All christians see Jesus as God

Sounds primitive. I think Genesis is mostly metaphor for spiritual likeness. That happens to be the very passage that led to the "moment of clarity" that made me a Christian, but I never thought of taking it literally.

 

I would say that most who call themselves Christian believe Jesus to be God or at least a part of God (Trinity), but there are some Christians who do not believe the Trinity and do not believe Jesus to be God but just as the Bible says; he's the "Son of God"...

 

There was a period in Christian history---around the time of the Reformation, that this was considered a heresy known as Jesuology.

 

I'm curious , as anyone would be, about the possibility of sentient life elsewhere in space / time and if the dominant life on other locations , if extant, would happen to be as murderous and destructive as the dominant sentient life on our little blue planet.

What , in fact is "our " behavior indicative of known sentient purpose relative to the purported and almost universally (earthly) accepted creator?

 

We exhibit creativity , at least one to another and sometimes seemingly godly . Jesus is crucified today . But quit doing that .

 

Some would say that if you believe Jesus was God that you aren't a Christian....

 

And I'm not, a reject all religion, I'm an atheist !!!

 

There is evidence that the earliest Christians didn't believe Jesus was God. Some (the Ebionites) insisted he was a human procreated by Joseph in the usual manner and adopted by God as His son at baptism, when the Voice from On High declared: "This is my son in whom I am well pleased." These folks are called adoptionists, and were the most Jewish of the early Christians, to whom the notion of a man being God or anybody else but Yaweh being God was blasphemous. By the forties, there were others who seem to have believed in Jesus' pre-existence as a supernatural being who came to earth in human form, died, and was exalted to a higher status. That seems to be the view expressed in a hymn quoted by Paul in Philippians 2:6-11. Paul seemed to believe that Jesus was exalted at the Resurrection. This view is put forward by agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman (How Jesus Became God) and by the Roman Catholic historian Raymond Brown. Saint Paul may have thought of Jesus as an angel (Gal. 4:14) ,or as the Second Adam, a human made like the first Adam in the image of God (as Philippians says, in the "form" of God), created to give humanity a second chance, and then exalted to a higher form at Resurrection. (Rom.5:18-19). Jesus prophesied the coming of a figure called the "Son of Man" mentioned in Daniel 7:13-14. Many of his followers thought He was talking about Himself.

Neither the synoptic gospels nor Acts offer a clear indication of Jesus' divinity, and passages in the first gospel Mark (!0:18."Why do you call me good? No one is good but God." and 15:34"My God, My God. Why hast Thou forsaken me") imply otherwise. The first strong indication of Jesus' divinity was in Heb.1:8-9 , written by an anonymous author around 67 C.E. (God to Jesus: "Therefore O God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness...:" ) and the last gospel, written in the nineties, John 1:1. where Jesus is identified as the Word-- "and the Word was in God's presence, and the Word was God". By the beginning of the second century, Ignatius was freely speaking of "Our God, Jesus the Christ". The latter part of the first century and second century were a time after the fall of Jerusalem when Christianity was predominantly a Gentile (ex-pagan) religion. The matter was far from settled, though, and it took a showdown between St. Athanasius and Arius at the Council of Nicaea in the fourth century to establish that Jesus was "true God of true God." And to this day the minority (Arian) view that Jesus was God's first creation is held by some Christians, mainly Jehovah's Witnesses, who think he was the Archangel Michael.

 

God allows all to choose their course in life... even atheists...

 

A nice summation of the many views of who Jesus is. which one do subscribe to?

 

None of them exactly, and I think the quest to figure it out is a distraction from the main message. I think Jesus was a Jewish man who somehow became imbued with the basic Divine wisdom that is key to our salvation, and communicated this to us in His teachings, actions, and death--especially the emphasis on love of God and neighbor, including society's rejects and least advantaged members. I think if people would realize this and act accordingly, most of the man-made problems which are tearing us apart would be resolved and we would have an approximation of Heaven on earth. "The Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth and people don't see it." (Thomas 113). By ignoring it or fighting over doctrinal fine points, humanity finds itself forever teetering on the brink of self-destruction. He was the Messiah and the Word and the Way to salvation, if we accept it.

 

Keep your 'god squad' tyhoughts to yourself, I reject all religions, so don't try ramming any of your claptrap down my throat !!!

 

The Concept of Father Son and Holy Ghost (The Trinity) and the Virginity of Mary, are probably derived from the conference of Nicea. Most Churches that came into being after that date (Cir 300AD) follow the Nicean Creed. Churches that existed before that time, the Nazarine Church, the Abyssinian Church, and the Celtic Church may derive their beliefs from the Lords Prayer, that states "Our" father who art in heaven, which to me means all humans Male or female are the sons or daughters of god.. If Jesus (Yesua or Issa) was the only begotten son, the prayer would be My father who art in Heaven. Current churches believe that Jesus was derived from the Virgin Mary (Mariam) enacted by God. As a biologist, who understands the process of meiosis, that if the belief was true, Jesus would have been born as a woman by the process of mitosis in Mary's ovaries. If the churches would simply acknowledge that Jesus was conceived genetically by Joseph and Mary, with the caveat that the soul of Jesus was incorporated into the fetus by god, the story of the divinity of Jesus would make more sense.

 

you might be missing the point. I don't think that Jesus' birth can be explained by science. how would you explain Jesus' resurrection with science?

 

Translation . The bible was a number of letters. Songs. And word of mouth stories that were collected and written. A lot of it in languishes that do not exist any longer. All of this was collected by the church and many different monks over many years wrote them into the first groups of bibles. One of the issues is that many languishes had words that were the same but had different meanings depending on how it was used. Monks were humans and as such wrote what they thought that those words or passages meant,. Or exchanged words in there language to make the passage more understandable ( in their views). It is like the children's game Telephone. Where the first person whispers to the next person and so forth down the line. By the time the last person says out loud what they were told. Or thought what they were told, is no where close to the original whispered words.

And some of our prayers and writings reflect that . A example is Slavery. It was common to use armies that lost as slaves or forced labor. Today the church rejects it. And fights against such actions. Women were common in spreading the word of God. Then women were made second class citizens not worthy of preaching Gods word. While some churches still hold that view Others welcome women into the ministry . Which one is correct or wrong ? Many religion beliefs cross over from one religion to the another and back again. Is one religious group correct and all of the others are not ? The church etc is not a building . The "church " are the people. And what the people feel and believe to be their connection to God. With every group there are extremists who views are my religion is right and others are wrong. And to be honest who on earth has the power to make that judgement ?

 

It's interesting to me that this thread is a few years old. My view based on the last 50 years:
Not all christians see Jesus as God. We're all in different places in our journey. Some stand sooner than others, some walk sooner than others, etc... I've noticed that, the longer someone is a christian, the more likely he/she will view Jesus as God.

The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not three separate persons. Rather, they are three separate manifestations of the same person. For instance, you can be a father, a son, and a husband, but you are still just one person.

God didn't "adopt" Jesus as His Son, and nothing in the bible gives any indication that He did. Jesus made it clear that, if you've seen Him, you've seen the Father, and that He and His Father are one. His apostle Thomas comfirmed this when he saw Him after the resurection and referred to Him as "My Lord and God!"

As for the bible being diluted or perverted somehow between the times of origins and now is a demonstration that those espousing this view are ignorant of the facts. Those that translated these words were meticulous in this from word of mouth to pen and paper, even counting the letters and words to make sure everything possible matched from start to finish with every book. The earliest text we have now are a profound match for our current translations and the only thing that seems off is due to our understanding of it due to our lack of context.

A glaring example of the above is the subject of divorce. Most christians will mistakenly say that God hates divorce and you can't remarry without commiting adultery. Not true. God said that He hates PUTTING AWAY, which is quite different from divorce (which He invented) in both cause and effect. PUTTING AWAY is a forcible ejection; a throwing out like refuse (or trash) that never terminates a marriage, and those put away cannot remarry, as they're still married to the one who put them away. It is attempt by a selfish person to destroy another's life.
In a biblical divorce, however, we are commanded to "...provide a bill of divorcement, give it in her hand, and SEND her away, and she will be free to become another man's wife". That last part just messes with people's heads since they don't understand the difference.

It's not scripture that is in error; it is US. WE are destroyed by our own lack of knowledge.

Getting back to another point raised already: The languages of the bible. Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek. None of these are extinct or lost today. They are all still very much in use. One must remember, also, that Hebrew comes from the Chaldean language that Abrham spoke when he left his father's house in Ur of the Chaldeans to follow God. It likely was also modified highly during the 400 years of bondage with the Egyptions, and would carry elements of their language, as well. Same for other peoples they mingled with. The Hebrews, however, were rather diligent about retaining their own language and culture rather than blending with others, so there was always a natural resistance to that. It was a characteristic that annoyed one conquering people after another throughout history, making them even more of a target to others around them.

 

If you don't like this thread you are free to go elsewhere. You haven't offered any answers to questions posed, and there are way too many places on this forum for those that don't like "religious talk" to waste time in a thread you don't like.

I normally see far better from you, Vlad. You're acting like a common troll. Mind you, one is free to do so, but it seems very much out of character for you.

 

Very well said.
I would add only that while speaking in tongues is commonly practiced in many modern churches, it is often, I think, used as a glory grab by members of the congregation. I know that it is sometimes real, though, because I was present when a friend was talking about Jesus to someone who didn't have much English, he being from a country where the people spoke an African dialect. My friend was praying, and the fellow's eyes bugged when he began to pray in the man's language, which he had never studied. Afterwards, he didn't know what he'd said! The man he was praying with translated the final portion of the prayer. The Holy Spirit can do wonderful things.

 

Hucksterism or insanity.

 

A bit of both, in my humble opinion.