Atheists acknowledging historical Jesus' goodness

[Estro Felino]

Elon Musk

Margherita Hack, Italian astrophysicist. Staunch atheist, said: I do not believe in God because I find the notion itself absurd, it is a human invention. I live perfectly without believing in God. I don't need God to behave good towards the others. Jesus' figure is essential. "Love thy neighbor as thyself"...it is extraordinary.

- What do you guys think?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think we can do better for sources of morality, especially without the judgement, guilt, shame and especially the angry and violent dad he has.

 

[Viker]

There's nothing wrong with what Jesus is saying there. You don't have to believe in God or that Jesus is God to acknowledge the wisdom and merit in those words.

They're not acknowledging Jesus the same way you would. Rather Jesus being a fictional or factual figure is irrelevant. Jesus preached and did great is all they're saying.

 

[Estro Felino]

I think we can do better for sources of morality, especially without the judgement, guilt, shame and especially the angry and violent dad he has.

That's a good point. But since the source of the historical Jesus is the New Testament, we should not make reference to the God of the Old Testament

 

[Heyo]

Elon Musk

Margherita Hack, Italian astrophysicist. Staunch atheist, said: I do not believe in God because I find the notion itself absurd, it is a human invention. I live perfectly without believing in God. I don't need God to behave good towards the others. Jesus' figure is essential. "Love thy neighbor as thyself"...it is extraordinary.

- What do you guys think?

"Jesus' figure" - that could be interpreted as "the Jesus character".
Are the teachings of Yoda essential? Does it matter if Socrates was a real person or the invention of Plato?
Ideas are valuable, no matter if they were uttered by a "divine being" or a comic book character.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The teachings of Jesus tend to be rather sound. For the most part. There are some flaws but for the most part his morals were far ahead of his time.

 

[Estro Felino]

"Jesus' figure" - that could be interpreted as "the Jesus character".
Are the teachings of Yoda essential? Does it matter if Socrates was a real person or the invention of Plato?
Ideas are valuable, no matter if they were uttered by a "divine being" or a comic book character.

Thank you for saying that. I agree

 

[Shadow Wolf]

That's a good point. But since the source of the historical Jesus is the New Testament, we should not make reference to the God of the Old Testament

There's still some objections. Such as the self inflicted poverty, the short sighted Golden Rule, the fact not everyone loves themself, and not everyone is deserving of love and forgiveness.

 

[Estro Felino]

There's still some objections. Such as the self inflicted poverty, the short sighted Golden Rule, the fact not everyone loves themself, and not everyone is deserving of love and forgiveness.

If you read the preamble of the USA Constitution,

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

there are things which Jesus preached: justice, peace, common welfare, freedom.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

If you read the preamble of the USA Constitution,

there are things which Jesus preached: justice, peace, common welfare, freedom.

Jesus didn't teach freedom, he taught to turn the other cheek, and lots of people have promoted peace and the common welfare. That was done before Jesus and has been done since.
Jainism has a better approach to morality with its blanket approach to not harming any living organisms. Not even a fig tree is to be cursed.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Elon Musk, Margherita Hack, .. What do you guys think?

What Musk or Hack say is their personal opinion. Yes, most historians believe that Jesus, in all probability, was a historical person, but only the believers of Abrahamic religions other than the Jews, will believe anything more than that.

 

[ChristineM]

- What do you guys think?

Atheism has nothing to do with Jesus or any other human, athesm is disbelieve in any gods. Nothing more.

Im atheist and do think (a) character(s) lived on which the NT is based. Just not as depicted in the bible.

My view on Jesus.

 

[Estro Felino]

What Musk or Hack say is their personal opinion. Yes, most historians believe that Jesus, in all probability, was a historical person, but only the believers of Abrahamic religions other than the Jews, will believe anything more than that.

They speak of the historical Jesus, indeed.
Like the historical Plato or the historical Aristotle.

 

[Estro Felino]

Atheism has nothing to do with Jesus or any other human, athesm is disbelieve in any gods. Nothing more.

Im atheist and do think (a) character(s) lived on which the NT is based. Just not as depicted in the bible.

My view on Jesus.

Yes...but by acknowledging, I meant "recognizing the goodness of His teachings".

 

[Estro Felino]

Richard Dawkins, praised by both theists and atheists

 

[Altfish]

It is rather hard to ignore Jesus, God, Mohamed or Zeus for that matter; they are all part of popular culture.

 

[ChristineM]

Yes...but by acknowledging, I meant "recognizing the goodness of His teachings".

I don't believe they are his teachings but stories made up and collected, perhaps some from the life of John the Baptist, perhaps also others. But grouped together to paint a terrorist and traitor to rome in a good light, while building a religion. All compiled some 350 years after jesus death.

The ideas are good, just not Jesus's ideas

 

[Brian2]

There's still some objections. Such as the self inflicted poverty, the short sighted Golden Rule, the fact not everyone loves themself, and not everyone is deserving of love and forgiveness.

Jesus said to love others as we love ourselves. If we do not love ourselves then that probably lowers the bar about how we should love others. But I have seen people mess around with the Golden Rule to try to make it look silly. It has to be taken in context of the rest of what He said about how to treat people.
I think the thing about forgiveness is that Jesus is willing to forgive us when we are undeserving of forgiveness and so having received that forgiveness from Jesus a Christian should forgive others.
It sort of works for non Christians also. If you want God to forgive you one day, you should try to forgive others.

 

[Yerda]

I was brought up catholic and my education involved a lot of Jesus feeding the poor and curing the sick, loving one another and being kind to outcasts etc. I always thought he was a good lad for that.

I'm not sure his message was new. It seems Buddhism and Hinduism already covered a lot of the charitable and compassionate principles he spread long before he lived. He's still a good one, though.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

- What do you guys think?

I think that the OP's title is sadly misleading and that Elon Musk is almost comically irrelevant.