| Oct 27 @ 7:33 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
LanceVarden7
Posts: 1,092
|
I just recently learned about the Jefferson bible Jefferson Bible Jefferson, for whatever reason, took out all the miracles and distilled it down to just the natural events and the message. Now, I don't really know if I go along with someone redoing the bible. "Woe to the man who addeth or taketh away" and all that.
Here's the thing.
Isn't the message enough?
Does it really matter if Jesus walked on the water or turned water into wine? Isn't his message just as valid either way?
Isn't the notion of "love thy neighbor" and "treat others as you would be treated" still the same with or without the parlor tricks?
So much focus is placed on proving the miracles, and of course, 2000 years later, it is impossible to prove or disprove any of it. Why is proving so important anyhow.
I believe in God, but let's say the believers are wrong. Lets' say, for the moment, that we are on our own. We fart around on this miserable little rock for about 70 years or so, then wink out like a Wal-mart light bulb and that is it. Is following the Christ teachings such a bad thing?
I mean really. I like to think that this is a train ride to something better. I really think that this can't be all there is. It seems to me that the teachins of the Chirst are geared to making that train ride more pleasant. Even if the train ride is all we get, is making the trip better such a bad idea?
If the Christ had never performed the first miracle, does it make a differencet? The message is the same either way.
|
|
  |
|
| Oct 27 @ 7:48 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
yashaenka
Posts: 8,235
|
The Jefferson bible
Thomas Jefferson and his Bible
The 'Jefferson Bible' was Thomas Jefferson's attempt to extract an authentic Jesus from the Gospel accounts.
by Marilyn Mellowes
The White House, Washington, D.C. 1804.
Thomas Jefferson was frustrated. It was not the burdens of office that bothered him. It was his Bible.
Jefferson was convinced that the authentic words of Jesus written in the New Testament had been contaminated. Early Christians, overly eager to make their religion appealing to the pagans, had obscured the words of Jesus with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and the teachings of Plato. These "Platonists" had thoroughly muddled Jesus' original message. Jefferson assured his friend and rival, John Adams, that the authentic words of Jesus were still there. The task, as he put it, was one of abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separate from that as the diamond from the dung hill. 
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 7:49 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
dizzydoll
Posts: 581
|
 I agree with you, thanks for posting this
Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe removed this verse from the Bible in the 1980's (i think 1986) and i thought the same thing.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven"
Canaan Banana was paid to rewrite the Bible and was later charged with pedophilia. Anyway these fools decided they didnt like that verse  because they believe they are God
How many times do you believe this has happened for 2000 years? 
if you want to bother:
http://www2.unil.ch/lefaitmissionnaire/pages/resources-Zimbabwe.html
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 7:54 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
yashaenka
Posts: 8,235
|
Thomas Jefferson: Deist or Christian?
June 19, 2002 by Dr. James Kennedy, posted at Worldnet Daily
Dr. Kennedy: "Thomas Jefferson, as we all know, was a skeptic, a man so hostile to Christianity that he scissored from his Bible all references to miracles. He was, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation tells us, "a Deist, opposed to orthodox Christianity and the supernatural." Or was he? While Jefferson has been lionized by those who seek to drive religion from public life, the true Thomas Jefferson is anything but their friend. He was anything but irreligious, anything but an enemy to Christian faith. Our nation's third president was, in fact, a student of Scripture who attended church regularly, and was an active member of the Anglican Church, where he served on his local vestry. He was married in church, sent his children and a nephew to a Christian school, and gave his money to support many different congregations and Christian causes.
Me: I also give money to help a local Methodist Church with their youth program. I even attend the church on occasion and the pastor knows I'm a Deist, it's on the license plate of my car. But what did Jefferson say about all of this? He believed in God, science, theistic evolution, and thought Christian dogma fostered atheism. I was also married in a church.
----- Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June 26, 1822
Dear Sir,- I have received and read with thankfulness and pleasure your denunciation of the abuses of tobacco and wine. Yet, however sound in its principles, I expect it will be but a sermon to the wind. You will find it as difficult to inculcate these sanative precepts on the sensualities of the present day, as to convince an Athanasian that there is but one God. I wish success to both attempts, and am happy to learn from you that the latter, at least, is making progress, and the more rapidly in proportion as our Platonizing Christians make more stir and noise about it. The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.
