Sometimes the response...
Is smarter than that which prompts the response...
A brilliant friend of mine just wrote to me, in reply to The Passion of Laurel (Everyone's Jew).
We'll call her Waria Meidner.
She said:
One thing I've never understood, though, is the deicide business (I've seen it mentioned in the papers a lot in relation to this movie). They say it's a fundmental tenet of anti-semitism but it just doesn't make any sense. I was remember being taught the following in Catholic school:
1. God makes the world. God makes a guy. God makes a girl. She bites an apple and shares and that's original sin and now we all are marked forever with it and we have to die.
2. But God loves us. So he decides to send his Son (who is, inexplicably, also Him) to save us and make the ultimate sacrifice--he has to hang out and act like one of us (which he is, yet, inexplicably, isn't) and he has to die, and miserably, to save us all. NOTE: God is God, but also, inexplicably, a boy, a He.
3. Repeat. Jesus had to die or we would be damned. Forever (world without end, amen). But he did (die) (for us). So we're saved, but only if we accept, recognize and duly express gratitude (though that's something of an understatement) for the amazing sacrifice he made for us because he loves us (He being Jesus but also the whole Trinity, inexplicably).
4. So all the business of who killed him (assuming you buy all this stuff in the first place) is immaterial. He had to die if the sinners (that would be everyone that's ever lived) were going to even have a chance for salvation, so one might say it's all our faults for being sinners in the first place BUT if we're really gonna talk about who killed who the buck stops with the BIG GUY. He did it. Second grade logic:
1. Adam and Eve commit original sin, which is dumb, but it's not like they said: "Hey, God, send your only Son (who is, inexplicably, yourself) down here to save our sorry asses from the fires of hell." I would venture they didn't even know that was an option, given that THEY weren't the ones establishing the order of things.
2. The whole I'll send my son/myself to die (and miserably) to save you guys was His idea and if you're going to talk about the roles played by Jews or Romans at the particular moment in history, you could only say they were pawns. God had already made up his mind to have his son/himself killed to save us all and business. Which can only lead one to conclude that God is guilty of deicide...and suicide...and whatever the -cide is when you kill your own kid. But he did it for us. But it was his idea.
This presumes he's as powerful as they say he is. That is, this presumes that he is God. If he isn't, he isn't. But then all the arguments fall apart and Jesus was just a charismatic noisy guy who met his end at the hands of a brand of justice that may or may not have not been particularly just. It's a shame, but it happens every day. Even here (what a shocker).
That wraps up what I thought when I was little (with a little elaboration at the end). I think it now. But in trying to pursue the logical end to this I ended up with one last question:
(1) Killing is a sin. (2) All things ending in -cide are killing (3) God (the Christian god) committed several kinds of -cide (killing) in the process of saving us all from our sins.
QUESTION: When Jesus died, did he save his dad (and, inexplicably, himself) from the sins they were committing against eachother and themselves to save us all?
I don't know. But I hate bigots and I don't think that's a sin, either.
Eh? What do YOU think?
A brilliant friend of mine just wrote to me, in reply to The Passion of Laurel (Everyone's Jew).
We'll call her Waria Meidner.
She said:
One thing I've never understood, though, is the deicide business (I've seen it mentioned in the papers a lot in relation to this movie). They say it's a fundmental tenet of anti-semitism but it just doesn't make any sense. I was remember being taught the following in Catholic school:
1. God makes the world. God makes a guy. God makes a girl. She bites an apple and shares and that's original sin and now we all are marked forever with it and we have to die.
2. But God loves us. So he decides to send his Son (who is, inexplicably, also Him) to save us and make the ultimate sacrifice--he has to hang out and act like one of us (which he is, yet, inexplicably, isn't) and he has to die, and miserably, to save us all. NOTE: God is God, but also, inexplicably, a boy, a He.
3. Repeat. Jesus had to die or we would be damned. Forever (world without end, amen). But he did (die) (for us). So we're saved, but only if we accept, recognize and duly express gratitude (though that's something of an understatement) for the amazing sacrifice he made for us because he loves us (He being Jesus but also the whole Trinity, inexplicably).
4. So all the business of who killed him (assuming you buy all this stuff in the first place) is immaterial. He had to die if the sinners (that would be everyone that's ever lived) were going to even have a chance for salvation, so one might say it's all our faults for being sinners in the first place BUT if we're really gonna talk about who killed who the buck stops with the BIG GUY. He did it. Second grade logic:
1. Adam and Eve commit original sin, which is dumb, but it's not like they said: "Hey, God, send your only Son (who is, inexplicably, yourself) down here to save our sorry asses from the fires of hell." I would venture they didn't even know that was an option, given that THEY weren't the ones establishing the order of things.
2. The whole I'll send my son/myself to die (and miserably) to save you guys was His idea and if you're going to talk about the roles played by Jews or Romans at the particular moment in history, you could only say they were pawns. God had already made up his mind to have his son/himself killed to save us all and business. Which can only lead one to conclude that God is guilty of deicide...and suicide...and whatever the -cide is when you kill your own kid. But he did it for us. But it was his idea.
This presumes he's as powerful as they say he is. That is, this presumes that he is God. If he isn't, he isn't. But then all the arguments fall apart and Jesus was just a charismatic noisy guy who met his end at the hands of a brand of justice that may or may not have not been particularly just. It's a shame, but it happens every day. Even here (what a shocker).
That wraps up what I thought when I was little (with a little elaboration at the end). I think it now. But in trying to pursue the logical end to this I ended up with one last question:
(1) Killing is a sin. (2) All things ending in -cide are killing (3) God (the Christian god) committed several kinds of -cide (killing) in the process of saving us all from our sins.
QUESTION: When Jesus died, did he save his dad (and, inexplicably, himself) from the sins they were committing against eachother and themselves to save us all?
I don't know. But I hate bigots and I don't think that's a sin, either.
Eh? What do YOU think?
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