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andersunmenschlich · 1 year

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Christ-like

Christians, we are told, ought to be Christ-like. That is, they ought to be like this chap in their book named Jesus Christ.

All right: so just who is this character? What is he like?

Well, we are told he's kind and gentle, meek and mild, loving and forgiving. Occasionally, carefully selected excerpts from the book will be presented to support these claims.

"So he's a good guy?" we ask. "Purely and unmixedly good, with no character qualities any sane and moral person could possibly object to?" And we're told that of course he is—he's the son of the most perfect, pure, good god there could ever possibly be, and in addition to that he's actually also his own father, which makes him the most purely, perfectly good god there could ever be.

Parent/child confusion aside... that's quite a claim. Let's go to the book and check it out.

The very first words this Christ character speaks in the book are to some guy named John the Baptist. Christ wants John to dunk him in some water "for repentance." John says no way—the Christ character is so awesome that John doesn't even deserve to carry his shoes. Rather than John baptizing Christ, John desperately needs to be baptized by Christ! Christ doesn't deny it. Instead he convinces John to baptize him anyway, to sort of put a cherry on top of his already perfect righteousness.

The first Christ-like characteristic: arrogance.

"Of course I'm better than you."

Christians certainly take after Christ there. It's not arrogance, they'll argue—they are better, purer, more moral than everyone else, but it's not innate! It's their god who cleanses them, and honestly you could be just as good as them if only you worshiped their god too....

Next we see the Christ character in the desert, after 40 days of fasting. He's hungry. Some other guy turns up and points out that, being a demigod and all, Christ ought to be able to create food for himself. Rather than address the interesting question of whether or not the Christ character canonically has the power to turn rocks into bread, Christ's second spoken line in the book? Humans don't just need food to live—they need God's words, too.

The second Christ-like characteristic: missing the point.

Sure, maybe humans need info from a deity in order to live in this story. But it's pretty obvious that even in this book, humans do still need food, too! Can the Christ character make food for himself when he's starving, or can't he?

This is a question he apparently doesn't want to confront, so he deliberately misses the point and goes off on a tangent.

Familiar.

Christ's third spoken line asserts that evidence of supernatural claims should not be asked for (demanding credulity), while his fourth line is a rejection of an offer of power in exchange for worship of anyone other than Yahweh. Apparently it's fine for him to take a deal that makes him supreme ruler of all humanity so long as he's worshiping and serving the right person. Not sure how to characterize that, but it sure is interesting.

His fifth red-letter line is "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near"—in other words, everyone else in the story should feel bad about everything they've done that the main god in this book doesn't like and try real hard never to do any of it again, because the world's about to end.

I'm not sure how to boil that down to a word or two either, but it's certainly familiar, isn't it? There are Christ-like people on every street corner, some places.

Christ's next piece of dialogue is much longer than the early bits we just looked at.

It's the Sermon on the Mount!

We've all heard a lot about this part, so it's tempting to think we already know what the Christ character's like here. Love your enemy, give to the needy, don't judge others—good stuff, right? Well, let's see.

First up the Christ character gives us a long list of lucky, enviable people: people who're poor in spirit/breath, whatever that means (weak-willed? no sense of self-worth? asthma?), people who're really sad, people who're humble and gentle, people starving for justice/god's approval, people who show mercy, people with pure hearts (whatever that means), people who make peace, people who get followed around and harmed because they act in accordance with god's law, people who get insulted and slandered for following the Christ character, doing what he says and acting like him. Super blessed, all those people.

The main takeaway here is that unfortunate people are actually the fortunate ones, because good things will definitely happen to them eventually. Making big promises to unhappy people.

The second thing to notice is the idea that if you do the things Yahweh wants you to—we can assume these are supposed to be right things, good things, moral things, upright things—people will hate you. They'll insult you, slander you, follow you around and ruin your life.

In short, he's claiming that other people hate goodness and morality.

