Divinity of Jesus

As I recall (and this is from memory, so forgive me), he was supposed to be a descendant of David. Since Solomon was David's son, Jesus would have to have been a descendant of Solomon as well.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Precisely who made you arbiter of who does or does not have the "right" to interpret the Bible?Peg has every bit as much of a right to post here as you or I do, on whatever topic she pleases - that is, we all have those privileges as granted by Percy, the owner of the forum.What makes Peg's JW interpretation of the Bible less valid than yours? Do I, as an Atheist, not have the "right" to interpret Biblical meaning, simply because I don't hold it to be inerrant or any different from any other "holy" text? Is it now a requirement that any and all Christian posters on this board agree with the interpretations of John 10:10 before they have the "right" to post?Do you really think that other modern Biblical translations have been less altered than the JW Bible?Are you an idiot, or just a bigot?

So you believe. So you interpret. As an unbeliever, why should I believe you over Peg? You're claiming that anyone who does not hold the same beliefs you hold regarding the Bible has no right to explain Biblical interpretation. Why is your belief correct, and others are wrong?

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John 16
13Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

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14He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

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15All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

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I don't see anything resembling "if you don't believe Jesus is God, you aren't qualified to understand the rest of scripture."There have been many, many Christian traditions, John. Why is your tradition's interpretation a necessary qualification for the "right" to explain scripture?Further, this is a thread regarding the divinity of Jesus. I think it's rather silly of you to make belief in Jesus' divinity a requirement to interpret scripture in a thread discussing that very divinity. That seems rather like ensuring that you will be preaching only to the choir. Perhaps it's you who should seek a forum where you can preach to those who already agree with you, rather than Peg? Peg seems willing to directly debate people who disagree with her, even if she has a tendency to oversimplify and use one-line responses. And I say this as a person who almost always disagrees with nearly everything Peg says around here.If you're unable to debate Peg's arguments, and instead resort to "Jehovah's Witnesses don't know what they're talking about," then your argument must be very weak. Your ad hominem attack on Peg's beliefs carries no weight when discussing whether her beliefs are scripturally justified or logically self-consistent. More like Shakespeare after being translated into a few different languages - the average work of fiction I read doesn't contain archaic language or cultural references, hasn't been erroneously translated and transcribed over the past 2000 years, and hasn't been the subject of heated debate for just as long.But of course, since we agree that interpreting what the Bible is actually saying (meaning what the original author intended for a given passage to say) is not always as cut-and-dry as what it directly and literally says in modern English, what makes yourinterpretation superior to Peg's? Really? Did you get some sort of certificate for that? Did Jesus Himself write "John 10:10 gets to decide who is correctly interpreting the Bible, and anyone who disagrees is wrong?"Do you have some way to back up your assertion that you have this divine authority, or are you just a self-righteous coward who's afraid to engage with Peg in an honest debate on the merits of argument and evidence, instead resorting to ad hominem attacks?

From the Britannica entry on Delusion (psychology):

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in psychology, a rigid system of beliefs with which a person is preoccupied and to which the person firmly holds, despite the logical absurdity of the beliefs and a lack of supporting evidence. Delusions are symptomatic of such mental disorders as paranoia, schizophrenia, and major depression and of such physiological conditions as senile psychosis and delirium. They vary in intensity, extent, and coherence and may represent pathological exaggeration of normal tendencies to rationalization, wishful thinking, and the like. Among the most common are delusions of persecution and grandeur; others include delusions of bodily functioning, guilt, love, and control.

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Many Christian beliefs are logically absurd and are supported by no objective evidence - many, in fact, directly contradict objective evidence. This means that, so far as psychology is concerned, those beliefs are delusional.Religion typically get's a free pass on no greater merit than simply being religion. It's an arbitrary exclusion - if that arbitrary line is not observed, many Christian beliefs qualify as delusional.Personally, I don't like throwing that one around. Accusing people of being mentally ill, accurate or not, doesn't tend to help a discussion progress.But then, whether religious beliefs are symptoms of mental illness or not is not the topic. Perhaps a new thread is in order? It's very interesting that you count opposition to your views as evidence that your beliefs are correct. Can you imagine if we carried that to other areas of our lives? Surely, every time you tell me that the Immaterial Pink Unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster are absurd and do not exist, your persecution of my beliefs proves that Her Pink Eminence and His Holy Noodliness do in fact exist.Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

