Easter

It is Christian doctrine that Jesus died as a sacrifice for man. The idea is that “Original Sin” was committed by Adam and Eve, and that the stain of that sin was upon every human being born thereafter. Thus, even though subsequent humans did not commit the original sin, they were guilty of it as well as other sins. Christ came to save man from original sin and all other sin, and to provide a means for man to achieve everlasting life in heaven. In order to save man, Christ had to perform a sacrifice. Jesus was God, so he performed a sacrifice to himself. The sacrifice was a human sacrifice of the most bestial and agonizing kind, a painfully slow death by suffocation on a cross.

One has to wonder why this omnipotent, all-loving, almighty God couldn’t have simply forgiven all men of sin without this orgy of torment? Why did he have to be the scapegoat for all human beings and go through this horrendous nightmare of torture in order to provide salvation? The answer is that the writers of the Bible lived in a benighted and barbaric time when this was thought to be the right way for the gods to behave.

I confess, I simply do not understand how rational people living today can accept such nonsense as a fundamental part of their religion.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has been called the basis for all Christianity. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:13-14: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” The celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the most important date on the Catholics’ liturgical calendar. It is also the concoction of Paul and other writers who came long after Jesus died.

Scholars use various methods of textual criticism, including language and style, to determine if text is authentic or was added to the original gospel at a later time. There are many things on which they agree. Scholars agree that Jesus did not predict his own resurrection from the dead or his second coming. The quotations in the Bible in which he makes such a prediction (e.g. Mark 8:31) are considered to be later additions.

Moreover, the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are so contradictory and improbable that the whole story has to be dismissed as fiction. Matthew says that the day following Jesus crucifixion Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb (Matt 28:2), but Mark says that the two Marys and Salome went (Mark 16:1). Luke writes that Mary Magdalene went with Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and other women (Luke 24:10). Matthew says that the stone was removed by an angel at the time the women arrived at Jesus’ tomb (Matt. 28:2), but Mark and Luke say it had already been removed (Mark 16:2-4, Luke 24:1-2). Matthew says that when the women arrived, the angel was outside the tomb (Matt 28:2), but Mark says the angel was inside the tomb (Mark 16:5) and Luke says there were two men inside the tomb (Luke 24:4).

In Matthew the two women rush from the tomb to tell the disciples (Matt 28:8-9), but Mark says that they said nothing to anyone (Mark 16:8). Luke says that they reported the story to the disciples (Luke 24:9-11). John tells a very different story from the others (John 20:1-18). Later post-resurrection stories are also in conflict (compare Matt 28:16-20 with Luke 24:13-53, and John 20:19).

The first Gospel written was the Gospel of Mark. Scholars can tell that the whole story of the resurrection of Jesus in Mark was added to the Gospel by somebody else long after the original version was written. Originally, the Gospel of Mark ended at Chapter 16:8. That is the part where the women find the empty tomb and are told by a “young man” that Jesus has risen. The part of the Gospel after that, in which Jesus appears to various people, was added by later writers who wanted to supply authenticity to the myth of Jesus’ resurrection. As Professor Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina says: “These verses [Mark 16:9-20] are absent from our two oldest and best manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel, along with other important witnesses; the transition between this passage and the one preceding it is hard to understand….and there are a large number of words and phrases in the passage that are not found elsewhere in Mark.”141

If you consider the fact that the Gospels of Mathew and Luke were based on the gospel of Mark, then it becomes clear that the Gospels’ story of Jesus’ resurrection is pure myth that was made-up long after the Gospels were written. The earliest Christian scriptures were the Epistles of Paul, yet Paul does not give any details about Jesus’ resurrection other than referring to it (See Rom. 6:5, 1 Cor. 15:13).

The early Christians observed Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as a Passover celebration. Thus, in Asia Minor and other places, it was not celebrated on a Sunday. It was celebrated on whatever day the Passover occurred. Around 154 AD the Christians in Rome began celebrating it on Sunday because Sunday was the Christians’ day of worship. When Rome became the seat of the Pope, the Church made Sunday the official day for the celebration of the resurrection. The day was later named “Easter” after Eostre, the Saxon goddess whose feast was celebrated at the Spring equinox.142

The idea of resurrection by a god did not begin with Jesus. Lots of gods arose from the dead in ancient times. Among them are Mithra, Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Tammuz, Ishtar, Adonis, Persephone, Semele, Heracles (or Herakles), and Melqart. Some claim Buddah was resurrected from the dead.

When my daughter was 5 years old I asked her if she believed in Jesus. She said yes. I asked if she believed that Jesus was God. She said yes. I asked her if she believed that Jesus was crucified. She said yes. I then asked her if she believed that Jesus rose again from the dead. She said: "No way!"

THE HOLOCAUST

With Passover approaching on April 19, I choose to remember the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust. As a gentile, the Holocaust has always presented a serious problem for me. How could a modern, culturally rich, Christian nation carry-out such a monstrous act of evil? With all of the crimes of man, including the genocides committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and other places, and the atrocities committed in every war, I still see the Holocaust as a horror unmatched in the history of human evil. It should never be compared to other acts of evil.

Emil L. Fackenheim, in his book, "To Mend the World," said: “To link Auschwitz with Hiroshima is not to deepen or widen one’s concern with humanity and its future. It is to evade the import of Auschwitz and Hiroshima alike.” The same can be said of all of the other cataclysms suffered by humanity. Each is a separate occurrence of evil.

