Jabberwocky
Frumious Bandersnatch
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?
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?