Then I suppose I have to determine whether it is more likely that Mr. Snuffalufagus exists and is instructing you on your ways of behaviour, or whether you read The Big Golden Book of Snuffalufagus (hey, this was your choice of metaphor, not mine) and thought you perceived an injunction from Mr. S to follow its rules (or at least, the non-contradictory ones that agree with your personal morality and were added in an not-entirely-accepted-as-orthodox chapter 2).
The song is in my head, just as God is in my heart. No one has ever heard the song the same way I’ve heard it, but those who have heard a version recognize it when I hum mine.
Once again, you’ve made a compelling case. I can’t promise perfection, but I will attempt to better differentiate comments that seem intended to hurt and those that come from hurt. Upon retrospection, I think Czar is probably the latter.
I agreed with you generally until that. Religion (a word that I’ve resigned myself to using to mean faith) is agreeable to experimentation. People experiment with it all the time. Along the same vein as your point about the Higgs boson, it might simply be a matter of a systematic codification of religious experimentation having yet to be discovered, but sufficient evidence existing to investigate whether there is one.
Czar
Lots of people have experienced God’s presence. And lots of people haven’t. But that fact alone implies nothing either way. You can’t say that something must be observable by everyone in order to be valid evidence. There are many people who, try as they might, can’t see what’s in this picture. Most of us, though, can. How do we convince those who can’t see it that something’s there?
I was not mad at Czar for not believing that God exists. I was mad at him for the implication inherent in his opening post that Christian belief is necessarily the result of ignorance, or stupidity. He maintains that there is no such implication in his argument, but that it was just playful teasing. I find it least as difficult to believe in that assertion as he does to believe that Jesus Christ is the living son of God.
But I felt it was not acceptable to let that assertion lie unchallenged, since the subject of the Thread is what is the message of Christ, not What do flippant atheists like to say to tease Christians. I did get a bit incensed with Czar when it took three iterations of two separate questions to get him to address the possible existence of a perceived insult in his message. Once that had passed, I have not posted anything remotely implying anger, or judgment of Czar. I have declined to offer proof, agreed that Christian theology is not logical, and agreed that belief in Christ is foolish. (There is specific scriptural support for this view, but I suppose that believing in that would be foolish too.)
If hearing me relentlessly repeat that I believe that the message of Christ is that each of us should love every other one of us, then it would seem reasonable to me not to read a thread asking for the Message of Christ, but then, I am an admitted fool.
Czar, I love ya, baby!
Tris
There’s nothing ‘concealed’ in the ‘picture’!; I really have never been able to see the images supposedly hidden in these so-called ‘magic eye’ pictures (honestly) - Oh, I’ve tried all of the methods, staring at a point in space, letting my eyes unfocus, viewing through a pane of glass and many more. No, I’m afraid there’s simply nothing that can convice me that there’s a real picture hidden in there; you must all be deluding yourselves. Is it fair that I should be left out like this when I want to see them (or I would if they existed). Oh how I hate these pictures that don’t exist.
Dammit, Gaudere, I just spent all the spare time I had in two days writing a long clumsy version of exactly what you said about Lib’s hypothetical monster-mother above, and you beat me to the punch. Positive PROOF that a Devil exists and is manipulating this board for her own evil purposes.
Yeah, Mangetout, next they’ll be telling us these black dots aren’t really there. I don’t care if their spectrometer shows they’re not there, I see them. So do a lot of other people! So they must be real. And don’t you non-see-ers give us any of those “optical illusion” or “subjective perception” crap, either. You guys are probably just rebelling against a harsh seeist upbringing, and really do see the dots; you just don’t want to admit that the dots do exist because then you couldn’t be so snotty about being the people who know the dots aren’t there. You know, if you non-see-ists would just admit that we must be right (since there’s so many of us, after all) and stop insisting there were no dots, you’d be a lot happer.
Tris, I have called no one fool, and do not believe you, or anyone else here to be one. If I think that you have been fooled, it is most definitely not the same as calling you a fool, right? Outside of those who use their religion as an excuse to support nasty beliefs they already hold, I criticise the religion, not those held under it’s sway.
Libertarian, the analogy with the picture would be more accurate if everyone who saw the “hidden” picture saw something different. Unfortunately, the analogy holds true if you are trying to say that, like that picture, if you ignore what is in front of you and stay unfocused, the “truth” will be revealed.
But I’m pretty sure this time that this is not what you are trying to say. 
Gaudere the black dots certainly do seem as if they are there, but when I examine a small part of the image in isolation, they can’t be found; I will have to decide whether they are there or not (or a combination of both and in what sense and to what purpose).
I think the magic eye analogy is quite a useful one; AFAIK nobody can objectively prove that there is a hidden image there; try as I might to see it, I can percieve no evidence of it; what should I do in this situation? - believe something just because somebody else claims to experience it? or dismiss it as completely impossible? or something else?
Serious question: Exactly what stance should I take regarding the truth (or otherwise) of people’s assertions that they can see an image (also accepting for the moment that a significant proportion of them report seeing a similar image) hidden in the magic eye pictures?
Actually, someone can objectively prove that there is an image there. I can point you to several explanations (including an excellent chapter in linguist Steven Pinker’s book, How the Mind Works) of how the images are generated in the first place, then reverse the process so that you can see the original image.
But you’re okay with Lib calling me a fool?
Okay, he called me a Neanderthal–not exactly a fool, but the implication is pretty clear. Ironic, since there is evidence that Neanderthals practiced religion. There is no evidence that I do.
For what it’s worth, I think Czar’s original comment comes across like playful teasing. Lib’s comment to me does not. But to return to the long-ignored OP, I still think the message of Jesus would be heavily weighted toward encouraging the people NOT to be like the religious folks–the whitewashed tombs full of dead bodies. I think his message would be similar today.
Mangetout, why is it questionable that they dots exist because they go away when you look at them directly, but when the magic eye picture goes away when you look at it directly, you think that not conceding that it is “real” is something to be mocked?
Regarding the lack of objective evidence of the magic eye picture, what pld said. Despite the name, magic eye pictures are not magic and can be scientifically explained and demonstrated. You may still not be able to see it anymore than colorblind persons can see the difference between certain shades of green and red, but like them you can examine the scientific evidence and figure out how it works, and why other people claim to see it.
(I wouldn’t say that the tiger or whatever in the magic eye picture is “really” there, either; neither is the Mona Lisa “really” there. The arrangement of colored pixels or daubs of paint is real, but it is our brain that generates the image that we see. Visual Intellegence has a more lengthy explanation of the truly amazing amount of things we see that are not really there; moving dots are the least of it)
If you see something that I cannot see, and you can provide no objective evidence as to how you are seeing it, while I think I could certainly concede that you see it, I do not know that I should concede that what you see exists, or has the characteristics you attribute to it. I don’t think you’re lying, but I do think you may be seeing things differently than I do.
I did not rebuke Lib, if that is what you mean.
I also find your understanding of Lib’s posts to have an apparent element of intentional obtuseness. I didn’t join in, because the primary direction of your discussion, as well as that of most of the current debaters is back to the issue of proof, or logical validity of the belief in the existence of God. I never participate in such discussions in any real depth.
The logical validity of Christianity is of no interest to me. Neither is the intellectual prowess of Christian theologians, or Atheist . . . what do you call the people who do whatever it is that Atheists do to counter theology by Christians? Well, anyway, I just come to threads like this to parrot my Sunday School Lessons, and plagiarize the original author of the philosophy that Love is what matters.
I do it because I think that theology, and logic, and such are less important than love. I do it because well meaning, and very intelligent Christians occasionally frighten simple people who do have faith, because their arguments are erudite, and out of the intellectual reach of many of my Lord’s precious children. I have a gift. I am very easy to understand. So, I place that gift in the service of a very simple message, which I believe is the message of Christ. Love each soul you meet, as if you were the only source of love in the world. Even without reward, without heaven, or God, or even another single person in the world who would join you in love, it is the right choice. And there is a Christ, and He will know, and He will love you in return.
The thread didn’t say, “Prove to me that Christ was real.” It didn’t say, “How is Christianity better than Atheism?” It asked what the message of Jesus was. So I posted here. I don’t think Czar ever thought I hated him, although I expect he realized I was getting a tad bit hacked off there for a while. But the fact is that the message I had was not for him alone.
Someone might have read the thread to find out the answer to the question in the title. Stranger things have happened.
Tris
The “you” in the first line refers to Mr. O, not Gaudere
Tris
No rebuke necessary. I do think the remark was intended to hurt my feelings, but it didn’t.
Naturally, I don’t agree. I didn’t address each of Lib’s points, of course; I only paraphrased what to me was the overall message. If I’ve missed anything germane, I’d be grateful for having it pointed out–but frustration on another’s part that I don’t agree does not constitute obtuseness on my part.
Actually, twice now I’ve attempted to draw the discussion back to the question in the OP: What was Jesus’ message? I haven’t asked for any proof, nor have I offered any counter-proof.
Fair enough. We agree on the part about love being more important than theology and logic, if not on the part about Jesus being the original author of the message. I don’t think that love and logic are incompatible, for Christians or atheists. There are some of both groups, though, who show no sign of either. It’s hard not to be a little disdainful of them.
I’d like to retract my use of the magic eye analogy here; in fact if I have used any other analogies in my few contributions in this thread, then please consider them retracted too.
I don’t retract mine. Yes, you can tell me all sorts of things about how the Magic Eye picture was made. I’ve already heard how it’s made. You can show me the original grayscale image, but still I cannot see the picture. I simply have to take your word that the picture is there, that the process actually works, and that you haven’t been fooled. I’d like to think that, if I listen carefully to you, I might find merit in what you’re trying to explain.
And the image that is seen is not interpreted the same by everyone. When one person sees a peace symbol, he fondly reminisces, while another person seeing the same image might seethe with repressed resentment. Someone ele might imagine that the raised black fist is missing. Yet another might think they got the Mercedes emblem wrong. And there might be people who see it and have no idea what it is.
By way of explanation; I retracted my use of analogies here because it seems to be futile using them (as Poly mentioned earlier, “The value of a metaphor is in what it illustrates by way of parallel, not in what it fails to parallel”); I have a feeling that such a thing as a perfect metaphor/analogy cannot exist in terms of describing something that is unique by definition.
You’re right, Mange. I guess I’m like Tris in the sense that I can’t help but try. I should really by happy when I’m ridiculed for my faith, and I should unconditionally love those who do it. The moral journey goes on.
Although I should be fair in realising that picking apart an analogy on the points that differ is only really the same as presenting a different analogy as to why my interpretation of the real situation could be wrong…
Libertarian, can you at least see that there is a difference between “ridiculing” your religion, and ridiculing you for your faith in that religion?