Jesus - Not an Option

Jesus may have been an actual person and, if he was and the various accounts of his life are remotely accurate (and certainly they are not closely accurate) then he was probably a relatively fair minded & caring and compassionate person for his time.

in my view, he was almost certainly a courageous and charismatic man who was determined to destroy the false clerics of the day as well as rid his homeland of the shackles of the Romans. In other words, he was likely to have been a charismatic freedom fighter in the vein of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro or if more pacific, Aung san suu kyi.

Today, such a person would be labelled as a terrorist because such is the description given to all freedom fighters or opponents of those holding the strings of power, whether in nations where active armed conflict exists or in relatively stable nations such as Australia which, for instance, has just declared Hamaas, the popularly elected government of the Palestinian National Authority.

I can't know whether Jesus actually existed nor, if he did, what he was actually like or what he did. I can't know for there are no objective and verifiable records made contemporaneously with his supposed existence.

What I do know is that even if he was real and a compassionate and caring person (and there were accounts of when he wasn’t) he is long dead and has been for the approximately 2000 years that you mention. He is therefore not an option in any sense of the word.

Prophecies about the future of the planet have been made by many and varied individuals and cults, creeds and religions throughout history. The vast majority of them, including vaunted Christian ones, such as that of the Jehova's Witnesses, have failed to eventuate and thus been continually moved to a date further out in the future. They are as irrelevant as the mumblings of a demented mentally dysfunctional and haunted individual suffering terrible trauma and no longer able to reason or even recognise what is commonly taken for normal.

So, what I have written above ought to give you some of the reasons why I choose to “not get on his side”. However, there are many others that also relate to your other question, “What have you or I got to lose?”

I can’t, of course, speak for you. That you make the comment you have does indicate, however, that you are as so many millions of others, a person who has succumbed to the insidious conditioning of the populace, wherever they may be, to accept and even perpetuate the notion that:

* hierarchies of power and control are acceptable; that inequity, status and privileged access are acceptable and others respected and even revered purely on that basis;

*negative discrimination, humiliation, deprivation, dispossession, abuse, torture, slavery and condemnation have ‘God on their side” if they are committed in the name of the religion that worships such a god:

*war is o.k. if you have ‘God on your side’ despite the clear paradox that all sides claim that ‘God’ is on theirs;

*women can never be of equal value as men;

*all harm, disasters, tragedy or terror is caused by human beings for ‘God’ only loves everyone and does good, though paradoxically, ‘God’ is supposedly omnipotent and chose to create all:

*I needn’t take responsibility for my own beliefs, actions and behaviour because ‘God works in mysterious ways’ so I always have an out, an excuse and what’s more ‘God forgives’ (as long as you worship him) so I can always repent and I’ll be o.k. (I wonder why principled individuals would suffer torture rather than do that during the Catholic Inquisition.)

it is alright to model ‘protection of the institution’, at any cost. and with any amount of cover-up or lying or subterfuge as a necessary and reasonable practice because the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (Ignoring the reality that most of its parts are defective and that, on balance, religion has done and does more harm than good.)

I could go on but, for any individual who is capable of using their intellect, (‘God’ given or otherwise), it oughtn’t to be necessary for clearly I do not subscribe to those obnoxious notions.

So, what have ‘I’ got to lose (or give away) ? My integrity. A functioning intellect. My ability to investigate, analyse, contrast, compare, summarise, understand what is reliable information and what isn’t, recognise conditioning from deliberate and considered choice based on rational review of facts, contexts, evidence and etc.

I am neither cretin nor moron; neither genius nor super talented. I am a simple man with undoubtedly many flaws and failings. However, I am most definitely neither fool nor hypocrite, either aware or otherwise and certainly not of choice.