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What is wrong with following Christ’s teachings?

Thanks everybody for their contributions to this discussion. However, I just want to emphasise that the original topic is what is wrong with Jesus’s teachings - which does not necessarily relate to organised religion. Maybe one can follow His teachings in one’s personal life with no problem? However as @SKL has ably demonstrated there is a problem with knowing what Jesus’ teachings actually are without the institutional Church as a translator/mediator. This process begins with the fact that our first knowledge of what Jesus said are the Gospels, which are the product of the nascent institutional Church.

I guess where I wanted to go with this thread was to question whether what we know to be fairly unequivocally Jesus’s message are right for the modern world and how we live as individuals within it. You can pick any teachings: love they neighbour as thyself, turn the other check, do not cast the first stone, the meek shall inherit the earth, etc etc.. But taken together, are these really the principles upon which you’d construct a society or want to govern your own life?
 
@Atelier3 I have a strong feeling Jesus' original story and teachings have been highly distorted over time. These were stories that were passed down orally by generations of generally illiterate people for 90 years before they were ever written down. If I have one main criticism of the bible, it would be that. After they were finally committed to writing, that was then edited, split up, rearranged, reedited, translated, edited again, retranslated, etc... over and over again spanning nearly 2000 years. Kings changed the parts they didn't like and added new ones. Not once, many times.

There is a dissonance for me between the modern English bible and "Jesus' teachings".

I read an entire book about how many of Jesus' teachings are nearly identical to principals of the Tao Te Ching (being one of the oldest books known to man kind), and I have a feeling all modern religions spawned from an even more ancient religion or text.

I also believe that humans had massive megalithic civilizations prior to 12,000 years ago that were wiped out by the ending of the ice age which rose sea levels by hundreds of feet. I think humans have amnesia about their true past. We have been around for FAR LONGER than modern science likes to admit. Aliens.
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
@Atelier3 I have a strong feeling Jesus' original story and teachings have been highly distorted over time. These were stories that were passed down orally by generally illiterate people for 90 years before they were ever written down. If I have one main criticism of the bible, it would be that. After they were finally committed to writing, that was then edited, split up, rearranged, reedited, translated, edited again, retranslated, etc... over nearly 2000 years. Kings changed the parts they didn't like and added new ones. Not once, many times.

There is a dissonance for me between the modern English bible and "Jesus' teachings".

I read an entire book about how many of Jesus' teachings are nearly identical to principals of the Tao Te Ching (being one of the oldest books known to man kind), and I have a feeling all modern religions spawned from an even more ancient religion or text.
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That may well be true and I agree that sayings attributed to Jesus’ have parallels and precedents in other cultures and religions. Including religions that preceded Judaism in the Middle East including pre-monotheistic Yahwism.

However, I don’t think that rules out the current exercise. Because they exist in a commonly understood and generally agreed form, I think we can take the basic tenets of Christianity as outlined in the Gospels as a ‘social fact’ (as Durkheim might say) and make some hypothetical analysis of whether they are a solid foundation for a modern society and for living individually good lives in such a society.

So, I can re-phrase the question if you like, ‘Hypothetically, if the Gospels contain the true teachings of Jesus, do they provide a good blueprint for social organisation and individual behaviour in the modern world?’
 
Atelier3 said:
‘Hypothetically, if the Gospels contain the true teachings of Jesus, do they provide a good blueprint for social organisation and individual behaviour in the modern world?’
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I would agree with this statement. They do. I'll be honest. I don't know what the Gospels are. I'm imagining the 10 commandments here.

It's the fine print and technicalities in the Bible that people like to misconstrue IMO.
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
. I don't know what the Gospels are.
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The Gospels are the first 4 books of the New Testament. They are taken by actual Christians to be the definitive guide to the life of Jesus. They were written by multiple authors but are called after 4 specific apostles and represent a tradition presumedly laid down by each of them. That is they are the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The next most important guide to Jesus’s teachings are the so called Letters of the Apostles, which are letters from early Church leaders (including presumedly some Apostles though specific authorship is difficult to attribute) to the early Church communities or communities the early Church was trying to convert. Most of these (13 in all) are attributed to St Paul. They form the most significant part of the New Testament in the Bible.

