Krishna and Prophets

[Guest guest]

what do you say about this mani,

 

kishore suggested that :

 

while being crucified, Jesus did say "Forgive them my Lord, for they know

not what they are doing". This means he did not feel that he was an

incarnation. No where in the Gita did Krishna say pray to the lord and he will

protect you. I can cite one place "tameva sharanam gaccha sarva bhavena

bharatha" - "which means surrender to him (ishwara) alone with total devotion,"

but this is clearly explicable since - He uses "third person" technique to

tell arjuna, since arjuna, being interested in yogic and other methods

does not understand the greatness of Lord Krishna standing right in front of

him. that's exactly why in the end Lord Krishna replaces the word "tam or him"

with maam in the "sarva dharmaan .... parityajya .. maaam ekam" which

means "surrender to me alone ....".

 

mani, cite me from bible indicating - "first person" references from

jesus's words to devotees. then your point will be valid.

 

Please explain, also the meaning behind taking all the crap from the

romans and pontius pilat during and prior to crucifixion. why did God himself

in the form of jesus had to go through this mal-treatment. why not do

dushta sikshana using divine powers right there? I am not deriding

christianity in any way. But I am failing to see the "paratva" or "divinity"

in these acts as reported by movies and texts on christianity.

 

 

On the other hand Lord Krishna did show in vishwaroopa with detailed description

given in 11th chapter. Even the "end" of Krishnavathara resulted by

a "hunter" is described to be an event as a repayment to

vali-vadha - which somehow works out reasonably well with karma theory.

 

Such paratva (like vishwaroopa) is definitely not present in

Sri Ramavatara - but you know that Sri Rama was bound to do that due to the

special vows offered to Ravana that he cannot be killed by non-humans.

 

while on that matter, mani, explain how christianity or judaism for that matter

account for "no - incarnation" or one life without using karma theory.

 

ie how do they reconcile to the fact that all souls do not start out equal

assuming one life theory...

 

I should admit my questions are due to absolute ignorance of christianity.

 

krishna

[Guest guest]

Re: Jesus being God

 

Well, in the end, a quotation here and there from the Bible

do not really matter in this discussion, since Christianity

has as its *fundamental* tenet that Jesus was "fully God" as

well as "fully human". Sound contradictory? It may on the

face of it, but much theological discussion on this topic

has occurred over the past two millenia, so what may seem

contradictory to outsiders seems as clear as day to orthodox

Christians.

 

Nevertheless, here are some quotations. The most obvious

examples of Jesus's divinity occur in the Gospel according

to John, found in the New Testament. Here, Jesus as the Son

is represented in Greek as the Logos, which translates to

"Word". But the Word is the same as God.

 

John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was

with God, and the Word was God.

 

1:3: All things were made by him; and without him was not

any thing made that was made.

 

Furthermore, in the Jewish tradition, the only person who

can absolve humans of sins is God himself. Jesus very clearly

takes on this role, and declares himself as the redeemer. The

Jewish people of his time react to this as an implicit claim

that he is equal to God. We have to view the Bible and the

story of Jesus from the cultural perspective of the Jews of

that time. I would ask you look at passages such as Mark 2:7,

"And who can forgive sins but God only?"

 

There is a file on the network for about this question, directed

mainly at people who are not familiar with the Bible. The difficult

thing for non-Christians to understand is the Trinity concept of

Christianity, where there are three persons in God, but they are

of one essence. Therefore, Jesus is not simply God; he is more

properly the *incarnation* of God, since, unlike in our religion,

the Incarnation is a unique, one-time special occurrence.

 

It is very hard to properly convey Christian ideas about the

nature of God in so short a manner, but trust me on this one:

their entire religion is based upon Christ being the redeemer,

Christ being God, and Christ having died to absolve us of our

sins.

 

Re: The Painful death of Christ -- why?

 

This is another difficult question for non-Christians to understand,

but let us go back to the time of the early Jews, where it was

thought that any digression from "the Law" of God (equivalent to

Dharma-Sastras) was considered a great offense. The Law included

minute details (equivalent to "aachaaram") of observance, and they

believed that God was appeased through regular sacrifices, etc.

This was the so-called "Old Covenant", a contract of sorts between

the Jews and God.

 

So, all the while they are waiting for the Savior, who will restore

them to righteousness, lead the out of slavery, etc. The

exact nature of what constituted the Savior was in great debate

at that time. Anyway, according to Christian belief, Jesus came as

the Incarnation of God to show people the "new way", the New Covenant

that God wanted to strike between people and the Lord. But, again

according to Christian belief, the wonderful paradox which shows

the great condescension of the Lord is that he incarnated in a way

that made him "fully human" -- he was perfect, no doubt, and "fully

divine", but fully human in that he was flesh and blood. (This is

a very deep theological issue which I do not properly understand).

 

To perform the last sacrifice necessary to redeem all people,

Jesus underwent great suffering in the name of the Lord. This is a sign

of his great mercy. Jesus is therefore seen as the "Lamb of God",

sacrificed to absolve all sins of the people if they simply put their

faith and surrender to him. The mystery of Christ is that three days

after his crucifixion, he was resurrected -- this is the heart of

Christian belief, that if we believe in Christ, we are granted everlasting

life in heaven and we shall not die in an inert way or go to hell, or

any such thing. Salvation is attained.

 

Just as westerners find it hard to understand our belief system since

they do not come from our cultural perspective, we will find it hard

to accept all these beliefs since we do not understand the basis of

Christianity. This is in fact why Indian Christianity is in many ways

more like a bhakti movement than like Western Christianity.

 

Mani