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A hypothetical question for Christians and non-believers.

S

SchrodingersDog

Banned
Suppose there really was a historical person named Jesus who was crucified because he claimed to be a savior of humanity. If you were there, at his crucifixion, and you were able to stop his murder, would you save him and allow him to live out the remainder of his life? You don't know anything except there's this guy who claims to be THE messiah and they're about to execute him. You've heard prophecies that the messiah must die to redeem humanity.

What will you do:

Save this man's life, or allow him to die in hope that these prophecies are true?
 
stop it of course. theres always someone claiming to be gods prophet son or whatever. look at david koresh and the countless other cult leaders... or all the guys that started the other religions.
 
Yeah, according to the account in the Bible, he "had it coming." But still, I'm not really interested in the circumstances surrounding his arrest and execution so much as to why anyone would let him be killed if they could stop it. And suppose, according to belief, that he willingly wanted to be killed. Wouldn't a man who claims to be humanity's savior and then willingly allow himself to be executed qualify as a bit mentally ill, in our modern day thinking?
 
yea...mental wards are teeming with people who do and think crazy things. back then with no scientific understanding of mental illness....anything coulda happened.
 
Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
Suppose there really was a historical person named Jesus who was crucified because he claimed to be a savior of humanity. If you were there, at his crucifixion, and you were able to stop his murder, would you save him and allow him to live out the remainder of his life? You don't know anything except there's this guy who claims to be THE messiah and they're about to execute him. You've heard prophecies that the messiah must die to redeem humanity.

What will you do:

Save this man's life, or allow him to die in hope that these prophecies are true?
Click to expand...

Sounds like the plot right out of one of Ann Rice's Lestat books. He tries this and jesus tells him not to. So what makes you think he would even have wanted you to stop his execution?
 
on pbs a while back they had a documentary on the mind. mostly narrated by dr Ramachandran...had a bit on epilepsy and religious experience. had a guy with the siezures on too, freaky stuff. anyways, this is related.

In 1997 Vilayanur Ramachandran and his colleagues from the University of California at San Diego headed a research study. The team studied patients of temporal lobe epilepsy measuring galvanic skin response on the left hands of the patients (11). This measurement allowed the research team to monitor arousal (specific autonomic nervous system response) and indirectly surmise the communication between the inferior temporal lobe and the amygdala, both important in response related to fear and arousal (9). In addition to two control groups a religious control group and a non-religious control group, each group was shown forty words, including violent words, sexual words, and simple words (like "wheel"), and finally, religious-related words. The results of the study showed a greater arousal in the temporal lobe epilepsy sufferers to religious words in comparison to the non-religious, whom were aroused by sexual words, and religious control groups, whom were aroused by religious and sexual words (10).

Ramachandran and his team concluded that although the patients were not experiencing seizures or experiencing supernatural occurrences at the time of testing, they were highly sensitive to religious words. Thus, the experiences of temporal lobe seizures strengthened the patients interest in religion (11). Such a conclusion seems fairly reasonable considering that these patients also reported religious experiences during their seizures. Is it possible that the increased arousal to religious words is not a direct result of their temporal lobe epilepsy, but rather a result of the supernatural experiences induced by their epilepsy? Possibly these patients began to research and study religion more to finds ways to explain the experiences that they had during their seizures. Subsequent research on very religious, non-epileptic subjects supports this idea. In a different experiment, the of very religious, non-epileptics' temporal lobes where noted to be more active (11). However, in epileptic patients, Ramachandran concludes that the seizure's damage to temporal lobe pathways makes these patients more sensitive to certain ideas that to others do not have great meaning; specifically, pathways that connect the part of the brain that gives recognizes to sensory information and the part that gives emotional meaning to the sensory information (4). Ramachandran believes that because of these specific damage, everything that these patients experience has great meaning (10). http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web2/Eguae.html
 
Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
I'm not a Christian, so I haven't been taught this, but is the popular belief that he knew it was coming and he let it?
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Yes he knew according to the Gospel writers. Of course how could he not really? He wanted it. Everything Jesus did in his political career was based on prophecy. He read a book and did what it said and people believed in him because they had also read the book and were told such things would happen. Anyway why the questions? Jesus didn't die.
 
Nobody said anything about Jesus dying for people's sins until the book of John was written, almost 100 years later. As best as I can surmise Jesus wasn't out wanting to get crucified, and he didn't really care about whether people believed in HIM, but rather his message. Perhaps he saw his own martyrdom, but i don't think it had anything to do with taking on the sins of mankind and people believing in him.
 
Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
Nobody said anything about Jesus dying for people's sins until the book of John was written, almost 100 years later. As best as I can surmise Jesus wasn't out wanting to get crucified, and he didn't really care about whether people believed in HIM, but rather his message. Perhaps he saw his own martyrdom, but i don't think it had anything to do with taking on the sins of mankind and people believing in him.
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I don't know who you are talking to but I didn't say anything about sin. Also the prophecies were in Jewish writings long before Jesus. He simply acted them out and put his spin on it. Yes he knew of his own martyrdom because he could have left but instructed Judas to turn him in.
 
You suggest that someone would attempt to do what Peter tried and failed to do, as recounted in Matthew 16:21-28.

Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
Suppose there really was a historical person named Jesus who was crucified because he claimed to be a savior of humanity. If you were there, at his crucifixion, and you were able to stop his murder, would you save him and allow him to live out the remainder of his life? You don't know anything except there's this guy who claims to be THE messiah and they're about to execute him. You've heard prophecies that the messiah must die to redeem humanity.

What will you do:

Save this man's life, or allow him to die in hope that these prophecies are true?
Click to expand...
 
Dude, he wanted to die. He like told Noah, Ezekial, Abraham and Eve that he was going to die that day, They were all like pissed, but they let it happen.
 
Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
Suppose there really was a historical person named Jesus who was crucified because he claimed to be a savior of humanity. If you were there, at his crucifixion, and you were able to stop his murder, would you save him and allow him to live out the remainder of his life? You don't know anything except there's this guy who claims to be THE messiah and they're about to execute him. You've heard prophecies that the messiah must die to redeem humanity.

What will you do:

Save this man's life, or allow him to die in hope that these prophecies are true?
Click to expand...

I am not sure that a person could do much to save someone the Roman's were going kill. The Romans were big on capital punishment and I think if anyone tried to interfere with one would have ended up nailed to a piece of wood too. Maybe a really large bribe would have worked.. The Romans killed Jesus because they considered him to be a trouble maker who was making noise around the Pass Over holiday.

Correct me if I am wrong, there was not a prophecy that the messiah was supposed to be murdered.

Your question has the implied foreknowledge of Jesus as the messiah. His own followers did not consider him the messiah until his resurrection, according to the christians, days after his death.

 
Nah. Not because he was Jesus, I just wouldn't try to save anyone. People have always bent over backwards to hurt me.

Btw your question needs to denote how much, if any, risk would be involved. Also needs a second "allow it" answer for those who just don't care / aren't religious. The current one categorizes all who'd allow it as true believers, which I'm certainly not.
 
He claimed to be a savior of humanity? I don't think he should have been crucified, so if I were there, and if I had the power, I won't let it happen
However, crucifying him was a political action, not a judicial one 😉
Calin
 
I believe I am the true Messiah and I will bring wrath on anyone who does not believe. Submit to my will or die!

Hmmm, would you all want me to die a horrible death now?
 
It's a historically undisputed fact that Jesus did exist and say what he did. What people argue about is whether he was telling the truth.
 
Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
I'm not a Christian, so I haven't been taught this, but is the popular belief that he knew it was coming and he let it?
Click to expand...

It was prophesied (told of) hundreds of years before it happened. And yes, He knew it was coming. The day he was betrayed by Judas, he prayed in a garden that God would "let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done."

He knew full well what it meant and asked that it not happen unless it was what God wanted. Clearly, it was, according to Chrisitianity, the only way for sinful man to be restored to God. Faith in the sinless Son of God restores us fully.

Heaven cannot be achieved by doing good or mostly good, only through faith in Christ.

According to Jesus "I am the truth, the way and the light, no man comes unto the Father except by me."

That's why Christianity is an exclusive religion. It only provides for one way to get to heaven, not multiple paths or hidden combinations. That's mostly why other religions don't like it.
 
Originally posted by: Gravity
Originally posted by: SchrodingersDog
I'm not a Christian, so I haven't been taught this, but is the popular belief that he knew it was coming and he let it?
Click to expand...

It was prophesied (told of) hundreds of years before it happened. And yes, He knew it was coming. The day he was betrayed by Judas, he prayed in a garden that God would "let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done."

He knew full well what it meant and asked that it not happen unless it was what God wanted. Clearly, it was, according to Chrisitianity, the only way for sinful man to be restored to God. Faith in the sinless Son of God restores us fully.

Heaven cannot be achieved by doing good or mostly good, only through faith in Christ.

According to Jesus "I am the truth, the way and the light, no man comes unto the Father except by me."

That's why Christianity is an exclusive religion. It only provides for one way to get to heaven, not multiple paths or hidden combinations. That's mostly why other religions don't like it.
Click to expand...


Where does it prophesied this in the Bible?
 
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