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- Those who do not agree with the [lord/liar/lunatic] argument have two defenses against it. One is to question how the word of The Bible is interpreted regarding metaphors and cultural framework and so on. The other is to question whether Jesus actually said those things: The gospels were passed around as oral tradition for a long time before they was written down. These two arguments can be combined. For example, many Christians believe that Jesus did say that he´s the Son Of God (and meant it literally rather than as a metaphor) while not believing that he actually said that all his followers must hate their parents.
I'm not sure what either of these have to do with the lord/liar/lunatic argument. The point of that argument is that you can't treat Jesus as a secular philosopher, as many do, since if he wasn't the Son of God, he was either lying or insane. It has nothing to do with controversies about his teachings themselves.
My posts make considerably more sense read in the voice of John Ratzenberger. Hide / Show Replies
When it comes to what "son of god" means, there are many different metaphorical interpretations as well as many different literal interpretations. And that's enev without going into the issue of whether Jesus even said those things or if they was added after his death. People who disagree with the LLL argument can make their pick. And no, the issue of whether or not Jesus Was Crazy is not limited to the issue of being "son of god", athough that's surely one of the main points.
The issue of whether Jesus Was Crazy, no, but the lord/liar/lunatic argument is, and that's what that one entry concerns. Anything broader is covered by the page itself. The first "defense," therefore, is irrelevant in its entirety, since Christ claims to be divine, even if he does not claim to be the literal son of God. The second is relevant, but it doesn't matter whether he claims that one should hate one's father, etc.
Edited by TwinBird My posts make considerably more sense read in the voice of John Ratzenberger.
Many public domain and historical characters have their own trope. Jesus is handled differently then the orhers, as his tropes are based on how he's characterized. We don't divide The Big Bad Wolf into separate tropes for him being cool, scary or an amusing failure.
Personally, I prefer that we keep it this way Jesus Was Way Cool and Jesus Was Crazy are fine the way they are, but we shouldn't encourage other characters to be split in the same way.
Regarding the last entry in the Real Life section: If you assume the Gospels record a true account, the trilemma works. Otherwise, it commits the excluded middle fallacy, neglecting options such as legend: that Jesus, whether or not he was a historical figure, may not have said everything attributed later to him. The argument regarding Jesus' early followers supposedly being in it for fame and glory is not one that I've heard before. I have however been presented with the argument by Christians that they would not "die for a lie." This neglects the counterexample of martyrs from various other religions (Bahaism, Islam, Mormonism, Sikhism, etc.) who, if you accept Christianity as the one, true religion, died for what they believed to be true, but were mistaken, and the same could be in their own case (not to mention that one cannot always avoid being killed, even if they renounce a religion). Further, the actual fates (or lives) of the disciples, let alone the existence of Jesus himself, is more an open question than that entry seems to believe.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.-Philip K. Dick