Invoking Jesus when you don’t worship him:
Often people who don’t identify as Christian will mention Jesus’s teachings to make a political point - Jesus said to help the poor, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, etc. Are these comments hypocritical since the speaker is apparently discounting Jesus’s profession the he is the son of God? Is it cherry-picking? Curious what others think.
No they are not . They are truly wide read statements that a religion was formed upon. If Jesus was real and did indeed say these very words, I would be backing him. Even though it may be legend , the words themself, are just wonderful. I follow a humane way of life but no way believe it is a gift from jesus.
One might quote what Shakespeare said, or correct what he did not actually say. Does this make someone a hypocrite? Why for heaven's sake?
On the contrary, is it not hypocritical for the Christian to cherry-pick what Jesus said or did not say and at the same time pretend to worship Jesus as the Son of God?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to quote the alleged words of the Biblical Jesus character. The Bible is a widely read/known book and can even have some small credibility as a historical account of some events. There is no need to worship Jesus/God, simply because you discuss the subject or use some of its commonly known stories, to illustrate your point. I wouldn't judge the use of biblical text as hypocritical. After all "Do not judge lest you be judged" lol
Read the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson, a secular deist, just took those words that were ascribed to Jesus and strung them together as being the closest we can get to what he stood for. An interesting read. As far as quoting Jesus ... I quote many folks for their wisdom, from Confuscius to Twain. Doesn't mean I believe in all they say.
I'm not of Christian background. I don't expound on Jesus. I will post memes. To me he was a Jew that someone decided to create this thing called christianity around him.
I think a lot of the Christians but not all are hypocrites when it comes to the poor. If you are poor life is just more expensive because you incur penalties when you are late paying any kind of bill and if you get overdrawn at the bank they take more out in fees than you make. You work hard at twck or three part time low paying jobs and get called lazy because you are forced to seek food stamps or housing assistance. Yes there are some poor who truly are lazy but most work their asses off for nothing and the Christians don't want to pay anyone a living wage. The farmers ( and I am a farmer too) whine because they can't get people to harvest their crops by hand, back breaking labor that does not even pay the bare existence level of life. They can't have it both ways, either they need to understand workers must be paid a living wage or the government needs to be there with assistance. Despite Trumps claims we have one of the lowest tax rates of the developed world and the highest medical and educational costs. It's no wonder our poor class is growing by leaps and bounds as the middle class sinks into poverty.
I will say those things only to believers to point out their hypocrisy.
In Muslim lore, JESUS is just another teacher of men. I guess it depends on how much you know of the story of JESUS and his impact on certain beliefs.