So last week I posted something up which managed to generate a bit of controversy. I certainly didn’t intend to, but hey – if it’s one of those side-effects, then I’m okay with that.
Joe and I has some back and forth about children and Christianity, and what it all really meant. It grew into something more, when we started discussing Christianity in and of itself – Jesus’ teachings, how can people believe the Bible when it was written by humans after Jesus’ death, and so on. Joe certainly put up some interesting questions – questions that I, (ashamedly), haven’t had a go at answering – yet.
Oh – before I go on, read the entire thread here. If you’re just after Joe’s response (which I’ll be addressing in this post), then you can read that here.
Sorta what I’m getting at is that most of Jesus’ teachings are common sense are they not? and they aren’t original to Jesus’ either look up the Egyptian sun God “Horus”.
Jesus’ teachings are common sense? In a way. Sure, most of them are, but they go beyond that – far, far beyond that. There’s literally hundreds of interpretations of any text depending on the context, and rings true for the Bible (and, by extension, Jesus’ teachings) as well.
As for Jesus and Horus – you’re absolutely right – the Egyptian god Horus does indeed have an astounding amount of parallels with Jesus. Third link in Google revealed this page, which gives a succinct summary of these parallelisms between Jesus and Horus. (As a quick side note, the website itself is published by a multi-religion group of people who, by their own words, “lack agreement on almost all theological matters, such as belief in a supreme being, the nature of God, interpretation of the Bible and other holy texts, whether life after death exists, what form the afterlife may take, etc”.)
In regards to the parallelisms between Jesus and Horus, well, that’s just difference of opinion as well as a different religion completely. As with all of these comparisons between religions (it happens in Matthew Reilly books as well, haha), you have to as the question: well, which one came first? Did the Egyptians rip off the Christians? Or was it the other way around?
The answer to that question isn’t as obvious as it may seem – it comes back to that old question of evolution vs creation, and depending on which version you believe your answer will undoubtedly vary.
Also in my outdated argument I want to mention validity. If Jesus took the time to right his auto-biography before his suicide mission that would of been convenient, but instead it was left (as were all the Bible Chapters) hundreds of years after they had happened (if they happened).
I just can’t seem to believe the validity and correctness of a book that has been written by men who were guided by god. Also, the men were guided by god too, who decided what shall be removed from the bible. Bible is edited even today, so the editors are, too, inspired directly by God.
The question of “how can I believe something that’s been written by humans” has often been asked by myself as well. While I haven’t yet come up with a satisfactory answer, there’s something that I’d like to introduce you to – faith.
Ah yes, old faith. Faith, the thing that makes us believe things that seem impossible, faith, the intangible explanation for 101 different things, and yet, faith – the one thing that ties all of Christianity together.
At youth today we were discussing belief and doubt – not dissimilar to what we’re talking about now. One of the questions that we discussed was “List three things that can help you to continue to believe in Jesus through times of doubt”. You can be sure that I put down faith. Another member of the same youth group responded by saying that “you don’t have to know everything, sometimes you’ve got to live with a little trust, and faith in God” which I though was a bloody excellent way of putting it.
Bear in mind that I’m not saying that you should live with blind faith – there’s a difference between being educated and following stupidly along with the crowd (or, knowing the difference between the hot plate is hot, and believing that it isn’t).
At the time of Jesus, everyone agreed that the old testament was the right way, written by people inspired by god, thus their writings were true to them. Why should their righteousness disappear during time?
Most Christians are saying that some parts of the old testament are wrong in modern culture, like the one which encourages you to bash your enemies children’s skull to a rock or stone women who are not virgin when married.
SOOO yes confusing indeed.
If by “righteousness disappear over time” as your way of saying that I implied that the old testament was outdated when I said that Jesus’ two commandments superseded the 10 commandments, then you’d be a little off. To clarify: I’m not saying that Jesus’ teachings (or anything in the new testament, for that matter) supersede, or are more important, than anything in the old testament. However, they definitely supplement what’s already there.
Take this for example: the old testament says “an eye for an eye”, “sacrifice animals as a form of repentance” – two of which are obviously not in use today. The whole point of not preforming those actions now is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, so we don’t have to sacrifice animals every time we want to repent for our sins.
We also don’t take out our neighbour’s eyes – you’ll take note that Jesus said “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. Obviously, this means that you can’t just go and do unto them what they did to you – instead, “calm words will soothe even the most ferocious beast, like water on hot coals” (or something along those lines, I can’t exactly remember the quote).
Ooh – see that there? A contradiction between the old testament, and the new testament. Which one do we follow? The latest version, the new testament. Why? Because we’re following Jesus’ example, as he was the ultimate example – perfect in every way, without sin. And I guess that’s what being a Christian is all about, hey?
Now, to leave you with final thoughts:
Confusing indeed. The Bible certainly brings up some intriguing schools of thought, and there is stuff in there that even pastors and clergymen can’t understand. Instead, they pray to God for clarity of thought and wisdom, because that will eventually lead to understanding.
What about stuff like predestination and free will? There’s no way I’m talking about that here (‘cos that’s a whole other bag of worms), but sometimes, the Bible can bring more questions than answers – but as a Christian, I’m not saying that we should have all the answers anyway. Where’s the fun in that?!
Comments below.
written by Benny Ling
\\ tags: answers, argument, bible, christian, christianity, faith, God, heated topic, Jesus, new, old, questions, testament