1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.
These are the great points on which he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.
1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, are nothing.
3 That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit in its faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.
Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin?...doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian...  Jefferson Deist or Christian
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 8:00 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
LanceVarden7
Posts: 1,092
|
Well, what I was wanting to illustrate was not whether or not the Jefferson bible was a good thing or not.
I was hoping to point out that, whether the mircales occured or not, the message is the same, and it is a good one.
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 9:25 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
southernlass
Posts: 2,211
|
Is following the Christ teachings such a bad thing?
I mean really. I like to think that this is a train ride to something better. I really think that this can't be all there is. It seems to me that the teachins of the Chirst are geared to making that train ride more pleasant. Even if the train ride is all we get, is making the trip better such a bad idea?
For those who want to live any selfish way that they choose, regardless of the ethical questions along the way, regardless of morality, integrity, and basic human decency, yes. Some people simply don't want to be good, unfortunately.
For the rest, following the teachings of Christ is not an easy road to travel. It is certainly a more beneficial road in all aspects, but it's not easy to put Christ's teachings into practice.
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 9:53 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
yashaenka
Posts: 8,235
|
For the rest, following the teachings of Christ is not an easy road to travel. It is certainly a more beneficial road in all aspects, but it's not easy to put Christ's teachings into practice. It has been said by the Buddha and the wise man known as Jesus that there is a Jesus and Buddha within all of human kind.
What is so difficult about that? Perhaps you are making it more difficult than it really is?
All that Jesus and the Buddha conveyed was done orally there is not even a scrap of data that either wrote themselves that we are aware of in their own hand. All that was said about either was done by hearsay!
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 10:31 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
iam01
Posts: 6,265
|
Isn't the message enough? Lets be clear on what the message is.
If its about loving your neighbor. YES
If its about forgiveness. YES.
If its about treating others the way you would want to be treated YES.
Just those three things alone can transform humanity. We don't even have go beyond that to make the world a better place.
Does it really matter if Jesus walked on the water or turned water into wine? Isn't his message just as valid either way? First of all, its a copied miracle. Dionysus already turned water into wine. No, it doesn't matter becaus walking on water or performing other magic acts doesn't automatically make you a good person or a good neighbor.
Isn't the notion of "love thy neighbor" and "treat others as you would be treated" still the same with or without the parlor tricks? Absolutely!! And its a notion far older than Abrahamic religions.
So much focus is placed on proving the miracles, and of course, 2000 years later, it is impossible to prove or disprove any of it. Why is proving so important anyhow. Because to many, the magic tricks matter more than the actual message of peace and love. I thought the hippy years were a turning point in recent history but Mansonism killed that dream. Woodstock was the first and last gathering of the most people being together in the mud, in music peacefully.
I believe in God, but let's say the believers are wrong. Lets' say, for the moment, that we are on our own. We fart around on this miserable little rock for about 70 years or so, then wink out like a Wal-mart light bulb and that is it. Is following the Christ teachings such a bad thing? If Jesus was to magically return to see what has been done in his name he would hang himself before anyone else did. He would be crucified by Christians for being a false prophet. Everyone else would just slap him around for allowing his name to be so misused.
I mean really. I like to think that this is a train ride to something better. I really think that this can't be all there is. By stating your current life isn't isn't as fulfilling as some heaven after you die is a sad statement thats true of many. Instead of doing something about, they wait to die. Thats a death focused cult. Fix it now, be happy now. One can even interpret Jesus saying the Kingdom is within you. That means now.
It seems to me that the teachins of the Chirst are geared to making that train ride more pleasant. Even if the train ride is all we get, is making the trip better such a bad idea? This is why some people love Winnebagos, motorcycles, cross country hiking and long drives. They are taking to the road. You go from one place to another but you see everything along the way making the journey the destination.
If the Christ had never performed the first miracle, does it make a differencet? The message is the same either way. Hundreds if not thousands of philosophers have all made a different but when you add magic acts to it, it seems to be the only thing people notice and care about. Magic is about misdirection and tricks so what else can you expect? Then again, people love to be entertained.
