Easter and God the Victim

A little perspective on Easter (which is today).

Yesterday, PZ reported on the “debate” between Christopher Hitchens and radio host Todd Friel – a labored exercise in Pascal’s Wager. Freil basically says, if we assume the Christian story is true, don’t you agree that atheists will go to hell? It goes on for over ten minutes, but there really isn’t much more to it than that. Hitchens does an excellent job of demolishing the idiot. (Click the link above – PZ has the full interview embedded.)

There was one area where I felt I had something to add to Hitchens’ rebuttal.  It was with Freil’s suggestion that Jesus’s death on the cross was an act of generosity.  As best I can recall, this is what Freil said:

If Jesus took the punishment that you deserve… wouldn’t that be the single greatest act of kindness in the history of the world?

Hitchens replied no, because he (Hitchens) hadn’t been born then and hadn’t been consulted.  Which is true, but I could think of additional reasons why this wasn’t an act of kindness.

I wanted to ask, who made this rule?  Who decided that Jesus had to die a horrible death before my sins could be forgiven? Surely this rule was made up by god? But why does he have to follow it? He’s god. He could forgive any sins he wanted. What possible difference could it make that Jesus did or did not die on the cross? And then it struck me – god is just playing victim. (“Oh boo hoo, I died on the cross for you, the least you could do is love me and praise me your whole life.”) Jesus's dying on the cross wasn’t an act of generosity. On the contrary, it was totally self serving – nothing but a piece of passive aggressive manipulative bullying. God had simply set himself up so he could play victim for the rest of eternity. What a wimp.

And it’s actually worse than that. The reward god has for us if we believe in him and praise him our whole lives, is that he won’t send us to burn in the hell that he created for us. We’re supposed to be grateful that Jesus died so that god could give himself permission not to torture us for eternity. That would be like me setting up a torture chamber in my basement and expecting people to think I was generous for agreeing not to lock them up there and torture them for the rest of their lives (as long as they worship me). That wouldn’t be considered an act of kindness. I would rightly be considered a psychopath for even setting up the torture chamber in the first place.

So to recap on god’s generosity at Easter: to save us from an eternity of torture in hell that he (god) created and had decided to send us to, based on rules he (god) made up all by himself, he (god) suffered torture (that he planned) on the cross, so that now as long as you worship him, he won’t send you to the hell that he can freely choose not to send you to anyway. And this, we are expected to believe, is act of kindness.

What a moron.

Comments

[yakaru]

I liked Hitchens' point about there being no commandment for good treatment of children. Fits perfectly with the deliberate targeting of the young by religious predators. "Thou shallt not fill the minds of the youth with idiotic poisonous garbage. Thou shallt respect their freedom."

Apart from that, he did a great job of not just demolishing a large amount of Christian nonsense, but also exposing fallacious logic.

[Qjet]

i gotta say, it sounds like christopher is being an obstinate child on the show.

hey i agree with him, but refusing to follow a hypothetical situation becuase you know the result is compromising your principles to win an argument
and that makes you a true fagot.

[yakaru]

Which question did he refuse to answer? His answers were unexpected, that's all. The whole "what if" set up is designed to get around people saying "prove it" or reufsing to believe God gave them all this stuff. Hitchens unravelled it by accepting the hypothetical and giving an unexpected answer.

"What if God gave you life, would he have the right to ask something in return?" "No", with reasons is not what was expected.

He didn't avoid any of the hypotheticals.

(I don't like the guy much, but I thought that was first class for an off the cuff 10 minutes.)

[deep]

I don't get the whole "punishment I deserve" thing anyway. What the hell have I done that makes me deserve to get crucified? I don't think anyone deserves that sort of treatment.

[Paul Sunstone]

Great analysis! There are so many things wrong with the Christian story that you'd think their religion would have died out centuries ago.

