Jesus, in general.

VH said:
If Jesus Christ as was written of in the bible appeared on earth today,

Let's start here, in the middle of this sentence.

Taking a look at the character as he was written in the bible will require a lot of religious assumptions to be removed, but sure I'll be happy to roll through this thought exercise given these parameters.

As he was written to have appeared was basically a back woods redneck from out in the sticks. He wasn't at all cultured, and that was a huge sticking point for the pious religious people of the time. He came from a dirt poor village from dirt poor people. He would be much more likely to look like a refugee from a third world country to our eyes than the blonde haired blue eyed movie star hippie we associate him with in paintings. He probably looked extremely Mediterranean, if not Arabic.

He would probably look a lot like this dude.

iraq.jpg


how could he prove himself to be the son of God in your eyes?

Another interesting point that a lot of people miss in the texts is that he had an aura about him that people were drawn to. They saw / felt / sensed a holiness about him. People were constantly calling him "Rabbi" upon meeting him, and inviting him to dinner at their homes. People met him and said, "You're really cool. I need my family to meet you so I don't have to explain this thing about you that I don't have words for." People gathered by the hundreds, sometimes thousands to meet him because of the word of mouth accounts of his holiness. It exuded from him, if the way he was written is to hold any validity.

Yet another interesting point was that he didn't go around claiming to be the son of God. He wasn't boastful of himself. He talked about "God the Father", but the Jewish people refer to God as Abba which means father. This wasn't out of the ordinary, nor an implied claim to be the messiah. Most of the time when it came up, it was because people put it together and asked him if he was. So, I doubt that he would try to prove who he was to anyone if he appeared today. He'd let his message speak for itself and take root in people as truth, or move on. He wouldn't have the ego of religious people to force others to believe, just love for anyone who was open to what he had to say... because as he was written, he didn't have it then either.

To prove it to me, he'd have to have that presence, which entails a whole lot of specific traits that can't really be faked into a whole package of a person, and he would have to let me put it together myself, because as he was written, that's his style.

If he did a couple of magic tricks as he did supposedly did in the past, would that be enough?

All of us are now entitled to perform those same miracles through the holy spirit. At the last supper when he announced he'd be leaving, the apostles asked what they would do without Jesus and his powers. He said "you will do far greater miracles than I have", and after Pentecost they did, according to later accounts in the bible. Peter's shadow passing over people could heal them, according to the writer of Luke. In Acts, it is said that the Apostles healed by the thousands.

In my own life, I've seen people perform miracles in "that defied reality" kind of ways, but I've also seen miracles performed in "maybe that wasn't a miracle" kinds of ways that still defied anything but a whole lot of long shot overlapping coincidence. Miracles would impress me, but they wouldn't be proof. They would just be another factor for him to be 'as he was written'.

The point to Jesus being on Earth was to be an example of what we can do when we have a relationship with God. He never did anything a normal human being can't, aside from being the lamb of redemption. If he wasn't a normal person while he was here, it would just be God showing off. His miracles weren't to show off. His miracles were to show us that we can do them, and how amazing a relationship with God can become. His perfection came at the end, because nothing can be perfect until it is complete. "It is finished."

Therefore, whether or not he performed miracles would not be a factor in whether or not I believed he was who he probably wouldn't even say he was.

Once he proved himself, if he told you the bible was false, how would you feel about that?

That's essentially what he did in the New Testament about the Old Testament. That's why they're different books. Part of his purpose was to explain how they'd gotten it wrong, clarify, and fulfill. He upset a whole lot of religious people by telling them that what they believed was wrong. However, he never said the bible was false, so I don't see him taking that approach in a modern incarnation. He'd very likely take up the cause of reforming and telling people where they got it wrong, and teaching his original way, which we've diverged from in the past 2,000 years.

If I met someone who had that aura of holiness, performed miracles, and had a divine wisdom that exceeded the natural, I'd follow them out of sheer curiosity to learn from them. If at some point I pieced together who he really was, without him telling me, I'd have little reason not to believe it, because at that point he would have lived up to the criteria of "how he was presented in the bible".

But, he would have earned my trust as a teacher long before that for the reasons mentioned above, so it wouldn't change much other than my level of respect.
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I wonder how technology would impact this. If you think about medicine today versus a few hundred years ago - science and technology have progressed out understanding so much, that taking our basic knowledge to back then would be considered "magic".
 
I'm having a hard time understand why people need Jesus to come back at all.

