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.

Not disagreeing with you, but from my reading of early Christian history, there's a third fundamental belief:

(3) He rose physically from the dead. That's why Easter is the most important Christian holiday.

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.

> i.e. by disagreeing with a person who says that Jesus being a "good guy" is an important aspect of the Christian faith

To be fair - and without offering an opinion either way on the thread itself - they never disagreed it was important.

What they said was "If you think Jesus being a 'good guy' is the most important part of Jesus, that's absolutely missing the point of Christianity".

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.

>> having to do with the Jewish priesthood

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 ?

This obviously is very important.

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.