Did Jesus commit suicide?

[54192&#cmy]

The idea of 'suicide for a cause' sounds like the terrorists who blow themselves up believing that they will go to heaven as a martyr.

I agree there has been a lot of harm done in the World by Christians but I also know that there has been a lot of good done in the world by Christians. Some people use Christianity for an excuse to act in a way that in my opinion is not Christian at all. Others have found a lot of comfort and guidance through Christianity. In my opinion whether there is a God or not or Christ is our Saviour or not the belief in God and Jesus has helped many people to cope with the trials and tribulations of life. I have read Nietzsche and I find his ideas very interesting and his 'slave' and 'master' theory quite plausible but to me it makes sense that humans developed such beliefs because it can make life a lot easier to bear. I choose to believe because it gives me somebody to pray to and to ask help from. I feel lonely as it is I can't imagine the loneliness of not believing in some sort of higher power and a meaning for our life.

William James' take on religion resonates with me:





He is definitely worth a read, especially for people who match his description of the 'sick soul'.

Very interesting I will have to give him a read. I think everything deserves a look. How can one say they have searched but were unwilling to really look but just stopped at what felt right or what they believed but never gave the rest a chance? I find a lot of people do the same thing their parents did or do. Or what a group does or thinks. People who are willing to step outside the boundaries are always killed or messed with in some way. Jesus pushed the boundaries of thought to a place most do not think to go. People have perverted his teachings to suit their lives. To not have to do what he asked of them. America claims this Christian Nation thing. They are very proud of that fact. If they are to claim this then they have to also claim slavery. The genocide of the Native Americans. The theft of their land. The killing and extinction of many species. I see hypocrisy all around. Some people have been helped by a belief in God. But not everyone has that experience. One has to wonder why. I don't know anything. But I am willing to try my best to find out. But how can anyone imagine something that they do not even comprehend. Just like we cannot comprehend what this life is. How are we to comprehend what God is if he does not show himself to us.

It's interesting that people only talk about good experiences with God. The things that feel good makes them better. Like a heroin addict feels better when they get their fix. It's like they need it and cannot live without it. One could call religion an addiction. An addiction that one would subscribe to so much that they would let themselves be killed or would even kill others to protect it. I cannot subscribe to killing in any form for any reason. A person wanting to kill has gone mad. And needs help. It's a psychological problem. People take of fence to you telling them that you do not subscribe to their beliefs. Its a personal attack to them to disagree. Because it challenges their reality. They never realize that they are doing the same thing when they are telling others that they are wrong. Who is to say? Who is the real authority? We are in the end the only one who makes us think and believe what we choose.... ​

 

[muir]

Concerning suicide bombers who blow themselves up believeing they will be rewarded in heaven....i'm not sure that is the primary motivation

I think sometimes a persons life has been made so unbearably bleak and their circumstances so desperate and themselves made to feel so helpless to do anything about it against a larger and stronger military force that they feel the only recourse left to them is to blow themselves up

This achieves tow things. One it ends their pain and two it inflicts pain on their oppressor

Suicide bombing is usually an act of sheer desperation imo

 

[barbad0s]

He got brought back to life. So it was just a display of God's power. Quite the opposite of suicide if he did believe in God's power - one could even say he was trollin' his assailants on behalf of God.

 

[the]

I do get the suicide pov, but is it suicide to stand up for what you believe is right knowing your opposition will kill you for your convictions? Not exactly.

Plus in this case he knew he'd be brought back to life which brings up other considerations.

 

[Eventhorizon]

Consider there is a alot of historical credibility, much more than is to take as facts the accounts of Caesar, Homer, and many greek philosophers. Nobody is doubting their "stories". Yet when it comes to the accounts of historical Jesus, we have alot of problems there, isn't it?

