Jesuism - Beliefnet Forums: "I suspect most atheists have not bothered to separate the teachings of Jesus the man, from the crap grafted on by John and Paul to create Christ Jesus the savior.
Thomas Jefferson has done this for us in The Jefferson Bible. He littered the floor of the President's office with trash from the bible created by Paul and others, until he had distilled the essence of Jesus from the rest of the bible. I claim Jefferson as the first Jesuist, he certainly was an atheist, (politically a Deist) and wanted to salvage something from Christianity, again for political reasons, to keep the Black Regiment of New England preachers quiet(er.) Whether he succeeded politically or not, The Jefferson Bible is a concise and readable way to discover the ministry of Jesus."
Note: This and related posts have been consolidated on Thinking on the Blue Roads
Footnote the (2011) Wiki article of the same name was simply a ripoff of the name to simplify Jesusism which is what his article is about. But what do you expect from Wiki.
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3 comments:
I am not certain that any of the content of the Christian Bible should be revered or even considered valuable, individually or collectively, regardless of the claimed contributor of the content. I am reminded of Ignatius Loyola and his 6 fellow students that founded the Society of Jesus, 250 years before Jefferson's Bible came to be; they lived what Jefferson later wrote and naturally separated the essence of the message from the messanger.
I never was taught The Bible was anything particularly important, so I never reacted to it as lies. It was always a book of myths for me and who said what about who was never important.
From the start I recognized Jesus Christ as an avatar created by Paul that had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. It was very easy not to confuse the two.
Interesting you should mention Loyola. For a while in college I was trying to figure out how to be an atheist Jesuit. It didn't quite work for me, and needless to say it didn't work at all for them.
An "Atheist Jesuit" - that concept just quivers as if it is some sort of an oxymoronic idea. During my 5 years at Seattle U. I had the Jesuit Fathers teach 6 of my classes directly; I also took 2 classes from "known atheists;" several of the Jesuits would sit in on those classes to "marvel" at the level and range of discussions. I have great respect for most Jesuits because of their reverence and determination to improve the education process.
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