"Either Jesus is the Son of God; or a madman or worse. But His being just a great teacher? He's not left that open to us." - C.S. Lewis
Lewis was no tard, thats for sure. However, he is oversimplifying this to push his Protestant Christian Fundy dogma... As the only Hindu on this board, I feel the need to weigh in..
Everybody goes to either heaven or hell argument is ridiculous, it is more of a product of Western Philosophy than actual Truth. The truth is that Reincarnation takes place until moksha, or liberation is reached. There are astral realms that do resemble heaven or hell though based on the karma and actions of life one has lived. No one sends you there, you just go to your own level of vibration. Much like radio waves exist on different frequencies, after death, you go to an astral realm that matches your vibratory manifestation, until you reincarnate again. Not transmigration though (going from a bug, to a bird, to a human). Doesn't happen.
Christ did make radical statements, that does not ween the options down to 1.) The only Son of God 2.) A crazed idiot.
The Lord in the sacred Hindu Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, declares: "Whenever virtue declines and vice predominates, I incarnate as an Avatar. In visible form I appear from age to age to protect the virtuous and to destroy evildoing in order to reestablish righteousness"
Divine intercession to mitigate the cosmic law of cause and effect, by which a man suffers from his errors, was at the heart of the mission of love Jesus came to fulfill. Moses brought the law from God to man, emphasizing the awful justice that befalls willful heedlessness. Jesus came to demonstrate the forgiveness and compassion of God, whose love is a shelter even from the exacting law.
Jesus came in a darkened age that was little able to appreciate him; but his message of the love of God and his intercession on behalf of suffering humanity was not only for that time but for all ages to come—that God is with man in this darkest moments as well as in enlightened times. He reminded a world fearful of their Creator as a God of wrathful judgment that, though "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth," the Absolute is also a personal God who can be appealed to in prayer and who responds as a loving heavenly Father.
To understand the magnitude of a divine incarnation, it is necessary to understand the source and nature of the consciousness that is incarnate in the avatar. Jesus spoke of this consciousness when he proclaimed: "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30) and "I am in the Father, and the Father in me" (John 14:11). Those who unite their consciousness to God know both the transcendent and the immanent nature of Spirit (through inductive reasoning and direct experience, i might add)—the singularity of the ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss of the Uncreate Absolute, and the myriad manifestations of His Being as the Infinitude of forms into which He variegates Himself in the panorama of creation.
The Good Shepherd of souls opened his arms to all, rejecting none, and with universal love coaxed the world to follow him on the path to liberation through the example of his spirit of sacrifice, renunciation, forgiveness, love for friend and enemy alike, and supreme love for God above all else.
But He was not a tree-hugging hippy patting everyone on the head... Renunciation and devotion is hard, and therefore calls for a certain element of radicalism which Jesus taught.
I doubt anyone will even consider what I am trying to say. Just offering another perspective...