[Skemono]

What really gets to me is the belief that some people have that Jesus being crucified was somehow a noble act of sacrifice on his part. But he supposedly comes back just three days later. Is giving someone your life's savings a sacrifice on your part if you know you'll get it back three days later? If you could save someone by donating a vital organ, knowing that it would regrow good as new three days later, wouldn't you? Would that be a sacrifice on your part? It would be a temporary inconvenience, I'm thinking.

And if Jesus is God, then all this is madness. A supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, immortal being is nailed to a plank of wood, and we're supposed to be in awe at this "sacrifice"?

[Bronze Dog]

Skemono's point in slogan size: "Jesus had a bad weekend for your sins!"

Paul: My guess is that they got lucky: Christianity started out as just another of countless apocalypse cults. They're just the one in a million that got lucky enough to stick around until they got established.

[Tom Foss]

Qjet:

i gotta say, it sounds like christopher is being an obstinate child on the show.

hey i agree with him, but refusing to follow a hypothetical situation

That's not what Hitchens was doing. Friel posed a "What if X, wouldn't you therefore say Y?" and Hitchens said "no, given X, I wouldn't say Y." The only thing Hitchens wasn't going along with was Friel's script. Even if God created me, I wouldn't say that he "owned" me. Even if Jesus died for me, I wouldn't consider it a particularly great or generous act--it's not a generous act to correct your own mistake, and it's certainly not generous to use it as blackmail for eternity thereafter. Even if you accept Friel's premises, his conclusions do not necessarily follow, which is precisely what Hitchens was trying to show.

becuase you know the result is compromising your principles to win an argument

I think "compromising your principles" would be allowing the schmuck to run through his scripted argument without pointing out the gaping holes in it. I mean, even though it is a waste-of-time exercise in "what if I were right, wouldn't you say I'm right?" the argument isn't one where the conclusions are necessarily implied by the premises.

and that makes you a true fagot.

Classy.

deep:

I don't get the whole "punishment I deserve" thing anyway. What the hell have I done that makes me deserve to get crucified?

No, no, you deserve to be tortured forever, and your crime was being born, because someone (who never existed) didn't understand right from wrong and didn't therefore recognize the wrongness in disobedience. But Jesus paid for your eternity of torture in Hell with a day of torture on Earth and a few hours in Hell, and so now you only deserve eternal torture for the crime of being born if you commit the second crime of not being adequately reverent of this great act of sacrifice.

Skemono:

What really gets to me is the belief that some people have that Jesus being crucified was somehow a noble act of sacrifice on his part. But he supposedly comes back just three days later.

Yeah, exactly. If you told me that I could be whipped, beaten, and nailed to a tree until I died, but less than three days later I'd be God, I'd take the deal without hesitation. What's a few hours of torture when it's followed by an eternity of omnipotence?

[yakaru]

What gets me is the way they keep blabbering on about how god gives hope to the down-trodden and the weak. But he stood by idly and watched his own son get tortured to death. He didn't lift a finger. And this is the same character who supposedly steps in to help bacteria build their cute little flagella. Weird set of priorities if you ask me.

[TechSkeptic]

Gosh I wish I could remember all these nice little examples when I get in one of these conversations. Knowing me I'll go "uhhhhh..... wha?"

[deep]

A very common way to answer "Have you found Jesus?" is "Is he lost?". That usually discombobulates them enough to make a quick getaway if they are accosting you on the street. If you don't care about further offending then I usually add in with something along the lines of "Maybe they nailed him down because he was so hard to keep track of.". That usually takes care of it.

[Bronze Dog]

Don't forget the classic, "Yeah, he was hiding behind the couch the whole time."

I do like the "nailed him down" response. However did I miss that in my years of skeptical blogging? :)

[Big Al]

And what about original sin, with which we're still all supposedly burdened from birth, despite the monumental sacrifice? Is that because Jesus got let off early and didn't go through the full crucifixion experience (days for most victims)?

