Wholley Jesus!

Ok two points need immediate correction. (I’m assuming you are basing this on a probable reconstruction of the historical Jesus, and on the Gospel accounts).First. It’s clear that Jesus (who I think probably existed, say, 80% likely - no need to get into that now). DID NOT get crucified because he was righteous, nor because he told people to be righteous. The Romans didn’t care about that. They cared about Jewish uprisings started by people who led military rebellions. The Romans crucified Jesus because they heard people say that he said he was the king of the Jews. This was a political killing to keep the peace - why would the Romans care if a Jew told other Jews to be righteous, or what a Jewish preacher’s private belief system was? The answer - they wouldn’t.Secondly - the words of Jesus that the Gospel accounts give us (regardless of how accurate they are) do not portray Jesus as a complete pacifist. He tells his followers to hate their families, he goes nuts and trashes the temple (in two independent accounts), and then there is this from Luke 22: Have a fun day-Equinox

Goddy wrote: Well, “could” is pretty open to dispute. There is no question that people have repeatedly used Jesus’ words to justify killing non-believers. There are too many cases to list, both large and small. Perhaps the first big one is worth mentioning. Augustine, one of the most revered fathers of the church by both Catholics and Protestants explicitly used Jesus’ words in Luke 14 (the banquet parable), esp. 14:23 as justification to use death threats and torture to force people to become Catholics. This is in many of his writings, such as Letter 185, 11, and sees the gospel account of “making people come in” as saying that we should force people to come into the Catholic church. This was the basis for this same terrorist approach for over 1000 years, where heretics and pagans would be told to convert or they will be killed, or where heretics and pagans would be tortured to convert or die in the process.You may dispute that Augustine and others made a reasonable conclusion based on Luke 14, but being that people have for centuries used Jesus’ words (often citing specific verses) to justify killing non-believers makes it hard to make that claim you made above.In friendliness--Equinox