Are there many people out there that believe in god but not that Jesus was his actual son ? See below .

[ginorwine]

A few people in my local church believe in god but think that Jesus was a profit like any other such as Buddha. I have always thought that the whole premis of christianity was based around the reserection . I have found that the unitarian church accepts the view that Jesus was a human and an inspired and loving phropet and healer and Christian . This makes sense to me .i would feel more comfortable if this could be discussed as it seems almost a taboo way of seeing Jesus. I'm very intrested to hear others views around the view that you can believe in god as see Jesus as a historical figure rather than god on earth in the literal sense .

I don't believe it's the 'innerant' word of God as is every word literal. I believe it's the word of God as in inspired by God. Where do you think I got my research from out of interest? It began with a first class degree from a secular uni in theology.

Well. ...yes, in this case, it was a study of world religions as well as Christianity, studying the work of many scholars of varying standpoints from staunchly atheist to Christian - the study of theology doesn't have an inherent bias toward believing in God. Most folks on that course were atheist or agnostic.

Nope, sorry, was a christian who just wanted to study my beliefs in more depth :)

That's interesting. One of my theology lecturers was very atheist and a very well renowned theologian. One of my dd's RE teachers is an atheist. Many people are simply pulled towards the subject out of interest, and many are because of faith. My theology degree did a good job of dismantling what I thought I knew about my faith then putting it back together in a different - stronger - way. I'd had times in my life of non belief. But even if I hadn't, it didn't mean that I was operating out of confirmation bias, though I recognise the danger of this. I did my best to take it all apart, wanted to not believe many times.

I know someone who is a Professor of Theology who is an atheist, and always has been.

There are many atheists in particular areas of theology: Biblical scholarship, for example. I know quite a few people who study theology because they are medieval literature specialists so they may have a professional specialism in Christology, for example but they are still atheists, and always have been. I know atheists who have spent their professional careers studying religious belief and practices. (I do speak from personal knowledge here, because I am an academic.)

Also, the idea that someone at a university in this country would have their teaching prescribed - be told what and how they taught - is incredible. Never, in decades as a university teacher, have I come across this. Academics may disagree with each other about almost everything but academic freedom is something they are all united on.

I guess both our posts show the dangers of regarding one's own experience as normative .

Historically jesus was probably a man, if he existed. Certainly something happened but it was only when Christianity was adopted by the Romans that jesus became divine as a good man or woman isn't good enough.

In fact, it is unprecedented among other writings of similar antiquity in its' closeness to the time

Only if you ignore the wealth of Roman literature such as, say, the first seven books of the Commentarii de Bello Gallico which were written by Caesar himself. I'd call that closer to contemporaneous reportage than the Bible could ever hope to be. Or there's the Greeks, such as Xenophon and his Anabasis which predates the New Testament by several centuries. Plus, of course, in both of those cases (and notably unlike the Gospels), we know who actually wrote them.

What I'm getting at is that my son is my son because my DP and I jointly reproduced him...

Well my DS is my son because I adopted him. maybe god adopted JEsus?