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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Was Jesus a philosopher?

There's a post at the NYT's philosophy blog - Returning to the Sermon on the Mount - that mentions Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek article, Andrew Sullivan: Christianity in Crisis, on following Jesus as a philosopher rather than as, well, God. Here's the beginning of the philosophy blog article ...

“Forget the church, follow Jesus” is the cover message on a recent issue of Newsweek, featuring an essay by Andrew Sullivan. He maintains that what’s really important about Christianity is the moral code of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, freed from the dubious theology and corrupting politics that have plagued the history of the institutional church. The idea is widely attractive, with non-Christians and even some atheists professing admiration for what Sullivan (quoting Thomas Jefferson) calls “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered.” ....

The NYT's blog article opines that Jesus is no philosopher and that the only way to really profit from the sermon on the mount is to view it through the lens of organized religion. I do think that it's probable Jesus is best understood from the pov of a believer, and I despise Jefferson's mutilated version of the bible, but I think that doesn't necessarily mean one has to be a card-carrying member of an institutional church (or need to be a fan of Augustine and Aquinas as Gutting seems to believe) to appreciate what Jesus is all about.


1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Once UP on a "Time" there was a man who lived and lived and life was good so good that angels became jealous and believed that if they could borrow his identity, they could be just as happy for eternity and long story short on 3 occasions they tried to keep his identity and this man gave them a fight but still the angels never gave UP and long story shorter, for a fourth time with societies help, they managed to send this man's entire body cells to a mental hospital for a weekend. Truth be known, they wanted this man to stay longer but were only able to have him take pills which made this man's body shake with rejection. The angels even had his wife believe that "IT" was for his own protection but for this man when he started to shake and heard his wife yell out things like, "What are ya doing? Are ya stupid? Stop that! and long story short, it was just too much for this man to live in this so called "Twilight Zone" so he planned to take his life. Long story short, he planned "IT" perfectly in his mind and he would hang himself in a hall but then he heard a quiet voice calling him a coward and long story short, this man thought "IT" was GOD talking but could not be sure so he said to himself, self this evil pain is terrible but I'll hang on to "IT" for "Seven" days and if "IT" is not gone then "IT" would be "Fait accomplie". Long story short, the angels knew that they had won but nevertheless could not take over his flesh until his flesh received the springling of gods holy water. Long story short, this man went to church and received "The Body and Blood of His Lord Jesus The Christ" and on the "Third day GOD brought him back to life." and the angels were even more jealous and angry so......

I hear ya! Stop "IT" sinner vic cause again you're starting to sound like Victor and personally speaking, "I" think that he's starting to grow on ya! :)

Peace

Victor

7:17 AM  

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