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They think, "Jesus was cool. I like him, and I'm gonna try to be like him." Kind of like their guiding light is what would Jesus do? But there isn't a focus on identification, recruiting others, judging others based on their religion, fear of God, fear of punishment for sinning, respect for clergy as an authority, rituals, worship, etc. Basically, just the example of Jesus' life.

inb4: Christian lol!! got em!

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[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 60 points 4 weeks ago

Like uh... normal? Jesus, as described, seems like a pretty chill dude. It's christianity that gets into the crazy shit.

[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 4 weeks ago

I take it you haven't read the book of John?

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 11 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah. There's some good stuff there, like 8:32*, but it's full of so much crap** that... urgh.

*"And you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

**Give the whole chapter 5 a check, specially 5:14; crippling people is apparently their god's punishment for sinning. Or 3:36, someone gets really pissy if you don't believe him!

[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 4 weeks ago

I was thinking John 6 is pretty nuts tbh. There are a lot of problems with Christ, like how quiet and accepting he seemed about slavery, or how fragile he is about his ego and being respected as God, the central message of Christ is about his divinity, not about moral teachings. He threatened anyone who disagreed with his divinity with eternal damnation and so on. Just not the kind of person you would think of as a "chill dude", rather the description "crazy" comes to mind when I read the book of John especially.

[-] jerkface@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago

His moral teachings are irrelevant. It's like how when cops volunteer to do a charity car wash. Moral behaviour doesn't get you everlasting life.

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Not since catechism. What weird shit happens? Cuz I don't remember. I mean, besides the supernatural BS during the crucifixion and resurrection.

[-] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The book of John shows the problems with Christ's mental health much more plainly, it portrays him as a megalomaniac with paranoid and psychotic tendencies. If you just sit down and read the book of John you will get what I mean.

Personally I was particularly struck by John 6. Christ has amassed a following, and seems to have trouble feeding and appeasing the crowd that follows him around. It seems like the subtext is that he wants to lose the crowd, so he runs away to the mountains (6:15) where they can't follow to lose the crowd temporarily, and when he comes back, he makes a speech to his followers in which he claims to be God and demands belief in his divinity as the only way to be resurrected after they die.

The crowd is a bit miffed about Christ's suddenly weird behavior, since they knew him growing up it was hard to take him seriously as a supposed god now:

They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

Christ re-iterates he's the only way to God, and then things get even more weird:

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

The people are stumped (6:52):

"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Christ doubles down on this alienating cannibalism talk:

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

People didn't love the boasting and claims that he was God, but they especially didn't appreciate this cannibalism angle, so his followers abandoned him:

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

And there were only twelve people left who supported the clearly unwell guy who claims to be God and who requires you eat his flesh to allow him to resurrect you after you die.

The ones remaining re-affirm their loyalty, and in response Christ says:

"Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!"

This comes across to me as incredibly paranoid, and in conjunction with the cannibalism and claims about being divine, they paint a picture of Christ as unhinged and mentally unwell. Of course Christians these days take communion and have normalized the cannibalism angle so it doesn't seem so crazy, but I read the book of John without the context of communion or transubstantiation, and furthermore the followers of Christ who heard his speech about eating his flesh and drinking his blood likewise didn't have that context, otherwise they would not have found it so alienating and disturbing, such that he would have lost all his followers. (I guess the twelve that remained and were on-board with the whole cannibalism and necromancy thing).

I'm apparently not the only one who thought Christ seemed mad, there are observations of this made in other parts of the gospels as well, like Mark 3:21–22:

And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, "He is beside himself". And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Be-el′zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons".

or John 10:19–21:

There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, "He has a demon, and he is mad; why listen to him?" Others said, "These are not the sayings of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

So yeah, while there are some interesting things Christ has said (Sermon on the Mount comes to mind as saying a few good things), there are plenty of reasons to be wary of choosing Christ as a role model. You essentially have to ignore all the problems and just take the good parts to protect Christ's image, but then I would ask why you would do this if you weren't some kind of Christian. It seems unmotivated, there are other people who lived lives of more virtue and with less baggage, there is no reason to choose Christ in particular, unless you have some kind of loyalty to Christ as a figure in particular.

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[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 weeks ago

Well, he explicitly condoned slavery, so...

[-] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 29 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

There is a lot of good messaging in the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, etc. You don't need to be religious to appreciate that. Just like how somebody who appreciates in the mission and words of The Amazing Randi does not need a special label.

The labels start to come into play when discussing your belief or disbelief in a god or gods.

[-] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago
[-] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

I'm assuming we're talking about the late, great, Randy Savage. So, their spelling is correct. Oooh yeah!

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[-] EndOfLine@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Yes. Thanks for catching that.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 3 points 4 weeks ago

Yep! I was trying to find a short way of describing my situation in this area when asked about it.

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[-] bear@lemmynsfw.com 22 points 3 weeks ago

You answered your own question because the literal term for a follower of Jesus Christ is in fact the word Christian lol got em.

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[-] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

My Grandmother always called this sort of thing being a "red letter Christian". Basically like you take a highlighter to everything Jesus specifically did or said and discard the rest.

My Mom's family all followed this principle since like the 70's thus saving my trans ass from any hint of intergenerationally inflicted religious trauma so I am a fan. My 92 year old great uncle went to bat to fight for non-binary gender accommodations in his seniors home because one of his nurses is an enby who was getting a raw deal from a number of their paitents. Honestly, though I don't think the Christian God is what he says he is, his kid seems weird but as a rules for life kinda thing the results seem good. .

