What's the term for someone that likes Jesus of Nazareth, but doesn't identify with church, religious dogma, or whatever?
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!
91 replies
Like uh... normal? Jesus, as described, seems like a pretty chill dude. It's christianity that gets into the crazy shit.
I take it you haven't read the book of John?
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.
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.
yeah, at least not according to him; but his moral teachings got a lot of people in the door and interested in following him, and the whole "faith without works is dead" thing (book of James is pretty lit tbh)
People who model their lives after the teachings of Jesus are pretty rare. I think it is more psychologically valuable because Christians are able to psychologically transfer the moral qualities of Jesus to themselves. Jesus is "good" in ways that most Christians today don't even give a shit about, but it gives him moral character, and so it allows Christians to feel like they have moral character as well.
In fact, I was going to link to the article about "moral licensing" as though I actually knew what I was talking about (I don't) and I see there is a section about exactly this idea, where people see themselves as having the moral qualities of others in their in-group:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing#Group_membership
So in a way, the stories about Jesus allow Christianity to fill an important spiritual role in people's lives: assuring them that they are good people. But it's tricking them, and Jesus has to be a model of good morality for this trick to work.
John is way sus.
not sure what you mean
The Gospel of John is the last one written, much later than the others and is full of things that are suspicious. Almost as if it was specifically written to direct a nascent cult into the direction it wanted them to go and not particularly inspired by any actual events.
oh interesting, TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John#Historical_reliability
Thanks! I'll have to read the book of Mark and see how it compares (esp. I wonder if the events depicted in John 6 occur in the book of Mark).
Nah, I was brought to church as a kid but I haven't really read the Bible closely. Honestly, I'm just going off a general read of "dude who helps people in need and isn't an ass".
I recommend you read the book of John!
I wrote a longer response to Kolanaki if you want to read that as well, sorta summarizes what I think are some of the relevant bits as to why Christ isn't such a great role model.
Not since catechism. What weird shit happens? Cuz I don't remember. I mean, besides the supernatural BS during the crucifixion and resurrection.
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:
Christ re-iterates he's the only way to God, and then things get even more weird:
The people are stumped (6:52):
Christ doubles down on this alienating cannibalism talk:
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:
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:
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:
or John 10:19–21:
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.
Knowing the context of communion and transubstantiation, I feel like Jesus was talking in metaphors but some people took it literally. Maybe it's because my Christian teachings were from a Lutheran church where nearly everything is just taken as a metaphor. I also suspect that's why I am an atheist, to begin with; none of it was ever claimed to be real. 🤷🏻♂️
Eh, ironically it's the Lutherans who still believe in transubstantiation, which means communion is not a metaphor and the essence of the bread turns to Christ's flesh and the essence of the wine turns to Christ's blood, the cannibalism is more literal for Lutherans than some denominations.
Either way, Christ could have qualified his statements if he was speaking in metaphors, as he does in other passages, but he was strangely literal about eating his flesh and blood, and again that whole chapter reads like Christ was wanting to alienate his followers because he had amassed a crowd that he didn't want to deal with.
And yes, lots of scripture is interpreted as not having a literal interpretation, that everything has hidden and layered meanings. This was used a lot by Christians to re-interpret the Hebrew bible as foretelling Christ as the Messiah, and before Christ the priests and interpreters wished to breathe life and meaning into scripture by finding meanings in there that weren't supported by a more literal or direct reading. Still, this seems like addled religious thinking to me, strangely disrespectful of the scripture and motivated by a need to resolve cognitive dissonance when passages don't make sense or contradict something the church wishes to change their minds on (such as the way the Roman Catholic Church re-interpreted Christ's messages on poverty and wealth).
If he was simply insane, then how would he have performed any of his miracles? Or are you going to throw out the parts of the Bible you don't like and keep the ones that support your position?
Also, I've dealt with, and am friends with, plenty of people with what you would call "paranoid and psychotic tendencies." That you would accuse someone who walked this earth more than 1,900 years ago of having them suggests you either have supreme medical and historical knowledge. Perhaps you've spoken with him so you can make an accurate diagnosis?
If he is, then that explains everything he said and did in the Bible. It's pretty obvious that if he's God that he would want people to follow him.
He was talking about Judas, who was stealing money from the ministry and later sold Jesus out for a handful of silver. Calling that out isn't paranoia.
If he was just a madman and the people he was "curing" of "demons" were also madmen, those "cures" wouldn't have happened. No person with schizophrenia has ever been cured of this disorder simply because another person with schizophrenia touched them. I've had the disorder for about seven years at this point; I wish it were that simple.
