Did Jesus respect other people's beliefs?

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The term "lord" does not always mean God - it can be a political or economic role, as in the Lord of the Manor, my Lords and Ladies. There are any number of hierarchies of Lords that this passage could have been referring to, and I presume that only necromancers would really know what the spirit of David thought about Jesus. And again, why should it matter to someone in China or Chicago 2000 years later? I don't believe that God designed true religion to exclude people that refuse to believe a bunch of improbable, confusing, conflicting scripture. On the other hand, if we accept that the 2 point law was said by Jesus and take things from there ....

So this man asked Jesus what to do for salvation, and Jesus gave him an answer that would not lead to his salvation? Isn't that like asking for bread and being given a stone??

man what a dick God is
so basically we're all screwed no matter what

I just said that it would lead to eternal life.
If the man could do it.

Remember, the man asked Jesus presumtuously, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

The only way to inherit it by your own doing is by being perfect. We can receive it, however, by asking Jesus, who,
also remember, had not yet died and rose (i.e. conquered sin for us) when He answered the man.
Therefore, that man, at that moment, had no way to catapult himself into Heaven without personally keeping the law perfectly.

Last edited by Ragtime on 30 May 2008, 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think you are drunk on words.

If the man needed to cross himself in a special way and say the magic spell or prayer, Jesus should have said so. If he needed to worship Jesus and have 'faith' in Jesus, Jesus should have said so. Instead, Jesus told him to love.

Last edited by monty on 30 May 2008, 2:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well... please don't interpret my enthusiasm as anything but. I tend to use heated words when excited about something,
even when that something is positive. Some in the past have, even in person, mistaken by enthusiasm for ... well, I don't exactly know, but something negative.

Please read my edited response regarding this. Sorry for the delay.

No need for apology - I actually edited my response after the fact as well.

I just think that your version of Christianity is incredibly complicated and relies on a huge amount of supposition and interpretation that requires 'faith'. Original sin, tripartite God, trying to fit all these prophecies and predictions together.

I would rather take what Christ said about salvation and love, take what was said in the Sermon on the Mount, and use that for the basis of Christianity.

I think that the parable of the Good Samaritan is proof that actions are more important than faith, doctrines and dogma.

When you get into theology, yes, it's very complex -- that's why there are advanced degrees and courses of study concerning it.
It gets into philosophy, of which many Aspies are also into its meticulous nature and interlinking details.

But what to do to be Saved is very simple.

We can't fully understand Christianity, since we cannot fully understand God,
but we can learn a great deal about how it all goes together through study.
The King James version of the Bible is 5.5 million characters,
so it's sheer size warns one of its complexity, just as it exists so that Christianity's complexity
may be learned, and understood.

But I don't think an inordinate amount of faith is required for belief in Christ,
especially given the powerful inner spiritual leading that accompanies converts
when they choose to accept Christ as Lord and Savior.

God gave us big brains! And he wants us to use them to the full, to study Him.



Well, the thing there is, if those who ignored the wounded man on the road had true faith in God,
which Jesus implies by His legalistic portrail that they did not,
then they would have helped the man.
Actions speak louder than words, but both flow from whatever faith/beliefs you have.
The priest and rabbi who passed by the wounded man had faith in ritualism, much as the Catholics
believe saying special words a certain number of times and performing certain invented rituals a
certain way does something for them on a spiritual plane.

But that's hocus-pocus thinking, related to casting a spell.

The greatest and second-greatest commandments make up the Ten Commandments, and are
to love God and man. But those who passed by the wounded man on the road to Samaria
showed no love. Rather, they chose to keep time-and-place rituals and traditions instead.

ouinon, suggest you check out books on this subject by Tim Freke and Peter Gandy. They argue more or less exactly this.

Anyway. What's odd is that while Jesus in the Gospels asks people to believe in him - the Greek word is better translated trust - he never asks anyone to give up their existing system of belief. Their families, homes and wealth, yes - but not their existing religious traditions. He heals a centurion's servant, but he doesn't tell him to lay off sacrificing to Mithras or Jupiter or whoever (or to stop being gay, but that's a whole other controversy). He uses a Samaritan as an example of someone who shows loving behavior to his neighbor, when all the orthodox Jews of the time hated Samaritans - they followed slightly different beliefs and were regarded as heretical. If you look at the Nativity stories, you have the Christ child visited and honored not by the orthodox religious folk of the day, but by wise men who from the description, were almost certainly Zoroastrians. None of these people are shown renouncing their existing beliefs or calling them 'false' or 'evil'. Interesting.

monty - you're right about adon', the Aramaic word for 'Lord' - it's simply a term of respect for any male superior to yourself in rank. It was used everywhere from being a woman's general term of address to her husband, up to being the title of many gods worshipped in Israel (apart from YHWH, whose name it generally substitutes for in the OT). So there's not always an easy way to work out who or what it refers to. Generally the case with translated words in very old documents of any kind!

Yes, but I have had conversion experiences to other religions, and the same thing happened ----- was just as powerful of an experience as conversion to Christianity. I can only conclude that these are psychological effects and are not proof of anything, except that my brain was firing in certain ways.

And I went to a Baptist meeting with a neighbor once - definitely felt myself slipping into a hypnotic state when people closed their eyes and the pastor started intoning. You can see the hypnosis and self-hypnosis in revival meetings. This is a really dangerous form of delusionary thinking that has become the bulkhead of much Christianity today.

Even so, who would King David -- the highest authority in the land, having no one over him -- call "Lord"?

He wrote in Psalm 110:1, "The LORD" (YHWH) "said unto my Lord, 'Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.'" The "on my [YHWH's] right hand" refers to a position of maximum power, no less than right under YHWH Himself in power and authority!

Last edited by Ragtime on 30 May 2008, 3:44 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Thank you... I've just checked who they are... ; I'd forgotten all about them. Loved their stuff. Thanks for reminding me! . I also found Robert M Price, and Earl Doherty's site very thought provoking, at:

http://www.jesuspuzzle.com/


That's not odd if Jesus is an archetype, a symbol for inner process/experience.

Last edited by ouinon on 30 May 2008, 3:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have no doubt of that, as my particular and widely-accepted theology allows for demons to give people spiritual experiences mimicking a conversion to Jesus.



Phychological manipulation is real, and possible anywhere, but there is spiritual sight as well, and my theology says that you haven't seen the truth with your "spiritual eyes/sight", or else you would not still doubt it. There are many Old and New Testament referrences to people doing or seeing things "in [the] spirit", and it's clear from the contexts that the phrase carries a literal meaning.

Given the fact that King David was born several hundreds of years before Jesus, it is hard to take that part literally.

I think a psychological explanation is better grounded in reality. This type of thing has occurred long before Jesusism came on the scene, long before monotheism was common. What were people supposed to believe in way back then? Were their only choices nothing and demons?