The Logical Foundation of Christianity

[trenton]

Leo often mentions things like "how do you know Jesus died for our sins?" He argued that all of Christianity fails on this point because there is nothing to back this up. I did some digging, and I have discovered the core claim as why Jesus is the Savior and how Christians know it. It is completely preposterous.

Essentially, the reason Jesus is believed to be the Savior is because there was an unrelated prophecy from 700 years prior to his birth which had already been immediately fulfilled, but somehow also prophesied that Jesus would die for our sins over 700 years later despite making no such mention of this or a virgin birth or Jesus.

"The young woman will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" this is the core claim as to why Jesus is the Savior.

The term "young woman" is what was originally used to describe Mary, but in the translation this term was changed to "virgin." The implication is that Mary probably wasn't even a virgin if she did exist and this story was inserted completely while serving as the core basis of the religion. If the scripture is taken on its own terms, then whatever religion there was supposed to be would be unrecognizable compared to modern translations as there was no virgin birth and there was no prophesy about Jesus. So what religion are we even talking about if the meaning can be twisted so far in completely different fan fictions?

Sometimes I encounter tensions when I am in the presence of Christians. I feel like it is not safe to say what I think. Additionally, if I do speak of spirituality, I often get lumped together with this religion even though I am very far from that category. This was a problem in therapy as well when a therapist insisted I pray while imposing religious beliefs even though I made clear that I didn't believe in these things. There is also clear disdain when I simply compare different religions and point out similarities.

I feel like something died inside of me. I remember in childhood, my family was nominally Christian but I didn't believe it intellectually. However, for some reason my mind kept coming back to as if it were trying to make sense of something, or if there was some emotional pull of hope that dragged my mind to it despite conscious disbelief. It is almost like a split personality in which despite my conscious disbelief, somehow part of me existed as though there were truth to what I was focusing on. I came up with positions like, "the Bible is clearly wrong on these points, but this doesn't refute the existence of God." Hence I stood by the position of God but not religion because of the fact that religion is heavily a social demand for conformity rather than any real commitment to truth.

In fact, "belief" is misleading because in the context of religion it isn't meant to be held as an intellectual position, but rather as "trust" in God or Jesus rather than epistemically believe it. Religion uses the language of literal belief when meaning something entirely different. Again, this changes the entire nature of what religion even is if it was never meant to be an intellectual position in the first place. It seems to mean more like "do as you're told and everything will work out" when using the term believe. In that sense, religion shouldn't even be treated as a truth claim, but more of a fantasy narrative that sounds pretty while being built around human institutions with millions of different agendas that are divorced from reality on every level.

I don't know why exactly there is this heavy feeling of sadness. Maybe it is because I know I can't seriously engage with a community that shuts down any legitimate questioning while assuming that I intend to offend people due to pointing out the inconsistencies. I prefer to contemplate things like religion on my own away from others for this reason. Although my emotions are low, I still logically prefer truth and accept whatever it is even if it for some reason feels painful.

Perhaps the absurdity was deeper than I could have imagined beyond even the miracle claims that defy science. I struggle to imagine something more nonsensical than an unrelated prophecy from 700 years ago proving an unmentioned person was born under unmentioned circumstances and did unmentioned things. I feel like this closes off or collapses something. What do you think?

I have a prophesy of my own.

700 years from now, something unmentioned will occur.

[Hojo]

Your deep feeling of sadness is Jesus leaving you. How can you feel him leave if he does not exist?

The story has nothing to do with the essence. Words arent what they are saying. Jesus if fictional or real is pointing towards awakening. The name has no parts in it anymore but the energy of what Jesus represents remains there and is real. Unification with God, total acceptance of yourself as the son of God.

Jesus is the qualiative state of knowing you are loved by God totally and you only as its one son. Gods best friend forever.

This is the song God sang to you when you were a baby on the TV.

You dont have to be logical in life. If you want to keep Jesus keep him.

 

The only ones blaspheming Jesus are the ones wearing his dead body and torture device around their necks.

Imagine Jesus was killed by torture of the iron maiden and people went around wearing iron maidens on their necks. Like wtf.