He's kind of reached "V for Vendetta" status at this point: he's not one man but a symbol of something far greater, and lives through people that continue his work whether Christian or not. One should focus on his messages of being kind and loving to all, instead of waiting for some mythical figure to descend from the heavens and tell them the same exact thing he's already said.
 
Horatio said:
I'm having a hard time understand why people need Jesus to come back at all.

He's kind of reached "V for Vendetta" status at this point: he's not one man but a symbol of something far greater, and lives through people that continue his work whether Christian or not. One should focus on his messages of being kind and loving to all, instead of waiting for some mythical figure to descend from the heavens and tell them the same exact thing he's already said.
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I think it's because people need proof in order to invest faith...which, really is ironic if you think about it.
 
I've always wondered, then, if we need to attach religion/mysticism to a message, not just because humans have a flare for the imagination, but because no one would take heed with out some significance attached.

I could type a long-winded post with positive messages about being good, and it might get a few thumbs or even some rep. But once that feel-good-ness has been fulfilled, people will continue being... people. So Jesus, being the great man he is said to be, had to be more than man. He had to be the Son of God, brought to Earth and then martyred/ressurected to wipe out our innate sin.
 
Horatio said:
I've always wondered, then, if we need to attach religion/mysticism to a message, not just because humans have a flare for the imagination, but because no one would take heed with out some significance attached.

I could type a long-winded post with positive messages about being good, and it might get a few thumbs or even some rep. But once that feel-good-ness has been fulfilled, people will continue being... people. So Jesus, being the great man he is said to be, had to be more than man. He had to be the Son of God, brought to Earth and then martyred/ressurected to wipe out our innate sin.
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On a side note- do you think this takes away from the goodness of what Jesus did and his greatness of a man? Are his own actions of kindness overshadowed because he was the Son of God? Can we not just value Jesus as being a man who was kindhearted, compassionate, and just?
 
say what said:
On a side note- do you think this takes away from the goodness of what Jesus did and his greatness of a man? Are his own actions of kindness overshadowed because he was the Son of God? Can we not just value Jesus as being a man who was kindhearted, compassionate, and just?
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I don't see the problem with that, we can all just get along in the world, there's too much violence already, and unless we ready for change, there will always be people who don't live it up to what we want...

Anyways that much is true anyways...I mean these no reason why would judge him or accept him...as long as we acknowledge his existence was one of legendary greatness.
 
Horatio said:
I've always wondered, then, if we need to attach religion/mysticism to a message, not just because humans have a flare for the imagination, but because no one would take heed with out some significance attached.

I could type a long-winded post with positive messages about being good, and it might get a few thumbs or even some rep. But once that feel-good-ness has been fulfilled, people will continue being... people. So Jesus, being the great man he is said to be, had to be more than man. He had to be the Son of God, brought to Earth and then martyred/ressurected to wipe out our innate sin.
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Are you saying Jesus needs to post here to get some rep?
 
Lark said:
Can you elaborate? I'm interested
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Malkavians are a type of Vampire from the World of Darkness series of tabletop RPGs. There Power and weakness is that they're all incurably insane and yet incredibly insightful into the state of things around almost to prophetic level. Also they can spread they're crazy to other people and vampires.


A Malkavian would be able to produce miracles similar(I must stress the word similar) to what Jesus did and be entirley convinced in it's fractured psyche that was indeed the Jewish Messiah. Though they'd still have problems running around in the daylight.....



Also it was Joke.
 
Barnabas said:
Malkavians are a type of Vampire from the World of Darkness series of tabletop RPGs. There Power and weakness is that they're all incurably insane and yet incredibly insightful into the state of things around almost to prophetic level. Also they can spread they're crazy to other people and vampires.


A Malkavian would be able to produce miracles similar(I must stress the word similar) to what Jesus did and be entirley convinced in it's fractured psyche that was indeed the Jewish Messiah. Though they'd still have problems running around in the daylight.....



Also it was Joke.
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Yes but it was all intriguing, it was knowledge I did not have and I'm only partially satiated now, I will have to go and read about these tabletop RPGs now.

I thought, randomly, it was somehow a reference to John Malcowitz (spelling). What you said about madness there makes me think of PKD.
 
Barnabas said:
anger mixed with apathy
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Well sense no one else cared to try. Anger is correct. The rest I cant explain well. Fear, disgust, sadness all bound together by wanting to see the people that sentenced her to death, along with those that think its ok burn. Burn slowly so that their screams of pain can be heard for miles and for days.

Ignorance is the enemy of mankind.
 
