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devilsadvocate

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  1. Watching The Passion of the Christ recently reopened a lot of unresolved issues about the credibility of the Christian thesis for me. Why do I feel that Judas was the real victim in this drama? How guilty was he anyway? After all, since Jesus could foretell that he was going to be betrayed (and I think it is fair to assume that he also knew who was going to do it), the question is whether Judas had any choice in the matter. If an act can be foretold by divine foresight, can the actor choose not to carry it out? If the actor can choose not to do so, it would mean that God can be wrong! Did Destiny, as the instrument of God, impel Judas to act as he did? If so, then to what extent can Judas be blamed for what happened to Jesus? Also, we might add, that since Jesus had foreknowledge of the betrayal, and yet made no attempt to evade capture, he must at least be guilty of complicity in his own fate! Doesn’t all this seem “staged”? If we take a step back from all this, and reflect on Jesus mission on earth, which included his dying to "save" the world, we must conclude that someone had to end up being the "bad guy" in bringing about his death. All the other alternatives (of Jesus dying from natural causes, or by accident, or committing the unthinkable act of suicide) would not be "noble" enough or have the necessary dramatic effect of a "sacrifice", for inspiring the following that he had! So someone had to do the dirty work of betraying Jesus & taking the blame for his death! When was this specific, unfortunate individual (Judas) identified? When he was chosen as a disciple? When he was born? Eventually, it was Judas who made the ultimate sacrifice - of being condemned to eternity in hell (presumably, from the Christian standpoint, if anyone should deserve hell, he does) while Jesus now enjoys eternity in heaven (until his long-awaited second coming!) - all for an event that was divinely ordained and therefore unavoidable... surely an act of divine injustice on a cosmic scale!! Judas had the role of being the ultimate "fall guy" in this easter drama; the ultimate scapegoat! The crucifixion had a critical historical role in Christianity. Notwithstanding all the other good that Jesus did, it is still the one thing that made him “worthy” of such adulation and worship. Nothing else in Jesus life was so emotionally inspiring as to motivate the early Christians to risk persecution or to face martyrdom with the fortitude that they did. The director of the Passion must have understood the audience appeal of portraying his suffering to the extent that the movie did. At first I thought there was some perversion on the part of so many Christians who would willingly sit through so many agonising minutes of Jesus’ torture and murder. And then it hit me – the more that he suffers, the more they love him for it; the more that it justifies their love for him! Was the crucifixion staged as a divine publicity stunt? Was it fabricated (or dressed up as such) by the early church fathers in order to win followers? Why was there a need for all the drama of crucifixion? Couldn’t Jesus simply have jumped off a cliff – wouldn’t this have satisfied the requirements of a sacrifice for the purpose of the Redemption? For that matter, couldn’t his parents simply have stayed put, and allowed the infant Jesus to have been captured & killed by Herod’s men? Does the concept of Jesus' "sacrifice" make sense at all? A sacrifice is when you give up something that is precious to you. If Jesus is who the Christians say he is (ie, the son of God), then his "death" was simply a homecoming - a chance to be reunited with the "Father". If someone is “killed” but is then resurrected, did he even really die? Where is the sacrifice? A soldier who gives up his life in battle to save his comrades sacrifices much more!! - in giving up life for an uncertain fate in eternity. If I were a Christian, I would be more inclined to think that Jesus' "sacrifice" was in coming into the world (and enduring separation from the Father), rather than in his "dying". And who is this "sacrifice" being made to anyway? God? So God sent his "only begotten son" into the world, to be ultimately sacrificed to Himself? Otherwise, he will not forgive mankind a transgression committed by the first man and woman? I can’t understand why anybody (never mind so many intelligent Christians that I know) would find this to be plausible! And in the first place, what loving (never mind responsible) creator would put two naive individuals within reach of a tree whose fruit could result in such dire consequences? It is as incongruous as a loving parent putting poison within reach of inquisitive children, and then telling them not to take it! This is so mind boggling that I can understand why the Church demands "faith" in its acceptance. I don’t believe that Jesus actually intended to die on the cross. Otherwise, his cry of despair (“My God, why has thou forsaken me?”) would make no sense. This was a cry of despair directed not so much at his impending death, but at his uncompleted mission – one that is centred on teaching (rather than dying). It seems to me that Christianity has missed the whole point of Jesus' coming - that so much attention has been placed on his death, when it should have been placed on his life and teachings instead. By insisting on the "acceptance of Christ as one's saviour" as the primary requirement for salvation, Christianity has succeeded in corrupting what Christ stood for into a personality cult, and reduced it to a sycophantic appeal to divine ego, so contrary to the selflessness that epitomised his life. Jesus' real sacrifice was not in dying on the cross, but in living each day of his life for others rather than himself! He did not come to make Christians out of us, but to invite us to share Christhood with him; not so much for us to adulate but to emulate him; and not for us to call him “lord” but “brother”. "Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46) "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him". (John 14:23)
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