Quote of the Day

By -
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
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Snarking The Odyssey (with AD&D)

By -
Image
WARNING: Those of you who are accustomed to pithy political remarks here on Internal Monologue should brace yourselves for a major dose of gaming geekitude. Here's a link to one "Jamie R." who does a very snarky close reading of Homer's The Odyssey (HT: Mad Latinist via email). I've only read book 1, but it's pretty funny so far. An excerpt: Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men… Sooooo, he’s in charge, and everybody dies. Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero and his colossal failure. What? … for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever rea...
Read more

Where is 56th and Wabasha? "Meet Me in the Morning" Dylan Mystery Solved

By -
Image
Short version The lyric is not "Fifty-sixth and Wabasha", it is actually "Fifty-six and Wabasha", referring to the intersection of old Minnesota Highway 56 and Wabasha Street in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you listen, you can hear Dylan sing "fifty-six", rather than "fifty-sixth", particularly on the take that was released as the B-side to "Duquesne Whistle". Minnesota Highway 56 no longer intersects Wabasha Street, but from 1963 to 1974 it did intersect Wabasha Street, at what is now (in Feb. 2021) the intersection of George Street and Cesar Chavez Street in St. Paul, or possibly South Wabasha & Cesar Chavez.  Long Version "Meet Me in the Morning" is the first song on side two of Bob Dylan's celebrated 1975 album  Blood on the Tracks. In the opening lines of the song, according to the lyrics on Bob Dylan's official site (https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/meet-me-morning/), the narrator invites the listener to a rendez...
Read more

Victim or perpetrator? How about both!

By -
Remember in the movie Adaptation , the main character's brother has this idea for a screenplay called The Three? It's about a detective trying to track down a serial killer before he kills his next victim. Pretty standard, right? The twist is that the detective, serial killer, and victim, are all actually the same person . Whoa, dude. Fight Club 's got nothin' on that one. Well, this isn't quite that weird. But apparently, Utah legal authorities are somewhat perplexed by a situation in which a 13-year-old girl and her 12-year-old boyfriend are both simultaneously the perpetrators and victims of the same crime: having sex with each other (HT: Feministing ): Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old Ogden girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend. The girl was put in this odd position be...
Read more