Founder Figures

[Cino]

What are your thoughts on the founder(s) of your faith?

Were they perfect beings, with irreproachable behavior?

Were they fully human, with recognizable weaknesses, shadow sides, "warts and all"?

How do you prefer to think of them? As a divine inspiration, due to their virtues? As a forerunner you can connect to, due to their humanity?

 

[muhammad_isa]

What are your thoughts on the founder(s) of your faith?

Were they perfect beings, with irreproachable behavior?

Were they fully human, with recognizable weaknesses, shadow sides, "warts and all"?

How do you prefer to think of them? As a divine inspiration, due to their virtues? As a forerunner you can connect to, due to their humanity?

I think of Muhammad, peace be with him, as deserving great respect.
It is a huge responsibility to be a messenger of God, and he was of exemplary character.
..and yes, he was fully human. However, compared to us, he was a perfect human.

I know, I know .. many people will disagree and find fault. I do not.

 

[Cino]

There is a massive difference between "acknowledging the humanity" of someone and "finding faults" with them. Just wanted to make that clear. I am *not* out to find fault with any of the great figures.

That being said, can you give an example of a quality of Muhammad (pbuh) which inspires your respect? Would you try to emulate it, or is it something specific to him?

 

[muhammad_isa]

That being said, can you give an example of a quality of Muhammad (pbuh) which inspires your respect? Would you try to emulate it, or is it something specific to him?

I respect all of the messengers of God.
They were dedicated to God in every aspect of their life.
Muhammad, peace be with him, would stand in prayer most nights, and sleep on a simple mat.

I wish I could "emulate it", but have fallen short for some time.
I make excuses to myself due to bad health, but often feel I'm at fault.
Depression is an awful thing. Does it start with a physical complaint, or mental?
I don't know any more..

 

[Cino]

Depression sucks big time. Wishing you well, @muhammad_isa

Sometimes I think the Buddha may have struggled with rather depressive moods. The being Mara - the personification of all hopelessness and nihilism - features prominently in many of his discourses.

Did Muhammad have to deal with depression, do you think? Are there traditions about this?

 

[RJM]

I respect all of the messengers of God.
They were dedicated to God in every aspect of their life.
Muhammad, peace be with him, would stand in prayer most nights, and sleep on a simple mat.

I wish I could "emulate it", but have fallen short for some time.
I make excuses to myself due to bad health, but often feel I'm at fault.
Depression is an awful thing. Does it start with a physical complaint, or mental?
I don't know any more..

Hang in there @muhammad_isa
You have genuine friends here
'Nobody gets too much heaven on earth'

 

[RJM]

Jesus Christ seems to reach so many people in so many ways. Almost everyone has something to say about Jesus. We have a certain amount of information about Jesus: there is the New Testament and NT apocrypha, there is the Quran, and there are mentions by Tacitus, Pliny the younger, Josephus and Suetonius. Correct me if I am wrong, but that would seem to be all, to date?

At the same time there are countless versions and theories about Jesus: the historical Jesus, the Greg Locke Christian nationalist Jesus, Jesus as a fiction, etc -- on and on it goes. I find that most of these theories are supported by cherry-picking and manipulating the New Testament, especially by the haters.

Eventually I accept the NT version of Jesus. It's a package. I genuinely accept Jesus as the Incarnation of God as man -- Emmanuel, God with us. Countless mysteries flow from this.

(edited)

 

[Namaste Jesus]

Simply put, I consider God to be the founder of all things, the object of my faith, reverence and down right awe. I subscribe to the trinity and believe Jesus was exactly who he said he was, here to perform a specific task just as prophesied in the old testament.

 

[Thomas]

When I think of Jesus, I tend not to think of the 'Gentle Jesus meek and mild' character. He's a bit of a nightmare, in my book. I think the close disciples had a tough time of it. Their devotion was there, but so was the doubt ...

In my reading, there's a subtext moment in John:
"When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in spirit; and he testified, and said: Amen, amen I say to you, one of you shall betray me. The disciples therefore looked one upon another, doubting of whom he spoke. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, and said to him: Who is it of whom he speaketh? He therefore, leaning on the breast of Jesus, saith to him: Lord, who is it?" (John 13:21-25)

So Jesus makes another of his enigmatic statements, and they're all dumbfounded. So Peter (in my mind, Peter was never happier than when doing simply things, like sailing his boat in dirty weather, or bouncing rocks off roman skulls – Peter has no patience with weakness) ... Peter says, aside, to John, "What's he talking about?"
"I dunno." John's just as nonplussed. "Ask him."
"You ask him."
"Why me?"
"Just ask him, dammit!"

