Jesus the man

[QED]

When it comes to Jesus, I have little doubt that the man himself lived and taught more or less as recorded. I find it highly probable that such a man might devote his life (sic) to teaching a philosophy developed during the course of his life. I cannot find any mention of how old he was when he first started to pass on his message, but I don't recall him ever being referred to as a child messiah.

Irrespective of the chronology, I can readily imagine how such a philosophy might form in the mind of a human-being in his position in the world. His ideas were transcendent and novel yes, but I see them as needing to be no more than his own. The degree of intellect demonstrated by the great greek philosophers before his time reminds us of the potential that man had already attained. Jesus's own education could have equipped him with all the tools he would require for the tasks he set himself, aided of course by his intrinsic genius.

Simply by basing his appealing messages upon a set of irrefutable propositions he could pass them into the realms of apparent truths upon which the christian faith could attach itself. I'm not suggesting he was an out-and-out "con artist" except I do suggest he borrowed the methods in order to further an arguably just cause.

I suspect that many are readily attached to the Christian message because it appears to offer a set of attractive absolutes. Take for example the golden rule:

All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets

This typical (but non-exclusively) Christian message seems on the face of it to be a real nugget, but it turns out to be iron pyrites when your realise that it is at the mercy of ego. I have yet to see a single account in any religion of what I would consider to be a divinely inspired absolute delivered from beyond the realm of our own limited capacities.

[Bro Dave]

Some reminders about the crucifixion..

P.2018 On millions of inhabited worlds, tens of trillions of evolving creatures who may have been tempted to give up the moral struggle and abandon the good fight of faith, have taken one more look at Jesus on the cross and then have forged on ahead, inspired by the sight of God's laying down his incarnate life in devotion to the unselfish service of man.

P.2019 On other worlds, as well as on Urantia, this sublime spectacle of the death of the human Jesus on the cross of Golgotha has stirred the emotions of mortals, while it has aroused the highest devotion of the angels.


And the call for the rejuvenation of the teachings of Jesus

P.2082 Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who will dare to depend solely on Jesus and his incomparable teachings.


P.2091 Some day a reformation in the Christian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadulterated religious teachings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus.

P.2062 When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality--Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the "new teacher," the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.

The Urantia Book

[stevencarrwork]

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Remember that it is possible for a man to give up his life for another, especially if that other is his child or a friend.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

But how many men would give up their lives for the molester of their child or the murderer of their friend?

Read what Jesus said about who he laid his life down for.

Jesus gave his life, not only for them but for ALL who have ever lived, no matter how heinous their sins.

1 Sam. 15
2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

God seems to have an ambivalent attitude to Amalekites. One minute is he ordering that they be killed down to the last baby as a punishment for their sins. The next he is saving them from their sins.

Should the Amalekites be punished or saved? God did both. He could teach Kerry a thing or about flip-flopping.