Such a shame Jesus isn't here to clear up the matter. All we have is the Bible - a collection of texts noted more than anything else for its flexible interpretation.The issue here is that you're condemning Peg for putting forth what she understands the Bible to say based on what you understand the Bible to say. If you want to assert that Jesus is divine, support it with the Bible and engage Peg in debate. Accusing Peg of belonging to a cult and not being a "true Christian" is nothing more than an ad hominem attack - you're attacking Peg personally, not refuting her position.That's something you're doing, John.I haven't taken a side regarding whether Jesus was divine according to the Bible or not (it's mostly irrelevant to me as a nonbeliever). I haven't commented on Jesus words - the only Biblical reference I made was a quote of a passage you referred to, since you didn't quote the text yourself. My entrance into this debate is simply to note that your dismissal of Peg's argument with an ad hominem attack on her specific Christian sect instead of actually addressing the points of her argument themselves is dishonest, petty, and pathetic.I may as well dismiss everything John 10:10 says on a similarly arbitrary basis. I'll just label you a nutcase, and therefore everything you say is irrelevant. You don't have the right to instruct others on Biblical interpretation, John, because you're a nutcase.How does it feel to have your arguments completely ignored, your assertions dismissed without evidence, argument, or rebuttal? Perhaps I should do this more often - I get to declare victory without ever actually having to do any intellectual work, like supporting my arguments or even reading what my opponent says.

So you resolve the logical inconsistency of being oneself and simultaneously being one's own son by simply saying "that's what God said, and he's magic?"I suppose that since we're talking about an entity who is supposed to be unbound by such mundane things as "logic" and who uses magic all the time anyway, this isn't such a large problem.But still, it brings new meaning to the phrase "I'm beside myself!"It's interesting that the Bible in several places refers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as distinct and separate entities. Do you have a specific Bible reference, John, to show where the Bible says we are to believe that the three entities referred to are also one entity?I can see very plainly where non-Trinity Christians get their beliefs from all of the references where Jesus refers to the Father or the Holy Spirit as separate individuals (saying that he'll sit at the right hand of the Father, or that blasphemies against the Son or the Father are forgivable but those against the Holy Spirit are unforgivable, etc). I don't easily see where the Trinity doctrine of bunching up those three entities into the "godhead" and considering them to be "manifestations" of the same, one God comes from. Could you elaborate,with Biblical references?After all, when you continually shout "this is what God and His inspired authors said," it would be far more helpful were you to actually post the references to scripture where you're reading that they said it. Otherwise it's rather like taking your word for it, and that's just poor debate style.

You do realize that the divinity of Jesus has historically been a major point of dispute among early Christians?

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cult
  /kʌlt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kuhlt] Show IPA
Use cult in a Sentence
—noun
1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
7. the members of such a religion or sect.
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

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I fail to see any any definition of the word "cult" that would fit Jehovah's Witnesses but not fit other Christian denominations. Arguably, several Charismatic evangelical groups would far better qualify, with heir doctrines of separation from the world, following of charismatic leaders, extremist end-times Christian-supremacist views, etc.Perhaps you could illuminate us, since you seem to be the sole arbiter of whose beliefs get to be valid and whose are not. How specifically do JW's count as a cult, but your own denomination does not?

No, you haven't. You've simply given the scriptural interpretations on which you disagree with JWs, but we already knew that you don't agree.You;ve asserted that they're a cult, however, and that's a lot different from saying "they don't interpret this text the same way I do."I've given you the definition of a cult. How, specifically, do JW's count as a cult, while your specific denomination does not? That's a rather absurd statement.From Wikipedia:

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The Christological positions known as Arianism and Ebionitism - groups that in one manner or another argued that Jesus was an ordinary mortal - and other groups, in particular those, such as Gnosticism, that adhered to the idea that Christ was, if anything, a completely supernatural being, a view known as docetism[3]. By the fourth century tensions within the Church between Christological positions that stressed the humanity of Jesus and Christological positions that stressed the divinity of Jesus lead to several wide schisms in the church. The groups still in imperial favour produced councils in the fourth and fifth-century that affirmed that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, making this part of their orthodox Christian declaration/creed[1][2]; other groups, also calling themselves orthodox, opposed the conclusions of these councils.

