(no subject)
I used to be a member of this club and at the time, I LOVED it. It was great. However, slowly, as leadership changed the club started to go in the wrong direction. I ran for Vice President and lost.
Recently, there was an advertisement in the Breeze saying their were only three ways to take the life of Jesus Christ and wanted to know if anyone else had any opinions.
The rhetoric that Freethinkers came up with was:
Heresy or Hearsay
Tired of the same old arguments? A recent ad in The Breeze claimed that there are exactly three viewpoints on Jesus’ claim to be a god. It then asked us whether we can think of another option. Here are a few:
We all lie - as the doctor tells the child “this won’t hurt a bit,” the generally moral teacher may decide that in a superstitious culture the only way to advance morality would be to engage in some deception. If one lie makes someone a liar then we are all liars.
Misinformed - circumstances in Jesus’ life could have led him to believe it was true that he was a god, without affecting his overall sanity. Also, since the men who wrote the gospels didn’t know Jesus, it could be possible that they just made a conglomeration of previous myths. Jesus may also have never claimed to be a god but his followers just saw him as such.
Fiction - there is no Gospel of Jesus. We have nothing written by him or about him by anyone who knew him while he was alive, just contradictory hearsay writings nearly half a century after his death, if he existed at all.
Hundreds of people allegedly saw Jesus walking thousands of years ago. Thousands of people allegedly saw Elvis walking in the present day. What do you really believe? For a discussion group that is not interested in limiting your options check out the Freethinkers…
Freethinkers
http://orgs.jmu.edu/freethinkers/
I sent them an email back saying that there really is no question over whether or not Jesus Christ was a real man who existed. That's NOT the argument. I stated that the argument should be whether or not the Breeze should be able to post such an advertisement and accept money for propaganda like that.
I got heated in my emails, because as a member of the club, I do not want my name associated with that poor rhetoric from that email. It's complete and total bullshit if you believe that there really is a strong movement of people who do not believe that Jesus existed.
Honestly, Christianity is too big of a phenomenon (now and back then) for it to just be one huuuuuge conspiracy theory. I'm not a Christian, but I do believe Jesus was a person. Not necessarily the son of God, but a revolutionary nonetheless.