When I was atheist, I surfed around the internet looking for something to believe in. I stumbled on a documentary film that, among other things, aimed to expose the story of Christ as a myth. To begin with, it's a no-brainer to apply logic in mocking faith. Faith is not logic. It is not gathering by deduction, but knowing from the outset, as artists tend to experience. All the same, I will attempt to challenge some of the points made in this film as logically as I can. According to its well intentioned author, Christ did not live because other gods sharing his characteristics predated him. On the surface this seems credible, but I prefer to think that such similarities were more prophetic of Christ's appearance than dismissive of it. There's also the likelihood that Christ's image was altered over time, here and there, to help make the conversion of pagans more smooth and comfortable. Quite frankly, I see these obscure but interesting pagan deities as occupying lesser positions around Christ than anywhere else. As any decent logician will tell you, just because B follows A does not mean A caused B. There appears to be some glaring shortages in fact checking, as well, with claims of crucifixions and virgin births that do not appear in the historic record. From there the film focuses on the stars and how they apply to the dates chosen for Christ's precisely unknown times of birth and [mortal] death. This fails to address the question of whether or not Christ walked the earth as a man. He calls the historic reference to Christ by Josephus a forgery. Where's the proof? What if Josephus had an experience like mine that caused him to suddenly write against the grain of everything he had said up to that point? (I pity him if he had to go through it twice.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd rather believe in Jesus than in the author of this film. I get far more out of my faith in my God, and so would anyone else, I imagine. But it's a satisfying film for atheists who can't get Jesus out of their heads. Just don't bet your potentially immortal soul on its virtue. I might have said that I agreed with the author's analysis and aims. At the risk of pulling another Josephus, I must now say that I disagree with them. Chalk it up to faith - something which I think it's pretty dangerous to try to take away from people in a world as mixed up as ours. On the other hand, its author followed up with a much better documentary, which details the present day money system and explains the mystery of inflation for laymen such as myself. Very good work there, in my humble opinion. P.S. January 2, 2013: I now have reason to believe that George Carlin got that bit about the contradiction of a loving God who would let us end up in Hell from me, along with other material he has used since '07. If so, I may need to ask that it be removed from this film. Sorry, George. RIP from Weird Uncle Dave. |
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© 2010. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Christ Heist
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