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Well yes, all that does make me respect him a whole lot for being an amazing person. I think it's cool to try to live like him, too - almost no one does that, though.
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That’s why the way is narrow.
In otherwords, anyone can talk the talk. The actual walk is a bit harder.
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I just think it's a pretty poor way to promote your religion - I mean with a real gory torture being the whole crux of the thing.
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The crux?
No.
It is however an integral part.
And I would say that as a former Catholic, you have been trained to focus strongly on Jesus’ passion, while not focusing at all on his resurrection.
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I mean why isn't the way he lived what it's all about? The way he died is really irrelevant to me - except demonstrating he was very committed to his beliefs. That's impressive in itself, granted.
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How he lived
is important. And what you said isn’t any small thing: that he was true to his life even unto death.
I repeat: this is NO SMALL LESSON.
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I think what I'm trying to say is that it's too bad Mel Gibson decided to focus on this part of Jesus' life. And the reasons he gives for doing it are bad reasons for doing it, IMO.
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The Passion of Jesus has it’s place, as does the rest of the Jesus story.
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Yes, raeanna, I have a problem with what I see as manipulative emotionalism. But you summed up the thinking process behind the believer's position very well.
Now on to Lebell's statements.
I'll tell ya, man, it does strike me as a wildly irrational way to create conviction.
It's sort of like posing an outrageous situation and then brutally acting it out - as in a perverse self-fulfilling prophecy. Then using that in some sort of reverse way to demonstrate that since it didn't have to happen - it must be miraculous that it did.
These are the sorts of impressions I had as a child - I remember them well. I mean, people would go through this sort of convoluted reasoning - which just seemed convoluted for perverse reasons. And then they would say things like, "now you see why it is such a miracle and why it offers us salvation rather than despair, etc..."
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Well, I am honestly having a difficult time figuring out what you mean here, Art.
I see nothing of the “manipulative emotion” you speak of, just the world as it was/is and what we try to understand.
In short that a man, Yeshua ben Joseph appeared in ancient Palestine and began to preach and touch people in a way that was unique. Things happened that caused people to speculate who and what he was in relationship to what they knew about God. These things continued to happen even after the Romans (at the behest of the Jewish authorities) brutally murdered him.
So is it manipulation when Christians believe these things? Or is that your interpretation?
Oh, I have no doubt that you suffered much manipulation while in the Catholic Church. But in the end, nothing is different for you than it was for people two thousand years ago. God leaves you free to believe or not to believe as you wish.
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Well honestly, not only does it make me feel sad that torture is a relatively common human behavior - it makes me feel even worse that some folks would use an instance of it to weave an "inspirational" tale that they would indoctrinate future generations with.
I'm not kidding here: to me, telling that sort of story to a child and then blowing it up to cosmic proportions is psychological abuse, pure and simple.
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I think this may be one of the saddest things I have read in a while. That you feel that the story of Jesus boils down to child abuse, when the message is one of eternal hope, even when things seem darkest.
Peace to you, my friend.