Newton Joseph

PROJECTION
By New 10.

Because Jesus is an empty page (left up to the interpretation of the believer) believers can make him say and do anything the believers want. In other words the believers put into the mouth of Jesus what the believers want to hear, this is why the believers can read his "mind", called projection. Another way to say it the believer and Jesus are one.

Starboy

Wouldn't it only be projection if Jesus existed or was alive and present? In the case of talking to invisible non-existent friends what would that be called?

Starboy

lpetrich

Jesus Christ was not exactly an empty page -- the New Testament is full of details on him. Sometimes contradictory details, it must be said.

But I agree that JC often gets remade in the likeness of this or that follower -- it's Xenophanes's Law in action.

Newton Joseph has an awkward habit of posting only small snippets; in his site, each one occupies a page each, making it awkward to navigate.

Bumble Bee Tuna

That way, he can claim to have over 1000 "articles", even though each article is usually a single sentence, and sometimes just a quote of someone else without any commentary.

mrmoderate

Well, I certainly do not want to make remarks against Newt himself but rather to only comment on the subject matter at hand.

Since Newt has acknowledged the existance of Jesus I will proceed from that point of view. The only concentrated text claiming to be the words of Jesus who is claimed to be the Christ of the Jewish faith is the New Testament.

If, and understand I am following the OP's lead here, if the New Testament's passages that are claimed to be the words of Jesus the Christ then what is empty page about Jesus?

Yes, I agree that many things attributed to what Jesus is claimed to have said are seemingly open to interpretation. This is even more reason to study the cultures and language usages of the times that these passages were written.

We can get to within a century or so of the time period that these words are attributed to with original manuscripts. It used to be claimed by the detractors of the Christian and Hebrew faith that the Catholic heirarchy altered scripture and that is why the bible was only allowed to be read by Catholic priests. Then, when older manuscripts penned by monks were found it was claimed that the monks must have altered the passages to suit their needs. Now, we have writings much closer to the time of Jesus, before the Roman Catholic Church came into being and the detractors have now changed their story of conspiracy to the first century Christians having made up the whole thing.

This agnostic/atheist ferver to dispell Christianity will probably continue even if we find writings dated 2000 years ago in Jesus's own handwriting. The thing we need to do is to continue our research into the culture of the times that Jesus (allegedly) lived and learn the language usage of that time.

Jesus is not an empty slate that anything can written on. Most of the contradictory actions of todays Christian religions is from many sources other than the passages attributed to Jesus.