Behold the Trilemma: Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?
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Granted he was most certainly misunderstood, as are all geniuses ahead of their time, but he also could have been a benevolent liar at the same time. My guess is he was both. If you look at the situation he was born into from a historical perspective, he had every reason to lie. The Jews had no hope whatsover in 30 A.D. By 73 A.D. their nation had been destroyed by the Romans. He no doubt "saw the handwriting on the wall" far ahead of time and probably dumbed down his message so even the common folk could understand it.
The Christian revolution did not happen overnight and it took many decades for it to become popular. In fact, without Paul, who translated the new doctrine for the gentiles, it would have never become so widespread. It would have been stillborn in Israel. So yes, there are a number of options that make sense once one can see through the logical fallacy of the "great trilemma". Too bad I can't take back all of the years in my early twenties that I was naive enough to believe it. Truth is so much better than fiction.
The Christian revolution did not happen overnight and it took many decades for it to become popular. In fact, without Paul, who translated the new doctrine for the gentiles, it would have never become so widespread. It would have been stillborn in Israel. So yes, there are a number of options that make sense once one can see through the logical fallacy of the "great trilemma". Too bad I can't take back all of the years in my early twenties that I was naive enough to believe it. Truth is so much better than fiction.
§outh§tar said:
Why do I place trust in a physics book? Why do I place trust in a history text concerning the second world war? Why do I place trust in an english grammar text? The answer is simple: They may not be 100% accurate, but they are most certainly trustworthy. Furthermore, you missed the point of that statement. It was simply that the Bible is not a book of science, and so inspired writers (who were inspired to write a different kind of text than a science one) would not be required to be 100% accurate regarding a scientific account of any given history. Furthermore, it needn't be 100% accurate concerning any given historical event, because it is also not written to be a history text. Would you look to a 4th grade math book for spiritual enlightenment? Would you look to a music book to find out something that happened 300 years ago? I hope not. Likewise, while one may look to the Bible for clues about the past, I would not consider the Bible a holder of perfect accounts of historical events, especially considering the amount of other ancient text that speak about the same events in similar, but slightly different ways (one example being the flood). You must understand what the Bible was written for, and insodoing you will get the most out of it.
Yes, THEY are and, although possibly not 100% accurate, have been proven to be trustworthy time and again.beyondtimeandspace said:
The Bible, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.
Ummm.. But, yeah it is.beyondtimeandspace said:
It certainly claims to be.
Most of it's followers claim it to be (except in the palces where it's wrong
.Many scholars believe that the old testament was written as a form of history of the Jewish people.
1.) Then how do you know to trust it historically at all? It says Jesus existed. Why should one beleive that if it is NOT historically accurate? That makes no sense to me.beyondtimeandspace said:
2.) What historian speaks of a worldwide population decimating flood??
I've never heard of this (or the vast majority of the stories in the bible), and neither would anyone else because after the flood ALL the historians would be dead!Point is, I think you have it backwards.
It is a fictional book written as a moral guide by humans that built up from old ledgends and folklore, which, of course, many had some vague basis in history.
Kind of like writing a novel and including references to World War II on it. Yes, World War II happened. Does that mean the book is historically accurate? No. Does it give the book any historical merit? No. Does it mean the rest of the details in the book have any basis in fact? No.
Aesop wrote wonderful fables, too, but his writings shouldn't be revered, and people shouldn't be basing thier lives, deaths and wars on them. It was his commentary on life. That's what I think the bible is.
If it is purporting to be historical (which it is) and it is inaccurate (which it is) it leads me to believe it is a book of ledgends and folklore passed down.
That is further supported by finding similarities and outright identical passages from earlier books.
Assuming for the moment that the Gospel account is an objective and accurate account of the teachings of Jesus, I'd like to examine the "Lunatic" horn of the trilemma.
I think that Mr Lewis artificially exaggerates the implications of this item.
He assumes that someone who verbally claims to be God has full understanding of what that claim means - he is assuming that the concept which the "lunatic" attaches to the word "God" is the same as the concept which he (Mr Lewis) attaches to the word.
It seems quite plausible to me that a good and intelligent man could harbour deeply embedded misconceptions of the godhead, and how that godhead would manifest in a mortal. I have engaged in enough debates with people who are simultaneously: 1) quite intelligent, 2) fundamentally misguided, and 3) unwilling or unable to alter their misconceived notions (but perhaps I'm the lunatic...).
In other words, I think that the "lunatic" options is less extreme than Mr Lewis suggests.
I think it possible that Jesus could have been both fundamentally misguided (a "lunatic"), and a good, intelligent man.
