Cultural influence.

[Elijah John]

Western Civilization is a Trinitarian, Jesus-worshipping culture, with the exception of specifically secular institutions, and of course, dissenting, skeptical individuals. Even if people don't give it a whole lot of thought, it seems the average Westerner pays lip service at the very least to the notion that "Jesus is God".

For this OP, let's not quibble with the premise.

In light of the prevailing Christian culture, the question for debate is this. How much influence does that Christian culture have on whether a given individual raised in this culture believes or professes that "Jesus is God"?

Call it brainwashing (at worst) or call it indocrination, or call it influence at best, how much of a factor is culture in determining whether someone assents to the notion that "Jesus is God" even if in absence of deep thoughtful consideration?

[Divine Insight]

Call it brainwashing (at worst) or call it indocrination, or call it influence at best, how much of a factor is culture in determining whether someone assents to the notion that "Jesus is God" even if in absence of deep thoughtful consideration?

As a Christian who was raised in the USA I can explain how I was indoctrinated to believe various things.'

To begin with, I was never taught that "Jesus is God". Our church never taught that. We were always taught that Jesus was the "Son of God". Because of this, I have always thought of the "Father God" as being different from Jesus.

Not only this but the Bible itself backs all of this up. The Bible speaks of Jesus as "The Only Begotten Son of God". It doesn't speak of Jesus as being God incarnate.

The Bible also has Jesus ascending to take his place "At the Right-hand of God". It doesn't have Jesus ascending to heaven return to being God.

Yes, it's true that there are technical problems with all of this science Christianity is supposed to be a monotheistic religion and Jesus cannot be thought of as a demigod or even as being separate from God.

So what are we taught about that? Simple. It's beyond our ability to comprehend. Period. And then they feed us this gibberish about a "Trinity" where even though Jesus had taken human form he was still God. In fact, they even claim that he was 100% man and 100% God simultaneously.

Does this make any sense ? No. But not to worry, God works in mysterious ways that we simply cannot comprehend. Don't get bogged down in the technical details of trying to understand the infinite power of God. Just accept Christ as your savior and behave yourself. All your questions will be answered AFTER you die. So quit worrying about the technical details.

That's how it's taught.

And most people just accept this, especially as children because if you refuse to accept it you'll be sent to your room and told to quit rebelling against God.

That never happened to me in my family, but I know a lot of other people that it did happen to.

Of course, as you well know, I didn't buy into this nonsense for very long before I realized that it can't be true.

There is certainly no way that I was going to move over to something like Judaism, or Islam. Although, for completeness sake I did look into those religions. The problem is that once Christ is taken out of the religion the Old Testament is pretty disgusting and obviously false. So there's really no incentive to go "backward" from Christianity to these pre-Christ versions of these ancient fables.

And you can't keep Christ without accepting that he's the "Only Begotten Son of God" because that's what the fables about Christ claim. You'd have to toss out the whole virgin-birth story, etc. It's just ridiculous to even think about trying to salvage Christ by doing that. You'd basically be re-writing the entire religion by making a false fabrication of it.

So yeah, I came to my senses and realized that the entire religion is absurd. There is no point in trying to cling to YHVH or whatever you want to call him. The God of the Old Testament simply isn't worth trying to retain. In fact, that God has at least as many problems as Jesus had, if not more.

But yeah, it's taught to people by telling them that Jesus is the "Son of God" (not God himself), but YES, Jesus was GOD incarnate because of the obviously needed Trinity.

And the apology there is simply that we as humans cannot comprehend how God does this anymore than we can comprehend how God came to be in the first place, or how God created the universe from nothing.

After all that makes SENSE doesn't it? Why should we be expected to understand how God works when that's clearly impossible for us to do?

So this is what people buy into.

And if you think you are going to convince a Christian to toss out Jesus as the "Son of God" and start worshiping Yahweh instead, you clearly have no clue how Christians view Jesus. There's no way that a Christian is going to trade in Jesus for Yahweh.

It's just not going to happen.

You may as well be asking them to become Muslims.

Besides, Yahweh doesn't make any more sense than Jesus. So it's not like pre-Christian religions have any less problems.

[Tcg]

Call it brainwashing (at worst) or call it indocrination, or call it influence at best, how much of a factor is culture in determining whether someone assents to the notion that "Jesus is God" even if in absence of deep thoughtful consideration?

