Quote of the Day

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A rant against Christian celebration of the resurrection:
In terms of Christian holidays, I’ve always found Easter to make the least amount of sense. Think about it---the central justification of Christianity is that Christ died for your sins, a giant human sacrifice to buy salvation for anyone who wants it, right? But since Jesus isn’t actually dead, and instead is up and walking around in the space of a long weekend, it’s not much of a sacrifice, is it? His is supposed to be the most important death of all of human history, but actually, it’s the least troubling since it didn’t stick like it does for 100% of everyone else. The resurrection always took the impact of the sacrifice away for me, and I suspect that’s somewhat true for believers, too, who dwell not on images of stones being rolled away or former corpses walking around, but on the image of Christ on the cross. Face it, the resurrection cheapens the whole thing, and reads like it’s tacked on to give people a happy ending.
--Amanda Marcotte, on Pandagon

The morality implied by Christian theology doesn't really fit our moral intuitions if we take a moment to stop and examine it.

This brings to mind another issue, which is: The questions "Is Christian theology true?" and "Is Christian theology morally sound?" are separate questions. (By Christian theology I mean something along the lines of the Nicene creed and the actions of God as depicted in the Bible.) I answer both questions in the negative. But I can imagine people answering yes-yes ("God exists and is good"), no-yes ("There's no God, but the universe would be morally better if there were.") and even yes-no ("God, you're an immoral bastard!").

Comments

Anonymous said…
In terms of Christian holidays, I’ve always found Easter to make the least amount of sense.

Of course in the US, with most believers being some form of "Low Protestant," there are basically only two Christian holiday. So I guess she should have said "the lesser amount of sense" ;)

This is why Americans are bewildered by the number of Jewish holidays. If they were Catholic they might see thing differently!

... it didn’t stick like it does for 100% of everyone else.

Ahem, Lazarus. Though I don't know what happened to him afterwards. Presumably he eventually died again. I'm sure there are some traditions that answer this, and others that add further miraculous resurrection. To say nothing of "the Wandering Jew."

Face it, the resurrection cheapens the whole thing, and reads like it’s tacked on to give people a happy ending.

Heh! Note that between rising from the grave and ascending from the Mount of Olives, Jesus doesn't do anything terribly interesting.
11:53 PM, April 13, 2009
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