On Feb 1, 2005, at 12:38 PM, Dave Land wrote:
On Feb 1, 2005, at 10:00 AM, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
On Feb 1, 2005, at 10:21 AM, kerri miller wrote:
Last time I was home in New England, a rather enlightened and liberal place, free of most of the trappings of religiosity, I wandered past a couple debating whether Jesus would be upset with them for buying Easter egg coloring kits.
Did you remind them that Jesus is dead and doesn't give a damn?
Of course, in their view -- and that of plenty of other Christians both freaky and not-so-freaky -- Jesus is very much alive.
Not literally. I mean, I know that many people believe otherwise, but sorry -- they're just plan wrong. No one born 2,000 years ago is alive now.
As to why they would think that Jesus would give a damn about them and their Easter egg coloring kits, I haven't a clue.
Mm, possibly because they were worried that either the eggs --> bunny thing was a little too much like idolatry; or they were worried that the eggs --> bunny thing is pagan. Some people do get concerned about those issues; my stepmother, for instance, loathes Santa Claus because she says it takes the focus of Christmas off Jesus. I care not a whit for either mystical figure, but find it amusing that Isaac Newton was born on 25 December.
Depends on which calendar you use. (And that doesn't even go into the question of on what day of the year Christ was really born, assuming of course that you accept that He actually existed.) I have (or possibly "had", in light of the hard drive problems) a proclamation I would show in class that stated that in light of all of Newton's achievements, classes would not be held on the anniversary of his birth, meaning that they at least had to look in the text to find out what his birthdate was . . .
(And he was a very right-wing Christian fundamentalist too -- spent lots of time trying to prove Biblical infallibility. And, tellingly, failed completely to do so.)
Lots of us who believe that Jesus is alive (in a manner that I do not pretend to understand) are able to conceive of a Jesus who isn't Jor-El: He is not the disembodied head of Marlin Brando, hovering over us, looking disapprovingly at everything we do.
That's a great image, truly great. And pretty damn accurate too, really -- I mean it seems to me that many people *do* believe in Jor-El the Messiah.
Even if one conceives of Jesus as some sort of ever-watching eye,
No, the All-Seeing Eye is on top of the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City: just see the front page of a recent issue of the _Sugar Beet_. (Sorry, I don't have a link to that particular issue on-line, and all of the drafts of the graphic for that article were on the hard drive of that old computer . . . )
--Ronn! :)
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