Analyzing Jesus: His Miracles

Analyzing Jesus
Part Four: His Miracles

This is the fourth installment of my series titled, “Analyzing Jesus”. So far, we have looked at the historical figure, looked to see if he was the Jewish Messiah, and looked at further evidence to analyze the authenticity of the Old Testament claims/prophecy of a the Messiah. Today we move on and begin to address another controversial subject in regards to Jesus… his miracles.

Analyzing Jesus: Scientific Evidence for being Jewish Messiah

Analyzing Jesus
Part Three: Scientific Evidence for being Jewish Messiah

So far in this series I have covered that Jesus did in fact exist (despite some conspiracy theories), and also the likelihood that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah given all the prophecy he has fulfilled (and the probability of doing so). Today’s post I will continue with the idea of Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and hopefully successfully address some major questions.

The first issue I will address is a question that I posed at the end of the last part in this series. It was the following:

“couldn’t have all the stuff about Jesus fulfilling prophecy have just been added by zealots after his death?”

Quite a valid question, in fact, many people ask it today. I mean, how can it be possible for one man to actually fulfill every single one of the prophecies written over 1,000 year span? Someone HAD to change the prophecy around right?! Not necessarily.

Analyzing Jesus: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

Analyzing Jesus
Part Two: Was he really the Jewish Messiah?

In Part One of this series, we analyzed Jesus as a historical figure in history. The second part of this series is to address if Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, but in order to do that, we need to understand what Messianic Prophecies are. Scholars (Jewish and Christian) believe that the Bible (Old Testament) contains over 300 predictions about the Jewish Messiah. These predictions do not come from one source, but are from multiple authors in a variety of books ranging about 1,000 years. In other words, what we have here is an enormous “library” of statements made about the Jewish Messiah (what he will be like, what he will do, and so on).

Analyzing Jesus: The Historical Figure

Analyzing Jesus
Part One: The Historical Figure 

It’s about that time again. Time for me to start up a new series regarding religion/faith/Christianity. I can already tell that this series will be a long one, so get ready for the long haul. I will address Jesus on a variety of different fronts, trying my best to be objective (like a lawyer). Granted, I cannot completely rid myself of my preconceived biases, but I hope that you can, at the very least, respect my investigative reasoning.

a Letter to Atheists

The internet has opened a whole slew of avenues to obtain information, meet new people, and read up on different ideas. Until recently though (roughly about the time I started this blog) I had never had constant contact with individuals from the atheist community. Wow have things changed. Today I read (daily) atheist commentaries and I even contribute on a very popular atheist blog (as the Christian Contributor of course).

Worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster

 This post contains the best theist response I have found in regards to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  In short, it analyzes the faults with the “theology” behind the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) and similiar Atheist creations by exposing the theological and philisophical flaws.  Props to Phillip for the post (you can also read it at his blog, Agkyra).

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How is belief in the God of the Bible different than belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster god or Invisible Pink Unicorn goddess?

The FSM and IPU are, according to Wikipedia, the deities in two parody religions intended to help us theists realize how fatuous our beliefs seem to atheists.

a Christian on the Sidelines

Below is a post that I did for an atheist website I contribute for… enjoy.
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Christian Commentary 

Well I have a bit of a confession to make to this website…I have been struggling as of late as to what to contribute (especially since traffic has exploded the past couple weeks). During my time on the sidelines, I have enjoyed reading the various posts and people’s reactions to them. I admit that I have not jumped in as frequently as I once did due to an upcoming move I am preparing for.

It was during my time on the outskirts of this forum that I began to ponder the (for lack of a more sensitive term) “point” of atheist websites such as de-conversion. Now this is not meant to be an insult, but maybe more of a sociological question and hypothesis. To do a comprehensive study on the posts of this blog would take a substantial amount of time. However, in my informal examination, I came a few conclusions.

Agnostic and Atheist contributors/commentors usually come from one of two backgrounds (I apologize for the dichotomy, but the simpler the better). In one camp, there are the individuals who lost their faith because of resentment towards Church establishments. These individuals could not deal with the hypocrisy of their particular religious institution and began to turn away from their faith – and who could blame them? The unfortunate corruption of scripture (through the travesty of strict literalism) has put a big black spot on “religion”. Not too long ago, a post was done on this blog that criticized people for saying they were “spiritual”, not “religious”. I think that this distinction has to made given the nature of “religion” today (particularly by the 20th century Christian fundamentalist movement.) In the effort to avoid digressing too far, I will just say that separating spirituality from religion coincides with Jesus’ irreligion purpose:

“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Luke 11:46)

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law – justice, mercy and faith…” (Matthew 23:23)

It is clear that many Agnostic/Atheists walked away from Christianity (or whatever religion) because they were tainted by the hypocrites, and were burdened with “impossible religious demands” (perhaps aA falls into this category as I recall him once saying how free and clear his conscience felt once he renounced his faith). Sadly, religious fundamentalists tend to avoid the “important things of the law- justice, mercy, and faith”. Agnostic/Atheists in this group are often angry, and their writing/comments reflect their displeasure with corruption.

The second camp of agnostic/atheists are usually individuals who feel that it does not make sense logically, scientifically, etc. for the events that are recorded in say, the Bible, to have occurred. Posts by these contributors tend to create interesting “online debates” in the comments section. Naturally though, there is a distinct flaw within having such “debates” because, in most cases, definitions are improperly defined and there are too many assumptions made on both sides. In other words, the paradigms of the individuals are holding back any real progress in regards to Atheists and Theists. The Agnostic/Atheist is attempting to explain religion through empirical methods while Theists attempt the same by using theology. The mixing of these concepts into the other field is a clear injustice to both disciplines.

