The C.C.O.I. (Christian Cult Of Ignorance) and Willful Ignorance

I'm curious as to what you mean by resurrection. Is it just a metaphor -is it an hallucination - or did Jesus come back in some form of renewed physicality?

I'd suggest that all names for God are simply words made up in different cultures. We happen to have chosen the word god to define the deity. The important thing is the nature of that deity. For example does the deity want us to militarily crush our enemies or does the deity want us to love our enemies.IMHO I'd suggest that the deity doesn't much care whether we call him God, Yahweh or Allah as long as we understand that he is perfectly loving, merciful, forgiving and just, and wants those qualities to be the defining characteristics of our own lives.

All of the accounts though do agree on one thing. Jesus died at the hands of the Romans and that He later was resurrected by God as a renewed physical being, but one whose body was like His previous body but also different in that it wasn't confined to our space time universe.IMHO that is what they believed. The question is whether or not they got it right. Do you believe they got it right or not.

This makes Jesus just another philosopher except one who was highly delusional and with a messianic complex. It would make more sense to worship Gandhi or Buddah for that matter.

Of course the teachings of Jesus are a worthy path and guide for one's life. So is the teaching of Buddah or Gandhi. They are a basis for philosophy not religion.You espouse philosophy based on Jesus' teaching which is not the same thing as Christianity the religion.If Jesus was not resurrected by God then He is simply another prophet or philosopher, but as I said earlier a highly delusional one, which then raises the question of why should anyone pay attention to what he said.I actually agree that we should look at Jesus as being human. I understand the incarnation in the way John deals with it in Chap 1 of his Gospel. Jesus embodied the Word (or wisdom) of God, which had existed from the beginning of time. Also Jesus understood His vocation to be a replacement for the Temple which is where the Jews believed God dwelt and where they had to go to encounter God - the place that interconnected God's space with our space. Jesus went around forgiving sin and saying things like I desire mercy not sacrifice. Jesus was essentially saying that in some way He was embodying Yahweh's return to His people.Do I think that Jesus had memories of His time with the angels. No I don't. I also believe that when He went into Jerusalem that He knew what would happen to Him because He knew what happened to people who upset the powers that be. He went into Jerusalem as an act of faith believing it was what He was called to do. God vindicated that faith and affirmed the message that Christ brought by resurrecting Him.This is what the early Jesus followers preached. They obviously believed it otherwise they would have just considered Jesus to be another failed messiah in a string of messianic movements during that period. There is no other reasonable, IMHO, explanation for the rise of the early church. The early followers were firm in their belief that Jesus was bodily resurrected.

Sure, we all know that there are discrepancies in the stories. However, they are consistent in saying that they walked, talked, touched and even ate with Jesus and that He was in some sense physical, but it was a renewed physicality. As I said earlier that in some way the body of the resurrected Jesus connected God's space, (call it heaven if you like), with our space. Part of the point is that ultimately God's space and our space will be fully joined. It isn't about telling us that we are going to live on past this life and worrying about where we are going to go next. That is what Faith is selling. If that was all this was about then there would be no point in doing what God did through Jesus. All He would have to do is to make it happen.The point is that yes, this isn't the end but that we have a job to do in this life. The Biblical and Christian message is that we are to be stewards of this creation. I recently read a book titled "Salvation Means Creation Healed". We are called to care for each other, all life and the planet itself in anticipation of the time when all of creation is healed and fully revealed to us in a great act by God of the renewal or re-creation of all that there is. There can be no doubt that the first Jesus followers became Jesus followers because of the firm conviction that Jesus had died and come out the other side in a renewed physicality. They built there whole theology around that belief.The first theologian Paul stated that if this wasn't true then "we" are the most to be pitied. If I didn't believe it to be the case I would simply not bother with church or things Christian and I wouldn't call myself a Christian. I know there are those like Dom Crossan who argue against this but Dom, ( a great guy by the way), is not a Christian in the religious sense but in the philosophical sense only. Well if the resurrected Jesus just reappeared in the same way that others have experiences of visions of loved ones who have died then once again we simply have another failed messiah. It makes Jesus simply a well meaning crank.

You make my point yourself Faith. You have just given us numerous other names for God. In French it is Dieu. Is that a different god?Yes Christians are the only ones that believe that God revealed His full nature in Jesus. However just as the early Jews struggled with trying to understand their deity other cultures around the world have done the same.It isn't whether we call that deity "I Am", God, Dieu, Allah or Zeus. It is about our understanding of the nature of the deity. As a Christian I get my understanding of God's nature through Jesus which is different than what you get through believing in an inerrant Bible.

So what? It isn't in the resurrection accounts. It is in Isaiah, Ephesians and Revelation off the top of my head. If Jesus wasn't resurrected then there would be no point in giving any credibility to those assertions. The resurrection accounts are simply the accounts of what they observed and experienced. It reamined to others like Paul to attempt to understand what it all meant.Can I point to something irrefutable. Of course not. It is after all a faith. You are able, as am I, to accept that Christian philosophy makes sense of our world. However, I feel the same about Christian theology or religiosity which you appear to reject. What would you call someone today who went around claiming that he was God's anointed one, and that he spoke for God and could forgive sin on behalf of God?If Jesus was not resurrected as the first Jesus followers believed then he was a crank, which is not saying that His social message wasn't valid. It does mean though that there is no reason to give His message any more credibility than Gandhi or Buddha. Without the physical resurrection of Jesus, Christianity is a social movement only and is a sham as a religion.

My parents decided on my name just as people in the past decided on what they would call their deity. They are all just words.We have taken the word god in the generic sense and turned it into God as the name of our deity.Even from your inerrant position you say that God came up with "I Am", but even that is just a translation from the original Hebrew, done hundreds of years later. Words are man made and God. or I Am, are man made words, as is Allah. Again, it is our understanding of the nature of our deity that matters.

It seems a little strange that God gave the Israelites His name in a language that didn't even exist at the time.

Now there is a sound argument for your beliefs. Of course they are. But they aren't the Christian religion either.Edited by GDR, : Forgot the quote.

Of course. Edited by GDR, : forgot the quote again

Only Christianity as a philosophy, not Christianity as a religion. If one doesn't believe that Jesus existed, or that if He did that He wasn't resurrected then it again falls back simply in believing in an unknown god but one who more or less is consistent with Christian philosophy.Christianity is about seeing Jesus anointed by God as the Messiah and then confirmed and vindicated by God in His resurrection. If Jesus simply didn't exist, or if simply died and without being resurrected then why on earth would anyone see him as someone to worship? How do you worship someone who is dead?The Islamic faith for example sees Mohammed as the last of the prophets, and they worship Allah. They follow the teachings of Mohammed but they don't worship him. Christianity calls us to worship a living Jesus.

Truth matters Yes Yes Unknowable Love God which any theist can do.
Love your neighbour which anyone can do.

...and there is no way we can actually know whether Julius Caesar lived or not. It is my belief that God is alive. If you are talking about a generic supernatural entity then I have no idea.