In reading the various definitions of idol, I think Christians have turned Jesus into the type of idol that he railed against.
We all idol worship in some sense. If you can think analogically you will agree. Here is a poet that might help you do that. He has a good message but he himself ends in being an idol worshiper.
Commandment #3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.”
Christians put Jesus before Yahweh.
Commandment #4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
Christian churches are full of carved images.
Gnostic Christians also have an ideal, but we do not let ourselves be subsumed by our own creations and remain perpetual seekers of the best god/rules and laws to live by, as Jesus taught.
I see Christians and Muslims as idol worshipers.
Is Jesus a Christian and Muslim idol and are they idol worshipers as most theologians say?
Have you noted that Jewry and the Torah offered a rather decent god when subjected to midrash, then Christianity developed a more immoral Yahweh and then Islam created an even more vile version?
Jesus doesn’t possess the same fire and magnitude of love and joy that other religions can spark.
Jesus, even if he was real, doesn’t emblazon the spectra and archetypes in such a fun and delightful manner. Instead, he orders us about right and wrong, has big sunday services, has a boring bible, and only answers prayers in rituals.
God is beautiful, luminous, evanescent, and endless, unlike the static categories of christianity.
True. And there is one religion, Bahaism, which claims to unify all religions. How lame!
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Indeed. They make a claim before accomplishing the act. Lame liars.
I think that only a religion of exoteric ecumenists and naturalists, and based on free thinking, can unify all thinking systems, be they theology or philosophy based, which would includes political systems.
To me, a religion and such thinking and those minds are the only ones flexible enough to cherry pick from all ideologies and come up with a flexible enough ideology that all can live with.
Well, never all but the vast majority. There will always be a lunatic fringe to gum up the works.
Gnostic Christianity is that religion and not, to me, Baha’ism.
I will not disagree but will point out that the Gnostic Christian Jesus I see in scriptures, does have that fire. He is a universalist.
Most people see the Rome created puppet and think only one Jesus is shown in the scriptures.
I see Buddha in your sig.
If you were to envisage him saying what I quote Jesus saying, you would likely be able to envisage Buddh saying exactly the same thing.
Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.
Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
That thinking was rejected by Jews and embraced by immoral thinkers.
The rejections quote I have in a an old O.P. written for Christians who are using Jesus as their scapegoat.
Critique it if you like.
You have swallowed a lie and don’t care how evil you make Jesus to keep your feel good get out of hell free card.
It is a lie, first and foremost because, like it or not, having another innocent person suffer or die for the wrongs you have done, — so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, — is immoral. To abdicate your personal responsibility for your actions or use a scapegoat is immoral.
You also have to ignore what Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi, would have taught his people.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.
Psa 49;7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
There is no way that you would teach your children to use a scapegoat to escape their just punishments and here you are doing just that.
Jesus is just a smidge less immoral than his demiurge genocidal father, and here you are trying to put him as low in moral fibre as Yahweh. Satan applauds you though as you are doing her work.
I don’t agree with Gnostic Christianity for some reason. To me the reality is that we are mind with similar essence, mind being the essence of any being/thing with the ability to experience, decide and cause. We need sincerity in mind to obtain divine knowledge. We need meaning to become free.
Freedom cannot exist for entities like us who are the weakest and most insecure animal on the planet.
No one is free to go it alone. That was shown but Socrates who killed that notion by asking his interlocutor, who will make your shoes.
In law, they talk in terms of liberty and not freedom. We give or gave up notions of freedom the moment we decide to live by the law of the land. We give up freedom for liberty.
I agree, but security to some groups, unfortunately, includes ending freedom of speech towards those who abuse the freedoms of their women and gays. IOW, they want freedom from criticism.
What do you think of the safe spaces that universities are giving some students who demand it?
What I have in mind is a story of a female law student who wanted to be exempt from her law class speaking of anything on rape and not expecting her exemption to be ignored on her bar exam.