If you can recall, the purpose of this post was to try to figure out the point of such forums like this one… it is quite apparent that the main goal is to provide a haven for like-minded (and sometimes “unlike”-minded) individuals to have a community to fall back on…hm, kind of sounds like a Church . In other words, everyone wants to know others who believe the same. Yet what is it that Atheists and Agnostics believe? If the “De-Conversion Wager” on the side menu bar is an indicator of anything, then it appears that perhaps Atheists and Theists are not that different. Beyond the corruption, close-mindedness, and ignorance of both the religious and a-religious camps lies a similar desire. Boiled down, it looks as if the only difference that remains is determining where that “desire” comes from…and frankly, it doesn’t matter, because Atheists and Theists alike still have not fully embraced the concepts of love, mercy, compassion, and tolerance.

Christ or Christianity…it can’t be both

It’s either one or the other, but rarely can it be both. Today there is a distinct difference between choosing Christ or choosing Christianity. One is following the divine wisdom of Jesus, while another is adhering to a religious, man-made institution. Too often people defend Christianity over defending Jesus. However, there has been an emergence as of late. Many times you will see that people would rather define themselves as “spiritual” instead of “religious”. Naturally, this has to do with the negative connotations that accompany ‘religion’.

This may be due to the fact that Jesus told us of the harmful dangers of “religion”.

“…How terrible it will be for you experts of religious law! For you crush people beneath impossible religious demands and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” (Luke 11:46)

“How terrible it will be for you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law- justice, mercy and faith…” (Matthew 23:23)

American Christianity has faltered quite a bit from the original intent of Jesus. Does this mean there is zero gain to going to Church? No, but it means relying on Church alone for spiritual development will leave you…well…under-developed.

We owe it to ourselves to read beyond surface considerations of Jesus’ teachings in the effort to find the spiritual truths God wishes us to discover for ourselves, for it is a truth that will eliminate the burdens of religion, law, guilt and death.

Jesus doesn’t Save – the Pope does!

According to a document that was signed by Pope Benedict on Tuesday, if you are not a Catholic, you are not a Christian. I guess all of us ‘other’ believers are screwed.

I am pretty disappointed by Pope Benedict’s GIANT step backwards. Pope John-Paul did wonders for breaking down the barriers between religions; he often demonstrated the love and compassion that carried no distinction.

It is quite apparent that Benedict is not half the man or religious leader compared to John-Paul.

What the Pope is failing to realize is that the “church” is more than a building or institution, for those things are man-made. The “church” refers to those that are of Christ. Can you imagine dying and then being confronted by Jesus, “sorry, you were a ________, and we only accept Catholics”. It’s a good thing Jesus doesn’t follow our silly rules.

I’m sure that the Pope believes he speaks for God, and I bet that many people believe that too. Interesting though, that some within the Vatican believe that:

“[the Pope's decision] could be a question of internal church politics or a message to certain theologians it did not want to singe out.”

Politics huh? Well, being that the Pope is human, he certainly is influenced by politics (not very heavenly and certainly not from God). Some will contend that the Pope is above politics, but that’s just wishful thinking.

In the end, the Catholic church that the Pope is trying to create reminds me of the Pharisees’ temple establishment. He is creating walls and trying to put forth a “holy” prescription for salvation, one that values exclusion and limits Christ’s power.

I have lost all respect for this politically influenced human.

Militant Atheism Exposed

Our newspapers and news stations are littered with acts from militant religious leaders. It seems like everywhere you look you see these militants abusing the innocent using a distortion of their religion for justification. However, not only do these religious militants exist in the Middle East, but also on our very own soil. Granted, the militants in the United States don’t go about killing people (at least not on the same scale as what we see in the Middle East), but they still distort religion to suit their own agendas which negatively impacts other individuals. Extreme fundamentalist movements such as the “God hates fags” campaign come to mind.

I believe that most people recognize that the religiously devout can (and sometimes do) negatively impact a harmonious society. But what about atheists? Are atheists above the “militant” label? No. In fact, some take pride in it (just google “militant atheists” and you’ll come up with a variety of t-shirt stores).

While it is certainly true that atheists have been described as militant unfairly in the past, it does not take away from the fact that there are, indeed, militant atheists. This concept is hard for some atheists to swallow because it would mean that *gasp* religion isn’t the only thing to blame for every problem!

However, not all militants (religious and atheist) incorporate violence, but many (especially in the U.S.) do so in much more indirect ways. I’ll show you what I mean…

In my view, a militant religious fanatic is one that imposes on another through irrational thinking. Using this criteria, let’s consider atheist Michael Newdow. Newdow states:

“…keeping ‘one nation under God’ would do irreparable harm to my 6-year-old daughter if she was forced to utter such repugnant language. Even if she remained silent while the rest of the class recited the Pledge, the mere mention of “God” in a classroom would scar the girl for life.”

Is Newdow imposing on others through irrational thinking?  Yeah.

Now I am not here to discuss whether or not ”under God” should be in the Pledge, such an argument will just go in circles and be a waste of time. The message is that “militant-ism” does not lie solely with the religious, but also with the irreligious. Looking at this from a bigger perspective clearly shows that the problem lies not with institutions, but with humanity.  The sooner we can recognize this, the sooner the we can begin to address the issues.