Fiction is not always comforting. Faith in the right things is. Faith in the wrong things can be very, very painful and costly. Faith is a choice. I am not comforted by running a fool's errand. I have a close friend who is a Christian who always believed in heaven and eternal life but his mother clearly did not. One day she was hit by another driver and passed away before my friend even knew about it. He became very tortured over what was to become of his mother's soul and then eventually lost his own faith. It took him years of sadness to adjust to his new outlook but evetually he did.
His erroneous beliefs in a fictional god and afterlife cost him a lot of happiness and peace. It was all unnecessary. In my case, I simply accept that we are all going to sleep one day, individually. It's no big tragedy, except to my own immediate family. I had no great expectations to meet when I came naked and helpless into this world. My faith now is in the human race. Most Christians are conditioned to believe that the human race is fallen from grace and is inherently evil. We are becoming able to see a new reality with each new scientific discovery.
I take a page from Jesus' book in a way and say "We are the creators, we are the teachers and healers, have faith in us, we can make it, we can live on eternally as a species, we can subdue the Earth and maybe even other worlds, now get out there and get busy!!" I have a whole different ethical foundation than the Christian, it is based on facts not fantasy, but it encourages faith and love just as importantly. Keep the faith, just focus it on reality and not fiction and you will be comforted greatly. "The truth will set you free"...."No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"..."Little children, love one another". It all still applies.
His erroneous beliefs in a fictional god and afterlife cost him a lot of happiness and peace. It was all unnecessary. In my case, I simply accept that we are all going to sleep one day, individually. It's no big tragedy, except to my own immediate family. I had no great expectations to meet when I came naked and helpless into this world. My faith now is in the human race. Most Christians are conditioned to believe that the human race is fallen from grace and is inherently evil. We are becoming able to see a new reality with each new scientific discovery.
I take a page from Jesus' book in a way and say "We are the creators, we are the teachers and healers, have faith in us, we can make it, we can live on eternally as a species, we can subdue the Earth and maybe even other worlds, now get out there and get busy!!" I have a whole different ethical foundation than the Christian, it is based on facts not fantasy, but it encourages faith and love just as importantly. Keep the faith, just focus it on reality and not fiction and you will be comforted greatly. "The truth will set you free"...."No greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"..."Little children, love one another". It all still applies.
one_raven said:Yes, THEY are and, although possibly not 100% accurate, have been proven to be trustworthy time and again.
The Bible, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.
Ummm.. But, yeah it is.
It certainly claims to be.
Most of it's followers claim it to be (except in the palces where it's wrong
Many scholars believe that the old testament was written as a form of history of the Jewish people.
1.) Then how do you know to trust it historically at all? It says Jesus existed. Why should one beleive that if it is NOT historically accurate? That makes no sense to me.
2.) What historian speaks of a worldwide population decimating flood??
Point is, I think you have it backwards.
It is a fictional book written as a moral guide by humans that built up from old ledgends and folklore, which, of course, many had some vague basis in history.
Kind of like writing a novel and including references to World War II on it. Yes, World War II happened. Does that mean the book is historically accurate? No. Does it give the book any historical merit? No. Does it mean the rest of the details in the book have any basis in fact? No.
Aesop wrote wonderful fables, too, but his writings shouldn't be revered, and people shouldn't be basing thier lives, deaths and wars on them. It was his commentary on life. That's what I think the bible is.
If it is purporting to be historical (which it is) and it is inaccurate (which it is) it leads me to believe it is a book of ledgends and folklore passed down.
That is further supported by finding similarities and outright identical passages from earlier books.
The Bible does not propose itself as a history text, and it can be shown quite well that that is not what it was intended to be. For example, the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, were not about actual individuals. The Cain and Abel story was about two vices, brother vices, that arose after the fall of humanity. The names "Cain" and "Abel" are transliterations, and not actually names. The original reader of these texts would have understood them as such. Ergo, this is one simple example of how the Bible presents a "story" that is SUPPOSED by believers to be an actual event, following the "boot" from the garden, BUT IT'S NOT, nor was it event meant to be understood as such. The Garden of Eden story itself shouldn't even be considered in a historical light. Yes, the state of perfection of man, and the fall from that perfection is probably historical (human perfection). However, the "Garden," the "Trees," "Adam" and "Eve" were all symbolic titles that were not meant to be understood in the literal sense. Again, a story that is supposed by believers to be an actual, 100% accurate historical event, was actually written, not as a history, but as a conveyance of a moral lesson that would have been understood by the ancient Jewish reader.
The OT is filled with such like stories. Sure, they may be based in reality, based in actual events, but should not be considered in the light of a history, since that isn't the reason for their being written. NO, that Bible does not purport to be a history, and while the scholars you speak of may believe the OT to be a Jewish history, there is much more scholarship saying otherwise.