<p>vicarious parent, the religion is Ethical Culture. You can read more about it here:[The</a> American Ethical Union](<a href=“http://www.aeu.org/]The”>http://www.aeu.org/) or the Wikipedia article provides a good overview. We are a bit like Unitarians, but perhaps more pragmatic and less spiritual.</p>
<p>It was founded in 1876 by Felix Adler, the son of a New York rabbi. Among other things they were involved in the creation of the visiting nurses and in the first free kindergarten.</p>
<p>I perfectly understand not wanting to listen to someone who wants to persuade you of his/her beliefs. Trust me, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons knock on my door, I am looking for a way out…and fast! However, you won’t hear me insulting them or calling them names. Evangelism is a basic tenet of their faith (as it is mine), just like going to mass is for Catholics or praying 5 times a day is for Muslims, and I respect that. </p>
<p>Like most of you, if I were in a workplace and a Muslim coworker was having his prayer time when I was needing to talk to him about a work issue, I might be a bit annoyed, but I would certainly not interrupt him. Practicing one’s faith trumps annoyance in my book.</p>
<p>It is unfortunate that being on the receiving end of the tenets of some faiths is annoying. In our country, we are blessed to have many rights and freedoms that those in some other countries don’t have. The right not to be annoyed is not one of them, though. I am not saying that you must stand there and shut up when someone wants to share their faith with you. Of course you would have the perfect right to say, “I’m not interested in hearing about that” and walking away. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I do have a problem with calling them names for doing what they are obliged to do as followers of their faith. </p>
<p>Obviously, if an Islamist Muslim feels that his faith requires him to blow people up, that’s different. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about words…about things people say to us that we don’t want to hear and what our response to that should be.</p>
<p>
Very true, kelsmom. In fact, the Bible says (here I go Bible thumping 
):
But it also says:
</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If a Christian believes that the Scriptures are true, then what is s/he to do? Clearly, s/he has to be ready to lose friends and be seen as arrogant and intolerant. However, sometimes s/he has the privilege of seeing someone listen, consider, and believe. Some Christians are gracious and sensitive about sharing their faith, while others are more like a bull in a china shop. Still, I would encourage all of you to see past their “technique” to their hearts.</p>
<p>I agree completely with timely.</p>
<p>Those who define Christians as “followers of Jesus” should understand who Jesus was. The easiest and most accurate way of doing this is to read the Bible. </p>
<p>John 17:17b
thy word is truth.</p>
<p>John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.</p>
<p>As C.S. Lewis famously pointed out in his book Mere Christianity, after reading the Bible one can reasonably conclude that Jesus is either a liar or a lunatic or he is telling the truth (i.e. he is God, our only hope for salvation). Those who call themselves followers of Jesus but think he was just some peaceful, kind philosopher who thought there are many ways to heaven are believing in something completely inconsistent with Jesus as described in the Bible. Jesus often quoted from the Old Testament as if it was true and as if he were the fulfillment of its promises. Furthermore, reading Jesus’ words in the Bible, he certainly did not always keep his opinions to himself, especially when confronting legalistic, self-righteous individuals. I guess some would label him as a “Bible thumper.”</p>
<p>Some equate following Jesus as trying to follow the Golden Rule (treat your neighbor as you wish to be treated). While this is true, it is not the entire story. As Jesus pointed out, the first and greatest commandment is to love God.</p>
<p>Matthew 22
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.</p>
<p>Evangelical Christians humbly believe that we are all inherently sinners by orientation and we can only figure out what God is like and how He wants us to live by reading the Bible and attempting to follow it.</p>
<p>This is my take, pafather (since I am the one who used “follower of Jesus”): In those quotes, I don’t read it that you must choose to name that way toward God as through Jesus. Because He, in my understanding, is the embodiment of good and love in the world, if that’s what you choose to live your life by, you are going through Him to God, even if your road is labeled a different way. I do know well those two great commandments. I believe someone who loves good and seeks to follow it does love God, in every way which makes sense to me. I don’t presume to read God’s mind, but it seems to be bigger and more embracing than anything that I could begin to imagine.</p>
<p>timely, let me respond to your questions as one who has been “loved” by evangelicals way too much and way too often.</p>
<p>I have my faith and you have yours. That’s fine. The minute your faith crosses into my face is where I have a problem, just as if it were your fist in my face. Your right to prostelytize stops where my right to privacy begins. (And yes, there is such a right in America - the right to be left alone.)</p>
<p>I do not consider all evangelicals to be Bible thumpers. I do consider some of them to be Bible thumpers. They are the ones who insist that there is only one way to believe - their way. They are the ones who insist that there is only one way to behave - their way. They are the ones who insert their beliefs and their reading of the Bible (which of course varies from denomination to denomination) into the public arena, and try to regulate my life on the basis of their beliefs.</p>
