- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I was wondering how others feel about this….do you believe in the Christ who is the literal son of god, who suffered for the sins of all mankind, and paid their debt? That he was divine, and was resurrected? Whether he has a body or not, I care not at this point — only whether you believe in Christ as the literal person he is generally believed to be at church, or do you see him as a symbolic figure, or perhaps even a good man who modeled a good life? Where do you stand on the issue of belief in Christ? Interestingly we had a similar discussion in PH today in the context of what other churches believe. I finally managed to quash it because I pointed out rather forcefully that it doesn’t matter what others believe. Your question is actually very broad, SD. Do I believe in Jesus Christ exactly as he’s taught in church? No, but I can’t say that out loud lest I be branded a heretic. But I’m game here.
Literal Son of God: I think this might be one of those instances where the Bible may not have been translated correctly. I have not the desire nor time to fully explain all the details of why I believe so, but you can do your own research. Christ was a son of God the same way we all are, though.
Suffered for the sins of all mankind: I do believe that in a symbolic way he did, that he was the Lamb of God. I have no evidence for this belief other than what is in scripture, but I choose to believe it. It brings me hope. FWIW, I do not believe he bled from every pore.
Resurrection: Not sure. It sure is convenient to the story, though. I also choose to believe he was resurrected but not necessarily with a body and with less spiritual conviction than the atonement.
Reality: I do believe other historical accounts point to Jesus having been a real person. Short of him being a God or Son thereof, I do believe he was at least a good person and a revolutionary and perhaps a great prophet. I believe he may have actually said at least some of what is reported he said and other stuff was later added. I am also skeptical of all the miracles and believe they were also likely embellished or added later.
From the TV show The Middle:
Quote:Brick Heck: Isn’t it amazing how each snowflake is different?
Sue Heck: I know. It took me, like, three hours to cut out ten. And God has to do, like, fifty billion. You can’t tell me that’s not a miracle.
Brick: That’s a very good point. So, do you really believe all that stuff in the Bible is true?
Sue: Oh, absolutely.
Brick: [sighs] I don’t know. But it is a really cool story.
I’m with Brick, it is a really cool story. And I’m most certainly a heretic, heat up the branding iron.
😈 We also discussed this during third hour, mostly in a “ra ra ra our literal way of believing is better” way. I was having a fine Sunday until this point, when my mind switched to coming up with ways I could combat the feel-good drawing of boundaries and expand minds just a little bit, by offering exactly the right comment. No dice. SD, my answers to your first battery of questions are all “no.” I’m inspired by the stories, and feel that the world would be a better place if we gave up our preconceived notions of Jesus and then tried to be more like him.
Yes I do. Thing is Jesus wasn’t a lover of the rich.
I don’t know, and I am totally fine with either option, so I don’t spend any mental or emotional capital on it. I mean that. I think there is power and beauty in either option, and I am completely fine either way.
Old Timer wrote:
I don’t know, and I am totally fine with either option, so I don’t spend any mental or emotional capital on it.I mean that. I think there is power and beauty in either option, and I am completely fine either way.
You make another good point, Curt. Since I don’t believe most scripture (Bible/BoM) stories to be literal anyway, I can live with the Christ not being literal.
I don’t really know if he was the son of God but I don’t really need him to be. Even if he was just a man, or even if he didn’t exist, I see him as a generally good example of what true charity is. All I can say, is good. I was afraid I’d be branded a heretic for not beliving in the literal, divine son of God.There seems to me to be ample evidence there is a God. I believe in that force, and at times have believed his hand has been in my life. But Christ? Not so sure. But his example is good, his life principles are good. I find it hard to believe he would deceive people with miracles if he was just a good man though — that kind of goes against the “good man” argument, but I’ll let that pass. The scriptures have been translated and passed down, with people likely embellishing and injecting their own into the stories to serve their own purposes… I am glad I am not alone in questioning it all….
