A Possibility - Jesus As Deluded, Followers in Denial
April 3, 2008 by chillinatthecabstand
A thought occured to me just now. What if Jesus WAS real, he lived once, and thought he was the son of God and said all of the things attributed to him, and really thought he would come back to life after getting crucified and rule the world, etc. etc.
What if once he was crucified, nothing happened. Turns out he was just a man, a mistaken, possibly disturbed man.
His followers - suffering from denial and hallucinations - could have spread rumors of his rising from the grave and their own salvation. They could pull it off - if you threw away your family, friends, and possessions and put all of your eggs in Jesus’s basket and then nothing happened, wouldn’t you be embarrassed and in denial?
Really, think about it. Doesn’t that sound like the basis for many modern cults? Isn’t that a legitimate possibility (as if Jesus as a historical person is a legitimate possibility)?
You first sentence shows you may need to do some reading… It appears to me that you are questioning if Jesus the man actually existed…?
It is no secret or misconception that Jesus the man did exist as the Holy Bible indicates — and there are other historical records that speak of him, too.
As for his divinity, that is the true debate.
Jesus as a person, a human being born into the world is not a myth or fantasy. There was a Jesus of Galilee, son of Mary and Joseph, who was a thorn in the side of the religious leaders of his time. But, was this man the Son of GOD as he claimed — THAT’S THE QUESTION THAT DIVIDES THE WORLD.
So as you say, Jesus is a historical person.
http://www.lavrai.com/blogs
Yes, Jesus was a man, a real human who life was hijacked by those who recreated the myths to be able to rule the world as they knew back then. (”The Christ” was taken from another cult religion) History is important and many devout believers will alway deny that importance and that of motivation in any human endeavor that leads to the real reasons why things are the way they are. However there is still a part of the brain that retains an image of spirit, of life force. See this link to what I’m saying
http://www.onlymoments.wordpress.com
You may not agree with my conclusion but as I state, “it really doesn’t matter” in the end.
I personally believe Jesus was real. However, I think he started with the best of intentions as a disciple of God, but somewhere down the road he got carried away with his role, and as people began to follow his teachings of God’s Love in larger masses he became one with his message. And while he could not obviously claim to be God, being his son was the next best thing.
Jesus was real. The evidence is overwhelming, no legitimate historian would argue that Jesus did not exist. Almost every modern historian agrees that: 1) Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, 2) was baptized by John the Baptist, 3) was accused of sedition against the Roman Empire, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate 4) was sentenced to death by crucifixion. Only a very small minority argue that Jesus never existed as a historical figure. If you choose to believe he did not exist, then you are ignoring the evidence. (Last time I checked evidence was pretty important in making judgements)
Well, I suppose I’m in that minority, but I am willing to read any sites or books or whatever you have that present some evidence for a historical Jesus.
So far, I’ve read “Quest of the Historical Jesus” and “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist”, the former of which concluded that Jesus never existed and the latter of which made awful arguments for his historicity that Kyle Williams thoroughly refuted.
I’m sure I have heard that respected historians have doubts that he existed, however I’m too sure where I got that from, some news site or something. (perhaps you’ll have to have faith in my testimony!). Considering the Turin shroud was a fraud, and that believers are wary of James Cameron’s find a year or so back, I’m not aware of any solid evidence he existed. However, that is all irrelevant.
I love the part in the original post where you theorise that the disciples who had thrown everything away to follow Jesus would be embarrassed and in denial. That’s a reasonable claim, although one thats hard to prove. It’s certainly possible, certainly more so than a miracle.
Thomas Hobbes says it best in his work ‘On Miracles’:
“No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact it endeavours to establish.”
People say you’ve got to have faith to believe in the bible. Why not believe in the Koran. Or the Torah. Or Harry Potter. We no longer need religion to explain the world, so theres no need to make a leap of faith. Save yourself the cognitive dissonance and a Sunday spent in church.
Sorry, not Thomas Hobbes, it was David Hume who left us that fantastic quote in 1748.
undergroundnetwork:
“I love the part in the original post…”
>>Thanks, I try!
Those are some interesting thoughts, like proving miracles - how COULD you prove a miracle or prove that someone was resurrected? It’s impossible.
I don’t think my little theory about the disciples being embarrassed could be proven, no way, but it is an interesting thing to ponder.
“It’s certainly possible, certainly more so than a miracle.”
Sorry didn’t make it very clear there, I meant that the theory the embarrassed disciples made up the resurrection could be possible, no that it could be possible to prove the theory! That would be impossible to prove, like most things in these religious discussions. But that doesn’t mean these things aren’t interesting to ponder, as you say.
How long do you think it is before this interesting message board receives angry Christian posts? I’m sure some theists can smell blasphemy!
I’ve already got more angry Christians on here than I can keep track of lol
On this post, though, I haven’t really had a lot, just a few popping in to say that Jesus has some sort of historical basic, not to discuss my idea about delusion and denial.
I read a pretty interesting book about the start of christianity by a guy named Hyam Maccoby. I believe is was called “Paul - the mythmaker”. In it he talks about how Paul was at odds with the nazareth church, run by James the brother of Jesus. This is even discussed in the bible. He discusses how that church believed in Jesus’s message as an extension of the Jewish religion and not a new religion. They thought it was for the Jews. Paul is the one who brought it to the gentiles and tailored alot of the beliefs to make it more palatable to those gentiles, even mixing it with the Hellenistic religions about sun gods since they were familiar with those concepts. I guess the point of this is that the apostles did not need to be delusional since his arguement is that they didn’t really start anything new. Paul did and christianity became an extension of Paul’s message. He won since his religion welcomed more people.
That makes a lot of sense since Jesus was a Jew who preached to Jews and his followers wre Jews, etc.
And my point was that they could have fabricated the resurrection out of denial and/or embarrassment, not so much that they weren’t trying to start a new religion.