+++

There's a very common image in the Catholic Tradition:

Forgive me, but I really, really dislike it.

 

[Thomas]

This is a lithograph of Him by a family friend, given to my mum.

 

[wil]

“Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me?”

I think all the founders had good moments and bad, during this time of cancel culture and expecting folks from the past to live upto today's expectations will cause many a person put upon a pedestal to fall.

I don't buy that Jesus, Mohammed or the Buddha were perfect, I believe we have had to whitewash their history to make them so. (Much like those white paintings of a blue yes dirty blond Jesus) But we can argue that all day.

The founders of Unity were not saints, was during my life that a the children of a black woman studying to be a minister whose children were not allowed in the community pool on the church grounds. To me there needs to be a statue of her and her kids with a plaque by the pool explaining how wrong they were.

Many wish to bury anything untoward about our nation, race, religion, family, but to me, unless we admit and expose it, this proves not only our embarrassment of it (which should be) but also that we are part and parcel of that "original sin" and still feel a need to cover up, deny, or attempt to explain away...all of which create deeper chinks in the armor which has been created to hide old wounds

But I do not need Ghandi or MLK or George Washington or Jesus, Mohamed to be perfect... I can find value in their contemplations, words, and actions that are good.

My mom has cooked many a dish I did not like. I still eat the ones that I do!

 

[Leveller]

Many wish to bury anything untoward about our nation, race, religion, family,

I very much agree with you here. Once when I was a teenager, I sat with an old man in a pub and tried to comfort him. He had had a few drinks and was crying hard. He was crying for a German prisoner that he had murdered 34 years before. At that time nobody knew more about the sin of murder than that old man and I was getting a little taste of it.
It should not be buried, perhaps everybody should see something like that. It is quite an education.

 

[wil]

Everyone is a mentor, some for what to do, others for what not to do, most have both aspects and it is up to us to discern which

 

[Leveller]

Everyone is a mentor, some for what to do, others for what not to do, most have both aspects and it is up to us to discern which

Yes, very true. One of the things that I like about the Quakers is that they don't have priests, instead they say "we are all priests".

 

[Aupmanyav]

Were they perfect beings, with irreproachable behavior?
Were they fully human, with recognizable weaknesses, shadow sides, "warts and all"?
How do you prefer to think of them? As a divine inspiration, due to their virtues? As a forerunner you can connect to, due to their humanity?

Founders of Hinduism - the sages (Rishis), thousands of them.
Some were perfect beings, some had warts, some ironed out their warts.
No 'divine' inspiration, just deep analysis and common sense. Yeah, I can connect with them.

 

[Ahanu]

What are your thoughts on the founder(s) of your faith?

Tetrachromats can see colors invisible to us.

If this is the case for the perception of the physical world with some special people, then what about the perception of the spiritual world for some special people? In a somewhat similar fashion, perhaps the founders of the major religions can perceive invisible intellectual realities that we cannot yet see.

 

[Aupmanyav]

See or lie about it, a non-tetrachromat will never know.

 

[Prycejosh1987]

What are your thoughts on the founder(s) of your faith?

The founder of my faith is like no other, because He showed sacrificial love and showed total commitment to His mission, while being oppressed and hated, daily. Imagine someone claiming to have the authority of God and identity but being rejected by the world, but still deciding to die for the haters. He chose to choose people to form His team who did not deserve it, and loves people enough to not force choices on people. Jesus Christ.

 

[Tony Bristow-Stagg]

The founder of my faith is like no other, because He showed sacrificial love and showed total commitment to His mission, while being oppressed and hated, daily. Imagine someone claiming to have the authority of God and identity but being rejected by the world, but still deciding to die for the haters. He chose to choose people to form His team who did not deserve it, and loves people enough to not force choices on people. Jesus Christ.

I would offer You need to read the life and sacrifice of the Bab to know there is another. Also the Bab suffered 6 years of persecution and rejection, twice the time of 3 years Jesus faced. They shared this fate with many God given Messengers

Regards Tony

 

[Aupmanyav]

The founder of my faith is like no other, because He showed sacrificial love and showed total commitment to His mission, while being oppressed and hated, daily. Imagine someone claiming to have the authority of God and identity but being rejected by the world, but still deciding to die for the haters. He chose to choose people to form His team who did not deserve it, and loves people enough to not force choices on people. Jesus Christ.

He was just a rabble-rouser who failed like many others in his time. All the rest is a story built up by others (Paul, for example). There is no evidence for God, or eternal sins that the Christians are supposed to be born with. These are funny stories.