No Robots

What he actually said was, "to others it seems like a bunch of sayings from different hands in different times." Your willful distortion of gurugeorge's statement is the kind of blackguardry that evidently puts you well outside the bounds of goodwill.

post tenebras lux

That's cos I was being lazy and couldn't be arsed to scroll up to recopy the below:'blackguard'? Why thanks. I'll put that on my shelf right next to CW's 'bigot' claim. :wave:

sometimesisquint

Why are you arguing for or from the atheist perspective when, clearly, you are not an atheist?

I think the importance of the HJ (for most Christians--I'm taking a cue from No Robots and speaking for them) is that regardless of what it fails to prove about the mythological attributes of the Christ figure, it helps to establish a starting point. That is, if there is no HJ then why even argue for the rest of the biblical attributes or legend?

I don't think most Christians accept this idea that there was a HJ, but he was only a man who died. They want the whole shebang, but, ultimately they certainly cannot conclude much of anything about his story if it is based entirely on a mythical figure who never actually lived.

---

As for the issue of Atheists being able to draw inspiration or philosophical meaning from the teachings/sayings of the biblical Christ, well, I think for the most part his message of self-control, compassion and altruism are noble.

It's that whole punishment for disbelief (requiring, confusingly, a gross lack of compassion), warnings of hellfire (symbolic or not), and an insane desire to accept and follow the teachings of what would become the OT law, along with various accounts of fig trees, donkeys, etc. which cause a distasteful opinion of he and his story.

No Robots

What makes you say I'm not an atheist? Because I don't sing from the same hymnbook as all the robots around here?
Have I said anything else?
Maybe you should get a handle on the Bible as literature, and find out something about prophetic speech and Jewish metaphors.

No Robots

The point is that you deliberately hacked up a quotation and tacked it onto a phrase of your own construction in order to make a false impression of a writer's view. This quote-mining is indeed commonly regarded, even here, as blackguardry. The fact that you try to weasel out of it by adding another quotation does not exculpate you. And, as for the new quotation, I would simply say that gurugeorge has demonstrated over the course of our discussion an admirable and sadly rare generosity of spirit.

windsofchange

Cut out the name-calling and stick to the topic, please.

sometimesisquint

Nope. Because of statements you make and because your profile says "Devotee of Christ". However, if it suits your perspective, I'll stop assuming what should be commonly held as truth.

I wasn't challenging your position on the matter, simply offering my own perspective.

I've got a nice handle on it, thanks. Would you like to learn me something further so that I can truly be on your level of understanding what is astoundingly a confusing and error-prone piece of "literature"? Or do you normally devote yourself to characters who more than likely are nothing more than figures in such a "story"?

No Robots

It also mentions Spinoza and Brunner, as I recall.
The beginning of all wisdom.
One important thing to keep in mind is the use of "fire" and associated imagery. This is very common and very important in prophetic speech. Of course, it always gets taken literally; and this literalist distortion becomes "commonly held as truth."

sometimesisquint

Yeah, even when I was also a "devotee" of Christ, I never assumed a literal hellfire. But the punishment (regardless of how it is interpreted) is still apparent and the admonishment due to disbelief is nonetheless offensive and questionable.

All apologies if I assumed anything else.

No Robots

An important book is Derrida's Of Spirit: Heidegger and the question. Derrida finds that Heidegger identifies spirit with fire. If we apply this to Christ, we see a man whose self-identification with spirit amounts to a self-identification with fire. As we know, fire both warms and burns.