Mohammod and Jesus. Would you do it?

[Baal]

In your hand is the trigger. Pull it and Mohammod and Jesus both die before they can tell anyone anything.

Without the two of them there will be no Christianity or Islam in the world.


Would you do it? Yes or no and why?

[Starglider]

Would you do it? Yes or no and why?

Yes, because Mithraism sounds like so much more fun than Christianity.

[Morilore]

No, because I have no fucking clue what will happen. Butterflies and all that shit.

[Solauren]

Yes!

Just so I can see what happens.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, I don't know. I don't think Jesus will try to kill me, so why should I kill him? Now, if the slightly more violent Mohammad tries to kill me, then...self defense. But, you know, if they don't try to hurt me in any way.

[Darth Wong]

I suspect that if you killed both of them, others would have simply taken their respective places anyway. Don't buy into either religion's hype.

[Stravo]

I suspect that if you killed both of them, others would have simply taken their respective places anyway. Don't buy into either religion's hype.

Reminds me of that scene in "Last Temptation of Christ" when Paul is preaching about Jesus coming back from the dead and Jesus comes up to him and accuses him of lying saying that he is Jesus and he never died and came back.

Paul looks at him and says something to the effect of "The people don't really care whether it did happen or not, they want to believe it did and my Jesus is much more compelling than you - the true Jesus."

In the end someone would have been a messainic leader of men as that region seemed to breed them like flies.

[Elaro]

Well, considering the Jewish faith was centered around the coming of the Messiah, and that under Roman rule they they were pretty much expecting on to come any time, now, I think a Jesus-like fellow was bound to spring up. I think we're lucky to get peacenik Jesus rather than some ultra-nationalist kill-in-the-name-of-God nut. But then again, the Romans probably killed such violent firebrands.

[Darth Wong]

I don't remember who said it, but somebody once said that there was a Christ on every street corner back then.

[Starglider]

I don't remember who said it, but somebody once said that there was a Christ on every street corner back then.

I present Monty Python's 'The Life of Brian' as incontrovertible evidence of this being the case.

[Baal]

I don't remember who said it, but somebody once said that there was a Christ on every street corner back then.

As someone once said to me.

"What is the difference between Jesus Christ and David Koresh of the Branch Davidians"


About 2000 years.

[Prozac the Robert]

I think we're lucky to get peacenik Jesus rather than some ultra-nationalist kill-in-the-name-of-God nut.

That is a thought. But then perhaps a less jolly version of the faith would never have caught on in the Roman empire, especially if it ended up being some sort of Jewish nationalistic thing. Then it's anyone's guess what now would look like. Perhaps we'd be pagans, maybe in the Norse style.

[AidanMcfay]

I would like to see what would happe. Shoot them both.. for me. Might take awhile to find Jesus tho, if there was one on every street corner.

[Falkenhayn]

I don't remember who said it, but somebody once said that there was a Christ on every street corner back then.

Jesus the Nazarene was just one more Jewish heretic as far as the Pharisees were concerned. Its a matter of historical record that heretics named Jesus existed. Its just that Jesus was the semitic equivalent of Matt, Jeff or Steve.

How he got his PR is anyones guess.

[Enforcer Talen]

I dont really think Jesus existed in the first place. If he did, I prolly wouldnt take the shot; I dont trust humanity to come up with a better history.

[Rye]

Talen you dumb mythicist.

I get the feeling I will accidentally invent a time machine when I'm 30 or so and will be deposited in the first century AD and will end up becoming the foundation of Christianity. In case that happens, no, I wouldn't shoot Jesus.

In reality, I don't like killing people and wouldn't want to risk changing things for the worse.

[Drooling Iguana]

Can we just kill Paul instead?

[mr friendly guy]

This may be a long shot, but assuming of course Jesus was a real person, wouldn't killing him (better include Paul in that if Jesus isn't real) impede the spread not only Christianity, but the chances of another Abrahamic religion being so widespread.

Consider that before Christianity IIRC Jewish religion was and still is predominantly for the Jews. Thus how likely are we to get another Jewish religion which would try to spread itself beyond the Jews. This leaves what, the competing religions of the day. We may very well end up with more religions in the modern world. Given this more "multi-polar" religious world, I wonder will the religions be forced to be more tolerant, just like the RCC was forced to be tolerant (in the sense that they will no longer to eliminate) towards Protestants because trying to stamp them out failed.

[LadyTevar]

Since Jesus is considered one of the prophets, and mentioned as such in the Qur'an, would shooting him stop Mohammed?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Er... I do hope that people remember that he allowed himself to be martyred.... so killing him would just speed things along...

[Patrick Degan]

David Gerrold dealt with this particular question in his time-travel novel, The Man Who Folded Himself. At one point, his protagonist, Dan Eakins, was on an assassination kick —knocking off various villains from history to try to make a better world. One of his victims was Jesus. Went into the desert after him, and of course the once-and-future King of Kings never comes back. But the world Eakins returns to is a rather different one than any of the other Earths he'd been to in his time-hopping. The languages are almost completely different, the technology is somewhat more primitive, the society is totally unrecognisable. He realises that, for good or ill, the Church shaped the world he came from and decides that a Christ-less world is too alien for him to try to exist in. So he goes back and unkills Jesus by convincing his earlier self not to do the deed.

[Srynerson]

Since Jesus is considered one of the prophets, and mentioned as such in the Qur'an, would shooting him stop Mohammed?

Arguably yes, or at least it would significantly change Islam. Muhammad was exposed to Christian teachings both before and after his visions began by his wife Khadija's cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal who was reportedly a Nestorian monk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waraqah_ibn_Nawfal

[Baal]

Er... I do hope that people remember that he allowed himself to be martyred.... so killing him would just speed things along...

Maybe I wasnt clear. I meant that you would kill them before they did anything meaningful in their life.

[mr friendly guy]

Er... I do hope that people remember that he allowed himself to be martyred.... so killing him would just speed things along...

Maybe I wasnt clear. I meant that you would kill them before they did anything meaningful in their life.

You were quite clear to me, and I was going to reply along those lines but you beat me to it.

[darthbob88]

Personally, I wouldn't. As Morilore said, the Butterfly Effect alone would screw things up. However, I'm more concerned about the impact of removing a major force for good from the world. I'd prefer to go back and talk to them; convince them that works should matter more than words, that good works will be the Get-Into-Heaven-Free Card, rather than worshipping God, and to be much less ambiguous in what they say and write. If we can start a Fundie-proof church early on, it should improve matters greatly.