Every so often, I’m confronted by people who want to tell me that this jesus character was the picture of morality. They want me to think that this guy was the best example of a human that ever walked the earth. Now, I don’t think for a second that there even WAS a jesus, but if he did exist, he was an asshat.
First, let me say that if jesus was a fictional character, he has lots of competition for this, “best of the best human” award. As far as superpowers go, even the Wonder Twins knock jesus out of the park. Jesus walked on water? One of the Wonder Twins changed into water! Jesus healed the sick? The other Wonder Twin changed into an eagle! Oh, but they weren’t human. That’s a good point. Wolverine is human. He heals like crazy.
But to jump away from comics, if jesus was real, he still loses. Anyone who has not condemned people who don’t like them to eternal torment is better than jesus. That makes Hitler more moral than the savior. Nice, huh?
But even if we just look at the saving part, jesus is ethically compromised. We are supposed to believe that this guy has taken upon himself the weight of the sins of all people for all time. This sounds suspiciously like a scapegoat. Now, scapegoats are not a moral practice, right? You know the origin of the scapegoat, no? In summary, the people of a village would symbolically place upon a goat the weight of the sins of the village. Then the animal was lead out of the village and killed. The sins left with the goat, and the village would be safe from the retribution from some petty deity. Jesus is a scapegoat. That’s not ethical.
Our morals have evolved past stupid scapegoats. We understand that if you err, you cannot place the responsibility on a goat. You messed up; you deal with it. If I get a jail sentence, I cannot pay anyone to serve it for me. That’s not allowed, and that is the deal you MUST take from the savior. The deal offered to you in christianity is a scapegoat, and that is not an ethical practice.
We have moral issues today, but they will not be solved by invoking a Bronze Age book. They not be solved by invoking an imaginary deity. They will be solved by you and me. God isn’t here; weare.