This is a very specific question, but perhaps a consideration of more general religious beliefs would shed some light on the answer.

The main influence I have seen in my own life and in that of others is familial influence. I'm not sure if that would be included with cultural influence or not. In any case, it seems that those raised in a single religious background tend to stay with that religion into adulthood.

I would suspect that if both parents accept the idea that "Jesus is God" and expressed that idea consistently, it is likely that their children would retain that belief. I would suspect that the wider Christian culture encourages this retention of belief, but doubt that it is the cause of it. It seems more likely that the culture reflects this belief because families and thus individuals accept this doctrine.

Here's a bit of evidence that suggests that those raised in single belief families tend to retain the belief of their families into adulthood:

"But one pattern regarding the passing on of religious identity from one generation to the next is clear: Among those who were raised in a single religious background (especially within Protestantism), the familys religious commitment is closely linked with retaining ones religion into adulthood. Those adults who say religion was very important to their family while growing up and whose parents frequently discussed religion are more likely than others to continue to identify with their parents religion as adults."

http://www.pewforum.org/2016/10/26/link ... -identity/

It's a bit hard to answer with a great degree of confidence. Just like the "forbidden experiment" of separating babies from all human interaction to determine whether nature is more influential than nurture, we can't very well separate babies from their culture or their families.

[StuartJ]

Pretending for a moment that Jesus has more influence than Bart Simpson or Harry Potter these days ...

... cultural indoctrination (I do prefer brainwashing) is, in my experience and reading, is vital to how individuals assent, react, or respond to notions.

Trigger phrases - like HE IS RISEN - will send a crowd wild in Rio De Janeiro ...


... but mean virtually nothing in Tokyo.

[Divine Insight]

My previous post was a bit lengthy and most likely didn't get my point across sufficiently.

My point is really that Gospels have Jesus being born of a virgin who was magically impregnated by God. And later have God himself proclaiming Jesus to be his Son from the clouds.

Is that a cultural theology? Of is this a fundamental part of the Gospels that is therefore independent of culture?

I would think it would be the latter.

So it would seem to me that any group of theists who try to deny the divine nature of Jesus would simply be rejecting what the Gospels actually have to say.

Do cultures have the right to re-write, or reject the Gospels?

[Elijah John]

Pretending for a moment that Jesus has more influence than Bart Simpson or Harry Potter these days ...

... cultural indoctrination (I do prefer brainwashing) is, in my experience and reading, is vital to how individuals assent, react, or respond to notions.

Trigger phrases - like HE IS RISEN - will send a crowd wild in Rio De Janeiro ...


... but mean virtually nothing in Tokyo.

The same with signs held up at American football games which read "John 3.16". They would not go over very well in Cairo or Mecca.

[Divine Insight]

The same with signs held up at American football games which read "John 3.16". They would not go over very well in Cairo or Mecca.

None the less, shouldn't John 3:16 mean the same thing to all Christians regardless of the culture in which they live?

Unless, of course, that culture tosses out the Gospel of John. But would that still be "Christianity" then?

[Elijah John]

My previous post was a bit lengthy and most likely didn't get my point across sufficiently.

My point is really that Gospels have Jesus being born of a virgin who was magically impregnated by God. And later have God himself proclaiming Jesus to be his Son from the clouds.

Is that a cultural theology? Of is this a fundamental part of the Gospels that is therefore independent of culture?

I would think it would be the latter.

So it would seem to me that any group of theists who try to deny the divine nature of Jesus would simply be rejecting what the Gospels actually have to say.

Do cultures have the right to re-write, or reject the Gospels?

No DI, my point is not that cultures are trying to "re-write" the Gospels, but in fact Western culture perpetuates the Gospels as the accepted and acceptable norm. They're "built-in" to many of our cultural assumptions, with the exception of course of separation of Church and State.

But Christianity is there, in our holidays, in our everyday language, in our oaths, in our coinage etc, etc. It can be argued that the coinage and founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence are more universal and Deistic than they are specifically Christian ("the laws of nature and nature's God" says Jefferson, not the "laws of the Bible and the Bible's God") but that is tangential and not central to this OP.

My point is that Western civiilation is founded on Trinitarian Christianity. And citizens of Western culture are assumed to assent to the notion that Jesus is "God the Son". How deeply, and with how much conviction is another question. But most who identify as Christian (even if nominally) still give lip service to the notion that "Jesus is God" even if they never really considered the possibility that he is not.

