Bigger Than Jesus

I've been learning lately that you can't believe everything you're told. Did you know that cold medicine including nyquil is actually a placebo? And did you know that antibacterial lotion is actually BAD for you, because it kills the 'good' disease-fighting germs as well as the bad ones? And did you know that sunblock doesn't actually help prevent cancer? It just stops you from getting a tan, they claim. Oh, and apparently the Chinese chartered the world before Christopher Columbus. Something about there being chinese towers existing somewhere on the west coast of North America that date back to before Europeans ever came. One last one: according to a friend who studies criminology, the crime rates in North America have been on a steady DECLINE and the crime in Toronto Ontario is actually LOWER than it is in Alberta.*

*Note: the sources from these debunked myths come from a pre-med student, nursing student, history/philosophy student and a criminology student, respectively.

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. How can so many common beliefs (they're not even really beliefs, more like common knowledge) be debunked in the past two weeks?! How can the general population at large be duped in so many ways?? Oh, and let's not even get started into politics. I had two huge discussions with people about how useless the government is and how it biased it is toward the rich. How Ralph Klein sold out on the poor by choosing to eliminate Alberta's debt on their backs. It seems as though everyone has a different opinion about everything: science, politics, and of course religion.

Friedrich Nietzsche talked about "the human herd." His theory is that we're all just sheep, who believe whatever we're told and who follow the crowd even if it's off the side of a cliff. Alright, i think enough evidence can be readily gathered to support this thesis...just watch Gladiator enough times, or read about the Nazis, KKK, or any other mob situation (high school, anyone?) and you'll know what i mean. History has no lack of events proving the stupid things human beings will do under the influence of the mass. Yes, i too curb to peer pressure.

So where does this leave us? How do we come to know what's actually real out there? And once we do, how do we keep from getting the wool pulled over our eyes again? Is there even any such thing as obtaining perfect truth - or does it even really MATTER? They say that ignorance is bliss... I'm not going to argue with that one.

Suppose we DO care to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The ontological argument is that the truth does exist, and furthermore it is obtainable. The opposite argument is that there is no way we can obtain truth as human beings, because the world - and God - is always going to be so much bigger than us. Personally, I'm partial to the latter explanation. Just look at all the things that we don't know - people will always lie to us, sometimes unwittingly, and we can't possibly have the time or resources to test every "fact" via the scientific method. Sometimes i wish i could spend the rest of my life as a student, devoted to studying the truth and reading books to just gather *knowledge* about everything around me. But i can't do any of those things, and so the conclusion is that there's no way we can know everything. If we did, then we'd be omnipotent. Or omniscient. Omni-something.

You knew it was coming: the God argument.

Tonight I went to see "Bigger Than Jesus," a show put on by the Just For Laughs comedy festival here in Montreal. At first, i had decided to sit out of this one given that the mere title of the show was offensive enough. But my friends - my non-Christian friends - challenged me to go, to have an open mind, and besides, the lady at the box office said that it wasn't that offensive. The truth is, i was curious to see how someone could write an entire two-hour monologue challenging the conventions of Christianity. And if there's one thing anyone knows about me, it's that i am always challenging the conventions of the church.

The show was extremely well done. It accomplished its mission: it challenged Christianity alright. It also parodied Christian traditions. It was meant to be entertaining, afterall. A one-man show, the performer introduced himself saying:

"I'm 33. I don't believe that Jesus-Christ is the Son of God. I don't believe that Christianity is the only way to salvation. I don't know what salvation is, really..."

Then he goes on to explain the basic story of the Bible, of course from a "rational" point of view. The thing is, he goes on to teach Christianity from a completely non-Christian perspective. A perspective that i have never heard from before. While one voice in my head is screaming, "blasphemy!" (in a southern Baptist accent, if you're wondering) another voice in my head is telling me to pay attention, because this is how the world sees Christianity and because some of the things he's saying is echoing questions (and doubts) that i've been harbouring myself.

He says that since the Gospels were written between 40 and 100 years after Jesus' death, this means it is highly unlikely that the writers of the four Gospels ever witnessed a single event in his life. He then points out some of the most blaring "contradictions" between the four Gospels...the final words Jesus says on the cross, for instance.

"They were not writing HISTORY. The crucifixion ...is a fiction! The Gospels were liturgical proclamations that the living, growing Christian Church needed at that moment to survive. Promotion. Myth-making."

At the end of the show, I felt just like how i felt after watching the Passion of Christ. I had gone to see that movie with my non-Christian friends in Washington, and the same dull ache in my gut was there. While all my friends are raving about how awesome the show was and buying boxers that say, "Bigger Than Jesus" - i just want to go home. I excuse myself, and on the way home i can't help but feeling like a naked baby out in the open jungle. I long to return to the comfortable warmth of the Christian bubble. I want to be in the human herd that "baa" in the same direction as me.

But that's the thing. Either way, religion or not, there are going to be strong arguments for each side. There's really no way you can ever be assured that you're fighting for the "right" team...but i think that's beyond the point. The point is that you believe in SOMETHING, and that you believe in it with all of your heart. I know it's kind of an existentialist argument, but at this point, that's the best i can do.

From a secular point of view, it's called positive thinking and there have been scientific studies on the positive impacts of having some kind of faith. I believe it. From a religion point of view, it's called faith. Pure and simple, believing in something to which you cannot see or touch. You don't know if it's real, but who cares. The answer to the ontological argument is that it doesn't really matter whether you've got the Truth - what matters is that you're fully convinced in your own mind that it is the Truth and you live your life faithfully dedicated to those beliefs. Sure, i have no doubt that there are a lot of sketchy things about the Church and how we interpret Christianity today. So when it comes to the Jesus Christ argument, here's the best of what i've got:

1. The 12 tribes of Israel - in the Jewish testaments, it says that the coming of the Messiah will be evidenced when the tribes of Israel will no longer have an influence in Jerusalem. This is exactly what happened after Jesus died. The Jewish tribe lost its influence. (i saw this on a tv special once, so forgive me if i got the details wrong)

2. The Gospels - ok, there may be some discrepancies within the gospels. But they are understandable; they were written by very old men and if i even make mistakes in my quotations of the play i just saw a few hours ago you can imagine how much paraphrasing the apostles did. Does it really matter that they got what Jesus said verbatim? Doesn't it matter that they got the message? The argument that they couldn't have possibly witnessed Jesus' miracles first hand doesn't make sense, because how would so much of their writing MATCH? Sure, there might be differences. But there are more similarities than differences, which is something the play fails to mention. They prove that something did happen. So then i guess this begs the question, what is the significance of the New Testament Bible? Is it really God-breathed? What does that mean, really, except that the Holy Spirit willed it to be part of God's Word...and if so, then the point at which the Bible was put together is when the God breathed into the Bible? Why were certain selections left out, like St. Augustine? Why did Paul get God-breathed status and other amazing Christian authors like St.Francis of Assisi passed over? Who actually made the decision?

Let's go back to the Gnostic Gospels of Luke, Mark, Matthew, and John. If we can't trust that Jesus was quoted 100% correct, then how can we place so much faith in the Bible? Perhaps the answer is in the message. That although the Bible is no tape recorder granting us direct access to Jesus' sermons, the message remains the same. Counter-argument: the gospel of John points to the Jews as the bad guys in Jesus' crucifixion. As a result, the Bible is accused of creating anti-semitism. That can't be right, it must've been the people interpreting the Bible who got it wrong. Well, if that's the case then how can we be sure that the church isn't committing the same mistake now by opposing gay marraige?

3. The Resurrection - there's got to be at least half a dozen 20/20 specials on an investigative look into the Resurrection of Christ. Sure, it seems extremely far-fetched that someone would be able to rise from the dead. But hey, a hundred years ago no one would have believed that man would walk on the moon. Look at what we've accomplished, and we're pea-brained compared to God. A healthy skeptic says, "there's no way you can take that literally! What the Bible means is that Christ was resurrected FIGURATIVELY in the hearts of his followers." My response: hey, if you want to be open minded, you should be fully open minded. This includes being open to the possibility that we don't know everything there is to know about the laws of physics or biology.

Do you think it's possible to fully believe in something that is exclusive, but not exclude the possibility of other legitimate beliefs as well? It's a dangerous argument, because it sits you on the very comfortable, very politically correct fence. The kicker for a lot of religions is the exclusion clause. The one that says that if you're don't buy into what i'm selling, you're going to hell. It's a harsh message, and i'm still struggling with it. On one hand, i don't like ever making qualifying arguments that i'm right and other people are wrong. This is mostly because experience has taught me otherwise. There's always another side of the coin to every story, a different side of the coin that is just as legit as mine. But that's life; does that apply as well to something as grave as the universe and the questions relating to an Almighty? Is "relativism" really as dangerous as the church would have us believe, or is it just a way to incite fear and propagate elitism. Afterall, it is human nature to want to exclude others.

A final quote from the play tonight. "The world would be a much safer place if Christians read their Bible as beautiful and inspiring literature."

I'm not sure if believing this would be going from one propagandist to another....