It has no impact on how I live my life, whether true or not. Getting rid of bad habits and trying to be like Christ is good, just like trying to be like Ghandi in some ways, is good.
My question is this — how can anyone get up to teach the concept of a divine Christ without really believing it? What attitude do you take with you when you do it?
SilentDawning wrote:
My question is this — how can anyone get up to teach the concept of a divine Christ without really believing it? What attitude do you take with you when you do it?
I’ve found some old forum posts about temple recommend questions to be helpful. Here’s the link to the responses about Jesus Christ:
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3361 I think some of the discussion applies to your question about what you can teach honestly and sincerely without a literal belief.
For me, part of my faith transition has been allowing myself to believe and accept what makes the most sense logically after I look at the evidence without trying to force belief. And if the jury is still out, I’m perfectly comfortable, like Ray, with saying I don’t know. For me the most logical is that Jesus was a man, a very good man who taught some amazing things. Over time, as the early Christian religion developed, oral traditions may have exaggerated or embellished some of the stories to retro-fit prophecies or to sound more miraculous. But for me, that doesn’t detract from the core of his teachings and the good they can do when applied in our lives.
I think it’s a miracle in and of itself that so many can glean meaning and import out of the life of Jesus even as they approach him from so many different faithful viewpoints.
Honestly, I don’t believe Christ believed he was a literal Son of God. Figuratively, for sure! I feel I am as true a Christian as anyone; but I think there is a large difference between what Jesus believed, and what many believe of Him roday. I’ve written up a quick summary of “why”, below. By it, I hope any true believer knows I don’t mean any disrespect. There is great value in a taking a literal view. The world would be a much different place, if we did not.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Quote:“Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. – Will Durant
Both Quinten L Cook and Neal A Maxwell have used this quote in their general conference talks. It about sums up my views on the divinity of Jesus.
If we look at the historical setting, the Roman Empire was ruled over by Caesar Augustus. Roman government was largely a theocracy, with its emperor given deific status. Before Jesus, Caesar Augustus was first referred to as a “Son of God”, “the Redeemer”, and “Savior of the World”. In the old testament, as well as us even today, the term “Son of God” can refer to anyone with a close, familial relationship with Christ. But Caesar Augustus applied the title to himself literally; he claimed his father was literally the god Apollo, through immaculate conception. His birth and childhood were accompanied by many miraculous signs and wonders… The term “Christ” was actually applied to Augustus first, but then later replaced the title “Messiah”, as Jesus’ primary title.
We also have over 20,000 ancient manuscript fragments from the New Testament. In one of the earliest manuscripts from Luke, after Jesus is Baptized, God speaks from heaven and says to Jesus “Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.” Not only this, but there are many other instances where the gospels, as time went on, became more and more extravagant, and more and more “Roman”. More grand, more miracles, and more antagonistic towards “the Jews”. We also see this prevelant among the four gospels, when viewed according to when they were chronologically written (Mark- around 60-70 AD, Matthew/Luke- around 70-80 AD, and John- around 90-100AD).
What I honestly believe happened was, Jesus was the son of a carpenter. He developed a great sense of love for God, and for his fellow man. He saw what a miserable state Israel was in; not only because of the subjucation of the Romans, but because of the corruption among the Jewish leadership. He taught a higher law, one of forgiveness, mercy, tolerance, patience, and love. But he also spoke out against the hypocracy of the Jewish elite, and angered some pretty bad men. They had him executed. Yet Jesus’ message resonated so strongly, that it broke off a daughter religion from Judaism, which in time came to be known as Christianity. One of the most prevelant Christians was a Roman named Saul/Paul. He helped bridge the gap between the Jewish Christians, and the Gentile Christians. But he disagreed with the original Christian leadership. We see in the bible that he went explicitly against the Council of Jerusalem, taking a more liberal approach when instructing the gentile saints. It was through Pauls leadership, as well as the hatred for the Roman Theocracy, which eventually won Jesus these extravegant stories, as well as Caesars title “the Christ”.
