Jalpha wrote:It would perhaps be better if we were all to nail jewish effigies to wooden crosses and then to take spears and one by one, to jab the effigy with a spear until the straw falls out and a fire can be lit beneath it.
This would be a ritual much more serving of the mindless, brutal ignorance of our species.
On the day of resurrection we could all take drugs that would give us nightmares of the end of the world and scrolls unravelling as punishment for being self centered and deluded liars.
Hosanna!
Well, if it makes you feel any better, Jalpha, I don't particularly think religion is a good commentary about the human species.
It's a sign that we really are screwed up - mindless, brutal, and ignorant, as you say! - and we are powerless to change things by sheer fiat.
Again, remember, it was the supposedly holy and God-fearing Jews who put Jesus on the Cross, and the supposedly just authority of the Romans that condemned him to die and that nailed him to the Cross.
The Cross is ultimately a sign of victory. But among other victories, it is a victory over human incompetence and our own hatred of our own well-being.
I mean that your cynicism is right and just, is irritatingly lost on many Christians, and many Christians today do not really take seriously how screwed up the human race is and how utterly, radically, and impossibly it needs to change in order to even meet the standard of
goodness.
I think you and I agree on that, Jalpha. I think it is the only sane way to understand the idea of original sin. And I don't think you need scripture to believe in original sin. It's in the news every god damned day.
I think we only differ in that you believe the human race could ever pull itself up by its bootstraps.