Ah, but maybe his slaves were.
Roman Soldier Diet
I bet you don't believe that ravens delivered sandwiches to the Prophet Elijah, either. Although I expect they were not ham sandwiches.
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From what Jesus said in the bible, would you say it was evidence he was good?
- Thread starter markhope
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Ah, but maybe his slaves were.
Roman Soldier Diet
I bet you don't believe that ravens delivered sandwiches to the Prophet Elijah, either. Although I expect they were not ham sandwiches.
Fuck, man. A bird's never brought me a sandwich. That's some bullshit right there. I really dislike the way that this supposed "All Loving" god is playing favourites amongst the humans. 
braces_for_impact
Veteran Member
Jesus is an archetype, an ideal for people of a certain religion to follow. He becomes whatever the particular follower needs him to be. This has little to do with the text written, edited, and selected for and against him in the scriptures. A devout Catholic can use Jesus as an example to help the poor, while a GOP senator can use him to justify removing resources for the poor, while a preacher can use him to justify his own ill gotten wealth. All with scriptural support.
Kharakov
Quantum Hot Dog
Dude, you get auspicious stuff from birds. If you still feel bad, as long as you're not an internationally renowned art thief you're probably welcome at Subway.Fuck, man. A bird's never brought me a sandwich. That's some bullshit right there. I really dislike the way that this supposed "All Loving" god is playing favourites amongst the humans.
Ohh wait. Maybe you aren't welcome at Subway.
credoconsolans
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Ah, but maybe his slaves were.
Roman Soldier Diet
I bet you don't believe that ravens delivered sandwiches to the Prophet Elijah, either. Although I expect they were not ham sandwiches.
Yeah, while in the fort and/or on campaign. This guy seemed to be an officer living in the city itself, and not at the fort.
Well, maybe the piggies belonged to Greek colonists. 
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
No, but not monstrous, either.
It is, however, conclusive evidence that he was not morally perfect, had no perfect moral knowledge, etc.
For example (copied and pasted from an article I posted elsewhere):
Let’s take a look at some of Jesus’s commands and moral claims or implications regarding families.
Luke 14
26 “If any one comes to me and does not hate their father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes and even their life, he can be no disciple of mine.
27 Whoever does not carry their own cross, and walk in my steps, can be no disciple of mine.
28 Why, which of you, when you want to build a tower, does not first sit down and reckon the cost, to see if you have enough to complete it?
29 Otherwise, if you have laid the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will laugh at you,
30 and say ‘Here is a person who began to build and was not able to finish!’
31 Or what king, when he is setting out to fight another king, does not first sit down and consider if with ten thousand men he is able to meet one who is coming against him with twenty thousand?
32 And if he cannot, then, while the other is still at a distance, he sends envoys and asks for terms of peace.
33 And so with everyone of you who does not bid farewell to all you have — you cannot be a disciple of mine.
Another translation:
Luke 14
14:26 "If anyone comes to me, and doesn't hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he can't be my disciple. 14:27 Whoever doesn't bear his own cross, and come after me, can't be my disciple. 14:28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn't first sit down and count the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? 14:29 Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him, 14:30 saying, 'This man began to build, and wasn't able to finish.' 14:31 Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 14:32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy, and asks for conditions of peace. 14:33 So therefore whoever of you who doesn't renounce all that he has, he can't be my disciple.
So, Jesus was telling them to abandon and hate or disregard their families: their parents, children, siblings, and so on. He even told them to hate themselves – but not to hate him, of course.
We may consider some options:
i. If Jesus is Yahweh’s second person, then this particular immoral action pales in comparison with the previously described atrocities committed by Yahweh, so it’s a drop in an ocean of immorality even if we leave Hell aside.
ii. If Jesus is not Yahweh’s second person, but Jesus knew that Yahweh existed and Jesus was either Yahweh’s ally or at least a high-level henchman, then what Jesus did in this particular case was also immoral, and we can add that to other immoral actions he committed in league with Yahweh, as described in the Gospels.
Of course, those immoral actions pale in comparison with the atrocities directly committed or commanded by Yahweh - as described in the Old Testament - but still, if Jesus had serious power and was directly involved as a key player in Yahweh's evil plot – as the Gospels seem to indicate -, his willing involvement in Yahweh's evil plot would plausibly make him no better than henchmen working for people like Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc.
In any event, even if Jesus's participation didn't involve similarly evil deeds, and even if Jesus was less evil than all of those people, his willing participation as a powerful, high-level henchman or an ally of Yahweh’s is enough to make him a bad person at the very least.
