Opinion of Jesus Christ

[fezzyfestoon]

Negative for the same but opposite reason I think highly of Michael Vick. Despite Vick's obvious negatives, I think he's had an overall positive impact on the people who derive value from the things he does and says and the people they impact. The exact opposite could be said of the cult of character surrounding Jesus Christ.

[fezzyfestoon]

FF (Normal)

________

There is really no good reason to sincerely vote HP except a knee-jerk animus towards anything redolent of religion, which is far more revelatory about the voter than about Jesus.

No good reason at all? Surely you're being facetious...

[fezzyfestoon]

FF (Normal)

There is really no good reason to sincerely vote HP except a knee-jerk animus towards anything redolent of religion, which is far more revelatory about the voter than about Jesus.

No good reason at all? Surely you're being facetious...

Why would you assume that?

Because of the multitude of valid reasons to view Jesus Christ negatively?

[fezzyfestoon]

FF (Normal)

There is really no good reason to sincerely vote HP except a knee-jerk animus towards anything redolent of religion, which is far more revelatory about the voter than about Jesus.

No good reason at all? Surely you're being facetious...

Why would you assume that?

Because of the multitude of valid reasons to view Jesus Christ negatively?

You and I have very different definitions of 'multitude', 'valid', and/or 'negative'.

Clearly. Centuries of injustices, persecution, murder, cultural dominance, and many more abuses count to me as a multitude of valid reasons to have a distaste for the one character it was all committed in the name of. I honestly have absolutely no understanding of how that can be completely ignored and brushed aside as either irrelevant, not negative, or invalid. So yes, there is certainly a massive disconnect between our understanding of those concepts.

[fezzyfestoon]

Do you hate Karl Marx too?

I don't hate either one, but I certainly don't absolve them of all the atrocious wrongs committed in their names. Not to mention the devolving of both into caricatures of their causes, most severely in the case of Jesus.

[fezzyfestoon]

So as long as you don't explicitly promote certain actions you're completely devoid of blame? I hate posting in the religion boards, you can't win no matter what you say or how much you try to hedge your assertions to avoid the deluge of unavoidable outrage at any criticism or acknowledgment of negative consequences. In my view, Jesus is nothing more than a fairy tale character regardless of his reality in whatever sense because of the worship of his legend. If taking the apparently arguable atrocities committed in the name of the legend of Jesus as an indictment of his legacy is radical or baseless, then paint me a bigot I suppose...

[fezzyfestoon]

How do I respond to a complete lack of substance? I'm at a dead end...

[fezzyfestoon]

Negative for the same but opposite reason I think highly of Michael Vick. Despite Vick's obvious negatives, I think he's had an overall positive impact on the people who derive value from the things he does and says and the people they impact. The exact opposite could be said of the cult of character surrounding Jesus Christ.

This is getting to the point of being not worth posting about. If people are going to jump down my throat without offering anything of note to combat what it is I've actually said, what is there to debate? Dibble of course has original notions worth considering, and we agree in general. My original derivation of blame is in perfect alignment with what he just said, yet has gone unacknowledged in the unfortunately shallow criticism of what I've said...what a disappointment. There's so much to talk about, but evidently either I'm completely incapable of communicating my points or there's no desire among my detractors to actually delve into what it is I've asserted.

[fezzyfestoon]

In my view, Jesus is nothing more than a fairy tale character regardless of his reality in whatever sense because of the worship of his legend.

What do you have against fairy tale characters, many of whom are more "real" than human beings who actually lived in terms of their impact on human life?  "Fictional" versus "Nonfictional" is a fairly irrelevant distinction.

My problem is the very fact that they are characters. There is no truth, just interpretation. That leaves the door wide open to abuse. The very impact Jesus has had as a character is why I have a distaste for the idea of deriving a heavy amount of moral and societal value from a character that can represent anything their audience stands for. Especially when there are so many pockets of bigotry littering the bible in the name of an indisputably dominant cultural figure. But I do agree that the distinction between fictional and nonfictional historical figures is weak. It all depends on their impact as a cultural mainstay. Jesus has had a horrendous impact on the world as both.

[fezzyfestoon]

Negative for the same but opposite reason I think highly of Michael Vick. Despite Vick's obvious negatives, I think he's had an overall positive impact on the people who derive value from the things he does and says and the people they impact. The exact opposite could be said of the cult of character surrounding Jesus Christ.

For the third time, no I'm not...

[fezzyfestoon]

On the other hand, I tend to think that many who see Jesus' impact in mostly negative terms aren't putting their alternate history thinking caps on and/or are taking a great many things for granted that they shouldn't be.

Like what? What am I taking for granted that Jesus has given me?

[fezzyfestoon]

It's striking how low of an opinion Christians have of humanity.

[fezzyfestoon]

It's striking how low of an opinion Christians have of humanity.

A low opinion of humanity seems quite reasonable on the evidence collected so far.

Of course what you say isn't true, or isn't entirely true. Christianity has both an extremely low and an extremely high opinion of humanity, and holds both views at exactly the same time. Children of God (and made in His image, etc) but sinners as well, capable of grotesque acts of wicked depravity and the like.

Very true. Most of that positive energy has been internalized while the negative the opposite though it seems. At least here in the US where there are only good, Christian Americans or Godless gay baby killers, no middle ground. That could just be pinned to increasingly pithy extremist political rhetoric.