Next he tells his audience that they are 1) the salt of the earth, and 2) the light of the world. What's the message there? Well, he explains, salt is only good for stuff if it remains salty. If his followers lose their saltiness, he tells them, there's no way for them to get it back: the only use for them would be to get thrown on the ground and trampled. Metaphorically speaking. Being salty seems pretty important in this story, but the Christ character doesn't explain what saltiness is or even point to how any of his followers display saltiness. They're salty now, whatever that means, and should try real hard not to lose that part of themselves, whatever it is.

Being vague is the key here. He's vaguely assuring the people listening to him that what they already are is good, and vaguely threatening them should they stop being whatever it is that they already are. He knows what it is. They don't. The lack of clarity is worrying, and establishes his authority quite effectively.

Moving on to point two, he tells his listeners that he wants them to do good deeds openly and visibly, like a city on a hill that can't be hidden, or a bright lamp that's not covered up by a light-blocking bowl. Half a page later he'll tell them to do the opposite: give to the needy in secret, for example, so people don't see you doing the good deed. Self-contradiction is very Christ-like.

In the next section of his monologue, the Christ character brings up the Law and the Prophets.

If you have the book in front of you, those can be found in the Old Testament section. In-story, the Law is all the rules Yahweh gave to a group called the Israelites through a character named Moses (the god in this book doesn't speak directly to large groups of people). The whole of this god-given Law can be read by people outside the story by starting in Exodus chapter 19 and stopping once you run out of instructions prefaced with "the Lord said to Moses." If you want to skip to the end, flip to Deuteronomy 30.

The Prophets are the people who made predictions about the future/those predictions about the future (the chapters Isaiah through Malachai for us nonfictional people, plus some others that didn't make it into the final edit).

Christ explains that he's not contradicting or erasing any of those. He's fulfilling them, which means all those laws still have to be followed: anyone who breaks even the tiniest, stupidest one of those laws and teaches other people to do the same will—well, they'll still go to heaven, but they'll be really low-ranking. Like, the lowest of the low in the kingdom of heaven.

Being legalistic is the same as being righteous: righteousness is uprightness according to god's law. A righteous person is a (god's) law-abiding one.

Christ will later give his followers special dispensation to break some of those laws. Inconsistency is, ironically, a consistent aspect of this character. Note also the assertion that he's fulfilling prophecy rather than abolishing it: reinterpreting old writings in a new and different way while claiming the new interpretation was what was meant all along is also very Christ-like. Not easy to say in a pithy way, though.

The next piece of Christ's sermon expands on what he means when he says his followers need to follow the Law even better than the people it was given to originally. In short, it's a "follow the spirit of the law not just the letter" spiel.

He lists off six of the nearly interminable laws—no murder, no adultery, no divorcing a woman without a certificate, no oath-breaking, if you gouge out someone's eye say goodbye to your own, no grudges against a member of your own people (yes, these are all instructions the main god character gave to the Israelites)—and explains the spirit of each, essentially transforming each one into an even more restrictive rule.

• No murder and no getting angry with those close to you.

• No adultery and no lust.

• No divorcing a woman, period (unless she cheated on you).

• No oath-breaking and everything you say is an oath.

• Poke out someone's eye, lose yours and an evil person can take yours even if you did nothing to theirs, no fighting back.

• No grudges against a member of your own people and no grudges against anyone else either.

The self-inflicted martyrdom is strong.

He also takes this opportunity to tell his followers that 1) calling someone an idiot is so bad that you could be tortured for all eternity for it, 2) you can blame parts of your body for your own actions, 3) chopping off those sinful bits of your body might be a good idea because it's definitely better than burning in hell forever, 4) divorcing a woman makes her a cheater, 5) marrying a divorced woman is the same as cucking her ex-husband, etc.

Among other things, it's pretty obvious that the Christ character sees women as less than men—at the very least, a woman can't divorce her husband even if he cheated, and will be seen as his even if he divorces her, plus his action makes her an adulteress. Pretty misogynistic.

Skipping over the bit where Christ contradicts himself about whether his followers should or shouldn't do good deeds visibly, we get the bit where he tells his followers not to bother telling their god anything, really.

