Racist Jesus
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008But no, really, the story about the Good Samaritan is actually racist.
Dem Jebus Bones
Thursday, March 1st, 2007The Times has a blog post about James Cameron’s forthcoming documentary about finding the tomb of some dude named Jesus, his brother, James, his son, Matthew, and his wife, Mary.
First, from someone who doesn’t believe this Jesus guy (in the Bible) even existed, I can only ask the obvious: How do you prove this is that Jesus? I can’t really think of anything except a preponderance of circumstantial evidence that makes the probability higher. I don’t see any here. The article itself seems to have some logical flaws along the same line.
It reads that if we could confirm kinship between Jesus and James, we could prove there was no Immaculate Conception, and if we could prove the Mary and Jesus in the tomb were not related, then they were definitely man and wife. But it all only begs the question: Is this the Jesus Christianity talks about? Where’s that proof? God wanna offer us up some DNA for kinship analysis?
What’s funnier, though, is the response from the Church:
“Every Christian knows that Jesus the son of God and man died and rose again on Easter Sunday,” a New York Archdiocese spokesman, Joseph Zwilling, told The New York Post on Sunday. “No alleged DNA test or Hollywood film is going to change that.”
Apparently, no actual verifiable truth is going to change that either, considering the defensive tone, but that’s beside the point. Are you catching this embarrassingly blatant reversal of faith and reason here? So telling. “Every Christian knows?” Doesn’t that defeat the requirement of faith? Even if not, how do they know? Revelation, the authority of the Church, assurance that Jesus sounds more real than Zeus. And “alleged” DNA testing? I’m pretty sure that whether they actually did DNA testing is quite verifiable. It’s what the DNA tells us that is the problem: It tells us diddly shit. It seems this spokesman is implicitly accepting the validity of these archaeological findings and Cameron’s claims and simply responding with, “Nuh-uh. Your mom is ugly.”
The president of the National Clergy Council, the Reverend Bob Schenk commented in similar fashion:
According to Cameron, his film is no mere speculation, but historical fact. By claiming the remains of Jesus returned to dust along with other members of his family, the Hollywood filmmaker is denying the divinity of the Son of God and his victory over death. Cameron clearly intended to drive a stake into the heart of Christianity, since without the Resurrection, Jesus was only a mortal man.
The author of the blog post notes, quite astutely, that the remains of Jesus’s body could only actually disprove Jesus’s Ascension into Heaven. I know the Ascension is part of the articles of faith listed in the Nicean Creed, but is it really necessary to remain consistent in this little bubble of theology? In a world where God forgets to pull out (or use a jimmy hat), it seems perfectly conceivable that Jesus could have been crucified on Good Friday, risen from the dead on Easter Sunday, gone to let his disciples know he was okay after all, and then lived a long happy life being married with kids. Perhaps Resurrection was his official retirement from Son-of-God duties. I can imagine the following at the famous fish-eating, nail-hole-poking meal: “Hey, Thomas; I really am alive. But I’m gonna go hook up with that fine piece of whore ass and have her pop me out some progeny now, so, while it’s been great knowing y’all and literally dying for you, I think I done my part. Feel free to tell the natives I floated up into the clouds or what the fuck; I’d like some privacy, yo. Peace out. Go start a church or something.”
In Honor of Ash Wednesday
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