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Disputes over whether Jesus was divine, fully human, partially divine and partially human, fully human and then divine after his baptism, etc raged for the first few centuries of Christianity.Let's be very clear here. JW's are no more a cult than any other Christian denomination, and meet the definition less well than some. Christianity itself at the beginning would have qualified perfectly as a Jewish cult - a small group teaching what was considered wildly heretical dogma centered around an extremely charismatic individual who claimed to be able to perform miracles.It sounds exactly like David Koresh, back in Waco, Texas - another cult leader.JWs may not agree with you on some points of dogma, John, but that hardly makes them a cult. Mormons disagree with you on many more points of dogma. How about Catholics? Do you agree with their near-deification of Mary or the saints? The infallibility of the human Pope?The dividing line between a cult and a religion, John, is a combination of popularity and extremism. The JWs are just as large a group as many other Christian denominations, and they aren't any more on the fringe than Christian Scientists (not to be confused with scientists who happen to be Christian) or Seventh Day Adventists - less so, I would even say.So far, you've focused on making ad hominem attacks against Peg simply because she's a JW; others have done more to argue the points of scripture than you have, and nothing I've seen from you has been convincing. In fact, you've ignored my direct questions, as well. Instead, you like to make silly statements like this: I'm defending JWs only against the absurd notion that you, John, get to decide who is a cult and who is not (regardless of the actual definition of the word), and that you alone get to decide what is a proper interpretation of the Bible.Spouting Biblical passages in some bizarre attempt to convert me does nothing to establish your point, John. This board is not a place for evangelizing - it's a place for debating. I;m sure you've managed to win gullible idiots - er, souls for Christ by repeating various "repent!" Bible passages; it takes a bit more than that to work on me. Instead, perhaps you should stick to addressing people's actual arguments, and rebutting them with evidence and argument of your own. From that perspective, John, your signal to noise ration is abominably low.

Not at all. Brian is completely correct: even if Josephus' writings were not fabricated, they still are not evidence of Jesus' existence or that he performed miracles.Josephus is not a primary source. He does not claim to have directly observed Jesus or any miracles. He is simply reporting what other people are saying.I saw a poster on a telephone pole the other night advertising an author speaking about Maitreya, the World Teacher. Supposedly he is roaming the world, preparing to lead us out of an imminent global catastrophe and into a new age of peace and understanding and spiritual truth. Maitreya is not actually going to be at the event, of course...just an author who will talk about him.Is any of this, the poster, the author, actually evidence that this "Maitreya" actually exists? That he performs miracles? That a global calamity is actually imminent? Lots of people believe it. Does that make it accurate?We still have no actual contemporary sources supporting Jesus' existence, that he performed miracles, that he was raised from the dead, etc. The Gospels are contemporary to Jesus as much as I, born in 1981, am contemporary to WWII (and in some cases, the Civil War). Josephus is the same, except he doesn't even pretend to be a primary source.

You mean Socrates?From Wiki:

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Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle are the main sources for the historical Socrates; however, Xenophon and Plato were direct disciples of Socrates, and presumably, they idealize him; however, they wrote the only continuous descriptions of Socrates that have come down to us. Aristotle refers frequently, but in passing, to Socrates in his writings. Almost all of Plato's works center around Socrates. However, Plato's later works appear to be more his own philosophy put into the mouth of his mentor.

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The sources for Socrates were his direct students. They knew him personally. They were contemporary sources. I haven't really investigated Muhammad. I simply don't speak to enough Muslims to have bothered. I have no opinion on the actual existence or nonexistence of Muhammad. I rather doubt "Buddha" existed. Partially because of the lack of actual contemporary sources.In most cases I think that mythologized characters (like Jesus or Buddha) were based on one or more real people combined with exaggerations and added claims. And I don't particularly doubt that Jesus existed...simply not the way he was recorded in the Bible. I think the Biblical Jesus is a fictional character based on one or more real men who formed a heretical splinter sect of Judaism, and that one or more of the source individuals was executed by Roman authorities.My comment regarding the Josephus manuscript was merely to point out that he is not a contemporary source, and he makes no claim to be otherwise...and this is all assuming for the sake of argument that the document is not a forgery. WHAT EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNTS?! You haven't provided any. Neither has anyone else...ever. The Gospels were written decades after Jesus' supposed death - none of the authors ever met him, despite the perspective of the text. It's believed that the Gospels may have been inspired by an original "source" Gospel that may have been a primary, contemporary account, but the Gospels we have available were written by people who had never met Jesus. From the comments above, it seems rather like you have been telling me what I do and do not believe, and you've been grossly mistaken. Perhaps you could try again, without attacking straw men?I apply the same skepticism to any heavily mythologized character. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Claiming that a man named Jesus formed a splinter sect of Judaism and claimed to be the Messiah is not extraordinary, and I have no problem accepting that something along those lines actually happened (though without a primary or even contemporary source I severely doubt any and all specific details). Claiming that this same man performed miracles, healed the sick, and rose from the dead is a rather extraordinary claim, and I would demand a lot of evidence before I believed such things.

...That's from a work of fiction, Peg, not the result of textual criticism of historical analysis. Dan Brown's book has nothing to do with reality. You do know the difference between fiction and nonfiction, don't you? This, of course, is quite telling. You're so convinced that absolutely nothing will change your mind. Such is the power of faith, I suppose - when you don't require evidence to establish a belief in the first place, why be bothered if evidence suggests your belief may be wrong? Perhaps, for you, fiction and nonfiction are not so distinct, and fantasy bleeds together with reality.