If not for salvation, what sets Jesus apart?

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I see Jesus as a revolutionary Love emissary. The most striking difference from other holy figures is that not only is the message to love one another, but to love the unlovable. Also Jesus had no problem with women disciples....an incredible and improbable idea at the time. Women were property! Enslaved people were property! Samaritans were despised, as were tax collectors. Jesus hung out with all the wrong people. That message must have been incredibly life-giving at the time.
I don't think the modern mind can grasp the enormity of this.
My understanding differs a bit. I see an historical story that doesn't set Jesus apart as a visitor from God. All prophets and holy people from the beginning -- long before Christianity -- were similarly set into a narrative of birth/death/resurrection. This has always gotten people's attention. We have always liked a good, hopeful story and so it got widely shared.
 
Well, to begin with, Jesus is the only religious teacher who isn't dead!

If that isn't enough, perhaps the fact that his teachings are markedly different from others' could be. Humans are inherently religious, and like to invent belief systems that help us make sense of our existence. The mark of man-made religion for me is when religious teachers teach that humans can attain salvation, oneness, etc. by obeying a certain moral code. Jesus teaches humans that this is impossible, and therefore takes all of the credit away from us. That to me (among other teachings, such as loving and praying for your enemies) is evidence that this belief system wasn't invented by us - because at face-value it doesn't benefit us.

But thank God for his grace in enabling us to know him through Jesus!
 
Well, to begin with, Jesus is the only religious teacher who isn't dead!

According to the mythology of Christianity, of course. In objective reality, no more alive than the Buddha or Confucius.

the fact that his teachings are markedly different from others' could be.

Jesus' "great commandment" was the Golden Rule, lifted from Deuteronomy, or quoting the almost contemporaneous Hillel. He taught in cryptic parables, a common technique of the time, and again not dissimilar to the Zen koan.
 
Hey, @Geo , nice to see you pop by.

Well, to begin with, Jesus is the only religious teacher who isn't dead!

That isn't quite where I was going. Really, I was trying to get those who don't believe in atonement theology and a literal Resurrection to tell why I would bother with Jesus IF one rejects those, as many progressives and liberals do. To me, a faith like yours is a good reason to follow Jesus but if one takes that away, is he really any different from any other teacher? Essentially where I was going is that one pretty much must believe as you do to accord Jesus any kind of special status over other religious teachers and leaders.
 
Or you just have to pick a way to express your spiritual influences, and to go outside of your "culture" doesn't necessarily work.
 
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