"In any event, how can the temporal sufferings of Jesus compare to the sufferings of the entire human race? Did Jesus ever experience the pain of childbirth? The billions of women going through labor are much more life-giving, much more nurturing of value than a few hours of self-imposed bleeding on a cross."
--Dan Barker
Who sez jebzuz suffered? That was just good acting. (if it ever actually happened).
Well, I don't think that's a fair comparison. Giving labor is something all animals are going through. That's a normal part of being female. In my eyes the suffering over the ages is the repression by the other (male) half of humanity. Being put in a position of second rank. If you realize that, giving birth to a child (which should be the choice of herself mainly and never forced) is nothing related to that.
And if you think about the pain is, caused by nailing at a cross, think of all those people, men and women that were tortured, branded, burnt by the inquisition in the middle ages in Europe.
I first heard the Lenny Bruce comment from my history prof some 35 years ago while in a Roman catacomb. One thing to be noted is that thousands were executed in this manner. In 75 ACE so many Jews were crucified it is said one could not see the horizon for all the hanging bodies. I wonder how many women were crucified? I noted this truism came from Dan Barker, co-president of FFRF.
@JustKip Sorry this is untrue. I have a degree in European History from the Univ. of Maryland European division and spent a lot of time in places where history was actually made including time in Rome. The Romans practiced 3 kinds of executions meant to send a message of terror. They were, burning, fed to animals and crucifixion. This was to destroy ones body. With crucifixion the body was left to die slowly and then picked apart by raptors. Everyone could watch it and be terrorized. We don't know how much wood there was at this time. Remember, it took a lot of wood to build and maintain the city. There is ample proof of crucifixions being used both in artifacts and writings. And the 'myth' of a Jesus figure is also present.
There’s no logic to the crucifixion narrative. Jesus would have died at some point, as we all do. Being nailed to a cross was just the common method of execution at the time.
If some modern person were put to death because of their teachings, and zealots made up a religion about it, then future followers might take to wearing golden hypodermic needles around their necks.
There is logic and historical facts to back up the prevalence of Crucifixions. It was not a common method but used for certain crimes one of which was treats to the empire. See my comment above.
@JackPedigo Sure, it probably happened. The illogic is in claiming that Jesus died so that we might be saved, and that if we believe we will go to heaven. If we don’t believe we are supposed to go to hell. Weird and unbelievable.
IMO We are in heaven right now.
@WilliamFleming The logic was from the Romans standpoint. Send a strong message to quell insurgents. From my previous postings I have shown there is no heaven, only levels of hell.
@JackPedigo How can you prove there is no heaven? How can you prove there are only levels of hell? In my opinion there is no hell, except for what we create for ourselves with untrue, negative thoughts. If you define heaven as a higher reality beyond the scope of our limited earthly perspective, it makes sense to say that we are actually in heaven but are unable to appreciate that fact.
The crucifixion narrative as presented by churches seems illogical to me, and makes no sense. Whatever Roman officials may have thought or done has nothing to do with my point.
@WilliamFleming Agree in the lack of logic with religion meaning but little about religion makes sense. I went over the heaven thing and even got a letter in the FFRF newsletter published over this. I will answer in a nutshell: *"...religious dogma says that there can be no true morality without religion. To me this shouts that people are basically bad and unable to do the right thing without a system of rewards and punishments. Therefore, I question the content of a supposed heaven when basically bad people are rewarded for following someone else’s’ dictates. The evolving, self-serving, religious moral dictates, only highlight that question. Is salvation based on lines of thought that one reads in the crank mail section of the newsletter? From this I could surmise there is no heaven, only levels of hell! To me this heaven is filled with arrogant, greedy, selfish, stupid, vicious and murderous people who only care about their own skin. Sound like a paradise??? I think not.
@JackPedigo Great letter!
@WilliamFleming Thank you, it was only a part of a bigger letter. This issue suddenly dawned on me one day and I developed the idea over a period of time. I think once we step out of box all kinds of insights become evident.
Millions of girls are brutally sexually mutilated along with many more millions of baby boys are painfully victims of 4 square inch amputated prepuce flesh. ...zero medical reasons ever exist for this crime of faith
Billions of women have been raped with shaman or clergy approval and zero alleged female or male gawds have protected a single woman in all of religious history
There was no alleged baby god crucified surviving attempted execution ANY PALESTINIAN WEEKEND. ....the alleged Josephus "history" was an addenda forgery. ...human sacrifice faiths are false and evil ALL SUCH FAITHS are versions of banned cannibalism
Very true... i listen to Alice Cooper... he said it all in a song," Only Women Bleed."
Christianity always "puffs" the suffering of the Cross by adding mystical / spiritual elements to it, epitomized by the Aramaic quote of Jesus on the cross, "Eli, eli, lama sabacthani?" (My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?) They ask you to imagine god being separated from god for the first time -- as little sense as that makes.
In Catholicism this culminates in what I term "suffering porn". Look at how their art, historically, glorifies suffering and agony, and how their theology has generally encouraged people to perform things like self-flagellation, the infliction of deliberate discomfort (e.g., hair shirts), etc. as a means to gain merit with god through the "mortification of the flesh". Even the weird concept of aceticism, which basically treats human evil as a thing-in-itself somehow physically located in our bodies, hence the need for self-loathing and death and resurrection.
But Barker is right: all this frantic, florid contemplation of special pleading for Jesus' suffering is still extremely finite and cannot touch the sum total of human suffering in the years since the alleged crucifixion -- much less the total in human history. And more suffering does nothing to address suffering in any event. In addition, all attempts to make suffering ennobling rather than diminishing ultimately fail.
Dunno. Dying on a cross is pretty bad. But it didn't happen and Jesus never existed.
Doncha love LIFE OF BRIAN ....a religious comedy worthy of mass crucifixion laughs ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE