Part 1: Introduction - A Quick Overview of Thesis of Christianity
At an abstract and cynical overview of Christianity, the core thesis is that one god instructs an obedient and faithful god, his son, to reincarnate as a human being, impart a set of teachings before being grotesquely tortured and humiliated and ultimately brutally executed so that he is sacrificed only to resurrect himself to prove his divinity and convince his believers to not only share his teachings with all of humanity but to also participate in the devouring of his blood and body to be rewarded after death.
Run-on sentence issue aside, I’ve been advised regarding the reinterpretation of the cannibalism aspect but pondering on it has only strengthened my conviction of this interpretation. This is part of the absurdity of Christianity. In this essay I will list out thoughts on how absurd Christianity is, the counterintuitive nature that we take for granted, the coherence of the religion and ultimately conclude how this leads to the Christian nations accelerating so far ahead of other nations.
Part 1A: Disclaimer
I will also act under the presumption that the reader has either researched to convince himself that the events of the New Testament, namely the execution of Jesus of Nazareth and his subsequent resurrection were historically true events, or is the reader trusts and believes in the authenticity of the claims of Christianity.
Part 2: The Absurdity
A core theme we Christians take for granted is that we’re learning the teachings 2000 years later, where we given the insight of millions of men and women who obsessed and dedicated their lives to understanding “The Word”. A quick look into the New Testament where the first disciples give a first hand account of learning directly from the central figure of the religion, Jesus Christ. And quite frankly, this is man is a real QUACK.
Part 2A: The Absurdity and Counterintuitive Nature of the Claim to a Supposed “God”
First things first, when you think of a GOD, you think of a being who superior in all forms to a human. For an athlete, even today with e-sports where people play videogames competitive, if someone is superior in abilities, we call that person a god. In Tom Holland’s Dominion, he speaks of these types of comparisons were used even during the Roman times, more than 2000 years back. Yet here comes Jesus of Nazareth.
Consider this scenario to understand the absurdity of his claim to being a “God”:
Imagine going to grade school and knowing this one guy, James. You are aware he has sisters, you are aware he has an older brother and perhaps a younger brother and he’s studying to follow in his father’s footsteps for some mechanic business and his mother drags the entire family to church each week without fail. As far as you’re concerned, it’s an ordinary family who are regular members who make up the community.
Fast forward 15 years later, all the sudden you hear his older brother is preaching HE is a son of God, and sent from the God we all worship, is reinterpreting all the teachings you learned in church while adding he’s the gatekeeper for the afterlife rewards. …What? Where did all this come from? “Son of a God?” We know his father! He owns the mechanic shop down the street! Speaking of which, you see James walking up the street, so you hail him up, and ask him what’s going on with his brother, “Er, I dunno, don’t ask me!”.
That is Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter who suddenly starts claiming to be a God.
Part 2B: The Absurdity and Counterintuitive Nature of Jesus’ Miracles
He does perform miracles, but some of his miracles boil down to converting water to wine, feeding people bread and fish, and healing sick people. The latter while is incredible, you have to put into perspective that general hospitals accommodating all did not exist. Those who couldn’t take care of themselves were considered weak.
The point I am trying to convey is that these miracles were not extravagant or displays of power to his audience. The people he preached to were no strangers of supernatural feats; from flooding the perceived world, to splitting the sea in two, or even causing the mass deaths of children at the command. If he performed the miracle of transmuting sand into gold people would race to follow him to become rich. Instead he’ll improve the success rate of a fishing to make it several days’ worth of successful fishing. His economical supernatural feats are enough to make it clear it’s supernatural, but weak enough that you still have to make a genuine commitment as to whether you would believe in him.
To put into a comparison, for an offer of a $1 Billion dollars, there’s no shortage of what someone would do regardless of their personal beliefs in the one making the offer. But someone using supernatural feats to give you a week’s worth of success in a day, I’m sure you’ll be grateful, but you still have to work tomorrow as you got a month’s worth of bills and obligations to meet. This week’s worth of success to demonstrate one’s supernatural prowess isn’t life changing thus it is still a commitment someone truly has to consider to dedicate one’s life to such a supernatural being.
Part 2C: The Absurdity and Counterintuitive Nature of a God “humiliated” by Humans
Finally, there’s the elephant in the room that a supposed “God” was beaten to a bloody pulp by humans and put to death in the most humiliating and embarrassing method instituted by the Romans; the crucifixion. This torture and execution style is typically used for slaves and rebels. This will discussed in another essay but the humiliation of being crucified was just as bad if not worse than the pain inflicted. So to have a “god” subjugated as such, what does it say about that god? I would further inquire as to what this says about the Romans, but they weren’t the ones calling for the execution. It wasn’t registered on any officials’ radar at that point yet it was the fear of Jesus’ antics reaching their attention that prompted the Jews at the time to plot his demise and put an end to his movement so they can maintain their favor with the officials in the Roman occupied Jewish territory.
But this above speaks to why the resurrection is a critical
Part 2D: Absurdity of the Method of his Teaching
When Jesus teaches, he’s rarely ever straightforward or frank. He speaks in riddles and parables. This is fine and dandy as a reader, but imagine being one of his disciples. He is going to say something, you won’t understand it. He won’t clarify, he’ll rebuke you for not believing, and you have to stand there in embarrassment and take the heat. You can feel the frustration in some moments.
At one point in time in the Book of John, Jesus discusses the new required path to enter heaven with temple elders. At this point in time he had acquired over 5000 disciples, but remember as I said before, the feats he used to convince them were weak; He had performed a miracle of giving them all of them a free hearty meal; fish and bread. Back to the discussion with the temple elders, Jesus discussed the key critical ticket to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; eating his body, and drinking his blood. “Is he serious?”. The elders were flabbergasted and confused, so they asked him to repeat himself. He did. They asked him again. He did. Back and forth a few times over and not a single time does Jesus clarify himself. So gossip of this event spreads and the same 5000 group eventually disperses. Cannibalism wasn’t on the menu for anyone. Seeing the abandonment, Jesus doesn’t even flinch but he turns to his 12 disciples and asks them if they are leaving too. Despite the shame of their teacher’s self-inflicted reputation implosion, despite being as confused as the temple elders who interrogated their teacher, they say they’re staying. Why? Sunken cost. They gave up everything for him.
Jesus clarifies later on, the night before he is executed, that his body and blood to be consumed are bread and wine blessed and eaten in his honor; this ritual is called the Eucharist or commonly known as the Holy communion.
Part 3: Counterintuitive but…
Part 3A: Ban Gatekeeping Life to produce the Highest Thriving Society!
Fast forward to give an overview of the world Christianity has built, a number of beliefs seem counterintuitive in nature yet they produce unparalleled levels of success. To give a quick example. say you run a company and an employee, however well meaning and nice he is, simply isn’t producing results for his role. No hard feelings, you have a company to run, so he’s likely to get fired. Why don’t we extend this kind of mindset to gatekeeping society in terms of who gets to reproduce? In other words, why not do eugenics at an institutional level?
Turns out this was encouraged by Greek philosophers and was a practice during the Roman times, where the Patriarch had the final say in if a baby was to be raised. If the Patriarch decides the baby is not worthy, the baby would be abandoned to die; this practice was called “exposure”. Turns out the reason why this practice died out in the West was because of the influence of Christianity whose core tenet is that “all humans are equal in the eyes of the Lord” and children are greatly favored by a Lord and considered a blessing to their parents. Allowing all persons to live means we have a greater diversity of ideas and perspectives which plays into the numbers game of hitting the jackpot of individuals who introduce world changing ideas.
Part 3B: Don’t Obligate a Person, Let Them Choose Their Career!
A common motif you’ll find in the exploration of evolution of Christianity from when it first came into existence in the first century AD until now is that it continually challenges societal norms and returns the freedom of choice back into the individual. In the West, a person is not obligated to take care of their elderly parents, nonetheless, should they abide by Christian teachings, they will choose to do so. For a more profound example, person also is not obligated to join their parents’ profession but can choose their profession* (I am not as well studied on this claim as I should be). This was the basis behind “journeymen” in Europe. Because of the freedom to choose one’s profession, each profession enjoys a diversity of ideas and opinions. More importantly, a person who chooses their profession and wants to do the work is going to be more motivated and more effective than a person who is unwilling.
Part 3C: Don’t Obligate Your Children to Marry; Let Them Choose!
This sentiment also extends to family formations, where the Catholic Church banned a priest from consecrating a marriage where either the bridegroom or bride is unwilling and the priest does not need the permission of the parents to consecrate the marriage either. This strips the household Patriarch of his authority over his children and is the foundation of “Love marriages”. This is why arranged marriage is such a foreign concept to the West.
Part 3D: Don’t Obligate Someone to Work For You; Let Them Choose!
Finally, the culmination of this freedom of choice has led Christianity to end the institution of slavery, an institution as old as civilizations existed. While no verse in the bible calls for the direct abolition of slavery (there are verses calling slave trading a sin, slaves are to be treated as equals to their masters, and calling for slaves to become free when they have the opportunity to do so), the justification for the abolition was purely Christian. The earliest attempts to abolish slavery start in the 4th century with St. Gregory of Nyssa. He had an epiphany in that because of Jesus’ chosen manner of execution; the crucifixion, God’s chosen people being slaves, and the core tenet of Christianity revolving that all life are equal; beloved children in the eyes of the Lord, led him to believe that slavery was wrong. At the time, this was simply too radical to catch on but Christianity repeated chipped and restricted it before rapid reforms came in the 1800s with notable figures like the Christian denomination in the Quakers led by Benjamin Lay and the British Empire employing their own naval force to enforce the abolition.
Part 4: Coherence
Now I have a few insights I thought was pretty neat regarding Christianity when looking at it as a system with knowledge obtained from watching the Blockchain world grow. I mention this because the blockchain community is effectively recreating societal order from the ground up and we’re rediscovering the absolute need for certain constituents, namely an incentive to do the right thing, a way to discourage doing the wrong thing, and overall regulating behavior. And more importantly and the primary motivation for the creation of this site; the need for institutional direction.
Part 4A: Coherence in the Basic Tenet of Equality
This is a good starting point in asking the question, “Who best gives validity to the claim that ‘we are all equals’”? To give a quick perspective imagine you without the inhibitors that hold you back from achieving your goals. Suppose you’re a procrastinator; this doppelganger does not procrastinate and diligent with his time. Suppose you are already successful, then your doppelganger is even more successful and dodges the pitfalls you fell into before you became successful. Suppose you never achieved your dream job, your doppelganger has achieved your dream job and more. I think I’m clear enough that this doppelganger is better than you. Yet, according to Christianity, you’re both equal. What gives validity to this claim is not you, not the priest, not some hobo on the street, not your doppelganger counterpart trying to console you to make you feel better. The only one who can give validity to the claim is the creator of humanity, God. But he won’t directly make it clear and instead sends the next best authoritative figure to send this message to the world, his son. Which leads to another point of coherence.
Part 4B: Coherence in not Explicitly Proving God’s Existence And Authority
This ties into the counterintuitive nature of Jesus’ miracles; being convincing enough, but not too convincing that you would follow his lead while disregarding your own personal beliefs. Jesus could have at any point called in a legion of angels, brought thunder and lightning to split the earth to prove his claims of being the son of God. But he didn’t. Instead he did simple miracles for lowest of the humanity, spoke incomprehensibly half the time and there was zero sweat off your back if you ignored him.
This was purposeful for the simple fact that God wants you to reciprocate his love for you. Using violent miracles would coerce people into submitting to God. And this would contradict the gift of free will which prevents a person from achieving their best. A person forced to submit to an authority will be nowhere nearly as proficient at tasks than someone who joyfully and willingly submits to an authority to perform a task. In addition, Jesus came to the world to be a sacrifice. No one is going to plot to capture and sacrifice him if Jesus was that threatening. Even in our adventure movies where the hero goes on a journey to take down the big bad, the big bad is generally slain in a final battle of epic proportions. Not captured and embarrassed and left for all to see that he’s been conquered.
Part 4C: Coherence in Incentives and Penalties
Christianity incentivizes participants to abide by God’s commandments and instructions with heavenly rewards and the fear of being penalized and entering hell for failing to abide by God. I’ll note that I grew up Protestant and am only recently studying information regarding the afterlife and so I am not confident in the points I make here. Continuing, the Catholic bible contains books (that I’ve yet to read) discussing purgatory; where souls go afterlife to atone for sins before going to heaven if they’re not damned to hell. While alive, a person can obtain indulgences from priests, credit to pay off their sinful debt. While this concept was used and abused by priests to the point where Christianity in Europe splintered violently over the renunciation and condemnation of it in the 1500’s, I personally think the concept is sound for accountability.
- There is a day that will come when all persons will be judged by God on the basis of their actions, called Judgement Day where the verdict determines if you go to heaven or to hell.
- You are allowed to become a Christian and qualify to enter the Kingdom of heaven at any point of your life
- The more faithful you are to the commandments the greater your reward in heaven (I think this is a Catholic concept as well)
- Failure to uphold key commandments or accept Christ means you are sentenced to Hell
- The concept of Purgatory means that every action you took in life matters, before and after you’ve become evangelized and even if you maintain the key commandments
- Indulgences give you agency to affect what happens to you in the afterlife and incentivizes you to work harder should you have previously committed more grave sins
Conclusion
I’m sure I can come up with more thoughts but this essay is long enough. But I think these were cool insights at an overview of the religion that I feel is taken for granted. The concept equality in Christianity is not literal and requires some authoritative figure to give the claim weight. Jesus was deliberately required to be unbelievable despite performing unbelievable and supernatural feats. And yet the movement that was born from the resurrection flipped a number of societal assumptions on its head and took us on a path from being collectivist to being more individual focused (though our individualistic societies without Christianity directing them is proving to be a disaster, an opinion to be explored in another topic)
I intend to use this as a blue print for a more indepth comparison look to the concept of “WEIRD” nations, (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic nations) as these types of nations are all found in the Christendom or colloquially named the West.