Reply to: Are you religious/ superstitious?

[d000hg]

Or perhaps Jesus never claimed to be the Son Of God, but was just a gifted moralist ahead of his time, and those claims where stiched on by a commitee of people afterwords?

Get the Alpha video/notes for this topic. It's been done to death.

[kandr]

Yes, but it's your own choice whether you agree Jesus isn't a lunatic/fiend part. He's only adding his own personal thoughts on the end.

Anyway this is simply one person's argument anyway, I posted it to answer Mich since it's probably the most well-known "sound-bite" answer that doesn't require several pages of theology, and can be understood by just about anyone.

I certainly wouldn't put much stock in the words of someone who claimed the things about themself Jesus did, if I didn't belief those things. It'd be like a political leader announcing they're a space alien.

Or perhaps Jesus never claimed to be the Son Of God, but was just a gifted moralist ahead of his time, and those claims where stiched on by a commitee of people afterwords?. CS Lewis seemed to take the New Testament as Gospel!

[xoggoth]

I wonder if we can put much stock in the pronouncements of a guy whose character travels in space with no vessel or space suit and gets a bit sun burnt down one side.


PS Assuming I am recalling That Hideous Strength correctly. It was about 50 years ago I read it.

[Wodewick]

Yes, but it's your own choice whether you agree about the lunatic/fiend part. He's only adding his own personal thoughts on the end... and this is simply one person's argument anyway, regardless if it's popular, not holy writ. Lots of Christians dislike the argument too, but to me it's a decent one, and I posted it to answer Mich since it's probably the most well-known "sound-bite" answer that doesn't require 3 chapters

I certainly wouldn't put much stock in the words of someone who claimed the things about themself Jesus did, if I didn't belief those things. It'd be political leader announcing they're a space alien.

Given the thread topic that just made me laugh!!!

[d000hg]

Yes, but it's your own choice whether you agree Jesus isn't a lunatic/fiend part. He's only adding his own personal thoughts on the end.

Anyway this is simply one person's argument anyway, I posted it to answer Mich since it's probably the most well-known "sound-bite" answer that doesn't require several pages of theology, and can be understood by just about anyone.

I certainly wouldn't put much stock in the words of someone who claimed the things about themself Jesus did, if I didn't belief those things. It'd be like a political leader announcing they're a space alien.

[doodab]

This argument certainly doesn't even try to imply that Jesus is God. That's not the point; you're making your own extrapolation.

Lewis states clearly that if Jesus wasn't a lunatic or a fiend then he (and by extension anyone else following his line of argument) has to accept the view that Jesus was and is god.

Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God

Now, Lewis doesn't give his reasons for believing Jesus was "neither a lunatic or a fiend" except to state that it "seems obvious", so I've had to guess as to why he might think that, but the conclusion is all his.

[d000hg]

The premise is not that nothing a lunatic or fraud says can be valid but that their character is so muddied by it, it's crazy to suggest they can be a role model.

This argument doesn't imply that Jesus is God. You're making your own extrapolation... no doubt that's an intention but it's not stated as part of the argument. If you want to decide Jesus was mad, that's your call.

[doodab]

Obviously anyone who claims to be god (assuming they are not) might be mad but Lewis appears to be saying that of anyone who preached any of Christ teachings.

His argument relies on the unstated premise that because everything lunatics and liars say is unreliable it must also be false, and by reductio ad absurdum infers that because some of what he said is "true" it cannot have come from a lunatic or liar, therefore all of it must be true.

Reject the unstated premise and the argument falls apart.

[d000hg]

Obviously anyone who claims to be god (assuming they are not) might be mad but Lewis appears to be saying that of anyone who preached any of Christ teachings.

You've mis-read it, or you missed the context. From the same wiki page:

Lewis's trilemma is based on the view that, in his words and deeds, Jesus was asserting a claim to be God

Doodab's summary is correct.

[xoggoth]

Obviously anyone who claims to be god (assuming they are not) might be mad but Lewis appears to be saying that of anyone who preached any of Christ teachings.

[doodab]

That comment by C S Lewis makes not an ounce of sense.

I think he's arguing that you either have to accept Jesus claim to be the son of god or dismiss him as a mental case. It made me think of this

[xoggoth]

That comment by C S Lewis makes not an ounce of sense. Words said by one person are great moral teachings, the same words said by someone else are the mouthings of a lunatic?

[xoggoth]

I never said such a thing existed. I said books which examine the historical evidence which is recorded, and analyse it against the claims if the bible. I already mentioned a well-known book on the subject.

Reading one at the moment "Legend. The genesis of civilisation", the location of the Garden of Eden and so on and it's fairly believable. However, as I said earlier, even if much the bible is based on real people, places and events, it does not prove that anything of the supernatural parts are true, anymore than the reality of Transylvania or Vlad Tepes proves that there are vampires. Anyone who wants to make a story ring true will use as many real facts as possible.

Claims by real people may also be repeated uncritically. A lot of intelligent people believe Ron Hubbard's tall tales of how he travelled the Far East dispensing his wisdom to gurus. Perhaps Moses was a similar character.

[doodab]

C.S. Lewis says...

This only holds if it's correct to assert that neither a liar or a lunatic can be moral, and I don't think either are strictly true.

[d000hg]

Is it not possible and reasonable to hold the teachings of Jesus Christ, and by extension, Jesus himself in considerable reverence while not believing in a supernatural being? Could a person who often looks at Christ's teachings for moral guidance, while not believing in God, possibly be seen as a 'christian'?

C.S. Lewis says:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

More here: mad, bad, or God

PS: someone was asking for decent apologetics authors the other day. C.S. Lewis is probably a good call (same guy who wrote Narnia). As well as serious tomes, he is well-known for the Screwtape stories.