Atheists and Jesus Christ

One of the most common objections from atheists have to with hypocrisy in religion (or of the religious). I can’t recall any instances of an atheist claiming Jesus was a hypocrite.

There might be a few complaints about Christians ignoring the teachings of Jesus, tho I would have a hard time digging up an example.

ETA: I replied to Mervin, but this was intended as a general comment. Sorry Mervin!

Did you mean that as you stated it there? I should think examples of Christians falling short of Jesus teachings really aren’t all that hard to come by … crusades, inquisitions, present day politics, evangelical scandals, personal failures each of us probably have in mind …

Or on second thought, were you referring to a self-identified Christian who does even put up a pretense of wanting to follow Jesus? As in … “yeah, I’m a Christian, but I don’t buy into all this Jesus stuff…” If so, then I guess that might be a strange bird.

I meant the former, but was aiming for more individual failings rather than historical baggage. I have a hard time blaming religion for historical events, because atheists often implicitly assume that history could only have been better in the absence of religion. In fact it could have been worse.

Its a bit like Fine Tuning arguments - if things were different then things would be different. Sure things might have been better, or worse, but we can only speculate about alternate history.

Which is not to say I approve of the crusades, etc., but human failings could be equally responsible.

For reference, I am agnostic. :slight_smile:

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I have encountered self-identified Christians who don’t act very Christian, IMO. Some people are just iceholes, I don’t need to blame religion for that. :wink:

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I apologized for that, Dan. :hugs:

What movie was that? Farging iceholes… ??

I seem to remember an Icehole Zebra movie. Maybe that one?

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It was Johnny Dangerously… I looked it up on YouTube. @moderators Please censor this if it is too spicy.

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If memory serves correctly; it was Johnny Dangerously (1984) with Michael Keaton and Joe Piscopo.

As for being an Atheist, I have found that Christians, I talk with, believe what they want to believe regardless of what is taught by Jesus. For example; I’m curious how many Christians on this board still believe in an eternal Hell of torture for non-believers. My experience is that the number is dwindling very quickly.

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Yes, it was Johnny Dangerously!! :slight_smile:

Just Christians? Doesn’t everyone tend to do so? The things that he said were paradigm-shifting and even life-changing. Certainly the most challenging things that a religious figure would ever say. I think that we are all guilty of reinterpreting his words to match what we want them to mean, at times.

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No apology needed, my friend! :slight_smile:

Bingo!

Ice Station Zebra? No, but a good Rock Hudson flick.

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Ice Station Zebra. Superb plot.

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Hudson. HA! Patrick McGoohan. And Ernie Borgnine.

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Scott McKnight’s blog was about that today let me see if I can link it, it looked more at politics, but politics is just our collective self beliefs:

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Oh, Phil, that was fantastic! There are so many takeaways from that article. Have you read the book? I’m going to add it to my list. I speculate that it will sit next to (in position and reverence) my copy of Unoffendable by Brant Hansen. Thank you for sharing.

Absolutely I believe what I want to believe. That isn’t the question. When I was a Christian there was a whole litany of claims that I ‘had’ to believe to be considered a ‘true’ Christian and escape the fires of Hell. As I grew older and investigated those claims I couldn’t continue those beliefs. As far as Jesus is concerned I find myself in Bart Erhman’s camp more than the mythicism camp.

I also noticed you did not answer my question about Hell.

Thanks Stephen. I do find these views interesting . I first of all don’t know or claim to have earned any minas over my lifetime and certainly have spent some.

However, I am sure that we know that this parable is about faith in the teacher his teachings and the spiritual fruits that that brings. I guess you are disputing this parable “wrong “ because you think that this is not fair to those that fear not love him and those that had hated him with no faith to follow in him?

Or is it not fair that more is given to those that been faithful and fruitful and taken from those that were not?

I think it isn’t that we -Christians included-should be neither conservative nor progressive but rather both. The trick is in picking the right things to conserve and the right ones on which to attempt progress.

Liking the article so far.

I already wrote about what makes the parable sickening, in a comment above.

It’s not how I roll, but what makes these parables disgusting is their casual cruelty. If this Jesus can’t tell a story about being “faithful” and “fruitful” without ending with a massacre, then he’s not a consistently reliable moral teacher. I think he sounds like a confused monster, personally, but I think it’s just as likely that his biographers couldn’t abide his decency and couldn’t resist inserting some quotes about torture and mass murder. First-century anachronism and all.

OK, this might not be directly relevant, and possibly too political, but Left and RIght no longer have much value in describing politics. I offer it for consideration:

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I think that moderator Laura said it well, Scott K (LearningU). And as she said, your question is very broad, unless what you really meant is something like “why don’t atheists believe in Jesus?” That still is a broad question since some atheists might be willing to believe such a man existed. But they do not believe in God and would not accept His assertions in t hat way – or would try to deny He said them. And there are a number of other things your question could have meant.