[-] shasta@lemm.ee 24 points 3 weeks ago

For context, in some versions of the Bible, the words of Jesus were printed in red font while the rest was black.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 5 points 3 weeks ago

Interesting, I thought GamGam was just calling them whores

[-] Zikeji@programming.dev 12 points 4 weeks ago

Sounds like you're describing that you view how he is depicted as a good role model. I think the best way to describe it would just be "I'm atheist/agnostic/etc but view Jesus as a good role model" or something to that effect.

Or just lean into chaos and go with "Jesus is my role model" with no elaboration and let people make of it what they will.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 6 points 4 weeks ago

Yes! I like this one. Thank you.

[-] Skates@feddit.nl 10 points 3 weeks ago

Jeezie. Like Swiftie, but for fan fiction on the Hebrew Bible.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 4 points 3 weeks ago

I'm really going to use this. And when there is a dilemma that's easily solved by WWJD, it's gonna be easy Jeezy

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[-] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

An enthusiast?

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Agnostic or spiritual.

[-] Mango@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

I'd call you a fan. I'm a fan of Gandalf.

[-] _NetNomad@fedia.io 8 points 4 weeks ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuism

Neither are perfect because Christian Athiests includes people who are "culturally Christian" as that can include clergy as an authority and rituals, and Jesuism would include splinter religious groups and is very easily confused with the Catholic Jesuit order. hopefully it's a starting point though!

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 3 points 4 weeks ago

This is it!! Thank you very much 😁

[-] mjsaber@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 4 weeks ago

I use the term Atheistic Christian, which essentially means I believe in a lot of the teachings of Jesus, but I don't believe he was any kind of divinity.

[-] vzq@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago

Not to be confused with “secular Christian”, which in popular parlance means “I hang around church for the community but I’m not spiritual”.

[-] TheDoozer@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

Do you need to be an -ian? Like, if you like the teachings of Ghandi, or Socrates, or Marcus Aurelius, you don't have to call yourself a Ghandian, or a Socratian, or an Aurelian. You just agree with their teachings.

I feel like you're just making a dig on Christians, and it's not like a lot of them don't deserve it, but what you're talking about isn't a religion. You don't need an -ian to like a philosophy.

[-] BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place 5 points 3 weeks ago

Nah, I don't need to identify. That's too restrictive. I'm looking for a shorter way to describe it when asked.

[-] pocker_machine@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago

If there exits one, most probably next question to you would be “What is that ?” And then you give the long explanation.

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[-] vxx@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

I met a group that called themselves 'Jesus Freaks', but they were just annoying trying to indocrinate people on music festivals.

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[-] clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 weeks ago

What a coincidink, I just commented this on another thread.

The Thomas Jefferson bible might be up your alley. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

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[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

fan of Jesus?

[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 4 points 3 weeks ago

The Jesus fandom.

[-] LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 weeks ago

A Jesuit! Oh wait...

[-] Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

From reading your post it seems like you could be interested by the Jesus movement (that is the jewish followers of Jesus, before catholicism was codified and adopted by the Romans as state religion). Everything that wasn't authoritarian fear-based catholic was branded as "gnostic heresy" and purged from the canon, but there's some real good shit that is very close to the core message of Christ.

A recent(-ish) example of gnostic christianity is catharism, which was a heresy that lasted for a few centuries in the South of France. They had no clergy, just a caste of ascetic wise men and women who would walk the land and dispense wisdom and judgement. Very egalitarian, very spiritual, very christ-like. As you can imagine, they got crushed in one of the rare "self-crusades" in history (meaning the King of France sent his own armies to burn down cities in his own country and murder thousands upon thousands of his own subjects). As you can imagine there is not one history teacher in France who will tell you about this episode.

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[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 4 weeks ago

I don't think that there's a specific term for picking a religious figure solely as a behaviour standard, with no regards to the beliefs. But you could describe yourself as "morally Christian", I guess?

[-] turbowafflz@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Maybe like nonreligious christian? I feel like the word christian doesn't inherently imply actual religion even though it's usually used that way, the same way identifying as a satanist can mean many different things. I'm neither a theologist nor a linguist though so maybe everything I said is nonsense

[-] loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago

Good question, but I guess it also goes down to what you think Jesus was. Do you think he was God Incarnate or had a divine nature? Do you think he was a prophet of God, but himself simply human? Or just a cool guy, but nothing divine? In the first case, you are a Christian, even if you don't identify with any of the well known versions of Christianity. After all, many different conceptions of Christianity have existed.

In the third case, I don't think there is or should be a term for it. After all, is there a word for someone who thinks Marcus Antoninus was a cool guy? If that's not something that constitutes an important part of who you are and how you think, why should you be called anything in regards to it? Maybe depending on just how much you like him, we might call you a Jesus fan. Jesus fanboy or fangirl at worst. But there needsn't be a specific word.

Now, the middle case, where you recognize Jesus as a prophet is an interesting one, because several religions would qualify, including Manichaeism, Islam and Druzism; and as far as I know there isn't a term that englobes them all without also including Judaism... If I were to invent a term for that, I might go with "jesuic" or "yeshuaic", by analogy with the word "abrahamic" that englobes those who recognize Abraham as a prophet.

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[-] mjhelto@lemm.ee 3 points 3 weeks ago

Isn't this just the Golden Rule? I've tried to live like this everyday for 20 years, but it can be difficult in this day and age. Most people don't think like that. It's easy to hold the door for people or say thank you, but it's hard when you don't receive the same courtesy. Jokes on them, though, cause they'll burn in hell!

[-] BonerMan@ani.social 3 points 4 weeks ago
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[-] MissJinx@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

So you have your faith but don't subscribe to crazy rules writen by men that have nothing to do with the faith?!

I would call you "Intelligent"

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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
88 points (91.5% liked)

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