why aren't christians doing greater works than Jesus since he himself said they would? (John 14:14). The context is clearly referring to miracles.
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 knightrider7
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greater works than Jesus |
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Posts: 4 10/27/05 17:35:22 |
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Keith and Company |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #1 | ||
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Posts: 4216 10/31/05 13:57:14 |
I always thought that referred to prayer. A couple of places promise that IF you're a good little christain, and you keep my word, you get whatever you ask for. 'That _I_ will do,' would be God doing boon work for the pray-er.
One of them adds that what you ask for must be in accord with God's wishes...which kind of voids the whole thing, as far as i see it. Everything goes as god wishes it, that's why he's god. What point is prayer answered, if it was going to happen anyway? What point is prayer unanswered, if it was never going to happen? |
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gystex |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #2 | ||
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Posts: 265 10/31/05 20:05:22 |
Last time I checked, Christ walked on water. Since then, we've walked on the moon.
I'd say we surpassed him in a few ways. |
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knightrider7 |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #3 | ||
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Posts: 4 10/31/05 21:40:29 |
that's a cop out. getting to the moon didn't involve a "miracle" and is explainable using natural physical laws (no God in the gaps required). can you say the same for walking on water? i think not. if you, or any christian you know, can turn a glass of water into wine (make mine chardonnay, not too dry), well, now we're talking. what say?
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Keith and Company |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #4 | ||
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Posts: 4216 10/31/05 21:57:25 |
Quote:At least one villain in Superman did it. And Peter Sellars. And i think Benny Hill? Quote:Bill Bixby used to do it all the time. Quote:And that's a poor response for anyone choosing to participate in your discussion. Ask Smelly how well we respond to posters with a chip on their shoulder. |
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gystex |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #5 | ||
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Posts: 265 10/31/05 21:57:52 |
Why does something have to be miraculous in order to be great? It would be a miracle if I waved my hand over someone's skinned knee and cured it, but how much more great and impressive was Jonas Salk's invention of the polio vaccine? Given a choice between pointless miracles and genuinely wonderous feats of science and technology, I'll shrug the miracles off.
One of the major pitfalls in religion is the assumption that only divinely-inspired events are significant, and only miracles can inspire genuine awe. If I saw a man walking on water, I would consider it a fine parlor trick and wonder whether he could produce a rabbit from his hat. But when I see the images of Jupiter sent back by the Galileo spacecraft, that impresses me. Christ healed a few lepers. Science cured the entire world of smallpox. Forget for a moment which event was miraculous - which was greater? |
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raphjd |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #6 | ||
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Posts: 2169 11/01/05 01:53:53 |
David Allen also walked on water.
"If Homosexuals went back into the closet, then there would be no more Homosexuality in this world" - Tom DeLay, US Congressman R-TX "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." - Anne Lamott When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. -- Emo Philips |
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knightrider7 |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #7 | ||
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Posts: 4 11/01/05 05:07:07 |
gystex, i agree man has accomplished many significant things "scientifically" through rational thought in the past 2000 years. i think what you and i disagree on is whether this was the intended meaning of the text. you apparently do. i don't. going to the moon did not "require" the direct intervention of a supernatural being, unless, again you're going to argue that God "intervenes" every time one takes a breath of air. my take on the text is that Jesus was implying that christians WOULD invoke the power of God to perform great (supernatural) deeds? if all of mans great deeds are going to come from science (ie going to the moon) then, what need religion (a lot of non-christians worked on that project).