Edited 21 hours ago by Hojo

[trenton]

@Hojo Thank you. Pokemon is just as real and just as beautiful of Jesus.

[Lyubov]

I've noticed a weird trend where some people who I saw as free thinkers and attuned to mystical states (usually keeping it relatively dogma/religious free) almost sort of revert to Christianity especially if they are western minded. what gives? Usually they are living a very material life. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Lyubov

[Willy Phallicus]

Jesus wasn't staring a religion, he was telling individuals how to transform themselves and to take their cues on that path from their inner communion and to not rely on the cues from the religious establishment.

Of course his teachings were converted into an establishment.  It was integrated with the pagan religions (and mystery schools) on the go at the time for maximum appeal.

[trenton]

1 hour ago, Lyubov said:

I've noticed a weird trend where some people who I saw as free thinkers and attuned to mystical states (usually keeping it relatively dogma/religious free) almost sort of revert to Christianity especially if they are western minded. what gives? Usually they are living a very material life. 

I noticed in myself, that I didn't intellectually believe it, but for some reason the beliefs made me happy. I did not consciously choose to hold onto these beliefs, but my mind insisted on sticking to what family and culture mentioned while glorifying it. I ended up having dreams in which I met Jesus even though I also explored many other religions aside from Christianity. it seems that it might have something to do with lacking a stable direction or identity which religion offers. The person might want simplicity if they find deep spiritual work extensive, exhausting, and confusing. Religious themes are also common in trauma narratives as Jesus offers to heal people. If a person is drawn to spirituality in the hopes of avoiding suffering, then they might revert to religion if they were ultimately not motivated by truth.

I'm not quite sure I understand why, but those are some guesses.

[Hojo]

@Lyubov Jesus is at the core of their spiritual beleifs its someone you are introduced to at like 1 years old.

[Willy Phallicus]

1 hour ago, Lyubov said:

what gives?

They hadn't totally bought in or sold out yet so what little chunk of truth they can find is worth further exploration.

[trenton]

I remember in my case, there was a particular reason I was drawn to Christianity more than normal. Not only was this about my culture, but even more so it was about childhood sexual abuse and feeling tainted and unclean. This is ultimately what motivated me to explore the meaning the virgin Mary recently.

Supposedly, virginity was meant to symbolize purity, humility, and duty bound behavior even when difficult. The problem is that the symbolic meaning of virginity was lost in the literal interpretation which in turn conflated an entire religious morality system around a biological feature with no objective moral standing. The counter examples are Christians who engage in acts other than vaginal penetration to retain technical virginity or rape victims who were physically no longer virgins even if they still inwardly symbolized everything the virgin archetype represents. In that sense the rape victim wasn't actually tainted in terms of the character the archetype represents poetically, even if they might feel ashamed or degraded because of what happened.

This is the sort of thing I was contemplating when I started exploring this thread in Christianity. What I ultimately discovered is that not only was the entire system of morality wrong, but the virgin Mary may not have even been intended to be a virgin based on the translation errors. On top of that the entire prophecy on which the religion is based is logically incoherent and has nothing to do with Jesus or a virgin birth.

I think the grief may partially for the child I was that believed I fundamentally bad and permanently tainted, hoping that the cleanliness Christianity spoke of might restore me to who I once was. In reality I was never broken, not even in the context of this religion where literal virginity wasn't meant to be an all or nothing adjudication of character.

Much of that judgement had to do with male property laws in which women were treated as commodities. Although religion unfairly places the burden moreso on women, if the logic of the Bible were applied consistently, then there are plenty of predatory men in the Bible who would have been considered whores. There are also some ancient theologians who reached similar conclusions to me in terms of physical virginity and what it was meant to symbolically represent beyond a biological state which was often circumstantial rather than indicative of a person's true nature. Basically, you are not the body and your true nature is something deeper which cannot be physically destroyed.

Ultimately, the beliefs my mind held onto as if they made me happy on the surface despite my conscious disbelief, were actually making me miserable because of the assumptions on which contempory Christianity operates. It treats a biological state as permanent condemnation rather than a circumstantial state that exists independently of ones true nature.