Remembering that the bible has two parts. The Jewish Old Testament and the Christian New Testament. Christians are supposed to acknowledge the Old Testament but take their instruction from the New Testament (which itself sometimes instructs them to follow aspects of the Old Testament).

For the purposes of this discussion I’m say teachings of Christ/Christianity = New Testament = the Gospels + Letters (mainly)
 
Atelier3 said:
The Gospels are the first 4 books of the New Testament. They are taken by actual Christians to be the definitive guide to the life of Jesus. They were written by multiple authors but are called after 4 specific apostles and represent a tradition presumedly laid down by each of them. That is they are the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The next most important guide to Jesus’s teachings are the so called Letters of the Apostles, which are letters from early Church leaders (including presumedly some Apostles though specific authorship is difficult to attribute) to the early Church communities or communities the early Church was trying to convert. Most of these (13 in all) are attributed to St Paul. They form the most significant part of the New Testament in the Bible.

Remembering that the bible has two parts. The Jewish Old Testament and the Christian New Testament. Christians are supposed to acknowledge the Old Testament but take their instruction from the New Testament (which itself sometimes instructs them to follow aspects of the Old Testament).

For the purposes of this discussion I’m say teachings of Christ/Christianity = New Testament = the Gospels + Letters (mainly)
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I am very uneducated about the Bible, but to me, and let me know if this is incorrect, but Jesus' teaches can be boiled down to simply be a good, kind, humble altruistic human being. Would I be incorrect?
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
I am very uneducated about the Bible, but to me, and let me know if this is incorrect, but Jesus' teaches can be boiled down to simply be a good, kind, humble altruistic human being. Would I be incorrect?
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Atelier3 said:
Pretty much.
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Well, I have a teaching too: "Spend less time thinking (of yourself), be of unconditional service to others." Follow that, and the world as we know it will transform itself, ..probably rapidly and radically, as soon as we start building communities of believers that follow my teaching. But we best leave that aside (for now), since it's just an intellectual exercise to probe my scripture. Danger might be that we'll soon drown in mutual kindness, respect and love.

Why would we prefer a cherry-picked version of ancients scriptures above my writing? Is mine bad, inferiour or hard to understand? What is wrong with following bongdongs teachings?

@Atelier3 Don't you think, at that point (retracting back and back, for the sake of a discussion of course!), that you have reduced Jesus' divine teachings to a platitude?

Could it be that all that arm waving around one particular historic book is an attempt to justify ones own feel-good ideology, masking the inability or unwillingness to confront 'reality' as it appears right now, however it my be, with all the confusion, dissonance, uncertainty etc.? Since the dogmatic authority of a literal interpretation of these texts is fading away more and more in modern society, I feel there could be a little bit of a despaired safety-in-numbers approach going on. In western Europe, this doesn't seem to fly well anymore (unless it gets radicalized again), but I can imagine that e.g. in the USA or Australia, this might be a different scenario. Just an idea, an attempt to explain..
 
Atelier3 said:
However, I don’t think that rules out the current exercise. Because they exist in a commonly understood and generally agreed form, I think we can take the basic tenets of Christianity as outlined in the Gospels as a ‘social fact’ (as Durkheim might say) and make some hypothetical analysis of whether they are a solid foundation for a modern society and for living individually good lives in such a society.
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(Highlighting by me.) Well do they exist in commonly understood and generally agreed form?

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

So who is my neighbor exactly? Close by people? Does it apply to "fucking nazis" overseas, I have never met or seen? Like myself? Well who am I? Do I need to be a sinner in the eyes of Jesus, a child of Christ? I have an ego, and it l-o-v-e-s itself, I can tell you that! But my ego is only concerned with sustaining itself, it's about me, me and guess what, ME all over again, how do I apply or extend this to others, my neighbor? How does it work exactly, practically? I can love you, ...as long as you support my conceptualized sense of self, as long as i gain from you in one way or another. But oppose me, take my things, then you'll get to know me, honeymoon is over. I might even consider killing you. I don't seem to get it. Why don't I get it, I don't feel it, honestly!

Since it's commonly understood and agreed upon, and I apparently can't make sense of this literal interpretation, can someone teach me the deeper meaning, point me to the spiritual juice in there, the practicality of it that everyone can embody (I think this is important since we want to form communities of believers based on this)? I've come across non-literal interpretations of this, that even feed on other spiritual traditions, but I keep that for myself (for now), for the sake of a discussion.
 