as far as great accomplishments are concerned, Hitler annihilated millions (through the practical application of science presumably without invoking God's assistance). How would you compare that with the parting of the Red Sea? a greater accomplishment by man? How about Darwin? his ideas changed the course of history forever. a great accomplishment according to John 14:14? |
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Keith and Company |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #8 | ||
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Posts: 4216 11/01/05 05:33:10 |
Quote:I think that somewhere between the two extremes, there is still room for divine assist, theoretically. I know a lot of the people involved in the moon race prayed for success. That would seem, to me, to be what the verse is offering. Ask for help, you'll get it. Not quite the blatant divine interaction of a giant hand lifting astronauts to the moon, but one can't completely discount thepossibility that some of the calculations or breakthroughs were assisted. Of course, in the case of Jehovah, one would have to wonder why a man-built ziggurat threatened God's composure, while just building a Saturn Rocket didn't, much less launching men into the space previously marked 'Do Not Enter: Culture Fracturing Authorized.' |
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gystex |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #9 | ||
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Posts: 265 11/01/05 12:34:30 |
Quote: Well, if we're going to go in that direction, God once annihilated the entire human population of the Earth except six people, and every animal on land except for two of each species. Honestly, I'd say that's a lot worse than anything Hitler did, except that Genesis was just a story and Hitler was real. And neither event was Great, unless one has a pretty sick definition of the word. Interesting that you would bring up Exodus, because that's where God really got ruthless, torturing and murdering the Egyptians while preventing their Pharoah from doing anything to stop it. Then, when the Israelites finally packed up and went, God made Pharoah chase after them, and parted the Red Sea only to send it crashing back down on top of the Egyptian soldiers - soldiers that were ordered by a Pharoah under God's direct control. Some may see the parting of the Red Sea as a great event - I see it as yet another example of God's genocidal behavior. Quote: Darwin was brilliant and courageous; I'd say one could call his accomplishments great, though not according to John's definition. Of course, I don't consider John's opinion to hold much weight when it comes to measuring what's great. Finally, not all of man's great deeds come from science. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was also a great accomplishment. |
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knightrider7 |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #10 | ||
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Posts: 4 11/01/05 13:49:07 |
well, now we're getting more on the same wavelength. i agree, much of God's behavior in the Old Testament, IF taken literally, was inexcusable by any standard of HUMAN morality and/or decency. the story of Job is a good example. and here's where the problem comes. how much of the Old and/or New Testament can or should be taken as real historical events? i think, not much. |
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Keith and Company |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #11 | ||
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Posts: 4216 11/01/05 14:43:19 |
Quote:Eight people, two pair of every species, seven of every clean species. A thousand years before the rules for clean and unclean were published, but there you go... |
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Keith and Company |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #12 | ||
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Posts: 4216 11/01/05 14:44:57 |
There's a green linkbelow the name of every poster.
Click that, and the post you reply is placed under the post you're replying to, so that people know for sure who you are, in fact, replying to. OR Cut and paste the comments you're replying to, to display the comments you're commenting on, for further commentary. |
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Yark Hutprancer |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #13 | ||
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Posts: 4041 11/01/05 15:36:16 |
I just reread that section. It doesn't specifically say that Noah went out and found the animals to bring on the ark. God simply tells Noah to put them on the ark. God himself could have miraculously brought the right numbers of kinds without having to tell Noah which were clean.
"...the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be." - Lt. Scheisskopf's wife, from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller |
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Argy Lacedom |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #14 | ||
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Posts: 3187 11/01/05 16:30:36 |
Quote:It still doesn't add up to me. Noah wasn't told what was clean and what was unclean. He might have noticed that there were different numbers of beasts walking up the gang plank, but he wouldn't have known why. If he didn't know why he couldn't have told his descendents (us). Unless god told the writer of Genesis what happened, the only way we could know how many clean and unclean beasts there were is if he kept an accurate manifest of exactly which animals came on board and how many of them there were. Only after sifting through the manifest could historians make a claim about clean and unclean beasts. The idea of a Noah manifest raises another interesting point. We talk about the fact that we don't have the original texts, but surely these texts were mostly summaries of other documents. Solomon must have had accounts to show how many gold shields he had made for his troops, how many concubines he had, etc.. I wonder where these could be ________________________________________________________________________
I can't imagine a higher being throwing anyone into eternal torment for not worshipping him, anymore than I can imagine a loving parent throwing their baby in the oven for not understanding complex physics. - Casandra Blake The Books says every verse in the Books is useful for our instruction. Nowhere does it indicate you should make up extra stories so that the instructions match what you think they should. -Keith & Co |
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Yark Hutprancer |
Re: greater works than Jesus | #15 | ||
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Posts: 4041 11/01/05 19:50:34 |
Quote:Genesis 7:1-3 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. --------- I can read this as "Noah, I want you to get into the ark. You will be taking unclean pairs and clean sevens." It can also be read as "Go out and get these animals, then get into the ark," but there is no way to be sure of the intent. Quote:Well, the Christians hold to that very assumption. We know that the writers were probably just documenting ancient mythical stories, so we know that the whole story is bogus. Quote:And summaries or cleaned-up versions of word-of-mouth fables. Quote:Good question. I think the stories of the OT tribal leaders were blown up to be bigger-than-life by the writers in order to impress others. Look how much gold OUR king had! "...the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be." - Lt. Scheisskopf's wife, from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller |
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Replies
| greater works than Jesus | 10/27/05 17:35:22 | knightrider7 |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 10/31/05 13:57:14 | Keith and Company |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 10/31/05 20:05:22 | gystex |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 10/31/05 21:40:29 | knightrider7 |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 10/31/05 21:57:25 | Keith and Company |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 01:53:53 | raphjd |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 10/31/05 21:57:52 | gystex |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 05:07:07 | knightrider7 |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 05:33:10 | Keith and Company |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 12:34:30 | gystex |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 14:43:19 | Keith and Company |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 15:36:16 | Yark Hutprancer |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 16:30:36 | Argy Lacedom |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 19:50:34 | Yark Hutprancer |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 13:49:07 | knightrider7 |
| Re: greater works than Jesus | 11/01/05 14:44:57 | Keith and Company |
