Why do Christians Believe that Jesus was the Messiah?

A practical translation of Ilgwamh’s signature –

"Only if Christians and Christian communities illustrate lives transformed according to the pattern of faithful obedience and loving service found in Jesus does their claim to live by the spirit of Jesus have any validity. The claims of the gospel cannot be demonstrated logically. They cannot be proved historically. They can be validated only existentially by the witness of authentic Christian discipleship." L. T. Johnson, The Real Jesus
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..pattern of faithful obedience.. Be prepared to sacrifice your education and intellect in favor of the subjective interpretations of texts written around 2000 years ago. Specifically reject any evidence that indicates more credible alternatives.

.. loving service.. Base your important life decisions on unreliable emotions rather than reason logic and intellect.

The claims of the gospel cannot be demonstrated logically. The gospel claims are illogical.

They cannot be proved historically. There is no evidence for Christianity.

They can be validated only existentially by the witness of authentic Christian discipleship. Believe only those who have been suitably indoctrinated.

Sorry Vinnie but your signature doesn’t really answer Ilbaz’s question. Apart from implying that Christians are intellectually void, highly emotional, and illogcal.

Cris
 
Originally posted by Cris
A practical translation of Ilgwamh’s signature –



..pattern of faithful obedience.. Be prepared to sacrifice your education and intellect in favor of the subjective interpretations of texts written around 2000 years ago. Specifically reject any evidence that indicates more credible alternatives.

.. loving service.. Base your important life decisions on unreliable emotions rather than reason logic and intellect.

The claims of the gospel cannot be demonstrated logically. The gospel claims are illogical.

They cannot be proved historically. There is no evidence for Christianity.

They can be validated only existentially by the witness of authentic Christian discipleship. Believe only those who have been suitably indoctrinated.

Sorry Vinnie but your signature doesn’t really answer Ilbaz’s question. Apart from implying that Christians are intellectually void, highly emotional, and illogcal.

Cris
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Don't Christians actually believe Jesus was the son of god. He didn't actually fulfil any of his promises. He just turned over a few tables. He sounds more like a bar-room brawler to me. The only thing he actually did was die, and he didn't do it himself. His death caused the apparant rise of Christianity. What if Jesus was just like Brian (Monty Python) and he looked like hope in an occupied country.
 
Ha ha! My suspicions were correct. Not one single Christian has responded to this thread yet!

Incase any is considering, I'd just like to say that I have nothing against you or your beliefs, and would like your honest opinions as to why Christians believe Jesus was the messiah when fulfilled none of the intended prophecies, and is now thought to have moved to France after the "resurection".

Also, one more ?: How can God have a son? I mean, how can a mortal human being, who may or may not exhibit some sort of magical abilities be proven to be the son of God? How could he die. And please don't respond "He died for you!"

I'd like to see at least one Christian respond to this and use logical Evidence as to why you believe those things.
 
He died for you...only joking. He died because he tried to over throw the Roman government. Not being religious myself, I know that in holy prayers that Jesus is believed to be the Son of God. Like a god incarnate, an avatar if you will. Jesus is apparantly the Human version of god.

The reason no christians answered is because we are questioning their believes, and they don't like that. So they can just forgive me and go home (no offense to any christians, I totally respect your beliefs, I just hope that one day, you'll be able to do the same).
 
Originally posted by Cris
A practical translation of Ilgwamh’s signature –



..pattern of faithful obedience.. Be prepared to sacrifice your education and intellect in favor of the subjective interpretations of texts written around 2000 years ago. Specifically reject any evidence that indicates more credible alternatives.

.. loving service.. Base your important life decisions on unreliable emotions rather than reason logic and intellect.

The claims of the gospel cannot be demonstrated logically. The gospel claims are illogical.

They cannot be proved historically. There is no evidence for Christianity.

They can be validated only existentially by the witness of authentic Christian discipleship. Believe only those who have been suitably indoctrinated.

Sorry Vinnie but your signature doesn’t really answer Ilbaz’s question. Apart from implying that Christians are intellectually void, highly emotional, and illogcal.

Cris
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You totally fumbled that one. Though I take it that you didn't completely understand the perspective that it was coming from so you highlighted what it meant from your perspective.

The point was that we cannot demonstrate logically that the central truth claim of Christianity is true. If Jesus inaugurated God's kingdom or died for everyones sins it is impossible to prove such a thing. History can tell us Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate but it cannot tell us that Jesus' death transformed the world or literally did somehting. Such claims are beyond historical testing. They are beyond scientific testing. Yu cannot put them in a test tube. That was my point, Cris. Christian faith is based upon experiences of the living and transforming Jesus. That is what keeps Christianity going. Not Josh Mcdowell's New Evidence That Demands A Verdict.

