This is the claim, the generalization, which I contend is not supported with sufficient evidence to believe. If you are correct, you should be able to produce multiple examples of these extraordinary words and how they modified lives for the better.
"Love your enemies, do good to those who mistreat you". How does that modify our lives for the better? By letting go of holding on to poisonus resentments, which damages ourselves more than harm anyone else.
"Those who will be first shall be last, those who will be last will be first". How does that modify our lives for the better? By seeing others before ourselves, not clamoring to win, win, win, at the expense of others, our lives are enriched by caring for others, rather than simply self-seeking interests which while you may "win" the game, you lose the world. The way up is down, in other words. That's radically different that the systems of the world of me and mine, take and climb.
"It is not those who say Lord, Lord, but those who do the will of my Father". This drives a stake into the heart of religion and being religious for personal gain of "
my salvation", and "
my reward". It is not being religious that matters, but how we love others. This is also the heart of humanism, which you extol as above religion. Jesus agrees with you.
There are many others I could list, but you asked for a few examples so that's what this is.
This is the part that's always missing, which comes up frequently in the Baha'i threads. We're told that his life, his mission, his character, and his message confirm his claims for channeling divinity, but then ask for a few examples of any of those, and it's crickets.
No crickets at all from me.
It's the same with the spiritual wanderers and their journey to spiritual truth. Ask about a few of these truths, and the answer is the same, often including some type of scoffing about others not seeing as far due to having standards for belief, but still empty.
I could actually write several books on the topic myself, and certainly others have as well. But I'm sure there are a lot of novices who have still yet to realize a lot in terms of personal experience you have asked, or those who just frankly have a hard to articulating their thoughts when it comes to internal matters. I don't have that challenge on either account myself.
This is the same. "Jesus's life was extraordinary." "What part?" "All of it, all together." Produce something of substance if you have it, or recognize that you are not going to be believed without it.
As I've touched on, while it's hard to exactly know what is history versus mythology, what Jesus himself directly spoke, or words
attributed to him, which would be considered to be consistent with his teachings (a common practice among disciples of philosophers in his time), its sort of common sense to assume that someone that inspired a movement which became so diverse and widespread and evolving as rapidly as it did, was an extraordinary individual. Think of MLK and the civil rights movement, for example.
Grant it, right place, right time, of course. The same person in another time period might not have had the same impact. But its the confluence of multiple streams that makes that individual the right fit and the right time, and then extraordinary things will happen. MLK born in the days of legalized slavery would be unknown today. Born in the 1960's, and we have a national holiday in his name now. It works like that.
I agree with most of Buddha's words and few of Jesus' words.
Which I find most telling, considering how parallel their teachings are in most key points.
"I am the one who brings people back to life, and I am life itself. Those who believe in me will live even if they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe that?" - Jesus
Read the way you read things, I'm sure that sounds like his ego flaming out of the top of his head. But is that really what it means, and is it really all that different than what the Buddha said? Not really. When Jesus is said by John to say, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life", that is the Divine Logos in Jesus, as setup in the first chapters of his gospel, speaking. It is the incarnation of the Divine Principles, that is saying "I am the Way".
And indeed, in Buddhism, this is the Dharma. What does it mean to follow the Dharma? What does it mean to follow the Tao? It means the Way of Reality, the Divine order. So in Buddhism, does this "bring people back to life"? Absolutely yes. Take this from the Dhammapada,
Mindfulness is the path to the Deathless,
Heedlessness is the path to Death;
The mindful never die,
The heedless are as if dead already.
This is all these things mean, death and resurrection, immortality, eternal life, and so forth. All of it is point to the true Nature in ourselves and aligning ourselves to follow that natural order, or the Way, the Truth, and the Life that leads to 'salvation' or Awakening, or Enlightenment.
Cynical readings simply aren't well-considered, or supported.
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conductive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." - Buddha
Sure, yes. And you find similar principles in the spiritual teachings found in the Bible. Jesus says, don't just believe teachers telling you the kingdom is here or there, but to look within instead. He even says to the test of truth is simple, not their words, not their ideas, not their high and lofty concepts, but "By their fruits you shall know them". Compare that to this. "Is conducive to the good and benefit of one an all, then accept it and live up to it", as you quoted.
But I don't have that attitude toward any of the others. My cynicism regarding Christianity and monotheism in general is based in direct experience as well as a lifetime of examining Christian and Christianity.
Well, there it is then. This is what I see as the major shortcoming. A blind spot created by negative experience which acts as a filter to turn things like the Beatitudes into a cynical view of life on the part of Jesus. I too have had negative experiences with Christianity, but I have been able to see the baby in the bathwater, where as you appear to see nothing but bathwater, and ignoring that that baby in the bathwater of Christianity, is found in Buddhism, as well as Hinduism.
Take for instance the language of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, speaking at the Divine Avatar, as does John's Logos in his gospel, "
I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me" John's Logos, "All things were created through him... in him was Life, and that Life was the Light of man". And so forth.
All of these are simply taking of the Divine order, or Reality, or the Tao, or Godhead, or Source, or Ground of Being, or any other term that evokes a view of the Source of all manifest reality as it is known, and giving it a Face to speak of itself through literature, to our minds, to that original Divine energy that animates our bodies as well as all of creation. That's what the nature of this is. Not this silly idea that it was primitive man trying to do science and coming up with bad guesses.
