could jesus have become a mesiah through a new thought: peace to not just your fellow country men, but peace to all and no war. :confused:

could jesus have become a messiah through a new thought: peace to not just your fellow country men, but peace to all and no war.That would be a powerful step in the advance of civilization, because it would be the transcendence of tribalism.

Tribalism has been the biggest obstacle to civilization, at least during the past couple of millennia. As pack-social animals we have the instinct to gather in tribes that distrust each other. We keep creating larger tribes--first villages, then cities, then nation-states, then countries, now hegemonies like the E.U.--but we have not overcome that instinct to be hostile to other tribes. In fact as the tribes become larger the problem gets worse, because a conflict between two of them spills out over an increasingly larger portion of the planet.

Jesus's teachings were an attempt to transcend tribalism but somewhere during the development of the religion that took his name, things went terribly wrong. Christendom became a tribe, and the hostility between it and other tribes was as strong as any other intertribal hostility. Perhaps stronger, because they believed they were fighting in the service of their gods.

Regardless of what Jesus (if he was real) said, Christians as a community--rather than as individuals--show themselves as being incapable of living up to his teachings. And that's what matters.

A "messiah" is literally a "leader." He leads his people to salvation by liberating them from their evil ways--specifically the hatred, vengeance and violence that characterizes tribal cultures. Jesus (if he was real) has failed to do that, so he has failed to qualify as a messiah.

could jesus have become a mesiah through a new thought: peace to not just your fellow country men, but peace to all and no war. :confused:

New thought? Jesus did say that, you can look it up