To get to the heart of the Jesus debate, past the religious v athiesm argument and all that: let's cut out all the miracles, magic, God, everything, right?
What still exists is the tale of this strange little man who spoke in favour of tolerance for all and understanding, as opposed to mistrust and bigotry. And he was killed for it.
Now you'll never hear me claim the Jesus as myth is anywhere close to the Jesus as Person, and indeed, I'm more interested in the latter, but if the message that exists from his time on life is that: a message of tolerance, then no matter how twisted the elements of his life have become, or how people have mistrued them, can that original teaching be considered a bad thing?
The message remembered today is that of tolerance. For all I care he could be a raving loonie who tried to kill everyone and incited hatred - but that's not what history remembers. They remember the calls for tolerance.
Since the history cannot be determined from what is fact and what is fiction, then the good stuff cannot be distinguished from the new stuff, so all that is left is the general message.
So regardless of whether or not the man existed, can any call for greater tolerance, no matter what the origin, be regarded as a bad thing?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment