Poached Egg Jesus

[Elijah_Baley]

I’m using a paraphrase of C.S. Lewis’ poached egg argument in a polite, lengthy discussion with an atheist — a wonderful thing this is — but my statement of it isn’t terribly convincing. I left enough room for the following objections:

1. What difference does it make if the teacher is a deity? I suspect that your position is that people can reject the teachings of a human – and therefore fallible – teacher, but they will surely embrace the teachings of a divine teacher. But this seems to beg the question. If they don’t accept his moral teachings, which definitely make sense, why should they accept his claim to divinity, which is nowhere near as sensible? Your position is that they must accept a hard-to-believe supposition in order to accept an easy-to-believe set of moral laws.
2. Just as no human is perfectly good, no human is perfectly evil. Every human possesses some capacity to recognize good and evil and see the merit of excellent moral teaching. Therefore, every human is able to learn something from a great moral teacher, even if that human does not learn everything that the teacher has to offer. Each and every one of us has something to learn from Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed, and Confucius. None of us will ever truly master those teachings – even Jesus lost his temper and started hitting people once.

Should I stress effectiveness more? I’m a little out of my depth, here. My argument, for the record, is best summed up in my final graf:

Morality does not exist to tell us when we are right. It exists to tell us we are wrong. If Christ is not divine, and merely an empirically transcendent great moral teacher, you need only build the thickest walls of pretense and presumption and ego and pride and you will never actually transform in substance to something better. He was only human, after all. So am I.

Where should I restate? Where should I retract? Where should I concede the point? Remember: the point of arguments is not to win but rather to find the truth. No sophistry, please.

 

[MtGargano]

Jesus never hit anyone…it was the sheep, cattle and oxen he struck with the whip made of cords, to drive them out of the temple…if this is the circumstances you are referring to in your quote “even Jesus lost his temper and started hitting people once”…if not please elaborate with the scripture reference…

New International version…John 2

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Douay Rheims version…John 2

And the pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [14] And he found in the temple them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. [15] And when he had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew.

[16] And to them that sold doves he said: Take these things hence, and make not the house of my Father a house of traffic. [17] And his disciples remembered, that it was written: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.

God Bless