"story by mouth" - can you explain this expression to me? because it seems to me that the whole and the entire history that we know of today has come to us by "mouth"...mouth on paper, thoughts on paper.

of course I believe mental health is real
and I also believe mental illness is real
I just refuse to accept the lie that some people called "psychiatrists" know exactly what they are doing when it comes to treating mental illness.
If you want to continue this discussion can we move it to my blog, please ? (so as to not change the topic of the thread)

Story by mouth - the first written account of Jesus did not happen until 90 years after his death. That means a 1 year old boy at the time Jesus died, would have been 90 years of age before he started writing an account of what happened when Jesus died. Everything that happened between assuming anything happened at all and Jesus wasn't just a fabrication, word of mouth.

 

[LucyJr]

Story by mouth - the first written account of Jesus did not happen until 90 years after his death. That means a 1 year old boy at the time Jesus died, would have been 90 years of age before he started writing an account of what happened when Jesus died. Everything that happened between assuming anything happened at all and Jesus wasn't just a fabrication, word of mouth.

ALL the books of New Testament have been writtent around the 90-100 after Christ. The death of Christ is calculated to be around 33-37.
This means that ALL the books of New Testaments, ALL of them, were written in least then 70 years from Jesus death.
The first goespel, the goespel by Mark, is calculated to be aroud 40-65 years. That means maximum 30 years from Jesus death. Not 90 years, like you say it is. Actually, before 90 years to pass, the whole New Testament had been written, including the book of Revelations.

 

[Stu]

Inevitability.
Suicide implies that you have a choice. The Christ had no choice. He prayed all night in the garden and saw clearly what he had to endure.
The question as to whether or not it actually happened is moot. What is important is not only that it is believed to have happened but also that it was inevitable that it be believed to have happened.

Also, Jesus before the crucifixion, and Jesus on the cross is 100% human and 100% God. But Jesus postmortem is no longer human. So arguing that he knew he was going to be risen means that he also knew that his mortal life was at an end.

The question is not "Did Jesus commit suicide?" The question is, Why do the inheritors of the Greco-Roman civilization need a religion that requires the torture and sacrifice of its God?

 

[Eventhorizon]

ALL the books of New Testament have been writtent around the 90-100 after Christ. The death of Christ is calculated to be around 33-37.
This means that ALL the books of New Testaments, ALL of them, were written in least then 70 years from Jesus death.
The first goespel, the goespel by Mark, is calculated to be aroud 40-65 years. That means maximum 30 years from Jesus death. Not 90 years, like you say it is. Actually, before 90 years to pass, the whole New Testament had been written, including the book of Revelations.

Your understanding differs from mine. I suspect, depending on who you ask, this is something that is bound to happen. Take into account the time frame of trying to prove what happened and what did not and the associated recording methods through thousands of years.

I think you might find the movie called, "The God Who Wasn't There," interesting.

 

[say what]

Story by mouth - the first written account of Jesus did not happen until 90 years after his death. That means a 1 year old boy at the time Jesus died, would have been 90 years of age before he started writing an account of what happened when Jesus died. Everything that happened between assuming anything happened at all and Jesus wasn't just a fabrication, word of mouth.

ALL the books of New Testament have been writtent around the 90-100 after Christ. The death of Christ is calculated to be around 33-37.
This means that ALL the books of New Testaments, ALL of them, were written in least then 70 years from Jesus death.
The first goespel, the goespel by Mark, is calculated to be aroud 40-65 years. That means maximum 30 years from Jesus death. Not 90 years, like you say it is. Actually, before 90 years to pass, the whole New Testament had been written, including the book of Revelations.

Also, given the life expectancy back them, people are likely to have lived to late 20's, early 30's on average - which would further compound the word of mouth. It could have gone through 2 generations before being written down!

 

[LucyJr]

Also, given the life expectancy back them, people are likely to have lived to late 20's, early 30's on average - which would further compound the word of mouth. It could have gone through 2 generations before being written down!

Life expectency was at that time much longer then it is in our days. I don't know guys from where you get you datas.

 

[Eventhorizon]

Life expectency was at that time much longer then it is in our days. I don't know guys from where you get you datas.

