zeus or Jupiter?
In other words, defining reality in terms of faith, any faith, simply baffles me. Perhaps it is because I was raised by a scientist who insisted on empirical evidence about everything. He refused to take a popular stomach ache remedy my mother found helpful because it contained the element Bismuth. He explained that he had never been able to predict how Bismuth would react in any given experiment and that he would not eat something like that.
So I find myself repeatedly shocked when I see that friends I had always thought as rational and sane as I feel I am actually believe in the supernatural. And it doesn't seem to bother them a bit .... it is to me the same as saying one "believes" in space aliens, without ever seeing one or knowing in the way I know my car is a Toyota that they in fact exist.
Also, permit me to observe that those who are not Jewish and who assume that there is some sort of unified cultural ethnicity, race, or identity among all Jews are ill-informed.
There are black Jews, oriental Jews, people from a wide variety of Middle Eastern countries who are Jews -- and also people from European and Asian countries who never came from the Middle East at any time in the past who are Jews. There are different views, different practices, and different kinds of prayers, food, and languages employed among all these people. What they have in common is known as the 5 books of Moses plus a few other texts.
So much of what we "know" is based on misinformation, disinformation, presumption and speculation. Not just about Jews.
I have yet to hear why anyone can believe that the Jesus of 2008 years ago was anything but a particularly remarkable human being.
I've also not heard anyone tell me why they either can or cannot believe this same Jesus came back not just 3 days after having died in what is now the state of Israel, but that the same man also appeared in the United States and inspired the founding of the various sects of the Church of Latter Day Saints, or the folks known more generally as Mormons.
For my own part, I see little difference among all these various stories -- for I take them as merely that. Reliance on faith sells well in the USA, and I have to attribute that fact to the central importance here of the prophet motive.
Originally posted by PsychoPawnWhat about, "Whoever eats of my body will have eternal life"? Doesn't sound like Judaism to me.
True, but that doesn't mean he wasn't jewish does it?
Also, saying "I am the way, the truth and the light" isn't necessarily saying that you are god.
I am the way to what? The truth of what? etc..
Originally posted by Conrau KNope. That sounds like cannibalistic insanity, not Judaism.
What about, "Whoever eats of my body will have eternal life"? Doesn't sound like Judaism to me.
Just because he was a Jew doesn't mean he didn't violate laws of Judaism or say things that contradicted it - hence the fact that Jews didn't see him as the actual messiah.
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Originally posted by NemesioFor the most part, Protestant Christianity believes in a Triune expression of God, not a Trinity.
Does Jesus believe in the Trinity? If so, then He cannot be a Jew from a religious standpoint
(of course He is from a cultural standpoint). The only thing that the various sects of Judaism
agree on is that the God is One in One.
Nemesio
Originally posted by PsychoPawnThen the term "Jewish" has little meaning. If someone can deny central tenets of Judaism, elevate themselves to deity status, and still remain a Jew, then "Jewish" is not a meaningful religious descriptor.
Just because he was a Jew doesn't mean he didn't violate laws of Judaism or say things that contradicted it - hence the fact that Jews didn't see him as the actual messiah.
Originally posted by Conrau KIt sounds like you would suggest only the orthodox Jewish are in fact Jewish.
Then the term "Jewish" has little meaning. If someone can deny central tenets of Judaism, elevate themselves to deity status, and still remain a Jew, then "Jewish" is not a meaningful religious descriptor.
Originally posted by Conrau KGood question. The thing is, according to Judaism you are still Jewish even if you don't follow the rules so according to Judaism, Jesus was jewish until his dying day.
At what point do you suggest heterodox Judaism become non-Judaism?
I don't think there is an objective line.
I still consider myself to be Jewish culturally at least, even though I don't believe in god. I wouldn't say I'm religiously Jewish or anything for that matter.
Originally posted by PsychoPawnThere is an objective line. If you were born of a Jewish mother you are Jewish, like it or not. Somehow, however, your father doesn't factor into this. If your mother wasn't Jewish and your father was, you are not automatically Jewish.
Good question. The thing is, according to Judaism you are still Jewish even if you don't follow the rules so according to Judaism, Jesus was jewish until his dying day.
I don't think there is an objective line.
I still consider myself to be Jewish culturally at least, even though I don't believe in god. I wouldn't say I'm religiously Jewish or anything for that matter.
Like any other religion, not every tenet or bit of dogma makes sense to us now; it may have done when the rule was created.
And in Judaism, I'm not aware there is any rule that is not subject to endless debate and disagreement or interpretation or commentary, or whatever.
For every two Jews there may be, statistically speaking, at least three political parties or religious sects.
A lone Jewish man was castaway on a desert island and was marooned there for half a decade. When finally he was discovered by a passing ship, the crew found the man had made entirely of native materials two perfectly magnificant synagogues at opposite ends of the island.
When the Captain remarked to the man that it appeared the castaway had done this out of a need to keep busy, the castaway contradicted the Captain, saying, "Not at all. I made two because the one on the north end of the island, that's the temple I go to. The one ont h south side, that's the one I don't go to."
Originally posted by ScriabinPlus you could convert.
There is an objective line. If you were born of a Jewish mother you are Jewish, like it or not. Somehow, however, your father doesn't factor into this. If your mother wasn't Jewish and your father was, you are not automatically Jewish.
There are those that are giving fatherhood a higher importance in that too though. I think more in the reform groups now.
The idea of you requiring a Jewish mother came primarily from the fact that motherhood is historically easier to trace. I'm not sure if there is a scriptural reference for it.
For every two Jews there may be, statistically speaking, at least three political parties or religious sects.
Well, I've heard of this as just saying that if you put two Jews in a room to work out a problem, they'll come out with three opinions on the matter.
Originally posted by PsychoPawnGood question. The thing is, according to Judaism you are still Jewish even if you don't follow the rules so according to Judaism, Jesus was jewish until his dying day.
Good question. The thing is, according to Judaism you are still Jewish even if you don't follow the rules so according to Judaism, Jesus was jewish until his dying day.
I don't think there is an objective line.
I still consider myself to be Jewish culturally at least, even though I don't believe in god. I wouldn't say I'm religiously Jewish or anything for that matter.
But this is not just about rules; it's about beliefs. A Jewish man may disregard all the commandments in the scriptures, yet still be a Jew; but can a Jewish man deny the legitimacy of those commandments, and the religious beliefs attached, and still be called a Jew?
I still consider myself to be Jewish culturally at least, even though I don't believe in god. I wouldn't say I'm religiously Jewish or anything for that matter.
In the context of this thread, we are not talking about cultural Judaism. Because doctorscribbles asked whether Jesus converted, I don't think he was referring to cultural Judaism.
why does anyone believe that the Jesus of 2008 years ago was anything but a particularly remarkable human being?
Faith may make one feel better - I'm sure it does
😉
But, since ignoring what the man Jesus actually said was right conduct is so often ignored, I really don't see why what he said about being a supernatural being should be believed either.
There has been no shortage of Messiahs. And the "word" the "light" the "way" and the "truth" has been "revealed" to a heck of lot of people, many of whom were pursuing a political or financial agenda. Some of them were simply a few fries short of a happy meal.
Organizing to institutionalize a belief in something completely irrational, something completely at variance with anything that can be verified empirically, anything that has never happened before or since, does not make it so.
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.