I note that you were raised to believe Jesus is the "Son of God". So do most Trinitarians. But most Trinitarians also believe that Jesus is "God the Son". What do you see as the difference between the two affirmations?

Whether YHVH makes any more sense than Jesus is another topic.

[Elijah John]

The same with signs held up at American football games which read "John 3.16". They would not go over very well in Cairo or Mecca.

None the less, shouldn't John 3:16 mean the same thing to all Christians regardless of the culture in which they live?

Unless, of course, that culture tosses out the Gospel of John. But would that still be "Christianity" then?

As much as I'd like to toss that particular Gospel, that's not what I'm arguing in this particular OP.Implicit in the premise of the OP is that the GoJ is included as part of our Western, Christian culture. (Whether I like it or not). Mecca and Cairo are culturally Islamic, not Christian. We're speaking broadly of cultures, not exceptionally of Christian expatirates living in non-Chrisitan cultures..

[Divine Insight]

I note that you were raised to believe Jesus is the "Son of God". So do most Trinitarians. But most Trinitarians also believe that Jesus is "God the Son". What do you see as the difference between the two affirmations?

It says in the Gospels that Jesus is the Son of God. I can't imagine anyone being raised in Christianity who doesn't accept that Jesus is the Son of God. He was purposefully born via a virgin birth that was arranged by God and no human male was involved in that pregnancy.

Clearly Christian theology cannot have Jesus being a standard "demigod", that would be a position that would cause them extreme problems. Not the least of which is that this would then become a polytheistic religion not unlike Greek Mythology and many others. So rather than allowing Jesus to be a "demigod", they invented this idea of the "Trinity" where Jesus is some incomprehensible abstract facet of God.

The standard theological apologies for this are the following:

"With God all things are possible", even if we can't comprehend them.

"God works in mysterious ways", beyond our ability to understand.

"Trust in God and all will be explained after you die and go to heaven".

In short, there is no theological explanation or rationalization for the idea of what men call the "Trinity". It's just one of those ideas that God understands and we do not. And we are not to question these things because they are beyond our ability to understand in this life.

That's the idea.

Whether YHVH makes any more sense than Jesus is another topic.

Sorry, but this is utter nonsense. And I reject it entirely.

Unless you are going to claim that Jesus is a stand-alone God who has no connection to YHVH whatsoever, then whether YHVH makes any sense or not is PARAMOUNT to any discussions of Jesus.

Jesus has no feet of his own to stand on. He either sits on the shoulders of Yahweh, or he's nothing. Jesus' authority stems entirely from the claim that he is the Son of God.

I realize that you have rejected that Jesus is the "Son of God" in past posts, and instead claim that Jesus was just some type of prophet. However, that doesn't help because even as a prophet, the idea is that Jesus is a prophet of YHVH. So even rejecting that Jesus is the "Son of God", and proclaiming Jesus to merely be a prophet of YHVH still places an extreme dependency on the validity of YHVH.

So I don't see how there is any way to get around this. If you can't make an air-tight compelling case for YHVH, then as far as I'm concerned you already have no business talking about Jesus.

Like I say, unless you are going to claim that Jesus has nothing at all to do with YHVH, But this would then require a total rejection of the entire Old Testament canon. And even the Gospels have Jesus constantly referring to the Old Testament, God, prophets, and stories, using them as though they represent Gospel Truth.

So no, talking about Jesus without having first validated YHVH is nothing short of absolute avoidance.

I reply to posts on this forum about Jesus simply because they exist. But in person, if you want to talk to me about Jesus, you had darn well better make a compelling case for YHVH first. And, as far as I'm concerned, that's already an impossible task.

So in the end we would never get to a point where it even makes any sense at all to even bother with talking about Jesus. Because without YHVH Jesus is nothing but a collection of unconvincing and unverifiable superstitious rumors.

When you debate with Christians, they have already accepted the rumors of YHVH, so that's why you get away with it there. They have no choice but to accept that YHVH is God before believing in Jesus. YHVH is Jesus "Father God". And Jesus is the Son of YHVH.

Jesus is nothing without YHVH. He couldn't even be a prophet of YHVH.

Without YHVH Jesus is meaningless.

So no, whether YHVH makes any more sense than Jesus is NOT another topic.

Any discussion of Jesus is totally dependent on YHVH making sense first.