Re: New List Members

Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Sun, 14 Jun 1998 21:50:59 -0400


EvMick@aol.com wrote:

> hmmmmmm....?
>
> A little blunt perhaps? But interesting. Any refutations?

I would say a couple things:

a) yeah, while the Christ we all know about through the 2000 year filtered
compendium we know as the Bible may not be quite as selfless or whatever as
buddha, but for the time and place he was in, I think that the general concept
of willingly getting nailed to a tree for suggesting that it would be cool for
people to be nice to each other for a change was a profoundly courageous act.
Buddha was in India 500 years previously, so his teachings had extremely little
influence on the development of the Roman Empire, while the pseudobiographical
texts about Jesus basically changed the very make up of the Empire, to give it
the potential for the West to become what it is today.

b) while the East has had a long tradition of very pacifistic spiritual
development prior to Buddha, there was none such (except for small groups like
the Essenes) in the Middle East or Europe at the time of Jesus, he was a bit of
a pioneer in the region for what he had to say.

c) keep in mind that the Bible as we know it is only a small part of all of the
biographical texts, and that the two gospels which were actually written by
actual disciples of Jesus were left out of the Bible because they weren't
conducive to a stern autocratic Church. The four gospels that are in the Bible
were written 70-150 years after the death of Jesus, and are thus open to
significant debate as to whether the quotes attributed to Jesus are actually
what he said. The Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene can be
found in the Nag Hammadi, along with a number of other texts which paint a much
different picture of Jesus.

d) keep in mind also that Jesus was more of a political figure than the Bible
lets on. Since the marriage of his two parents reunited the two Houses of David
(and his purported marriage at Cana to Mary Magdalene would have united the
House of David with the House of Saul) he was a royal figure in Isreal, and was
looked on as a revolutionary figure to save Isreal from the Romans, as had been
foretold. Being raised with such expectations, its not hard to imagine that one
would at least have some capacity to be a royal pain in the ass at least once in
a while. One can also imagine that this is why he got crucified in the end, that
he turned out not to be quite the revolutionary general his fellow Hebrews had
hoped for, and so they willingly turned him over to Pilate in exchange for
Barrabbas, a proven zealot fighter, so that Pilate could give Jesus the
punishment reserved for those who would revolt against Rome. If he had been
convicted of blasphemy and sacrelidge as had been claimed in the Bible, then
Hebrew law dictated that he be stoned to death.

Given all this, I would also put emails from Jesus in my kill file, as I'm not
in the mood to get strung up and disemboweled, thank you, for associating with a
known subversive figure who can't seem to pull of a decent revolt, has little
military inclination, and succeeds in pissing off as many people around him as
possible....

Give me someone who knows how to keep their mouth shut, can operate a decent
cell network, and can obtain support for the subversion campaign from outside
sources. No matter how pacifistic you want to get, any group with a hope of
success should at least be able to do these three things....

--
TANSTAAFL!!!
   Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering
------------------------------------------------------------
How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?