I'm the first to admit that my understanding of Christian myth has some gaps and I'm hoping that someone can help me out with this. Wasn't Jesus' death required to complete the cycle as it were? Didn't Jesus have to be the star of the ultimate blood sacrifice in order to give us the opportunity to be good with God? If we hadn't been bathed in the blood of the lamb wouldn't we still be sol as far as God is concerned? If this is the case than why all the grief the Jews have suffered at the hands of Christians over the centuries? Assuming that the Jews were in fact the prime movers behind Jesus execution, which assertion is probably questionable at best, shouldn't Christians be honoring them for the necessary role they played in the salvation of humankind rather than beating them and killing them?
This one didn't generate much except a lot of views. I really am puzzled by the mile-wide streak of anti-semitism in Christianity. Seems that on many levels Christianity wouldn't be around without the Jews. Certainly it appears that if not for them we'd all be kicking around this vale of tears with no hope of salvation. At least according to the conventional version of the story. I was sure some oppressed Christian would weigh in on this inexplicable (to me anyway) example of the oppressed being the oppressors. Oh well.
My experience on the subject is limited to trying to sell christmas cards to a jewish family when I was a kid. It didn't go well lol Me: "Hello, I'm trying to raise some money by selling these cards. Are you interested in any of them?" Them: "No thank you, we don't celebrate christmas." Me: "That's fine, and I see you don't have a tree set up. (selects a card) You might be interested in this one. It has a really nice tree on it." Them: "I'm sorry, but we're jewish." Me: "So 'jewish' don't like trees?" Them: "No, no, no, it's not like that, in fact we love trees. It's just that our religion is jewish, not christian." Me: "But if you like trees, this one is perfect for you!" Them: (closing door) "Good night!" Me: (defeatedly) "They must really hate trees!"
I am not an organized religion kinda guy but a passing thought I had when reading the question was: If you needed a heart transplant to live and your younger brother - who was the perfect donor - suddenly died and getting his heart saved your life - would it be proper etiquette to honor your brother's murderer? You'd probably have to ask Mel Gibson for a better answer, though.
I think that this works on a personal family level, but not so much on a cosmic one involving God, humanity, redemption, eternal life, Heaven, Hell and the rest of it. In your example you did not demand that your brother be killed in order to provide you with life. However, as I understand it God demanded a sacrifice in order to provide humanity with eternal life and the customary goat, lamb, bull, chicken, whatever would apparently not suffice in this case. And the sacrifice worked. The scenario you describe, while tragic, does not affect the state of humanity's relationship with its creator.
And the Christians didn't demand that Jesus be killed either. In the scenario I described, I was saying the person needing the heart is the Christians, their brother is Jesus and the murderer is the Jews (in your post). God is still God and demands what He demands. But, as you say...there is no perfect scenario that mimics perfectly the cosmic/God scale for an explanation. Like there is nothing that can be a perfect analogy to infinity. But I do think my scenario is pretty good. The person saved would certainly have been saved as much by the murderer as by the brother but those 2 individuals would not be honored the same.
I think it's debatable whether the people who followed Jesus before he died can be called Christians as the term is generally understood post execution, but anyway.... His followers didn't demand that Christ be executed, but God did in the sense that he provided no other route for redemption that I know of.
Would it matter to your feelings about your brother's murderer if you knew God had demanded that your brother be killed in order for you to live? Maybe it would maybe it wouldn't. Probably why some Christians are Mel Gibson and some aren't.
That's a highly hypothetical question in my case, but if I believed in God it would probably make quite a difference. Didn't god demand something sort of similar of Abraham? And wasn't Abraham ready to go for it before god said, "hey, only kidding, just wanted to see what you'd do." As far as MG goes, I think he's an excellent Catholic and his Christ movie is the best Catholic movie ever, but he's kind of a loser as a human being.
Well, its all hypothetical. But I think we, as humans, tend to be a little judgmental especially when it comes to those who cause us pain, guilt, or other unpleasant emotions. So I suspect a goodly percentage of humans would not honor the murderer of their brother no matter the cause or reasoning or even inevitability behind the murder. But I am not into organized religion so I am just hypothesizing from a mental, internal human make-up standpoint. Oh, and I think MG is a complete POS.