At serious risk of posting "Something I found on the internet" I will offer the following. The reason I do this is that from historical records, we know it wasnt that long ago that people were only living to the ripe old age of 45 on average. The reason people live so long today is because of science and medicine.

http://didyouknow.org/did-you-know-that-in-the-time-of-jesus-a-person-of-33-years-old-was-a-senior/

 

[say what]

Life expectency was at that time much longer then it is in our days. I don't know guys from where you get you datas.

There's accounts of census being taken, and it shows that the average life expectancy was around that.

Life span, hasn't changed (around 120 years), but life expectancy changes for a wealth of reasons. As [MENTION=8603]Eventhorizon[/MENTION] mentioned, medicine and science is a huge factor. Additionally, moving towards urban environments (which increased access to food, increased sanitation (from about 200 years ago), medicine, social support, etc.) has increased our average life expectancy in developed and developing countries. That's not to say that people didn't live to 70 or 80 in those days (Socrates was executed at 70!), it's just on average, it was significantly lower.

This is from the Journal of Population Health Research - a peer review publication.

I'm curious to know, where did you get your information?

 

[Skarekrow]

View attachment 20351

And to stay on topic, it wasn't suicide.

How come Tom Cruise hasn’t been crucified yet....can we make that happen please?!

 

[La Sagna]

Very interesting I will have to give him a read. I think everything deserves a look. How can one say they have searched but were unwilling to really look but just stopped at what felt right or what they believed but never gave the rest a chance? I find a lot of people do the same thing their parents did or do. Or what a group does or thinks. People who are willing to step outside the boundaries are always killed or messed with in some way. Jesus pushed the boundaries of thought to a place most do not think to go. People have perverted his teachings to suit their lives. To not have to do what he asked of them. America claims this Christian Nation thing. They are very proud of that fact. If they are to claim this then they have to also claim slavery. The genocide of the Native Americans. The theft of their land. The killing and extinction of many species. I see hypocrisy all around. Some people have been helped by a belief in God. But not everyone has that experience. One has to wonder why. I don't know anything. But I am willing to try my best to find out. But how can anyone imagine something that they do not even comprehend. Just like we cannot comprehend what this life is. How are we to comprehend what God is if he does not show himself to us.

It's interesting that people only talk about good experiences with God. The things that feel good makes them better. Like a heroin addict feels better when they get their fix. It's like they need it and cannot live without it. One could call religion an addiction. An addiction that one would subscribe to so much that they would let themselves be killed or would even kill others to protect it. I cannot subscribe to killing in any form for any reason. A person wanting to kill has gone mad. And needs help. It's a psychological problem. People take of fence to you telling them that you do not subscribe to their beliefs. Its a personal attack to them to disagree. Because it challenges their reality. They never realize that they are doing the same thing when they are telling others that they are wrong. Who is to say? Who is the real authority? We are in the end the only one who makes us think and believe what we choose.... ​

I think that you live in a place where people are more radically religious than where I live. There are a lot of religious people here but they tend to be more "quietly religious". It tends to be more of a private matter here. There are communities of religious people who support each other but outside of that it is generally not discussed.

I have known some very religious people who really lived their lives taking care of the poor and disenfranchised. One lady that I knew opened a home for young women with nowhere to live. She started it in the 60s and at that time she would go out on the streets and find the prostitutes who wanted to come off the streets and she would help get their life on the right track. I have heard stories of her defying pimps to save these ladies even though she was just a tiny (but tough) lady. She never married and dedicated her life to helping young women, up until she died in her 80s. She was an amazing lady and she was a devout Catholic who had the support of many in the Catholic community including many priests to help her with her mission. I believe that her faith made her able to do what she did. It would have been a lot more difficult to do it without a belief in a higher power and a higher purpose.

I also have problems with certain religious people and how they judge others, but I know that not every religious person is like that. It's unfortunate that you have had such a bad experience with it. I myself have pulled back from religion some for difficult personal reasons but I have too much good experiences relating to it to give up on it completely. I'm just figuring out how I can reconcile certain things.