"""Base your important life decisions on unreliable emotions rather than reason logic and intellect""""""

That seems virtually nonsensically to me. How do you go from a life of service to others to basing decisions on unreliavle emotions in place of reason and logic? That makes no sense. A life of service means helping people. Living your life knowing that you should help other people. How is charity and helping people using unreliable emotions instead of logic and reason? Is it illogical to give a poor man food or a job? Is it illogical to help someone on the road if their car breaks down? Whats wrong with going out of your way to make someone happy? I think you've advocated an emotional response instead of a reasonable and logical response. That or you feel it is illogical to help people. If the latter then I honestly think you have some issues.

""""The gospel claims are illogical. """"""

Define illogical. There is no way to prove what Jesus' death did. We can demonstrate that he lived, said x, said z, performed x miracle and that he died and that something happened that inspired his followers so much that their hero has been a dominant figure in all of western history. The only real evidence comes from experiences of the risen Jesus and the testimony of those who have experienced it.

""""There is no evidence for Christianity. """""

What is Christianity? Then we can discuss whether there is evidence or not.

""""""""Believe only those who have been suitably indoctrinated.
""""""""

Missing the point still. My views are EXTREMELY liberal. I have not been indoctrinated. In fact, it seems that I am always on the defensive from both fellow xians and atheists. This has nothing to do with church indoctrination. I do not agree with a lot that is preached in churches. The point was that Chrisitanity is based upon a real relationship with the living and transforming Jesus.

Vinnie
 
Why do Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah? Because they want to. They want to believe. Some desires are powerful enough to outweigh their basis of being illogical.
 
Elbaz:

I'll follow up with a link to my own debunking of some of the "prophecies":

http://www.sciforums.com/t8460/s/thread.html

Scroll to the bottom three posts.

Cris:

Sorry, I've got to disagree.

..pattern of faithful obedience.. Be prepared to sacrifice your education and intellect in favor of the subjective interpretations of texts written around 2000 years ago. Specifically reject any evidence that indicates more credible alternatives.
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I think that's a bit out of context. Vinnie, from what I can tell, feels that he is obedient to the dictates that Jesus set forth in the NT.

.. loving service.. Base your important life decisions on unreliable emotions rather than reason logic and intellect.
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*Raises eyebrows*

And become androids? Yes, emotion is unreliable and misleading, but it is a tremendous source of beauty. Why not temper emotion with logic, instead?

The claims of the gospel cannot be demonstrated logically. The gospel claims are illogical.
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If you mean the miracles and "Son of God" thing, yes.

They cannot be proved historically. There is no evidence for Christianity.
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There is evidence for the existance of Jesus.

They can be validated only existentially by the witness of authentic Christian discipleship. Believe only those who have been suitably indoctrinated.
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Who said anything about belief?

There's a bit of faith in almost everything.

I am going through a bit of a paradigm shift at the moment. I have adopted a version of the Hippocratic Oath as my provisional system of morality:

To first refrain from harming others.
To protect the weak, and to render what assistance you can to those who need or desire it, yet not revel in their weakness. To seek to improve oneself, and to keep an open mind to one's faults. To control oneself with the aforementioned reason, logic and skepticism. This is often the greatest battle. To fight against injustice, and not to cringe before the expression of power.

I have yet to justify this logically. I feel it emotionally. Now I have no faith that this is the right way to live - yet I have no rational reason to live this way either.

I frankly don't see much difference between myself as an athiest and Vinnie as a Christian....'cept I'm gonna burn in a lake of fire forever and stuff. :p

Edit to add:

I'm on the road to proving that my method leads to the accumulation of power, which Nietzsche claimed was the most basic human urge, but I'm not so sure how that's working out.
 
Originally posted by Elbaz
Incase any is considering, I'd just like to say that I have nothing against you or your beliefs, and would like your honest opinions as to why Christians believe Jesus was the messiah when fulfilled none of the intended prophecies, and is now thought to have moved to France after the "resurection".
Click to expand...

Elbaz, I'm going to try to paint a fairly vivid picture of Jesus' death. While parts of what I'm going to say can be proven, others are mere guesses at what might've happened given the surroundings.