I agree with you that following Jesus doesn't make a lot of sense unless you're worshipping him. His entire message is based on his own divinity. If he was just a prophet, then if he was a good one, he wouldn't be saying things like "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30).
Pretty easy, he didn't do that bullshit.
So what did he do, then? How can you substantiate it?
He built a cult based on a monotheist version of the Canaanite religion.
Well, he explicitly condoned slavery, so...
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.
Randi, no?
I'm assuming we're talking about the late, great, Randy Savage. So, their spelling is correct. Oooh yeah!
Hell yeah brother! The cream of the crop rises to the top one again!
Yes. Thanks for catching that.
Yep! I was trying to find a short way of describing my situation in this area when asked about it.
While not a term maybe a short blurb like "While I am not religious, I admire many of the lessons of Jesus as portrayed in the Bible, and I try to model parts of my life after his example."
If applicable you can also add "Along with others I consider to be positive examples for leading a good and virtuous life."
I'm a freaking Nostradamus 🧙♂️🔮✨
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. .
For context, in some versions of the Bible, the words of Jesus were printed in red font while the rest was black.
Interesting, I thought GamGam was just calling them whores
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.
Yes! I like this one. Thank you.
Jeezie. Like Swiftie, but for fan fiction on the Hebrew Bible.
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
Jeezy has a bit of a negative stigma since Kanye went full antisemite
Agnostic or spiritual.
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!
This is it!! Thank you very much 😁
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.
Not to be confused with “secular Christian”, which in popular parlance means “I hang around church for the community but I’m not spiritual”.
I'd call you a fan. I'm a fan of Gandalf.
I met a group that called themselves 'Jesus Freaks', but they were just annoying trying to indocrinate people on music festivals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGYE9VMwR9w
Ha, they weren't a band though, just people that walked the crowd trying to convince people of jesus.
I was a ruthless teenager questioning their beliefs until they got pulled away from me by a higher up.
They somehow couldn't answer why I would need jesus, when I'm already doing all the things they claim they only do because they found jesus.
Today I'm different and don't question people's believes as long as they don't start harming others in the name of their god.
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.
Nah, I don't need to identify. That's too restrictive. I'm looking for a shorter way to describe it when asked.
If there exits one, most probably next question to you would be “What is that ?” And then you give the long explanation.
lol 😆
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
Thank you! I found a free copy on on Google Play Books, so I'm gonna give a look with my balls of eye.
Fun fact: I remember learning about this in school. Apparently, that's the Bible that people in court typically swear upon. 🧑⚖️maybe notReally!? I find that a little hard to believe. It's basically pamphlet sized. I have one.
Maybe not then. It's what a teacher told the class. I'll have to check once I get home later.
fan of Jesus?
A Jesuit! Oh wait...
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.
I learned about it in school though
where was that ? My hometown is like 20km from a city that was entirely burned down and had its population eradicated during the first Albigense crusade - i swear to God it was never mentioned to me. My parents hadn't ever heard of it either.
I'm from the north of France. I suppose it depends of the teacher. Nevermind I looked at the official program for middle age history and I did not see any mention of it.
Yeah it certainly depends on the teacher. If you're into that kind of history, Pacome from Blast made a gigantic episode about this in his "L'empire n'a jamais pris fin" series. One of the best youtube essays i've ever seen in French.
The Jesus fandom.
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!
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"
Thanks! This gave me a lot to think about
This describes me. I think about this often. The best I’ve come up with is Buddhist. Ultimately isn’t that what Christ taught?
Atheist?
To me, that seems to exclude the Jesus part tho.
I'm agnostic. I believe there may or may not be a god (regardless of religion) and that we may or may not find proof once we die but while I'm alive I'm just gonna live the best life I can with my own values. If Jesus was alive today I believe we would be homies, dude seemed chill.
What part does it exclude?
it doesn't mention Jesus
Maybe I'm losing the context, when are you using this term? If you wanted a simple term to get the idea across you could just say you're a "Christian atheist", no? Most people probably don't care tbh, so it's unclear when you need to be making these distinctions. I only say this because "atheism" doesn't exclude Christ's secular / moral teachings, and the concern with Christ not being mentioned in a term like atheism makes me wonder why that's relevant.
Adherence to a moral standard is secular, even if the source is a mythological text that is the foundation of a religion.
Keep in mind that the religious figure of Jesus predates Christianity.
The guy was a real scientifically proven to have existed person. Being interested in him and not religion is having a interest in history therefore being atheist.