[Edited on 10/27/2009 10:57 AM]
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 11:29 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
Thor1960303
Posts: 3,345
|
Magic is about misdirection and tricks so what else can you expect? Then again, people love to be entertained.
I doubt very seriously that any religion would've risen to much historical importance if it didn't claim magic. I saw a doumentary on the History Channel about early civilization and man's transition from hunter/gatherer to agrarian and the first development of civilization. In one scene, they dramatically speculated how the business of miracles and magic got started. A young boy had wandered too close to a lake and almost drowned. When the boy was found, he was still and lifeless. One man didn't want to give up on the boy, so he began to push on his chest and logically deduced that he could make his chest rise by forcing air into his lungs through his mouth. He inadvertently discovered CPR and thus brought the boy back to life. From then on, the rest of his tribe believed him to be a holy man with special powers and treated him as such.
In my life being raised in fundy Christianity, I have never seen what I would call a "miracle". I've seen much nuttiness interpreted as such as well as medical errors by hospitals covered up when in spite of the odds a misdiagnosed "terminal" patient survives.
There simply is no statistical, empirical evidence to support the existence of miracles, so I for one, think that this is one of those beliefs that needs to go the way of unicorns.
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 11:49 AM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
yashaenka
Posts: 8,235
|
Miracles and Divine Intervention
To understand the religious notion of divine intervention and the ramifications of its existence we must first understand what is meant by the term “miracle”. Like all theistic terminology, the world miracle suffers semantically from the fact that the concept of the supernatural is undefined, that is to say that the notion of the supernatural is not one we can define based on our experiences or observations, because all or our interactions, thoughts and observations occur in the natural universe.
In the absence of an adequate definition for the supernatural we can’t exactly define what a miracle is, but we could define a miracle by what it is not. The general notion of a miracle held by most theists could be described by what it is not as follows; an observable event for which the only possible explanation of its cause is not natural.
This definition side-steps the problem of meaninglessness which it would suffer from were it defined in terms of supernatural causality, such an issue is inescapable though; we can side-step it now for the sake of argument, but upon taking our leave of this argument so as to consider divine intervention in another vein of thought we would have to return this problem of “what is the supernatural?”.
Can We Know a Miracle to Have Happened?
Now that we have a definition to work with, we should be able to recognize a miracle when we see one right? Not exactly.
To be able to recognize a miracle when we see one we would need a definition of what a miracle is. We have defined a miracle by describing only what a miracle is not. We do have a definition to work with, but it is a negative definition. We can identify something using a negative definition- If you had a complete definition of what light is not, then you would be able to use that definition to discover what light is; when you encounter something that according to your definition is not what light is not then you can determine that what you have encountered is light.
So, based on our definition of what a miracle is not if we encounter a miracle we should be able to determine it to be so by recognizing that it is not that which our definition tells us a miracle is not.
The alternative to this would be to use a positive definition, if we could describe what a miracle is then upon seeing a miracle we would be able to recognize that it is a miracle based on what it is as opposed to what it is not. However, as I have already discussed above we are unable to form such a definition because it requires the use of a terminology which is not meaningful. Miracles  
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 12:02 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
Deborah551
Posts: 1,010
|
In my life being raised in fundy Christianity, I have never seen what I would call a "miracle". I've seen much nuttiness interpreted as such as well as medical errors by hospitals covered up when in spite of the odds a misdiagnosed "terminal" patient survives. I have seen some pretty amazing healings that I wouldn't call miraculous. In fact, when I was in Alcoholics Anonymous I heard more stories that bordered on the miraculous than I ever heard in church.
My Avon lady told me about her uncle who had lost almost 100 lbs. from cancer and had a "miraculous" healing and gained most of his weight back and is now cancer free. She said the Drs. are amazed. Well, I didn't argue with her but I wondered if her uncle had chemo and other cancer treatments. That's the trouble with so called "spontaneous healing." It seems that Drs. and medicine are always involved in it. And I do not dispute that there are many healings that science can't explain yet. Two sick people can get the same treatments by the same Drs. and one dies and one lives. I suppose the will to live has to enter into healing too.
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 12:32 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
yashaenka
Posts: 8,235
|
Doctors do not heal you, your own body heals itself!
Think about this for a moment, what do Doctors actually do? Write a prescription or say drink a lot of water and take 2 aspirin for a cold since there is no cure for the Rhino virus.
They may give you another prescription that you ingest into your body, then what, if your cured your own body did the healing not the Doctor.
Of course surgeons can give you new body parts but they are not healing you they are simply removing the old and inserting the new.
Doctors may tell you to do this or that, watch your % of bad fats and/or Cholesterol, get more exercise etc but do they really heal you no you heal yourself.
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 12:36 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
eastham
Posts: 7,907
|
I would urge a reading of What Jesus Meant by Gary Wills.
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 12:44 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
iam01
Posts: 6,265
|
My Avon lady told me about her uncle who had lost almost 100 lbs. from cancer and had a "miraculous" healing and gained most of his weight back and is now cancer free. Christians capitalize on the stupid. Cancer is their favorate disease because it can spontaneously go into remission and often brought on by physicians. Christians love cancer for this reason. The medical success rates are increasing and Christians think they can take credit for it. Of course when someone dies, they ignore their failure.
There is no spontaneous healing of mental retardation, lost limbs, birth defects, cirrhosis of the liver, the more serious cancers of the lungs and pancreas. The ONLY hope we have is medical research. Children can grow new fingertips before 5 years old but lose the ability afterward. Stem cell research has given us medicine to allow the heart to grow its own bypasses, for damaged muscles to regrow, and will eventually lead to growing brand new livers, hearts, kidneys and limbs. No amount of praying will do anything. Medicine, despite its serious flaws, is getting better as the result of hard work, effort, research and discovery. Christian witch doctors are just worthless idiots.
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 12:58 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
kattsmeow
Posts: 22,625
|
I was hoping to point out that, whether the mircales occured or not, the message is the same, and it is a good one.
Your right, BUT,,,in order for the people to know who he was, and to believe, they had to see these things with their own eyes. It was a show of the power Jesus had.
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 1:36 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
Thor1960303
Posts: 3,345
|
Of course when someone dies, they ignore their failure.
They don't ignore it, Iam, they just call it "God's will". When you're dealing with an imaginary being, it's easy to come up with excuses like, "It's one of God's mysteries", "His ways aren't ours" and my personal favorite, "It;s just not meant for us to understand, but we will when we get to Heaven."
What constitutes a "miracle" anyway? And just because science can't explain something at the present, doesn't constitute anything "supernatural".
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 1:45 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
iam01
Posts: 6,265
|
I think it would be a miracle, a real supernatural event when Christians wake up from their delusion and realize they were dreaming their whole lives. You have to consider the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians worshiped their mythical gods for thousands of years before they were dispensed with. All they did was replace them with different ones and we're about due for another clean up. Hopefully we won't keep making the same mistake. Hopefully we would be far more knowledgeable about the universe and expand our point of view beyond the earth bound superstitions that are intellectual ball and chains.
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 1:49 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
Thor1960303
Posts: 3,345
|
All they did was replace them with different ones and we're about due for another clean up. Hopefully we won't keep making the same mistake. Hopefully we would be far more knowledgeable about the universe and expand our point of view beyond this intellectual ball and chain
One would hope, but religion, to me, seems to capitalize on keeping broke things broke and sick people sick, not unlike much of capitalism.
|
| |
|
| Oct 27 @ 6:25 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles
|
|
Deborah551
Posts: 1,010
|
I would urge a reading of What Jesus Meant by Gary Wills. I just checked and my library has a copy on the shelves. I'm gonna pick it up today. I find more neat books to read from many of you on this R&S forums. Thanks you so much! 
|
|
| |
|
| Oct 29 @ 1:35 PM |
Is the message enough without the miracles |
|
beckyiv42000
Posts: 14,576
|
Isn't the message enough? The message should be enough.. it has been delivered by many messengers all over the world...SAME MESSAGE.. presented in many ways... yet us being the skeptical beings we are seem to need a little MORE ...or if there is no more we MAKE MORE.. if you know what I mean.. we have all done it.. EMBELLISHED the truth .. I really believe that past the FACTS the rest is all fluff and bother and embellishment of a teaching, taught by many, to aid us in living together in a peaceful manner. just think if we all could follow that simple teaching maybe this earth WOULD be heaven ?? 
|
| |
|
|
|
|