The important thing it seems is that his myth a part of our stories, and who we are, throughout a large part of the world.
Myths tell us about ourselves. The sad thing is when people distort or weaponize myth to control others for personal egocentric agendas.
Ultimately many of his apparent teachings seem to be timeless: finding joy in living simply; understanding that heaven is within; etc. Lots of overlap with Buddhist teachings on cessation of suffering. I'm not religious and still try to incorporate the beauty of these ideals!
Isn't it so that the "point of Christianity" depends entirely on historical context and who you're speaking to, which has continuously changed over thousands of years?
It seems like it isn't an objective science as you're implying; how does one measure such a thing? There are so many garden paths that lead to horrible rigid dogmatism, which we know to be the case when reflecting on history.
What works for me is just incorporating the helpful parts that help me live a more harmonious life, while respecting philosophies of others and trying to do no harm. Perhaps not to you, but that is the point of Christianity to me.
From some Christians' points of view the important part of the Jesus story is that he is sacrificed by God as a way of dealing with a fundamental break between humanity and God having to do with the Jewish priesthood.
That is the other important aspect of the Jesus story. He was the son of God in human flesh, exemplified by the manner in which he lived ("good guy") and by his teachings.
Yet he was betrayed by one of his disciples, and died a distinctly "low death". I think it's more correct to say that God sent Jesus down to Earth and Jesus sacrificed himself / God forsake him, than "he is sacrificed by God". This is probably a bit nitpicky from your perspective.
My main point is that there is no Christians that do not hold the following two aspects of Jesus as extremely important:
(1) The life of Jesus: how he lived and what he taught
(2) Jesus sacrificed on the cross
Frankly, I think you're not familiar with Christian teachings if you claim otherwise, i.e. by disagreeing with a person who says that Jesus being a "good guy" is an important aspect of the Christian faith. It is important, unequivocally.
Thanks for writing this. I think you put it more accurately than I could have - I was just trying to head of the endless other religions, athiests, and non christians saying "Yeah jesus was a great guy! super nice!" and missing the point that, just being a good teacher or a kind person, or even a perfect person makes a new religion called Christianity.
Without the divine nature of Christ, he would have been more of a Jewish reformer against the Pharisees. Sure there's the law, and I'm here to talk about it and to spread my thoughts and feelings on it and how we should interpret and use it. But that's not even the half of it.
God does miracles, whoop-de-doo.
God avoids temptation, whatevs.
God suffers as the sacrificial goat to expiate our sins? Yeah, right .
A good guy doing those? That is the essential point of Christianity, that God became man in order to walk in our shoes but still show us how to walk better.
I assume you're replying to me in error as my post says nothing about any of your points. In fact 50% of my entire comment was specifically saying I had no opinion either way.
Yeah, but like there have been and will continue to be plenty of good dudes. From a Christian point of view Christ's goodness is necessary, but not sufficient, to make him an important figure.
I do not remember this part of old testament. Care to elaborate?
>> fundamental break between humanity and God
This is not the first time when I heard this put this way but it is first time when it dawned on me how in this biblical context humanity is restricted to small parts of middle east - so I guess sorry Chinese, American & Australian natives from that time ?
However, the more important aspect of Jesus’ teachings was to steer believers away from the Old Testament and Jewish faith, and into something new.
Jesus is the catalyst for change from one religion to a new one based on the old. Indeed, one of the many contradictions of Christianity is having the New Testament contradict the Old Testament in so many ways.
He is just incorporating the most practical and useful aspects of Jesus teachings - the other aspects are too meaningless in context of day to day life to be useful to a nontheist.
Myths tell us about ourselves. The sad thing is when people distort or weaponize myth to control others for personal egocentric agendas.
Ultimately many of his apparent teachings seem to be timeless: finding joy in living simply; understanding that heaven is within; etc. Lots of overlap with Buddhist teachings on cessation of suffering. I'm not religious and still try to incorporate the beauty of these ideals!