It is Monday, Easter is around the corner and maybe it is time for some sermons. I have been rereading Okot p’Bitek’s Artist the Ruler: Essays on Art, Culture and Values which I highly recommend, if you can find it that is. He quotes Eric Mascall who wrote
It has been emphasised that Christianity is historical in a sense in which no other religion is, for it stands or falls by certain events which are alleged to have taken place during a particular period of forty eight hours in Palestine nearly 2000 years ago.
Eric Mascall, inaugural lecture
Okot continues to say after this that all sorts of strange things happened during these few hours
- how for one do you interpret Peter’s so called denial? Why should a rugged fishermen deny his friend
- did Jesus ever claim to be king?
- who were the other thieves who were hanged on either side of the Christ?
- when some fellow, Joseph of Arimateus took Jesus’ body, was he really dead?
Elsewhere, he quotes from Rene Fullop-Miller’s Lenin and Gandhi
It is truly sickening….God creating: is this not the worst type of self reviling? Everyone who occupies himself with the construction of a god, or merely agrees with it, prostitutes himself in the worst way, for he occupies himself, not with activity, but with self contemplation and self reflection, and tries thereby to deify his most unclean, most stupid and most servile features or pettiness.
Lenin in response to Alexei Maximovich’s god-seeking
Have a pleasant Monday, will you.
Random thoughts 
“for it stands or falls by certain events which are alleged to have taken place during a particular period of forty eight hours in Palestine nearly 2000 years ago”
Of course a great many Christians would disagree. It was his teachings and the example he lead, not a certain 48 hours nor a crucifiction nor the alleged resurrection. But of course a great many fundamentalists would totally disagree.
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Paul, that tourist wrote that if the resurrection is not true, then their faith is in vain. So a great many followers of Paul would agree with the initial statement.
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I’m not disagreeing with you that a great many, probably the majority of Christians would agree with Paul, I was merely pointing out that many Christians do not hold that opinion. It supports my opinion that for every aspect of Christian faith deemed essential by one group, there’s another group that deems it trivial or false .
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You are right on this.
Take for example, Seventh Day Adventists- they don’t recognize Christmas. I am not even sure they celebrate Easter. But they are all bible carrying, bible believing christians.
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Some of us don’t find the teachings or example all that exemplary. Especially as they evolved over time into yet another “system” for good and bad.
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You hit the nail on the head when you mention “system”. The supposed teachings of Jesus have been made into a system – a set of rules which must be obeyed if you don’t want to face eternal damnation. Don’t forget to that if Jesus actually existed, he was a 1st century Jew and his world view was coloured by the society he lived in, just as yours is coloured by the society you live in. If you’re looking for perfection, it doesn’t exist.
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Even without their evolution, most of the teachings are really not great even on their own. They are mostly unsound precepts. https://maasaiboys.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/is-the-morality-of-jesus-sound/
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Was having a similar argument over on another blog by a Jesus babbler enthusing about how he “Follows Jesus to Know Gawd Better”. Thanks!
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That i think is an argument that we say in my vernacular is going nowhere
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I’m not going around that corner. Go at your own peril. 😦
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I am not going unless you are coming with me
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Don’t look at me.
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I will not look at you. we will just walk side by side. no walking alone
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Your call.
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as you like it
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Belief in god will give one the experience of what they god. You will then always experience what you believe and nothing else. And this invalidates the experience.
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“..who were the other thieves who were hanged on either side of the Christ?” Actually, science has discovered these weren’t thieves at all, but, rather, two dwarfs of Snow White fame: Sneezy and Grumpy. Apparently, Pilot hated the two guys for some reason, and, when the stopped into town on tour, he had ’em crucified. Cruel guy, that Pilot, eh.
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Hahaha.
Jeff, my brother, you make my days.
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Wow, you stimulated some lively conversation!
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it is my pleasure. makes blogging interesting
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Look, Ēostre is the reason for the season, and the Easter Bunny is her messenger. This Jesus fellow is just an annoying interloper. It’s time we cancel his sorry little ass and relegate him to the dustbin of history.
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I think this is the best approach. The book says he went to heaven wherever that is and it is best we let him stay there
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Egg-actly
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It has, after all, been 2000 years?
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Maybe less, depending on when the first story was written 😀
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Easter schmeaster. Where’s the chocolate?
At least chocolate is real. It exists. It’s existence easily proven.
Show us the chocolate! Made up BS stories from 2000 years ago, from men who still thought the earth is flat and did not understand germs cause disease, among other things, and they claim to know truth. I am not putting any trust in what they thought they knew.
The ways of men, honor, integrity, dishonesty, cunning, things like that, were well understood then. But real knowledge, evidence based knowledge in other things, barely had a toehold in those times. (except for weapons of the day and means of torture) Mercury tonic anyone? Perhaps some leeches feasting on your blood to cure your headache? Some pleasant bloodletting to cure your ills perhaps? I’m sure people in those times were wise in many ways, but well informed they were not.
Today they would be watching Faux News and worshipping Q.
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