<p>If you tell me once that you are concerned for my soul and would like me to consider Jesus, and respect it when I say, “No, thanks” then no, you haven’t crossed a line. If you keep coming back because you “must” and keep trying to save me, then yes, you have crossed that line. If you try to “befriend” me not because you like me, but because you think that it will make it easier for you to “save” me, then yes, you have crossed that line. I have been in churches where, in pew next to the hymnal, were pamphlets on how to befriend Jews and convert them. Yes, that is patently offensive.</p>
<p>
How about following that other piece of Scripture? The one that says “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?” You specifically state that you want to “run away” from Jehovah’s Witnesses. So why would you “do unto” me any differently?</p>
<p>If that’s not enough for you, then frankly, I don’t care what a “good Christian” is supposed to do. That’s your problem, not mine.</p>
<p>As I told the last “good Christian”, “Jesus was a Jew. If it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.”</p>
<p>Chedva,</p>
<p>You suggest a Christian following the advice, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." As a Christian who believes that Jesus is the only way to salvation, if I had never heard the truth I would certainly want someone to persevere to tell me how to have eternal life, even if I were vocally reluctant to hear. That is one of the main reasons Christians witness to others. Note that Jesus never said, Do unto others as they would have you do to them. </p>
<p>You certainly have the right to consider Christians as patently offensive. Similarly, Christians who feel they are commanded to share the truth with others should follow their consciences, even if others discourage them from following this commandment. There are certainly some obnoxious Christians, just as there are some obnoxious Jews, atheists, etc. All Christians, Jews, Muslims,. etc. could do well to read books such as How to Win Friends and Influence People in which it is suggested to be genuinely interested in other people, not to fake it. You imply that others should only befriend you because they like you, but Jesus called us to even love our enemies.</p>
<p>There are some situations in which it is impossible for two people to both act according to their consciences and have neither of them be offended. Unless someone is harassing you in some way that is illegal, there is little you can do to stop most behavior that you deem offensive. There are some political / anti-religious, etc. bumper stickers I find offensive, but I do not demand that others stop putting them on their cars. I am just glad that I live in a country that allows free speech.</p>
<p>Regarding your reply to the Christian that, “Jesus was a Jew. If it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me,” unless you believe that you are God and that you are the only way to salvation, then you do not practice the same religion that Jesus did.</p>
<p>Thank you mathmom. You are the second person who has recommended Ethical culture to me. I’ll look into it.</p>
<p>I always come back to Jesus with the woman at the well. I don’t recall him doing anything other than being kind (when it was absolutely not socially acceptable to speak with her). Men decided what exactly they thought Jesus was telling us to do.</p>
<p>While you’re absolutely right that Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman kindly when it was unacceptable for a Jew to do so, he also confronted her with who he was, who she was, and what she believed. I think when we encounter Jesus, in whatever way that is, we are indeed surrounded by love, but we’re also forced to confront ourselves in a very profound way. At least, that was my experience.</p>
<p>Do you realize that Christianity is but one way to see the world? That there are a dozen major religions and hundreds of minor ones, each with their own history, prophets and philosophers? Many have one or more books written directly by the corresponding god or major prophet and used by scholars of that school of thought to guide their lives? Who’s to say which one of them is “The Truth”?</p>
<p>You “believe that Jesus is the way to salvation”. I respect that. I have a different set of beliefs, and I would hope you would respect that as well.</p>
<p>I think that anyone who believes that others who don’t believe like they do are going to hell are already IN hell, and are deluding themselves otherwise.</p>
<p>And, to quote Gandhi, “I know a way out of hell.”</p>
<p>Assuming, of course, that there IS a hell ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with mini. I also agree with Bill Maher, who observed that when it comes to God or religion, it takes true humility to say “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>
timely asked why it was that people used the term “Bible thumpers” to identify evangelicals and that she thought the term was offensive. Well, my response was to explain why I use that term. Your faith may call on you to behave offensively by continually trying to convert those who are uninterested. That’s your choice and your right. But then don’t be surprised when those others in fact take offense and start using terms that you don’t like. I don’t care how wholeheartedly you believe that you must continue to try to convert me - in that sense, timely, I will not “look into their hearts.” Their motive in prostelytizing is irrelevant to me. I do not believe as you do. Period. And I do not believe that the call to prostelytizing came from God. You do because you believe in the New Testament and your faith’s interpretation of it as the Word of God. I don’t. And there we have the conundrum. </p>