@bongdong you raise some interesting and possibly insurmountable points. The lack of a definition of neighbour threw me for a moment, although ultimately I suspect that Jesus would have intended it to mean everybody you come across and certainly foreigners (as the parable of The Good Samaritan indicates as does the general admonition ‘do unto others as you you’ll have them do unto you’ aka the Matthew Principle).

However, you get to the heart of the point of the thread. Are the principles outlined in The New Testament too simplistic or otherwise lacking to be of sound use in the modern world?

I think Jesus’s teachings were problematic as far as overseas Nazi’s go though. He seems to encourage us to turn the other cheek and he does not anywhere as far as I can recall provide solid guidance regarding intervening on behalf of those oppressed by evil. This is a salient point given the Jews were a subject people then under arguably ‘oppressed’ by Rome (though not really by the standards of the day). He seems to be arguing for a personal focus on doing the morally right thing but provides little advice on collective action.

This is what leads to to the question whether modern societies can be built on ‘Christian’ (i.e. New Testament) principles. Or perhaps Jesus had in mind a single global order where there was no ‘Other’ to oppress ‘Another’?
 
What is the relation between Christ and Natural selection..?

And what is the relation to christ and evolution?
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
I will proudly lead an "anti-Christian" campaign, BUT I don't have a problem with people who practice ANY religion. I don't give a shit what people believe in.

I just don't think I need to be seeing "JESUS SAVES" signs on every telephone pole, Christians protesting gay and black people on the street, tax free evangelical frauds who scam billions of money from poor people in the name of God... I could go on
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What do you mean "Christians protesting black people"? And are you aware that black people tend to be more religious than white people and are more likely to be Christian than the overall population?

SnafuInTheVoid said:
I only have 2 problems with any religion:
1. when they try to force their propaganda on me and or say I'm going to hell for not believing in what they do
2. when they are associated with bigotry or other primitive defunct human behavior

The only problem with any religion is when people misinterpret it to justify their own fucked up backwards beliefs. Doing evil in "the name of God".

If they leave me alone (like 99.9% of Christians do), I don't care at all what they do. I am extremely tolerant - but I do not tolerate bigotry in any form.
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Lol do you not see the contradiction in claiming you are extremely tolerant but do not tolerate bigotry in any form? That opens the door to all kinds of intolerance as all you have to do is label something bigotry and you instantly have an excuse to have zero tolerance for it. It's no different from a Christian saying "I am extremely tolerant but I do not tolerate sin in any form".
 
Not only did you not wreck me, you didn't even really address my arguments you simply went on a rant.
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
(Please whatever you do, do not quote the bible as references to your argument,
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Actually to participate sensibly in this thread, one needs to have a passing familiarity with the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus laid out therein.

We are not so much talking about organised religion and its members per se, as much as we are talking about philosophy. That is, if we take the New Testament as a work of philosophy is it a good one for living in the modern world. Does it effectively guide individual behaviour and social organisation in these times. Or does it fail us in some way. And if so, where is it lacking?

If you wouldn’t dream of entering a debate about Aristotle or Plato ‘cause you’ve never read them, you’ll have the same problem here if you’ve never read The New Testament.
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
I am very intoxicated and, to me, I did answer the question, can you elaborate and tell me what I didn't? Trying to have a real conversation not a religious diss duel battle....

Though I will say I could literally give proof Jesus didn't exist to a Christian and they would still tell me I didn't provide proof - soo.... please elaborate

I'm in the mood for a real debate
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I'm not in the mood to debate. You made it sound like Christians were marching en masse in protest of black people (whatever that means) like how they march in protest of abortion or gay marriage and when I questioned that you responded with stories about your neighbor using the n word. And whether or not there is a correlation isn't the point.
 
SnafuInTheVoid said:
I am very uneducated about the Bible, but to me, and let me know if this is incorrect, but Jesus' teaches can be boiled down to simply be a good, kind, humble altruistic human being. Would I be incorrect?
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I think if you ignore the more esoteric and supernatural parts of his teachings you could boil them down to that, but you're arguably ignoring quite a lot if you do that.
 
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