80sU2isBest said:
UIrvine, I have a question for you. How do you decide what you wnat to believe about Jesus? How do you decide whether to believe that he said he was the Son Of God or not?
The books of Matthew and John were written by 2 of Jesus's disciples; they walked and talked with him. Mark was probably written by John Mark, who was not a disciple but was a few years younger than the disciples and actually spent a deal of time with them.
To me, those three men seem to be much more credible witnesses of what Jesus may have said than other, non-Biblical writers.
i use reasoning and critical analysis skills i acquired in college, and i am suspicious of any sort of established doctrine. this doesn't mean it is "wrong," but more that notions of "right" or "wrong" (or, better, "true" or "false") aren't really meaningful when we're talking about this stuff. i think humans don't do well with ambiguity, we don't do well with nuance and shades of grey and determining what is and what isn't important, so we create absolutes for ourselves. either something is, or it isn't. either it's one way, or another. and i don't think reality is like that.
it seems logical, to me, to understand that Mark and John were starting a religion. it makes sense to me that they had a brand to sell. it makes sense to me that no one is going to remember someone's precise words, but rather the gist of what someone is saying. it makes sense to me that the message is more important than the messenger (and i think Jesus would agree, though it does make sense that the message means nothing if the messenger isn't who he says he is ... though i don't know if that's the only way it makes sense).
it simply doesn't seem logical that notions of an afterlife are exclusive to those who believe in Jesus, but not to those who don't who by no fault of their own could never be Christian, because of geography, culture, or their personal constitutions. Buddhism makes far, far more sense to me, for example, than Christianity. i think it's absurd for Christians to think that they are possessed of privileged knowledge that others don't see, or that they "get" something that others don't.
however, the idea that you "get" something that others don't goes back precisely to the branding of a religion -- how authoritative is an institution and thought system going to be if it doesn't proclaim exclusivity? if it says, "well, many paths to the same place"? how much Coke are you going to sell if you say, "Coke is good, but some people like Pepsi, and there's also Sprite if you don't feel like a Cola, and Fanta is great in the summer"?
and i also think that understanding religion -- all religions -- as very human thought systems doesn't necessarily destroy the message behind most religions. i had a discussion over the weekend with my friend's wife who was once very religious, but she got sick of people using Christianity to drive wedges between people. we had a great, deep conversation, and she though that what religion should do, and what all religions can do, is reveal -- through the mechanisms of culture, and religion is an expression of culture as much as anything else -- our common human condition. that you and i and the leper in Calcutta and Cameron Diaz and the Myan Indian are all made from the same stuff, and come from the same place, and will one day return to that same place, and that we are all connected. and how dare people use religion to separate us from each other, to use it as a tool of exclusivity, when it should be a way to culturally explore the glue that holds us all together -- the terrible, agonizing paradox of the human condition (we are born to die), and the possible way out of this paradox (where we all go when we die, back to the fabric from which we were originally cut in all our unique shapes and sizes).
and i think Christianity, and the "Jesus message," as i understand it, agree with this. i understand the claims of exclusivity. it does make logical sense. but it doesn't make any emotional sense, and to me, it smells of branding.
but that's just me.