We have no direct evidence of Christ's existence, there is no "scientific proof" of Christ's existence as a person. Instead what we have is historical evidence, i.e. people wrote about him, so he probably existed. It's the best evidence we have that Christ lived, and it's generally good enough in the discipline of history - but it's not the same standard of evidence as used in science.
You're right, but just to rephrase:
Right, I'm not trying to indirectly make a point about Christ not being likely to have existed or anything, just making a point about the language: Christ's existence hasn't been scientifically proven, it's just that historians agree that it's a reasonable guess based on the texts that were left behind and mentioned him.
Archaeologists might use scientific methodologies, e.g. carbon dating, to estimate how old a text is, for example, but I wouldn't consider this scientific proof that someone existed.
Bro, he was Jesus from Nazareth not "Christ" and yes we do have documents and texts from that time naming him, these documents predate the Bible. Its not clear where his body actually is, however there is scientifically enough evidence of his existence that it can be called a fact, even the resurrection can be scientifically explained with sedatives that did exist naturally around the time and where used together with Vinegar, wich is named in the Bible as a pretty significant element of the crucifixion.
I don't see the point in policing whether he is referred to as Christ or Jesus from Nazareth - is there some meaningful distinction here?
Also documents are not scientific evidence. The documents are enough evidence to consider it a historical fact, but that's, again, not the same thing as a scientific fact, and it is not backed with any material or physical evidence. Not that we expect or demand such evidence, I'm only pointing this out because you claimed there is scientific proof where there is none.
Regardless, I would be curious to get your receipts on those documents referencing Christ that predate the gospels, I hadn't heard of that before!
Speculation about the resurrection being faked with sedatives is irrelevant to this discussion, but since you brought it up, why not entertain more likely alternatives: towards the end of the book of John, Mary saw the resurrected Christ in the tomb and was the first to see him, yet she did not recognize him:
If he took sedatives, why did he look like a different person such that she thought he was the gardener? Why not think the resurrected person was just falsely claiming to be Christ, since he didn't look like him anyway? Why resort to more elaborate explanations when we have more simple ones at hand?
There is also the issue about how Christ supposedly survived being eviscerated and tortured before being hung on the cross, even if he did have access to sedatives. It's just not likely he survived that, and the sedatives don't explain that away.
The distinction is that in all documents besides the Bible he is named Jesus from Nazareth and not "Christ" wich does make a big difference im this discussion.
The remaining comment of yours reads a bit like a conspiracy theory, historical documents are indeed scientific evidence, when checked against fraud and forgery, all together are proof. You make it sound like you think the someone made up a person and forged documents that are scientifically proven older than Christianity. There is physical evidence as well, but after all that time its pretty vague from my knowledge.
I by all means am absolutely not religious, but its a fact that the person Jesus from Nazareth did exist, and that his written down life is very consistent and plausible, can be checked against other sources from different parties of interest.
Why his "resurrection" is of interest, is because the the crypt was empty and doesn't necessarily have to have been staged on purpose. Its less likely that a looker like did take part in that thing.
Torture back then is a loose term, it was most likely a whip and punching, most other methods where not necessarily used. And even though infections are a bad thing, especially during that time, most people actually survived, there are some sources that describe the torturing of criminals for confessions, it was likely pretty sanitary compared to the middle ages, especially because they actually did disinfect the wounds with... Vinegar and Herbs, wich is also the stuf he was given hanging on the cross, we know for a fact that there are herbs growing in that area that are natural sedatives and some are very strong.
The description of looks may or may not be accurate, especially because nobody expects a dead person to just appear in front of someone. Furthermore, days of hanging on the cross and spending time in a cave will change the appearance of a person, so. That is actually a pice of evidence with lower credibility and can be neglected.
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
I thought that is kind of what Quakers are?
You might be right. My grandmother was raised Quaker and this was very much how she brought me up in regards to religion.
Such term would be useful. Christianity does not seem to follow this leftwing liberal immigrant.
Follower? Fan? Enjoyer? lol
Disciple would fit
In terms of religion, atheist. Adherence to a moral standard is secular and does not require a supreme being.
Church of England? They are pretty vanilla and low key in my experience.
Christ-like, I'm certain its a secular reference to exemplars of Christ-like behaviors and humanistic interests
I like this one too! Thank you
Usually when I hear people described as "Christ-like," it's used to demote how much power and influence that person has over others - for example, "Donald Trump is a Christ-like figure among the alt-right." Someone going around and calling themselves that would come across as strange at best.