When somebody calls themselves Christian and says that they believe in the teachings of Christ then they should realize that one of the most important messages contained in the New Testament is to not judge others. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." It always amazes me to see people who use their Christian religion to judge others because that is not Christian at all.

 

[Skarekrow]

I think that you live in a place where people are more radically religious than where I live. There are a lot of religious people here but they tend to be more "quietly religious". It tends to be more of a private matter here. There are communities of religious people who support each other but outside of that it is generally not discussed.

I have known some very religious people who really lived their lives taking care of the poor and disenfranchised. One lady that I knew opened a home for young women with nowhere to live. She started it in the 60s and at that time she would go out on the streets and find the prostitutes who wanted to come off the streets and she would help get their life on the right track. I have heard stories of her defying pimps to save these ladies even though she was just a tiny (but tough) lady. She never married and dedicated her life to helping young women, up until she died in her 80s. She was an amazing lady and she was a devout Catholic who had the support of many in the Catholic community including many priests to help her with her mission. I believe that her faith made her able to do what she did. It would have been a lot more difficult to do it without a belief in a higher power and a higher purpose.

I also have problems with certain religious people and how they judge others, but I know that not every religious person is like that. It's unfortunate that you have had such a bad experience with it. I myself have pulled back from religion some for difficult personal reasons but I have too much good experiences relating to it to give up on it completely. I'm just figuring out how I can reconcile certain things.

When somebody calls themselves Christian and says that they believe in the teachings of Christ then they should realize that one of the most important messages contained in the New Testament is to not judge others. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." It always amazes me to see people who use their Christian religion to judge others because that is not Christian at all.

OMG yes....seriously....or they consider themselves “Christian” and then badmouth the poor, drug users, etc...looking down on them with such hatred and vehemence...I just look on with awe at the pure audacity of them claiming to follow the teachings of Jesus.
I’m sorry but Jesus paid special attention to the outcasts of society...his goal in life was not the accumulation of material things and money...he would never vote for politicians that would cut benefits to hungry children, or ever favor war in ANY circumstance...how they can justify this to themselves is beyond me and beyond reason.

 

[Skarekrow]

I do get the suicide pov, but is it suicide to stand up for what you believe is right knowing your opposition will kill you for your convictions? Not exactly.

Plus in this case he knew he'd be brought back to life which brings up other considerations.

Did Jesus know he would be resurrected?
Then why doubt in the garden of Gethsemane? Or ask if God had forsaken him on the cross?
Perhaps Jesus had incredible faith but was in the dark as to what the ultimate outcome would be.

 

[Stu]

[h=1]Q - The Hypothetical Gospel[/h] To explain a textual puzzle, scholars hypothesize a lost document - “Q.” It is known as the “secret sayings gospel.”
Elaine H. Pagels:
[SIZE=-1]The Harrington Spear Paine Foundation Professor of Religion Princeton University[/SIZE]

Today there are people who talk about Q as though it's a gospel. Q, as I see it, is not a gospel, it's a hypothesis. When scholars first began to study the gospels of the New Testament, literarily, they discovered that Matthew and Luke both used Mark as the core, sort of the basic story line that they tell. Because Mark is completely incorporated - 16 chapters - into both Matthew and Luke. But they both also used other sayings, parables, and stories and so forth. And scholars observed that there's a part of the sayings in Matthew that are exactly identical with sayings in Luke. In fact they're identical in Greek. Now think -- Jesus spoke Aramaic. So if you were translating Aramaic, and if I were translating Aramaic, they'd come out different, these translations. So you would only have Jesus speaking identical sayings in Greek if you had a written translation in Greek of his sayings. And so scholars suggested that there must have been, besides Mark, something else written down that would have been a list of the sayings of Jesus, translated into Greek. And they called that "Quelle" which means source in German. And they call it for short, "Q." Nobody ever has found this source written. We can reconstruct it because we guess that there was such a written source, but nobody has seen it, and it certainly in my mind is not a gospel. It's a very good and well-founded hypothesis.
If it isn't gospel then what is it?
It was a source of the sayings of Jesus, and it's another picture of Jesus. For example, whoever collected the sayings of Q wasn't interested in the death of Jesus, wasn't interested in the resurrection of Jesus. They thought the importance of Jesus was what he said, what he preached. Now other people thought, "it's not enough to have the sayings of Jesus. You have to tell about his death and his crucifixion and his resurrection, that's the important thing." Now somebody put that all together and we call it Matthew, and we call it Mark, and we call it Luke. But originally these are probably rather distinct pictures.