<p>
Now, one moment here - I do not consider Christians patently offensive, and nowhere in my post did I say so. I consider some Christians patently offensive, but that is on the basis of their actions, not their beliefs. Believe as you will; just leave me out of it.</p>
<p>
No, I do not so imply. I stated (no implication necessary) that I find it both deceptive and offensive to befriend me, and to pretend to befriend me, for the sole purpose of attempting my conversion. And last I looked, I was not your “enemy”. The only person who will suffer if I’m wrong, and my soul is lost because I do not accept Christ as Son of God, is me. </p>
<p>I may be wrong. You may be right. But it’s my choice.</p>
<p>
I don’t either. I just demand that they stop trying to put those bumper stickers on my car.</p>
<p>
Sorry, but this one has me baffled. I don’t believe I’m God, but then again, I’m not asking Jesus to believe in me. I’ll stick with the Father, thanks.</p>
<p>I prefer the Mother myself, if I had choose. ;)</p>
<p>(By the way, the evidence for a Jewish Jesus is lacking. The New Testament account would itself, according to Jewish law, make him a “mamza”, and prohibited from marrying into the Jewish community for seven generations, and not counted as Jewish for purposes of a minyan, or other religious ceremonies and practices. There are enough errors in his accounts of Jewish law in the New Testament to suggest that he wasn’t particularly knowledgeable, though that could be the result of ignorance on the part of the authors rather than Jesus himself.)</p>
<p>mini, from what I learned about the laws of mamzerim, I don’t believe that he would have been a mamzer, even if the New Testament account were true. It has nothing to do with the marital status of one’s parents; that Mary was not married when Jesus was conceived would not make him a mamzer. One is only a mamzer if one is the product of a forbidden relationship - incest, adultery, etc. I’m not sure the Talmud ever considered the situation posited by the Nativity story.</p>
<p>Since Judaism passes through the maternal line, in order not to question whether Jesus even existed, I’ll assume that he was Jewish. (The tribe to which one belongs passes through the paternal line - I won’t even touch that one!)</p>
<p>And I also prefer the Mother, or as it is referred to in our tradition, the Shechinah.</p>
<p>I am not a Christian. I am a Unitarian. I admire the teachings and example of the man Jesus as much as we know them, but I do not think that he was a “god.” I also admire the teachings and example of the man Socrates, but I do not think that he was a “god” either. I distinguish between the “religion”–or ethical example–OF Jesus and the religion ABOUT Jesus, which was mostly constructed by Paul and which typically reaches to either Paul or the Old Testament when it wishes to support something that Jesus himself would probably have been appalled by. (Killing and discrimination, for example.)</p>
<p>I don’t have a particular problem with personal proselytizing, probably because I’ve rarely experienced it. </p>
<p>What I do have a problem with is the attempt to enshrine religion in general and (by reason of frequency in our nation) Christianity in particular in law and public practice. You know the drill: prayers over the loudspeaker in public schools, justified by statements that “this is a Christian nation,” prayers at graduations and other ceremonies, insertion of “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance, the ten commandments in courtrooms, and so forth.</p>
<p>I totally understand persistent and relentless proselytizing by individuals and private organizations. I assume these people think they are trying to “save” me. If I was drowning I would want people to try to save me even if I was fighting them off. Do I find it annoying? Absolutely. But I understand why they are doing it.</p>
<p>If the proselytizing ever gets violent or if it is government sponsored proselytizing, then I would have a major problem with it. That is why I get upset at government sponsored “faith based” programs.</p>
<p>"One is only a mamzer if one is the product of a forbidden relationship - incest, adultery, etc. I’m not sure the Talmud ever considered the situation posited by the Nativity story.</p>
<p>Either the offspring of an illicit union of an unmarried woman with a non-Jew, or of a rape. The incest/adultery rules only apply to relationships between Jews. Modern orthodoxy reinterpreted the rules regarding rapes of a married woman (by a non-Jew) for obvious reasons.</p>
<p>Throughout the New Testament, there are many hints. Jesus disappears at age 12 (just before the age of Bar Mitzvah.) He speaks in synagogues, but doesn’t pray in them. He never actually makes a sacrifice at the Temple. He eats with non-Jews. And (unheard of for a Jewish rabbi or teacher) he never marries. This one has him in a stuck position: he can’t marry a Jewish woman (the Law forbids); and if he marries a non-Jewish one, he loses what little standing he has in the Jewish community.</p>
<p>There were mamzerim (two, I believe) who were Talmudic scholars. They were allowed to participate in certain aspects of Jewish cultural life of the time. But none of the sacrificial observances.</p>
<p>Aren’t you speaking somewhat anachronistically, though? The Temple (and along with it the sacrificial system) was destroyed in 70CE. While the Oral Law was certainly part of Jewish life during the time of Jesus, the Talmud itself didn’t begin to appear in written form until after that time. Were there Talmudic scholars before 70CE?</p>
<p>At any rate, you’re right that Jesus doesn’t act as a typical Jew of his time would. That doesn’t make him non-Jewish, it makes him a revolutionary, in both the spiritual and political senses.</p>