CHAPTER 6: THE TROUBLE WITH JESUS
Wise men present gifts: We are three wise men.
Mandy Cohen: What?
Wise men: We are three wise men.
Mandy Cohen: Well what are doing creeping around in this house at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me. Monty Python’s Life of Brian 1979
Who first assumed God was omnipotent? So God decides after 13.5 billion years to intervene in human evolution by branding our misdemeanours as sins and by sacrificing Her blue-eyed favourite as celestial compensation. Is God bound by a universal Law of Sin? As Einstein asked — did God have a choice?
God had a son, and he said, ‘Jesus, I’m sending you on a suicide mission. But don’t worry. They can’t kill you ’cause you’re really me.’ Bill Maher, ABC television
The trouble with sins is that sins are transitory. Collecting sticks on the Sabbath back in the circumcismal day was worthy of death but is now regarded as essential to the building of a bonfire so that one can burn a witch. Who pays tithing these days except Mormons wishing to qualify for the proxy dunking of the dead in their temples?
Why didn’t He just forgive them? Why was it necessary to have a human sacrifice? To have His son tortured and executed in order that the sins of mankind should be absolved? Is that not the most disgusting idea you ever heard? Professor Richard Dawkins, interview Nicky Campbell, Big Questions: Is the Bible Still Relevant Today?
Jesus asserts he is the fulfilment of Mosaic law. Except he isn’t. Why would an unchanging God bother with differing sets of laws and customs? Hitchens objects from the prosecution bench that, ‘If the New Testament is supposed to vindicate Moses, why are the gruesome laws of the Pentateuch to be undermined?’
Jesus dispenses the forgiveness of sins arbitrarily, and such behaviour smacking of favouritism is odd.
Now, unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic ... This makes sense only if he really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply that I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history. C S Lewis, Mere Christianity
Jesus dispenses the healing of body parts arbitrarily, and such behaviour smacking of favouritism is odd.
If Jesus could heal a blind person he happened to meet, then why not heal blindness? Christopher Hitchens
Blessed are the meek. What on Earth is blessed? The meek shall inherit the Earth. Except they won’t. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God’ (Matthew 5:8). The pure in heart, whatever that means, do not see God. This weak wielding of philosophy is a poor substitute for strong scientific advice. How to cure disease is more useful than the curing of the odd bystander (except for the bystander). But the Sermon on the Mount weirdies are examples of the bearded wonder’s predictions and waffles that are dawggone wrong:
Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:28)
Resurrection, the casting out of devils (a dying art), walking on water, denying the presence of your parents, the cursing of fig trees, camping in the desert, pulling motes from your brothers’ eyes, speaking in parables, raising the smelly dead, and dining with prostitutes were once minority sports but have since fallen out of favour. Pity. The turning of water into wine is a promising talent with modern marketing potential, and sure to impress your friends at parties.
I would be curious to meet him. To find out what really happened. Professor Richard Dawkins, BBC Radio Ulster
Uppermost in this appalling panjandrum of inappropriate advice lies the Parable of Labourers in the Vinyard (Matthew 20: 1-16). Here the Rupert Murdoch of Viticulture hires early-morning workers for a pittance, then throughout the day at provocatively the same rate. Is Jesus promoting the practices and injustice of bad employers? Has Jesus no sympathy for the downtrodden employees? Not a word then for the good work and wisdom of trade unions?
Jesus passes the opportunity to preach against the prevalence of domestic violence, passes the opportunity to promote the education of daughters, peace-love-and-joy, with the lackluster and frankly disturbed: ‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household’. (Matthew 10:34-36)
Not a word then against the evils of slavery, empire, capitalism, the burning of witches, beware a bloke called Hitler; not a word to promote democracy, human rights, civil liberties, hygiene, antibiotics, or bud-bud-glorious-bud.
Jesus is crucified for high crimes against the Analogy (and as ever schoolchild knows at Christmas we celebrate the birthday of Adele). The Godfather of the Analogy — Don Jesus — finds himself embroiled in a bitter war of words and bullets with the National Association of Mustard Seed Merchants, the Sand Builders Guild and the Vineyard Labourers Union. The final straw for the president of the Sand Builders Guild, Pontius Pilot, is a turf war in the Garden of Gethsemane when a disciple of Jesus removes the ear of a rozzer.
If I thought the Jews killed God, I’d worship the Jews. Bill Hicks
Cold-blooded Christians consent to a fascist regime of Heaven and Hell, and care for the fate of their own souls rather than summon the courage and solidarity for their condemned brothers and sisters.
What I said was that teaching children that they will roast in Hell could under some circumstances be worse than physical abuse, in the sense that it may last longer. Professor Richard Dawkins, In Confidence
The fear of being cast into Hell raises powerful imagery and inflames the soft brain-matter of the believer:
Not until gentle Jesus meek and mild is the concept of Hell introduced. Eternal torture, eternal punishment, for you and all your family for the smallest transgression. I have no hesitation in saying this is a wicked belief. Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens v Reverend Al Sharpton
How, then, does a Christian slip past Peter on the Pearly Gates and into the Elysian Fields of Heaven? By baptism, by belief, by having a poor spirit, by belittling oneself as a child, by poverty, by grace, by works, by works of a high standard, or by a combination of the above? You might think the answer more rock-settled:
1. Baptism: And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. (Matthew 3:15)
2. Belief: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. (Mark 16:16)
3. By Having a Poor Spirit: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
4. Belittling Oneself as a Child: And said, Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)
5. By Poverty: Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:23)
6. By Grace: But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15:11)