God already knows, you see, so don't babble. Just say the Lord's Prayer ("you're awesome, everyone and everything should obey you, keep me alive today, forgive me for whatever because I've forgiven other people for their slip-ups, don't make it too easy for me to disobey you, save me from evil") and you're good—that's all you need.

Definitely remember to forgive other people for stuff, though, or Yahweh won't forgive you for anything.

This is a handy set up for people who don't want to change their behavior: "You have to forgive me anyway, or God won't forgive you and you'll burn in hell forever."

Intentional? Or accidental? Either way, it's setting up support for abuse.

Next Christ tells his audience that physical things ought to be disdained. After all, they don't last forever, and even while they do last people can take them away from you. So, he concludes, it's better to focus on storing up treasures in heaven.

In-universe, the character may well be right. In this book (at least this part of it), people exist forever—so it makes sense for them to focus on gathering stuff that also exists forever.

Christ goes a step further, though.

These characters do exist physically now, you might think, so it's reasonable for them to care about physical stuff now, while they need it and can enjoy it, right? Wrong, the Christ character says. His audience should focus only on spiritual things. They shouldn't worry about food, or clothes, or shelter: they should live like the nonhuman animals, like birds, or even like plants, and not gather food for the winter or even do any work at all. Their god will provide.

...It is possible that, in this story, birds don't gather food. The worldbuilding is not very good—many things are unexplained.

In any case, the Christ character is advocating doing no work or planning for the future. Which sounds pretty good, if there is in fact a deity that will take care of the future for you: provide enough food for each day, make sure you've got clothes nicer than even a super rich king ever did, etc. Otherwise it's just telling dangerous lies.

He also displays some black and white thinking here: either you serve his god (store up treasures in heaven, look towards heaven, worry about making it to heaven, focus on obeying the Law even better than the teachers of the Law, etc.), or you serve money (store up treasures on earth, keep your focus on earth, worry about food and clothing, plan for tomorrow, etc.)—one or the other, not both. You can't, he says, do both.

Loving those false dichotomies.

In the next section of his soliloquy, Christ explains that, despite everything he said earlier about the Law and righteousness, the standard any given person will be judged by is the standard they use to judge others. In other words: standards for judgment are subjective.

If you think murder isn't wrong, and don't condemn anyone for murdering, you can commit murder all day long without condemnation, apparently.

Missing the logical implications of your own statements is also pretty darn Christ-like.

The Christ character assures his followers that their god will give them anything they want: all they have to do is ask for it. Bread? A fish? Just ask! He also calls them evil. "You're evil," he says, "and even you know how to give your children good things. Obviously God is much better at giving his children good things. So just ask for them, and you'll definitely receive them!" Another big promise here.

And the logical implications of this promise are plain: if a character in this fantasy world is dying of starvation, prays to Yahweh for food, doesn't get any and dies, either A) it wasn't good for that person to not starve to death, or B) they weren't a child of God.

Either saying suffering is good or blaming the sufferer—both are Christ-like.

He wraps this up with the Golden Rule (do unto others as you'd have them do unto you), a rule that falls apart the second you consider what the world would look like if everyone had to give everyone else $500, fold everyone else's laundry for them, greet everyone else cheerfully whenever they saw them, ignore everyone else whenever they saw them, etc. One person's desire is another's nightmare.

The Christ character says following the Golden Rule is the same as following all of the Law, thus displaying ignorance of Biblical canon. What part of "do unto others" is "pay her father 50 shekels"?

...Ahhh, right.

I'd forgotten that women aren't people in this book, and don't count as "others."

If you rape a woman in the world of the Bible you're not doing unto her, you're doing unto her father—and I suppose if someone raped my daughter, I'd want them to pay me for her too. It's like breaking a vase at Walmart: no one else is going to want that. Without the fine, Walmart's losing money! What's that you say, pay the vase? What a ridiculous idea.

Outrage aside: even disregarding women as people, the Golden Rule still doesn't cover the parts of the Law about mixed fibers and tassels with blue cords. The Christ character is unfamiliar with his (supposed) father's law.

Next Christ tells us a little about the spiritual side of the Biblical world.