Old Timer wrote:
I don’t know, and I am totally fine with either option, so I don’t spend any mental or emotional capital on it.I mean that. I think there is power and beauty in either option, and I am completely fine either way.
I am with Curt on this. I can’t even determine if I am agnostic or even an athiest, but I do feel that the teachings of Christ are a very good way to live. With that I reserve the right to ignore a few items that show up in the bible, such as Paul’s teachings that women should be subservient and not speak in church. but I am fine with living in accordance to the core teachings of Christ.In fact I remember that many Nones (people that say they believe in God, but don’t align with any religion) claim to be “followers to the teachings of Christ” as they don’t like to be called “Christians”.
Bill Reel has done an interesting take on these on his podcasts. The first series with a very interesting guy named NT Wright.
http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2014/10/nt-wright-historical-jesus-pt1/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2014/10/nt-wright-historical-jesus-pt1/ The next one is a 6 segment series
http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2016/12/premium-historical-jesus-pt-1-gospel-mark/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/2016/12/premium-historical-jesus-pt-1-gospel-mark/ I agree with many others. To me, it doesn’t really matter. I love the story of Christ; not because of the miracles, but because of the overall message. I don’t follow Christ because he turned water to wine, or healed the lepers, or walked on water. The miraculous stories are great, but I look at them more as parables. Christ taught in parables, and I look at his life as one big parable. I look at the OT the same way. I don’t read into the details and expect it all to be literal and historical, but I look at the OT as a series of parables. To me, the story of Christ, 1- could be exactly true, word for word, 2- could be based in some truth, some myth, 3- could be completely false and based on the writings of a group of people. It doesn’t matter. It’s the message that I love. The world was a brutal, violent, unforgiving place in those days. So the message of forgiveness, peace, love, and mercy, is a beautiful contrast to the eye-for-an-eye lifestyle that most people lived. When I say, “I believe in Christ,” what I’m really saying is that I believe in that message. It doesn’t matter to me how accurate the written depiction is. SilentDawning wrote:
I was wondering how others feel about this….do you believe in the Christ who is the literal son of god, who suffered for the sins of all mankind, and paid their debt? That he was divine, and was resurrected?Whether he has a body or not, I care not at this point — only whether you believe in Christ as the literal person he is generally believed to be at church, or do you see him as a symbolic figure, or perhaps even a good man who modeled a good life? Where do you stand on the issue of belief in Christ?
I definitely don’t take the Bible literally, and I still believe in God and life after death independently from what the Bible says so it’s not like I’m a hardcore skeptic or anything. Basically to me some stories and ideas in the Bible sound plausible enough that I don’t see much of a reason to doubt them (I. E. Jesus was an influential religous leader that was crucified) but other cases don’t make much sense at all to me and in some cases I’m not really sure what to think either way (the resurrection, final judgment, etc). I definitely believe that the Apostle Paul was sincere about being converted by some kind of profound experience and I like to think that there was more to this than merely some figment of his imagination or misinterpretation of some natural process.
So that’s how I like to interpret Paul’s overall message, basically that Jesus was still alive after he was supposed to be dead which already sounds like “good news” enough for me regardless of some of the other details. Beyond that to be honest I think it is more likely that there were some embellishments to the traditional story of Jesus than that everything happened exactly as described. Not that that really proves anything because no matter how unlikely something is based on our observations of typical everyday life if God decides to directly intervene for whatever reasons then whatever he wants to happen suddenly becomes 100% likely to happen even if it has only ever happened once in the entire history of the world.
What I have a harder time believing than mircales in general is simply some of the things like hellfire and damnation over things like not being baptized and having the wrong beliefs (Mark 16:16) and the strait and narrow path that supposedly few will find (Matthew 7:13-14). In theory I don’t have a problem with truly bad people like murderers, rapists, etc. being punished somehow but when I look at neighbors that are not very religious, Muslims, etc. that are decent people I just don’t believe that they really deserve to be condemned especially when many of them don’t really have much of a choice regarding what they believe in the first place because it would be hard if not impossible for them to believe anything else under the circumstances. Even harder for me to believe is the idea of the atonement at least as taught by the Church or the general idea that Jesus supposedly needed to suffer as some kind of sacrifice to satisfy the demands of justice for everyone’s “sins.”
It just sounds like yet another guilt-trip to basically say Jesus supposedly suffered and died for your sins so you better do what we say or else this all important sacrifice was supposedly in vain in your case. I don’t understand why God couldn’t just forgive whomever he wants to without needing some kind of sacrifice or “debt payment” like this or how this would really make any difference as far as fixing anything by itself. Most of all I think some of the teachings of Jesus like forgiveness, loving your neighbor, not being judgmental and self-righteous like the Pharisees, are the kind of thing that people can do their best to practice and that would generally make the world a better place without even needing to believe that Jesus was literally the only begotten son of God, resurrected, had magical powers, etc. That’s what I would like to see more of out of the Church instead of so much obsession with everyone supposedly needing to believe the same exact things down to some of the smallest details.
Just a thought, and I haven’t flushed this out yet. But what if God isn’t all powerful? What if there are certain laws he must abide by in his sphere and that includes that for some reason he can’t just forgive everyone or make up a system by which somehow everyone gets to return to him. But by following laws he must abide by, the Savior and the atonement become a means by which he can accomplish his purposes without violating inviolatable laws that he doesn’t have the power to violate? Personally I don’t connect to this idea nor think it the most likely. But the idea gave me pause as an interesting theological thought.
I’ll try to answer without writing a novel. Do You Believe in the Literal Christ? Yes and no.
Okay, maybe I’ll elaborate a little.
Quote:do you believe in the Christ who is the literal son of god, who suffered for the sins of all mankind, and paid their debt?
Yes. But I feel that way about many people that I see around me. I believe people are sons and daughters of god. I believe people suffer for the sins of all mankind. And I’ve seen many people pay the debt of other people’s sins.
Quote:That he was divine, and was resurrected?
Divine, yes. Again, it’s one of those “we are all divine” things. Resurrected. I don’t know but I lean towards no. Unless we’re talking the elements that make up someone’s body returning to earth and being repurposed in the elements that make up other living things.
Quote:whether you believe in Christ as the literal person he is generally believed to be at church
Sorta.
Quote:do you see him as a symbolic figure
Yes.
Quote:or perhaps even a good man who modeled a good life?
Yes.
Quote:Where do you stand on the issue of belief in Christ?
My answers could be seen as mostly a dodge but to answer the question you were asking…
Sort of like how I feel about the stories we attribute to Christ, the best conventional wisdom of the day was gathered together to make a more complete ideal. Members of the church have taken upon themselves the name of Christ. Individually we may make up a less than perfect (whole) Christ but collectively we approach perfection. Collectively we have suffered all that humanity has ever suffered because we are humanity. Collectively we can be in a position to alleviate the burdens of the people that suffer because together we are strong. Collectively people will continue long after we are dead, so in a sense Christ is eternal and living… for as long as we hold on to the vision.
Christ becomes more powerful to me when I look at my neighbor or look at myself and consider that we are literally Christ. The Christ that sits in heaven waiting to bless us someday or the Christ that is rooted in the past – where I only need to reflect on “Christ” and what he has already done for me and my ills somehow magically go away with a mere thought – isn’t as powerful as taking on an active role in bringing about the atonement myself. Doing something that makes a difference in someone’s life, something
right nowto help alleviate the burdens of another. To me that’s how Christ lives. When we do something that Christ would do for someone in need… and sometimes we can do it ourselves, other times we need the help of a whole community coming together.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.