[Soil Creep]

I'm agnostic and certainly not a Christian, however I was raised Christian and studied philosophy so I have more than a working familiarity with the Christ myth. More than the idea of the crucifixion, I enjoy trying to work out where the myth and historical reality begin and end. A lot of these ideas have been debunked, but debunked by believers, so I'm not sure where that leads us.

Forgive the scattershot of ideas: but the most fascinating aspect of the Christ myth IMO is the connection to Dionysus, Greek drama, and religious sacrifice in general. Greek dramas originally were religious in nature and among other things would usually include an animal sacrifice to the gods. This latter evolved into the greek "tragedy" a word that comes from the Ancient Greek: τραγῳδία, tragōidia, "goat-song" (wiki) which point to the sacrificial nature of the event. But instead of a animal/goat the sacrifice became the fallen-hero behind whose mask was in fact dionysus (though that point is more debatable).

One might also recall in Euripides, the Bacchae, Dionysus himself is explicitly onstage having traveled through Asia having gathered his band of wild women worshippers, but it is Pentheus who is decapitated by his own mother at the end (more too it than that of course).

That the real Christ may have traveled to Asia is a point of speculation, but it would explain his radical re-thinking of scripture at that time. I believe historians have debunked the massacre of the innocents by Herod so I've abandoned the idea that the real Christ allowed himself to be martyred because he was suffering from survivor guilt.

But I believe the Christ myth through the early church borrows heavily from the Dionysus cult, the greek tragedy, etc - we find this in the "Passion Play" directly not to mention the use of wine as a symbol in Christian mythology. An idea Nietzsche used well, if somewhat sloppily, but I think he was unto something.

In any case I'm already bored with all this which is probably why I'm a soil scientist. But the Christ myth is certainly interesting when you look behind the curtain, but its the Church that spoils the fun.

[Pelger]

I wonder if 2000 years from now, people will believe seriously as if it was real, another tragedy about a fallen hero that was the chosen one and had powers and stuff.....
darth vader anyone?. I thought of him with the "the fallen hero behind the mask" thing,
hehe, maybe in 2000 years what we all know today to be fiction, will be twisted, confused with factual data, the remaining parts of the books and movies that talk about anakin skywalker will be taken as "gospels"....

I wonder who would be god in that scenario... master yoda? obi-wan?

[Tom Foss]

Soil Creep: I bought into the "Jesus in the Orient" hypothesis for some time, but I've been a bit more skeptical of it since a commenter suggested its racist roots. The ideas of Buddhism weren't isolated, and I don't know that there's any real reason to posit Jesus's travels in Southeast Asia. Given the shaky evidence for his existence at all, let alone for the truth of the reported details of his life, I think it's difficult to say anything about what the real Jesus did or said, assuming he even existed.

As to Dionysus, he's not the only one. The various tropes of the Jesus story are present throughout mythologies around the world, but particularly around the Mediterranean. At the very least, I think this is evidence that the Jesus story was mythologized and fictionalized according to the conventions of the day.

I don't think it's a very extraordinary claim to suggest that there was an itinerant Jewish preacher with an apocalyptical bent roaming around Judea in the first century (in fact, it seems that there were several). It's not even that extraordinary that he said some stuff that eventually got recorded by followers. But when we start getting into the details of the life of a person who may or may not have ever lived, we're running onto shaky ground.

[NoAstronomer]

I'm with Tom and Skemono, what's a days worth of crucifixion compared to an eternity in heaven. With or without omnipotence.

Furthermore how come Jesus gets off easy? Must be nice to have connections in the justice system.

Further-furthermore how is his one day of suffering supposed to equate to me spending an eternity in a pit of fire. Why don't I get the option?

Love the 'nailed down' comment!

[yakaru]

Here's something which as far as I know, no theologian has ever discussed.

The Holy Ghost got Mary pregnant, right? And the Holy Ghost is part of the Holy Trinity, along with God and Jesus, right?

So, the first unavoidable corrollary of this is that Jesus had sex with his own mother - the Old Testament is full of insest, so no big problem there. But the second is a bit more surprising; namely that that literally makes Jesus his own father.

I don't know why no one has ever used that as evidence of Jesus' ability to work miracles.

[YogaforCynics]

In the immortal words of Patti Smith: "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."

No question, fundamentalist/literalists worship a sadistic egomaniac who created people for the purpose of worshipping him and will torture them eternally if they don't. Lately I've been reading a lot by more intelligent, compassionate Christians (the kinds of people most Christians wouldn't consider Christians at all) who tend to see things far more metaphorically. And, in fact, I like a lot of what they come up with. Personally, though, I prefer metaphors that haven't been used to justify so much murder, slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.....

[TC]

Exactly. I wonder why Hitch didn't just say what you said, instead of going into the more difficult (yet just as correct) point about freedom from unatural obligation.

[Paul Sunstone]

Hi Bronze Dog! I agree luck had a lot to do with it. I also think their willingness to aggressively proselytize played a major role. Not all cults were as aggressive as the Christian one.

[Steve]

I'm skeptical about Christianity, but I think I may have an explanation you're not considering. I think perhaps what it's really about is that Jesus, who is basically supposed to be the spirit of God constrained by the physical limitations of a man (body and brain), decided that mankind was worth sacrificing himself for, therefore giving mankind the ultimate seal of approval to the main part of God (because there is some independence between Jesus and God). Sacrificing to God(s), of course, has been a major part of many religions, often intended as a sign of atonement; Jesus sacrificing himself was therefore supposed to be one huge "I'm sorry on behalf of all of us" to God.

Anyway, perhaps Jesus was supposed to be on Earth to allow God to see mankind from a different perspective (plus to pass on some advice). Seeing mankind in this new light perhaps convinces God that he needs to create a special place for those of us who were good people (Heaven).

So while the truth of it all may be dubious, I don't think the ideas are as nonsensical as you make them out to be. I think the key is taking the perspective that Jesus is not exactly the same as God himself, but is a piece of God who's acting as a go-between. And yes, God was supposed to have a grudge against humanity, but sending Jesus was supposed to be giving us a fair chance to change his mind.

To the people minimizing how much of a sacrifice the crucifixion would have been -- there aren't a whole lot of ways to die that are more drawn-out and agonizing than that. And why would you presume that Jesus would have known he'd be resurrected a few days later?

Regarding "Original Sin": most people, myself included, have a problem with the idea of being judged for something they had nothing to do with. Doesn't that also describe racism? Both involve bearing a grudge against a whole group for the actions of a few. If you can say that God is not (or wasn't always) completely fair and unbiased, or at least that he used to be more critical of us (perhaps until he saw what it was really like to be a human), you can reconcile this issue.

[King of Ferrets]

Crucifixion is definitely outclassed by a lot of other ways to die. Starvation? You can last a couple weeks without food if you've been properly nourished before; very slow death. (Though much faster if you don't have water either) Disease? Plenty that kill slower than crucifixion. Torture? You can survive years of torture without dying, if the torturer wants you to.

The rest of your post kinda works, though it goes a bit against what most Christians believe in my experience.

[Skemono]

To the people minimizing how much of a sacrifice the crucifixion would have been -- there aren't a whole lot of ways to die that are more drawn-out and agonizing than that. And why would you presume that Jesus would have known he'd be resurrected a few days later?

Simple: because Jesus supposedly is/was God. And God supposedly is omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal. Therefore he (A) knew the future and/or (B) planned the whole thing himself, including the resurrection. Plus, (C) since Jesus/God is all-powerful, he couldn't really be killed anyways. Going through the motions of a crucifixion when you're all-powerful is not an action of sacrifice.

If we take the Christians at their word that Jesus is God--and I should remind you that most Christians would find it blasphemous to claim that he isn't / wasn't--then the crucifixion was nothing but an elaborately staged event. There was no sacrifice involved.