The road that leads to eternal life, he says, is narrow. Out of all the people in the world of the Bible, only a few of them will make it to life. Most of humanity will end up taking the wide road to destruction, hell, eternal death, unending burnings, etc.

Also, there are people in the Bible world who claim to have a direct line to the main god character, but are (gasp!) lying. Christ says you can tell who's telling the truth and who's lying by checking to see what fruit they produce. If you pick a grape out of their ear, for example, they're not a thornbush. How this translates from metaphor to reality is unclear.

The Christ character insists, furthermore, that it's impossible for a good apple tree, say, to produce a bad apple.

Maybe that's true in his world. It's certainly not true in ours.

At this point Christ has made so many claims that are untrue in the real world (with no evidence that they're true in his fictional one) that it seems fair to remark that another part of the Christ-like character may well be denial of reality.

In any case, since he hasn't defined either good or bad fruit, if any prophet pops up who he disagrees with, the Christ character can pick something about them, label it "bad fruit," and declare that they ought to be cut down and thrown into the fire. Metaphorically. ...Probably. Being vague is very, very important to this Christ character. It lets him hold all the cards; all the knowledge, all the power.

Christ carries on to tell his audience that just worshiping him isn't enough.

They can call him Master all they want—even use his name to get a direct line to Yahweh and do actual, legitimate prophecies and miracles—but if they don't do what he his dad wants, he (Christ) will reject them on the day of judgment, and they'll go to hell.

Demanding obedience with threats is very Christ-like.

He carries on to explain that everyone who listens to him and does what he says is like a very clever and intelligent man who built his house in the right place and weathered all kinds of storms without issue, while everyone who listens to him and doesn't do what he says is like a very stupid man who built his house in the wrong place and had it collapse during the very first storm.

According to the narration, this whole sermon impressed people a lot because being incredibly confident and stating things as fact without allowing for the possibility of being wrong wasn't something they were used to from experts.

Such authority!

We've learned a great deal about what Christ is like from just the first seven chapters of Matthew. Highlights from the rest of the book include:

• Telling his disciples not to bother preaching to any goys

• Telling his disciples to be afraid of his godly parent because Yahweh could send them to hell body and soul

• Announcing that he's the exact opposite of a peacemaker

• Insisting that people love him more than anyone else, even their own families (or he'll disown them on judgment day and they'll go to hell)

• Cursing the cities where his preaching didn't go over well to a worse fate than Sodom's

• Disowning his mother and brothers publicly when they came to see him

• Ignoring a woman who begged him for help because she was a goy, then finally giving in and helping after she agreed that she was a dog and begged for the kind of crumbs dogs get when their masters are eating

• Announcing that he was going to turn up attended by angels to judge everybody and give them their just rewards—and, furthermore, that some of his disciples would still be alive at that point

• Saying that it's perfectly fair to pay someone who's worked from sunup to sundown and someone who's worked one hour exactly the same amount

• Killing a fig tree for not having any figs out of season

• Reiterating that the folks who don't make it to heaven on the day of judgment go to "eternal punishment"

• Pointing out that a slave who knows what they're supposed to do and doesn't do it gets beaten harshly, while a slave who doesn't know what they're supposed to do and so doesn't do it is only beaten lightly... but not saying anything about slavery being wrong

• Pointing out that slaves don't get praised for doing only what they're supposed to do, so his followers should do more (but not saying anything about slavery being wrong)

• "If you love me, you will obey me"

In short, the Christ character Christians are supposed to be like is inconsistent, arrogant, racist, ignorant, misogynistic, threatening, and abusive. He denies reality, rejects tests of reality, and tells dangerous lies.

He contradicts himself whenever it's convenient for him, and apparently doesn't notice. He's determined to be a martyr, yet he demands obedience (conflating it with love) and claims superior morality while ignoring and even enabling abuse. He makes unrealistic promises to the desperate and unhappy, devalues the real world, and demonizes those who disagree with him.

He's manipulative, illogical, immoral, and dangerously untethered from reality.

Christians are just like him.

#ex christian #like christ #bible study #what's christ like?#...ah.#long post #VERY long post #you have been warned

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