The Pope is to Jesus as Coke is to Thoreau.
Humans make judgments without having all the evidence. (We have no choice really: "all" the evidence is never available, but living creatures must chooise in order to go on living.) We imagine that God in contrast does have all the evidence, and can be objective. I no longer believe that last part; I now believe that sentience is contained within fragments of the cosmos; not the cosmos contained within fragments of sentience. God might have a higher perspective than ours, might not share our particular prejudices, but I no longer conceive of any god knowing all or being infallible ... But I'll argue that elsewhere, I'm trying to get something else expressed here: something that has to do with cut-off perspective.
Christianity depicts Jesus on the cross, says he's "Christ"; yet insists that he's "suffering": as a human would be suffering in such a circumstance.
How could we tell? What if Jesus, as Christ, had one "foot" — no, let's say "corner of his mind" — on earth and another in heaven. How would we know whether or not the part in heaven might make pain impossible? Maybe his godhead, even if it's only 50/50, would make pain impossible. ... I won't bother to work this out in all details, you do that. Do it after you ponder the following:
Jesus dies, rises, and goes to heaven. Does he have to stay there? If he's "God," can't he go anywhere he wants to? Can't he go back to hell, for example? Can't God enter hell whenever he wants, for whatever reason, and stay as long as he likes? Would he need Satan's permission? Would God have to pay an entrance fee? Could Satan's devils evict God? or Jesus?
So. Picture: Jesus goes to hell. Goes looking for the soldier who stuck the spear in his side.
Can't Jesus piss in his ear if he wants? (Shit in his mouth? Fuck him in the eye socket?)
Can't Jesus find the soldier who scourged him, and scourge the soldier? right there in hell? Can't Jesus go to hell and scourge that soldier every day of Eternity if he wants to? and pour salt in the wounds?
So: when we say that Jesus this or Jesus that, Jesus "wouldn't" do this, or wouldn't want to do that, do we know what we're talking about?
In all cases we're like the Flatlander looking in Flatland at the 2D "shadow" of some ND entity. What's a square doing telling a 3D sphere or a 4D joke or a 12D entity what the 2D shadow means? or proves?
I'm not saying Jesus does do any of those things: my point is: it's not my business: and it's not yours either. We are not qualified to do any more than imagine: and we damn well ought to realize how piss poor our imaginations are (yours infinitely pissier-poorer than mine.)
(first draft, ugh. I be back)
Oh, there's lots and lots of Jesus modules and Jesus scrapbook that have to be restored from Knatz.com. I make a place for the scrapbook here, more to follow.
2009 03 24
When I repost my fed(-and-family) destroyed Jesus modules you may see a diapason of Jesus metaphors, including numerous comparisons between the sacrifices suggested by the Jesus myth, by the gospels, and by interpretations of the gospels. Here's a new story from this morning which I'll integrate among its predecessors later:A hearing aid salesman's staff phoned last week, wanted to test my hearing. I told them that I was broke, couldn't pay for anything: unless they could figure a way to get Medicare/Medicaid to pay for it. Oh sure, said the office, come on in. There I was this morning, I presented the guy with my Medicaid insurance data. We don't take Medicaid, he said. No apology for having wasted my time, and gas, and patience under false pretenses. I told the guy that till last month I'd lived on $387 a month. What about social security, he asked? That is my social security, I answered. How come I get so much more than you, he wanted to know?
So I started to tell him: I was a college teacher. I was a PhD candidate. I got fired in a batch-firing of faculty who joined the silent protest on the chapel steps in the late 1960s. The paper called us Communists, no one protested: no one that anyone listened to. My firing alone was illegal, because they'd just rehired me. He interrupted my telling him how the university blackball network extended country and world wide. I bulled ahead with how I'd joined Ivan Illich's movement to replace compulsory education (and all cooperating educational institutions) with a free cybernetic marketplace: a data base of voluntary public information ... I explained how the public had every right not to support the cheap internet we offered, but that the government, and the universities, and CERN had no right years and decades later to plagiarize our ideas in the perverted form we're familiar with: the WWW. The public had a right to the internet we offered. The public also had a right to have no internet. The public did not have a right to ignore mine and then let the institutions with its hands in public pockets steal from Monsignor Illich, Jesus' inspiration, or pk's scut work and additional imagination: our internet of 1970 being a combo of those three things: Illich, Illich's (and my) idea of "Christ," and pk.
He interrupted again, said, "Never mind all that. What can we do to survive NOW?"
The gospels have Jesus say, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." This clown interrupts a disciple of Jesus (even fictional characters can have disciples) telling about his neo-crucifixion, ongoing over decades, fresh thefts of "God's" word. He doesn't apologize for participating in the theft: he just wants to be saved: again, now.
Kleptocrats can't keep punishing intelligence, virtue, honesty, science, art ... crucifying god daily anew ... and then interrupt proof of their damnation to demand fresh salvation. But try explaining that to the damned. I'd talked with the clown that long because I knew his secretary was overhearing: I wanted her to know who had been in her office, who was revealing the boss's character: and hers. But notice: she didn't barge in demanding any upgrades in office awareness.
There isn't any one in the world (not conspicuously tormented by the group) who does Not participate in the destruction of our chances of survival.
If our chances of survival are not metaphorically covered by the meaning of the crucifixion of a Savior, then never mind, I'm screwy.
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