In particular, of course Jesus was not morally perfect.
iii. If Jesus is not Yahweh’s second person but Jesus knew that Yahweh existed and Jesus was Yahweh’s servant or follower, then what Jesus did in this particular case was also immoral, and we can add that to other immoral actions he committed in the service of Yahweh. Of course, those immoral actions pale in comparison with the atrocities directly committed or commanded by Yahweh, as described in the Old Testament.
But in any case, Jesus was not morally perfect, and given what he did in the case under consideration - i. e. telling people to abandon their families and follow him and the monster Yahweh-, he was not a good person. In fact, under this scenario (i .e., iii), Jesus’s behavior is similar to that of a cult leader who tells people to abandon their families and follow him and who actually believes himself to be chosen, connected to some creator, etc., with the difference that Jesus was actually following a real moral monster whose existence Jesus actually knew about - even though he failed to realize that Yahweh was a moral monster.
iv. If Jesus was a fully human preacher with no special connection to any being with superhuman powers – which is actually the case, of course, but leaving that aside for the sake of the argument and considering options instead -, this action indicates that he was far from being a good role model. Rather, he seems to have been a cult leader, spreading his false religion and telling people to hate or disregard and abandon their families. Given that, the fact that Jesus also did good things doesn’t make him a great moral teacher – even though even his cult leader immorality isn’t nearly as immoral as the atrocities commanded and/or committed by Yahweh in the Old Testament.
v. If Jesus was some other kind of entity, he lied or probably was even confused about what he was. In any case, he was neither morally perfect, nor a good moral teacher.
Of course, again that does not mean that all of Jesus’s teachings or public actions were immoral.
For instance, under the (correct) assumption that he was a fully human preacher with no connection to any being of superhuman powers, preventing the stoning of a woman for adultery was morally good, assuming he actually did that – which I see no good reason to believe, but leaving that aside.
On the other hand, demanding that people leave their families to follow him, making false promises of an afterlife for those who follow him in that fashion, etc., were all immoral actions on Jesus’s part.
Gila Guerilla
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I would say that what you are asking about doesn't even show that Jesus was a real person. If Jesus wasn't a real person, then saying that he was good makes little sense.
If you have read any Superman comics, does what you find in them tell you that Superman was a good, (or a bad), person? Does it tell you that Superman was a real person?
Does it make any sense to ask if Superman was any kind of person, just because there's some writing with him in it?
SLD
Contributor
I did indeed look up the cussed part. I was so excited to find a good example of Jesus throwing out a good "Fuck you, shit-for-brains!" But all he did was put a curse on a fig tree so it would whither and die. I would love to meet Jesus and then ask him if the trinity is true, then doesn't that make you a motherfucker?
Bet he'd start some real cussin' then!
SLD
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
If there was this dude that actually said everything those stories have him saying then he's obviously psychotic or heavy into the mushrooms. So I'd say it's not evidence he was good.
James Brown
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--George H. Smith. Atheism: The Case Against God
Underseer
Contributor
No.
Underseer
Contributor
I apologize for not reading the entire thread first, as I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but he intended to break families apart, instructed his followers to kill non-believers, threatened people with hell if they didn't follow him, but the biggest problems are with the things he didn't say, such as his failure to speak out against slavery, or his failure to speak out against the legal tradition of regarding wives as property of their husbands (something that didn't end until recent centuries), and many other moral teachings we would expect from a perfect being, but would not expect of a mortal Roman citizen living in the Middle East.
Malintent
Veteran Member
Someone alert Kim Davis. What it means to get married has changed... and I am sure she has a problem with that.
ideologyhunter
Contributor
Jesus could've just said Boil Your Water and saved mankind from 20 centuries of epidemics.
Perspicuo
Veteran Member
Exacto.
He was an ignorant git (if he existed at all, which is possible though unlikely). All areas of science contradict most of what he recommended: "Don't save for the morrow" (economy), "Give the other cheek" (psychology, particularly applied behavior analysis), "There be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" (medicine), etc.
Keith&Co.
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I don't know if economic theory really disagrees with Jesus' recommendation, there. It's based on the assumption that there would be no tomorrow, what with the end of the world coming up soon. That certainly informed Reagan's Secretary of the Interior's ideas for land and resource management, what with the world ending almost immediately.
Perspicuo
Veteran Member
I disagree. The situation is there was no date given for the end of the world. So the situation is similar to what everyone saving has, "How do I know I will live until retirement age?". Well, you don't, your end could come any time, but there are maths to calc the risk for that versus the benefits of saving.
credoconsolans
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Actually Jesus did give a time frame. The Kingdom of Heaven was to arrive in the lifetime of the men around him. Matthew16:28:
"Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."
When that didn't happen, other gospel and bible story writers had to come up with a new deadline and to avoid the embarrassment of being caught wrong on a deadline for the apocalypse again, they started getting vague "no one knows...thief in the night...1000 years is but to god one moment..." blah blah blah