Jesus was nailed to the cross, his disciples and family around him, helping him to drink vinegar from a cloth, and cleaning his wounds with it. (or at least trying to) ...But how do we know this was really vinegar? While this IS all that was allowed, there is proof today that there was (and still are) plants very near by to the site of the crucification that are (and were) known to have a juice able to heal wounds almost miraculously if applied in a timely fashion, and to keep people with otherwise mortal wounds alive for a much longer time. Some modern historians think that perhaps this was mixed with the vinegar, and while it might not've been too good for Jesus to drink that stuff (not sure, though), they could've used that same cloth to put the "miracle juice" on his wounds. Apparently, although survival of crucification was very rare, it happened sometimes and those who were known to have survived were let free, as was the tradition. However, if only Jesus' family had known of the secret, then perhaps when he was carried to his grave and the nails were removed, he arose and left on his own after being set down. Not knowing of the custom, he might've fleed to France with his "lady friend" Mary Magdalene and lived there for the rest of is life. However, if he were to see the disciples (who didn't know he was still alive), they would think that he had been resurrected.

If anybody can offer me proof that this is NOT the way things happened, I'll pay them $$$ if it's within the next week. If it isn't, I'll seriously consider forcing myself to become a Christian.

"The Bible says so!" isn't good enough...
 
""""'cept I'm gonna burn in a lake of fire forever and stuff.""""""

You'll get use to it after a while :p

I actually have a somewhat agnostic view on "afterlife".
 
Vinnie:

Thanks! I'll let Tony1 know. :D

You know what the really sad thing is? I'm more of an agnostic re:God and a total athiest re: the afterlife.
 
Don't know if T1 has changed his views or not but I thought he endorsed annihilationism?I think this means your eternal punishment is eternal non-existence.

You should change your sig to "Person with lots of mood swings." It would be easier than changing it everyday :p
 
Vinnie:

You know, I've never exactly figured out WHAT Tony1 is. It seems that I will die, stay dead, be resurrected and then tossed into a lake of fire.

Kinda pointless, IMO.

You should change your sig to "Person with lots of mood swings." It would be easier than changing it everyday
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I'm a woman, what do you expect? ;)

Seriously, I get bored with just one sig. But that's a good idea.
 
"""""""You know, I've never exactly figured out WHAT Tony1 is. It seems that I will die, stay dead, be resurrected and then tossed into a lake of fire. '""""""

Okay, I got the die part. Stay dead is I assume till everyone else joins you. Then I take it that the general resurrection will occur and from there you face judgement. Then being an atheist you go to the lake of fire There you are annihilated. Of course, I could have misunderstood T1. Its been a while since I discussed with him aside from our last few exchanges here. So maybe he doesn't accept the annihilated part. Don't feel excluded though. I think according to T1 I'll be there with you and the others ;)

""""""Kinda pointless, IMO. """""""

Well, assuming annihilationism is the view, maybe its a chance to get a few "I told you sos" in before eternal non-existence. That is a long time by the way :D
 
Vinnie:
Okay, I got the die part. Stay dead is I assume till everyone else joins you. Then I take it that the general resurrection will occur and from there you face judgement. Then being an atheist you go to the lake of fire There you are annihilated.
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Gosh, that's weird. I'm not sure what the whole lake of fire is for then. I mean, what, I have to suffer before being annihilated?

Here's to hoping Tony comes back soon so I can ask. Gots to know what will happen to me and all. :p

Don't feel excluded though. I think according to T1 I'll be there with you and the others
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I thought you were a Christian?

Oh well. Maybe we can have a "sciforums.com get-together" before being annihilated.
 
""""""I thought you were a Christian? """"""

Probably not according to T1

"""""Oh well. Maybe we can have a "sciforums.com get-together" before being annihilated.""""""""

I'll stop down ;)

"""Gosh, that's weird. I'm not sure what the whole lake of fire is for then. I mean, what, I have to suffer before being annihilated? """"""

You don't think you're getting off the hook with non-existence do you? You obviously have to be punished for your sins first . Everyone kows that :p
 
Okey-dokey, well I guess no Christian is up for the challenge....


The prohpecies Jesus supposedly never fullfilled:

1) Build the Third Temple
- He did. It's called Christianity. It's just a little less of a physical thing than Jews predicted.

2) Gather Jews back to Israel
- Actually, all the verses say is to gather all Godly people back in a land of God. Jews interput this to mean Israel. Christians interput it to say heaven. And upon judgement, the prophecy will be fullfilled.

3) End war, hatred and such.
- Prophecy not yet fullfilled. God is working on it.

4) Spread universal knowledge of Jesus and God
- Prophecy not yet fullfilled. God is working on it.


The thing is, no where does it say in the OT that Jesus will do these things in any defined amount of time. As far as Christians are concerned, he's still ironing out a few details (okay, so I'm over simplifying things!).
 
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