Eventhorizon said:
Well sense no one else cared to try. Anger is correct. The rest I cant explain well. Fear, disgust, sadness all bound together by wanting to see the people that sentenced her to death, along with those that think its ok burn. Burn slowly so that their screams of pain can be heard for miles and for days.

Ignorance is the enemy of mankind.
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Ignorance isn't the enemy, whether your intelligent or ignorant you have both the capability of do Good and Evil, the enemy is apathy as the old saying goes, no matter how smart you are, nor angry that you get or the amount of disgust you feel from that article, if you don't do anything about it, it doesn't matter.

Anger mixed with apathy, your impotent rage.
 
say what said:
I wonder how technology would impact this. If you think about medicine today versus a few hundred years ago - science and technology have progressed out understanding so much, that taking our basic knowledge to back then would be considered "magic".
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yeah, its arthur c clarke's thing about any sufficiently advanced technology will be perceived as magic by the people encountering it.

There was a good book by Michael Moorcock I think called Behold The Man in which a guy is sent back in time to observe the crucifixion and then ends up as the Christ crucified himself when he finds that the real Jesus son of joseph is a kind of gibbering idiot, it was disappointing and ultimately a bit of a book about someone molested growing up, as a lot of moorcock material tends to be I think, but its premise was awesome, there was a TV series, Taken, too which was about Roswell etc. protraying extraterrestrial or alien encounters as actually being time travellers.

I just wonder if there could have been some crazy temporal anomaly which made the whole bible story possible and Jesus was actually from a distant future in which people had mastered nano-technology and could control physics personally etc. it all seems feasible to the modern mind when you use those sorts of sign posts instead of magical-miracle ones.
 
Barnabas said:
Ignorance isn't the enemy, whether your intelligent or ignorant you have both the capability of do Good and Evil, the enemy is apathy as the old saying goes, no matter how smart you are, nor angry that you get or the amount of disgust you feel from that article, if you don't do anything about it, it doesn't matter.

Anger mixed with apathy, your impotent rage.
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Yeah but that sort of mix is what results in people voting for someone else to take action, usually some sort of messed up action which results in people losing lives or livelihoods.
 
Flavus Aquila said:
That is cultural insensitivity.
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I cant tell if you are being serious or not so let me add this.
There is supposed to be a second coming of Christ from my understanding. Some would even say Christ has not been here yet. That’s neither here nor there. The point is, what would it take for someone to convince you they are the “son of God?” If they turned water into wine? Some sleight of hand can do that. Healed the sick? Put money in the hands of a con artist, done. Made you feel good? Pheromones and ultrasonic sound waves can make you feel good along with any number of drugs. Rising from the dead? Maybe you were never dead to begin with? Ascension to heaven, Penn and Teller proved that a story can take on its own life in very short order. Aliens. Yes aliens with technology a million years past ours may appear to be divine. Melt rock by waving at it, even mind control. If directed with the purpose of causing you to believe they are Christ, how would you know they are not?
All of these are things I would question if someone were here on earth claiming to be “Christ.” Would I be wrong for questioning it? Many would say no. Apparently though whether it is right to question or not is dictated by a majority.
I think God or Christ was supposed to have said at one time or another, “Beware of false prophets.”
 
Eventhorizon said:
I cant tell if you are being serious or not so let me add this.
There is supposed to be a second coming of Christ from my understanding. Some would even say Christ has not been here yet. That’s neither here nor there. The point is, what would it take for someone to convince you they are the “son of God?” If they turned water into wine? Some sleight of hand can do that. Healed the sick? Put money in the hands of a con artist, done. Made you feel good? Pheromones and ultrasonic sound waves can make you feel good along with any number of drugs. Rising from the dead? Maybe you were never dead to begin with? Ascension to heaven, Penn and Teller proved that a story can take on its own life in very short order. Aliens. Yes aliens with technology a million years past ours may appear to be divine. Melt rock by waving at it, even mind control. If directed with the purpose of causing you to believe they are Christ, how would you know they are not?
All of these are things I would question if someone were here on earth claiming to be “Christ.” Would I be wrong for questioning it? Many would say no. Apparently though whether it is right to question or not is dictated by a majority.
I think God or Christ was supposed to have said at one time or another, “Beware of false prophets.”
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That kind of falls back onto your last question in the OP, Galatians 1:6-10, Paul makes the point to say that if anyone, whether it be angels or apostles if anyone comes preaching another Gospel then the one declared in scripture they are a fake, and are to be cursed.
 
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