.

 

[LucyJr]

There's accounts of census being taken, and it shows that the average life expectancy was around that.

Life span, hasn't changed (around 120 years), but life expectancy changes for a wealth of reasons. As [MENTION=8603]Eventhorizon[/MENTION] mentioned, medicine and science is a huge factor. Additionally, moving towards urban environments (which increased access to food, increased sanitation (from about 200 years ago), medicine, social support, etc.) has increased our average life expectancy in developed and developing countries. That's not to say that people didn't live to 70 or 80 in those days (Socrates was executed at 70!), it's just on average, it was significantly lower.

This is from the Journal of Population Health Research - a peer review publication.

I'm curious to know, where did you get your information?

From the Bible, where it says that the first people lived around 800-1000 years. Then God shortened the life of people, to 120 years. Now is even lower.
And I also know this by this: people that live in nature in the old days, whithout super-poluated cities and all the misery in the air and ground, would probably live much longer then us. Now we have cars, we eat only misery (even if its supposed to be bio), the air is polluted, we get fat because we are lazy sitting on computers, and then of course we live much more short.
The only argument in favor of people living less in the old periods is that in that time there was alot of wars and epidemical disease in the air. But still I thing they were more healthy than us, more active and naturaly, whithout wars and so on, would live longer.

I know what you posted is from a evolutionary perspective, but I believe in Creation, not evolution.

 

[Eventhorizon]

From the Bible, where it says that the first people lived around 800-1000 years. Then God shortened the life of people, to 120 years. Now is even lower.
And I also know this by this: people that live in nature in the old days, whithout super-poluated cities and all the misery in the air and ground, would probably live much longer then us. Now we have cars, we eat only misery (even if its supposed to be bio), the air is polluted, we get fat because we are lazy sitting on computers, and then of course we live much more short.
The only argument in favor of people living less in the old periods is that in that time there was alot of wars and epidemical disease in the air. But still I thing they were more healthy than us, more active and naturaly, whithout wars and so on, would live longer.

I know what you posted is from a evolutionary perspective, but I believe in Creation, not evolution.

I think you will find this interesting as to how healthy we were without science.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/how-beer-saved-the-world/

Hmmm... it appears this video will not play in my third world country. Perhaps it will in yours, just in case it doesnt it can be found else where such as netflix etc. It really is quite interesting, I would suggest going out of your way to watch it. Whoever happens to be reading this...

 

[Stu]

From the Bible, where it says that the first people lived around 800-1000 years. Then God shortened the life of people, to 120 years. Now is even lower.
And I also know this by this: people that live in nature in the old days, whithout super-poluated cities and all the misery in the air and ground, would probably live much longer then us. Now we have cars, we eat only misery (even if its supposed to be bio), the air is polluted, we get fat because we are lazy sitting on computers, and then of course we live much more short.
The only argument in favor of people living less in the old periods is that in that time there was alot of wars and epidemical disease in the air. But still I thing they were more healthy than us, more active and naturaly, whithout wars and so on, would live longer.

I know what you posted is from a evolutionary perspective, but I believe in Creation, not evolution.

It is one thing to be a person of faith and deep belief, it is quite another to be deliberately ignorant. The determinations of human life spans over time is determine forensically by analyzing the remains of our ancestors.

I am surprised you even use the internet