Or this one: how is humility causing someone misery or not?
It's certainly a valid opinion to believe that being humble is related to not causing harm to others. Breaking the "looking out for number one" mindset, as you put it, has a large part in not seeing one's self interest as the only end. This is definitely not unique to Jesus; Buddha taught similar things, for example.
I'm not all that interested in debating whether everything Jesus said can be boiled down to not harming others. I believe that was the primary message around which his teachings coalesced, but it's valid to think otherwise. The point is, a person coming from that ethical foundation can see a lot of value in what Jesus taught (or is claimed to have taught) without believing in the mysticism.
If you didn't think that 2+2 was 4 to begin with, and a crazy person told you that 2+2 is 4, how would you know that he's right?
You're reading too much into the "2 + 2 = 4." That is a literal mathematical fact, whereas moral/ethical teachings are not. My point was not that Jesus' teachings were objective fact like "2 + 2 = 4" is (because it isn't), but that one can find correctness or something they agree in what a person says with even if they don't like or believe in the person saying it.
And what possible excuse could you give yourself to listen to what he says, and then change your beliefs to what he just told you?
I'll listen to a lot of people, even FOXNews personalities. It can be interesting to listen to the worldviews of other people. Being a rational being means taking in what you hear, processing it and accepting the things that are consistent with what you see as the evidence in life.
I'm extremely puzzled by your shock and confusion that one can not believe that Jesus was the son of God but still agree with other things he said. That doesn't strike me as confusing at all. Some things that people say make sense to one, some things don't. Do you either have to agree with everything I say, or nothing at all?
And yet, when I talk about the scientific backing I think explains a lot of Young Earth Creation, nobody in here says "that guy's a crazy believer in imaginary friends, but he does have a point with those facts."
If you actually have empirical facts, those should be accepted whether you believe in "Imaginary Friends" or not. Of course, there is the problem of lack of expertise. If someone doesn't have the knowledge to know whether your claimed facts are true or not, they either have to "believe" you or not. If what you say goes against what most scientists say, it's reasonable to reject what you're saying on that basis, not on the basis that you're a "religious nut."
But you're saying that for 2000 years just about everyone in the West has been cool with adopting a wholly different moral code whose genesis was in Genesis (pun intended) and whose most popular adherent was a carpenter from backwater Palestine who claimed to be the Son of God and the Immaculately Conceived Mary?
I think many people believed Jesus as the son of God (just as many people have believed other religious leaders). What does that have to do with anything being discussed here? This is about the reaction of people who don't believe (due to lack of evidence) that Jesus was the son of God.
If I could get personal, why is it that you specifically think that Jesus is telling you 2+2=4 when he says "cause as little harm as possible"
As explained above, I don't believe it is like someone saying "2 + 2 = 4," but I do think Jesus' teachings (which, again, didn't start with him, as they've been formulated by cultures throughout history before and after Jesus) are pretty solid. Why do I think that? Because, at some fundamental level, I believe that causing harm to others is a bad thing. All thinking on ethics and morality does have to start from some unsourced belief, because there's no universal ethics to start from. Religious people start from some variation on "holy scripture" as their unsourced belief (the scripture has no verified source, just ascribed without evidence to "god"), secularists start from what feels right to them.
The difference, to me, is that religious adherents don't start from that unsourced foundation and then apply rationality. They are told completely what to believe, lock, stock and barrel. There isn't any thinking, any flexibility to incorporate new evidence, new information. A secularist who starts from the foundation of innate principles can rationally build his/her actions on that foundation and, as he/she encounters new situations or good arguments, can adjust to better live in peace with life and people.
