People cling to religion in order to harness harmful atavisms. These cultists seem unable to trust themselves and regulate their behaviour. Wouldn’t it be delightful if a person’s goodwill and feelings of humanity to his fellow man stemmed not from religion but were an extension of vagitus when we are innocent and pure.

This article has much going for it. It is true that Jesus unmasked the hypocrisy of his time and refused the established distinction between the good and the bad. He was a friend of sinners and he was an offence and died an offensive death.

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block (scandalon) to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” (1 Cor 1:22 NRSV)

He did abandon his family and indicated that ones faithfulness to God must be put above faithfulness to family. He broke the religious laws that were mere pretense at righteousness. After all, he had to do something very offensive to be crucified.

However, the writer goes too far, perhaps for dramatic effect, to paint Jesus as immoral. As he explains, in his context he did break with the “mores” of the time and hence could be called immoral. But to leave it at that gives the wrong impression. Breaking the mores of the time can only be in service to a real morality that respects each person as a child of God and that establishes God’s justice in the land. As many of us heard on Sunday the 15th….

“ Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb 4:12 NRSV)

It is the truth telling nature of the Word of God, the Word made flesh, that cuts us to the core and dispenses with our home made morality. We are thus not delivered over to anarchy and lawlessness but to a life lived out as peacemakers, truth tellers, friends of sinners, servants and seekers of justice.

Lawlessness was a problem in the early church, particularly in Corinth, and this came about because of the shattering of “mores”. But Paul brings the Corinthian church to heel.

Sage,
Not so fast! Firstly, one could say that we cling to the law in order to control “harmful atavisms” or we could say that we cling to culture for the same effect. As Rose says to Charlie in the “African Queen” “Nature, Mr Allnut is what we are here to overcome!”. The idea that if we were left in a state of nature all would be goodness and light is absurd. We may have been innocent when we cried our first cry after being delivered from the vagina but we do not remain so. This is a return to 18th century romanticism and the noble savage and has clearly been debunked.

Paul to the Phillipian Church:

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Sorry Sells I was a bit rushed this morning; I was waiting on a printing job to arrive. I should have been more expansive. Yes, by all means let’s have moral and behavioural codes but our codes must evolve in partnership with society. Why do some people follow the codes which were developed by a person who strode the earth in the 7th century? Should we get about the place riding a donkey? Of course not.

My reference to vagitus was brief. I didn’t mean that we should dwell in some lotus-eater’s paradise untouched by reality. I myself am a critic of those who find it uplifting to live the life of a noble savage yet seek donations because their lives are dysfunctional. Their historical gods have let them down. My mention of vagitus was also meant to convey the message that we are all born innocent. What happens to us? We learn to hate; we are over-taken by feelings of jealousy, rage, avariciousness and other moral maladies. Religion plays a role in those developments and religion also helps us to identify the ‘enemy’.

The author has done us a favour by treating the gods in a purely historical and moral context

Prepare yourself, you know it's a must; Gotta have a friend in Jesus.
So you know that when you die, He's gonna recommend you to the spirit in the sky: Doctor and the Medics.

God that’s a good, simple song.

But Pete, I am unsure of whether you support or reject the italics (hint hint: a split infinitive). If you looked at this thread http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=82#1671 you would find lots of rational debate about Jesus.

‘They ought to bring back the death penalty for people like Him’ is a minority opinion isn’t it. And if we looked at population types who support such hardline schisms, they are mostly peasant based. And given that Christianity does not hold a large population base in relative terms, what then makes it –or indeed any religion- so contentious.

Perhaps it is because that if a goody goody like jesus is to exist –In a theoretical form- so also must his opposite number. There are plenty of people around who would instantly embrace voodoo, anarchy, nihilism, Satanism, peruvianism and all sorts of debauchery, if there were no counter balance to such extreme human schizo-fantasy behaviour.

Your article is, I am sure, the opposite view of everything chrisitan, to which is your right. And too, it makes great debate material; but I really must question what it is you mean when you suggest: ‘And yet there is no question that Jesus of Nazareth was the most immoral Man to grace the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem’.

Am I just a raving Christian?