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This post is going to be on atheism and religion, so be warned!Ricky Gervaise, a well-known British actor was recently featured on Mano Singham's Web Journal in the usual video spot at the end. This clip shows Ricky Gervaise explaining some of his thinking about a couple of interesting topics in a persuasive, understated style, typical of some of the most beloved and admirable Brits. It's their language, I suppose, and the best of them are very good at getting across the ideas that matter to them.
Once again, I have to emphasize the following fact: just because we atheists do not believe in god does not mean that we do not admire Jesus.
As I made clear some months ago, around the first century, a new tradition of true historical writing emerged from the established tradition of a sort of history that was more a work of art than one of documentation. I am not an expert, but in the earliest attempts at history [e.g. Norse and Greek histories, and Chinese and Indian histories], which came out looking more like epics and legends, the idea appears more to capture tribal pride, to create something that could serve as a basis of political and social education. Why are we so proud of such-and-such a tradition? Why do we celebrate this hero? Why are these things part of our communal identity?
The Old Testament (the Jewish Bible) has, between the passages of true history (even if tainted by self-aggrandizement), a lot of propaganda. But there must have been in some individuals among the scribes an instinct to present a clear account of events and movements, so history does emerge despite the desire on the part of the powers-that-were to subvert the facts for particular purposes.
In the New Testament, though, we see attempts at an honest biography of Jesus of Nazareth, though the temptation to subvert the facts for propaganda must have been almost impossible to resist. The picture of Jesus that emerges--once we discount the statements attributed to him that claim divine origin--is a surprisingly coherent and admirable one.
Like most of my readers, I learned the Jesus stories in my early and uncritical youth, but I have had lots of opportunity to revisit the accounts and correct any errors of perception. There were surprisingly few: Jesus hated cruelty, viciousness, hypocrisy, bullying, and poor logic. He hated legalism, bigotry, and oppression. He was all for helping the poor, and those in trouble (Dives and Lazarus, Good Samaritan). He was against hoarding. He lived simply, and by all accounts, seemed to have been a generous and warm person.
Remember that the accounts of Jesus in the New Testament were carefully selected by committee. The Emperor Constantine, thinking it politically advantageous to make Christianity the State Religion, called for a committee of clerics and scholars to establish an officially approved collection of writings to be added to the Old Testament, and the result is the Bible we know. On the face of it, the object of the exercise was religious, but to the skeptic --and where would we be without skepticism?-- the object was political control. The Bible as it stands today, enabled the Roman government, and its present-day successor: the Catholic Church, to rule the faithful effectively.
There were hundreds of Christian writings at the time, most of which were rejected, not because they did not present an accurate picture of Jesus, but because they probably did not support the Constantinian agenda. In particular, any writings that depicted Jesus as conceding that he was entirely human were rejected.
Conservative and fundamentalist Christians, of course, insist that the bible came into existence under the control of god. In actual fact, it is a political document, compiled by kings and emperors from King Solomon all the way up though Emperor Constantine to King James. It is not that these people were vicious; it is just that they were not interested in truth. Still, to the interested eye, the man Jesus does emerge, not because of the power of god, but despite the cynicism of those in charge.
Ultimately, whether Jesus believed he was divine is irrelevant. (Lots of people have persuaded themselves that they were divine, and many of them were quite decent folks despite that unfortunate propensity.) I don't think that (divinity) claim should disqualify Jesus from being regarded as the best documented champion of the underdog at his time in history.
Jesus still speaks to us, on behalf of what has come to be called decency; a mind-set that is difficult to define without reference to religious morals. Ethics (to the best of my knowledge) teaches what is duty. Jesus, from what we know of him, went a lot further: he declared that the modern human being, in addition to his or her duty, must take responsibility for his or her neighbors. It is this idea of neighbor that stands out.
The Christian Right is busily intent on circumscribing, narrowing what the concept of neighbor should be. Charity may begin at home, but if they had their way, that's where it would end.
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1 comment:
You would love Thomas Cahill's Hinges of History series. "The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels" discusses, of course, the introduction of monotheism. "Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus" looks at the man's impact as a revolutionary. He was the first to reject the idea of the priestly caste, of spiritual authority being a birthright. He taught that ANYBODY could be a spiritual leader or "fisher of men." Of course two seconds after his execution the apostle Paul began laying out a doctrine of what could and could not be done by a religious leader who followed Jesus, and how a Christian community must behave. Shortly thereafter, his sermons were codified into the institutions of the church.
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