The history of the Jews, beginning with the conquest of Israel and banishment of Jews by the Romans, is one long sorrowful testament to man’s inhumanity. The Nazis did not invent the genocide of the Jews. They merely took it to new depths of horrendous magnitude. Over the centuries before the Holocaust, the Jews experienced repeated pogroms and persecutions by Europeans and Arabs. Around the time when Columbus was sailing to America, the rulers of Spain were expelling all of the Jews from their realm. Many reasons are given for this massive persecution, but no explanation can begin to justify such evil.

One frequently hears people compare things to the Holocaust. The right-wing anti-abortionists like to say that abortion is the same as the Holocaust. Such unthinking speech is morally abhorrent. How can any person compare the elimination of a not-yet-conscious, not-yet-thinking, not-yet-feeling embryo to the deliberate murder of grown, thinking, feeling human beings? At Auschwitz and other camps the Nazis used to save time and trouble by throwing live babies and small children into the ovens without gassing them first. If you cannot identify the distinction between that and abortion, you are morally numb.

The excuse given by the Christian Nazis and Fascists for persecution of the Jews was usually that they were: “Christ Killers.” It is a revoltingly stupid claim. Jesus of Nazareth was killed by the Romans, yet nobody has ever wanted to exterminate the Italians. Even if it had been the Jews who killed Jesus (himself a Jew), why blame it on Jewish descendents living thousands of years later?

According to the Bible, Jesus had brothers and sisters. We must assume that many of the descendents of these brothers and sisters were Jews, and that millions of Twentieth Century Jews in Europe had the blood of Jesus’ family in them. The Christians who marched Jews into the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other camps were actually murdering the descendents of Joseph, Mary, and the family of Jesus.

As a gentile, I am able to find something valuable in the teaching of Emile Fackenheim. He said “To grasp the Holocaust whole-of-horror is not to comprehend or transcend it, but rather, to say no to it, or resist it.” Fackenheim said that 613 commandments were given on Mt. Sinai. He offered a 614th commandment. In effect, he said that if we forget, or minimize, or diminish the importance of the Holocaust, if gentiles engage in anti-Semitism, if Jews give-up their beliefs and culture because of the Holocaust, they will be letting Hitler gain a form of victory. He said that we must not let Hitler win.

I may not share the beliefs of religious Jews, but by dedicating my life to tolerance and brotherhood, I can join in the crusade to defeat Hitler and his progeny.

The Tea Party Wanted a Shutdown

If there had been a governmental shutdown, you could blame it on the right-wing Tea Partiers in Congress. While they may not constitute a majority of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, they carry more weight than their numbers would justify. Leaders like John Boehner are fearful of confrontation with these ideologues who would have no compunction about attacking fellow Republicans. Many of the Tea Party fanatics came to Washington by defeating more moderate Republicans.

Michele Bachmann is a good example of the kind of person produced by the far right. In a speech before anti-abortion demonstrators she made it clear that she has no problem with a governmental shutdown. Like all Tea Party people, she has a hatred for the government and a desire to diminish its power. A total shutdown would not bother her at all.

Bachmann and other Tea Party representatives voted against the continuing resolution that kept the government running when the parties reached a settlement of the budget dispute on April 8. Bachmann voted against an earlier continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown. She said that she did it because it didn’t defund Planned Parenthood and “Obamacare.” She called abortion the “watershed issue of our time” and said she’s prepared to fight “eyeball-to-eyeball” to defund Planned Parenthood in the next continuing resolution. The budget compromise reached on April 8 left the issue of funding Planned Parenthood for another day.

Those who want to defund Planned Parenthood are not doing so because of the budget or the deficit. For them it is a purely ideological issue. They object to Planned Parenthood because offices of Planned Parenthood provide abortions. Under federal law, Planned Parenthood is not allowed to use any federal money to fund abortions, but the Tea Party people hate the organization even though it does a great deal of good by providing other health services to women. The simple fact is that, as Senator Chuck Schumer said, the fanatical right-wingers of the Republican Party would relish a governmental shutdown in order to flex their muscles and demonstrate their ability to force their ultra-conservative agenda on the nation. They ignore the fact that a majority of Americans support the right to choose abortion.

The Tea Partiers are acting like children. If they can’t get their way they will not play at all. They do not seem to understand that in order to get things done in Washington it is often necessary to compromise. In the middle of a financial slowdown with millions of people out of work, they were willing to add to the rolls of the unemployed by laying-off approximately 800,000 government workers. Their unthinking negligence could have had an enormously adverse affect on the economy of America. Not only would many government departments be shut down, but thousands of private companies which depend on government business would be severely damaged.

Defense Secretary Gates said that if there was a government shutdown, troops would receive half a paycheck for the first two weeks. After that, troops wouldn’t be paid until a deal was reached in Washington to fund the government. Considering the fact that most military people do not get very high pay, a shutdown would cause hundreds of thousands of them great hardship. In a shutdown, many thousands of civilian employees of the military would be laid off.

The last time the government was shut down, disability benefits and pension claims were held-up for more than 400,000 veterans. New applicants for Social Security benefits were turned away. Clinical research trials at the National Institutes of Health were halted and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped disease surveillance. Nine million people were turned away from national museums, monuments, forests, and parks. The government suspended cleanup at 600 toxic waste sites.

In a shutdown, all of the government departments that provide federal monitoring and inspection would be closed. This would include mine safety inspections, food and drug inspections, and financial regulation and oversight of financial markets. Many other governmental activities would be suspended including visa and passport services, energy information services, and cleanup at 600 toxic waste sites. The Small Business Administration would not process loans for small companies.

If Tea Party fanatics had been able to buffalo the leadership into their extreme positions, the shutdown might have lasted a long time. This could have thrown the economy back into deep recession with millions more Americans out of work. The Democratic and Republican leadership showed statesmanship. The Tea Party extremists demonstrated juvenile irresponsibility.