Why Religion Sucks

I like Jesus, the man and philosopher.  His birthday is worth celebrating every December 25th.  Nevertheless, I have serious problems with Christianity.

In a nutshell, the story of Jesus is this:  God made man as a human being, with certain traits, needs, desires, and temptations.  But God didn’t like his imperfect creation.  When humans do human things, also called “sin,” like adultery, fornication, lying, etc, then humans must be punished by being thrown into Hell, a Lake of Fire, and suffer ghastly torment for all eternity.  In other words, God is punishing us for his mistakes.  Seems a bit harsh and unfair to me.

To escape this punishment, you must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he was raised from the dead, and that he died for your salvation, I.e., the remission of your sins.  Believing all this is problematic for me, since it happened 2,021 years ago and they didn’t have videotape, newspapers or keep great records back then.  Of course, you may believe on faith, and faith isn’t as weak as atheists would have you believe.  Faith is just another way of knowing, sometimes at least.  

Somewhere in the New Testament it says that “there is no remission of sins without the shedding of blood.”   So Jesus had to suffer a horrible death for things he didn’t do, to satisfy this God’s bloodlust and desire for revenge.   What kind of monster god is this?  Not one that I choose to believe in.   

I am not, however, an atheist.  Have no fear:  you are already an immortal soul and you don’t need saving.  I prefer the eastern theory of birth and rebirth, the soul learning more with each incarnation until it may escape the cycle of reincarnation and remain in Heaven.  When wise people are referred to as “old souls” this is what they are referring to.  

Don’t agree with me?  You don’t have to.  No one knows for sure what our time in this realm really means.  Hopefully, we will eventually find out.

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Who Are You? What Have You Sacrificed?

EASTER, 2014
Jesus Christ, Superstar was the musical hit of the 1970's.  The Andrew Lloyd Webber production was filmed on location in Israel.  In my younger days, it satisfied my agnostic bent to a large extent, with Judas, played wonderfully well by Carl Anderson, asking what seemed to me to be pertinent questions.  If Jesus was the Messiah, why did he pick such a backward time and such a strange land in which to appear?  Don't get me wrong, now, I only wanna know, sings Judas.

The movie was released in 1973, a year when my life began to bloom.  I had completed college and left my six year job as a chemical laboratory technician and moved into my first accounting job in San Francisco.  I also met and fell in love with the pretty little Asian girl who would become my wife.  It was a time of change, most of it positive.  My girl saw the movie with me.

Jesus Christ, Superstar, for me anyway, captures the joy, the hope, the excitement, the pain and sorrow of the crucifixion, but also includes the questions and doubts of many people like me.

Here are two of my favorite scenes from the movie; the one with Judas asking Jesus (Ted Neeley) who he is and why did he sacrifice himself?  Jesus Christ, Superstar -- do you think that you're what they say you are?

The other video below shows the talented Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, who sang one of my favorite songs of all time, "I Don't Know How to Love Him."




 

The Face of Jesus Finally Revealed?

This was from an interesting show on the History Channel about the Shroud of Turin.  Using computerized, 3-D graphics, the image from the famous "Shroud of Turn" was turned into a 3-D image.

The face at left is said to be an accurate depiction of what the face would have looked like in real life.

If the image on the Shroud of Turn is indeed Jesus, it is obvious that Jesus was a very handsome man.

See the video below for more.