Andrew Fowler
Here was not only a god, but the God who loved humanity, rather than one
who toyed with them as pawns like the Greek gods and goddesses. In
Christianity, humanity was not disposable; and Jesus died for creation,
as opposed to the people dying to please the gods. In this way, the
Christian God was radically different.
If only it were so simple.
As myths telling tales of disposable humanity go, the reality has been that since the time of Christ a staggering number of human beings, roughly 50 billion, have died on planet Earth.
What has been the purpose of all those lives and of all those deaths? Have those been radically different in comparison with the more than 50 billion who lived and died before Jesus ever arrived on the scene?
One can argue convincingly that our lives have been better on balance, but hundreds of millions have come and gone in the Christian era itself who have suffered just as miserably as those who had come and gone before. And in the world right now the leading cause of death is abortion, some 70 million every year. None of them will ever be impressed by our home decor, and we will be disposed of as surely as they have been, but not soon enough for our crimes.
People recoil from reality and tell themselves tales to explain it and cope with it. Christians have been no exception, and have done the very same thing with their own religion. They have shunned the real content of their own scriptures which tell a different tale from the one encapsulated by the simple promise of everlasting life in John 3:16.
That was the tale of the good news for the few and the bad news for the many.
Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. ... Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. ... Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
... There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and
you yourselves thrust out.
-- Luke 13:3,5,24,28
And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in
marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood
came, and destroyed them all.
Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
-- Luke 17:26ff.
This exclusive tale failed, and the world went on living and dying as before.
To cope with the failure, the Christians themselves replaced the way of the few by the inclusive way for the many which we now hear everywhere at Christmas since the first century. The former was falsified by events, but the latter is unfalsifiable because it is by definition beyond our ken. Some die and go to heaven. Some die and go to hell. It cannot be proven, but it also cannot be disproven. It is therefore the best of myths. It is durable. It helps people cope with the ugly facts of life and death. It gives hope to one third of the world's population, 2.38 billion people, the world's largest and most widespread religion, or so Artificial Intelligence tells me.
And if somehow I am wrong and this tale is in fact found to be falsifiable in some way some day, I am confident we will replace it again, because we are nothing if not myth-makers. We are not radically different, even if our God is. We are deceitful above all things.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-- John 3:16
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
-- Galatians 2:20
