9 reasons why I love Jesus, but don’t believe in him anyway.
I grew up on Bible stories and Christian ethics. To a large extent, I like the stories – Christian literature is pretty good story-telling, usually about a hero, who is brought low, then gets supernatural powers to triumph over his enemies. (These days it would be called “paranormal fantasy”). One of the reasons Christianity has been so successful is that the story of Jesus Christ, as well as his teachings and parables, are not much different from other epic religious literature from all over the world. There’s a lot to admire about Jesus! But none of that is any reason to believe that he actually existed. So below are 9 reasons why I love Jesus, followed by why I don’t believe in him anyway.
1) Jesus was a pimp. He was the leader of the pack, the alpha male, and girls loved him for it. Women chased after him clutching at his clothes and kissing his feet. Mary washed his feet with her hair. They would do anything for him.
2) Jesus didn’t give a damn. He didn’t give a damn about Roman officials, Jewish authority, ancient laws in the Torah… he just did his own thang.
3) He spoke in parables. OK – this one is bound to be frustrating to his followers, who were all “What the fuck are you talking about??” But he was so awesome he didn’t even care about clarity, brevity, having people understand his message. He knew that he was the bomb, that actions spoke louder than words, and after he was gone people would piece it all together and make something meaningful. So he just avoided direct questions and spouted mystical koan and parables like a blind zen master.
4) Supernatural Powers. The dude could levitate, heal, multiply stuff and make things appear out of nowhere. That’s some Harry Potter shit.
5) Stole from rich, gave to poor. It worked for Robin Hood, why not Jesus? Actually his stance on money varied. He didn’t exactly steal, so much as challenge or threaten. He told rich people they better give their money to the poor.
6) Power over demons. Imagine controlling the demons inside somebody and saying “Get out”! That’s pretty cool. Control over demons is how Moses, and after him Joseph and his son Solomon got shit done. They were given powers by God to use demons to do things like build their temples for them. This is kind of like Aragon in Lord of the Rings walking into that cave and commanding
7) Sacrificed himself for others. This is classic good guy mojo: the hero is ready to die to save others. That’s why he’s the good guy. Same plot as “Die Hard.”
8 ) He rose from the dead. If I had to count the number of heroes and heroines who have come back to life after dying in the movies and TV shows of this year alone, I couldn’t. It’s about as awesome as you get. And doing it seems to be really easy. Jesus is just one of thousands of literary characters in this regard.
9) Other reasons. Depending on who you believe, Jesus was a vegan, a hippie, a meditation guru, an alien, or lots of other stuff. He was gay, a homo-phobe, a democrat or a republican. He was for marriage or against it. Jesus is great because people can make him the divine spokesperson for whatever they want.
But I don’t believe in him….
I like Jesus. But I don’t believe in him.
1) I don’t believe Jesus was divine. I don’t believe in him as my savior or founder, because the evidence that he came from God is 2,000 years old and weak. Even if the evidence was amazing and airtight, I couldn’t believe in him because it means God chose a silly, incomplete plan that only saves a small portion of the human race; which means a) God is not omnipotent or b) God is not good. Both contradict traditional views of God, so if Jesus is God, then God is not God!
2) I don’t believe Jesus existed. I’ve done quite a bit of research in this field. Almost certainly more than you (unless you’ve written an MA thesis about it and spent 5 years studying it). You don’t have to believe me. You might think I’m a crazy asshole. But discounting my belief out of hand without looking into the evidence I’ve gathered is foolhardy. You can choose to ignore the evidence and continue believing what you believe (of course, you’re going to anyway). But the fact is Jesus didn’t do or say anything new, the circumstances surrounding his historical life are rife with controversy and discussion over whether or not he had a fleshly body, there is ample evidence showing who wrote the story of Jesus and why, how it developed into the belief about a historical person, and how details of the life of Jesus were invented.
