Comments on a Comment

This post is part rebuttal, part clarification, part satire. My brother, Christopher van Belle, commented on one of my earlier posts, “My Struggle, by The Lord Thy God.” This post is a comment to his comment. His words are written in red (to honor his favorite rabbi), & mine are in the standard white.

Jonathan Smith,

Please show us the golden plates on which God delivered to us his revelations and concise commandments in 'My Struggle.' And the angel's name this time? Dimwit?

Anyways, thanks for the astute criticism and especially for the proscription of persimmon whip (I'm weak enough to try this just once...), but I'm afraid the message of Christ was love and subservience, while most of your anti-God arguments are directed against self-indulging gloaters, indeed those same Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus despised. Jesus' teachings command us to take the seat of lowest honor at a gathering, and he himself says his purpose was to serve, not to be served: (John 13:5-17)

The message of Christ was love, subservience, obedience, passivity, other-worldliness, voluntary poverty, non-dialectical self-assurance, & an overall non-dissent-oriented approach. It is a complex, but not entirely unique message—nor is it entirely subservient, or entirely self-cultish. As for Jesus’ non-dialectical self-assurance, I quote Nietzsche:

“Denying is precisely what was quite impossible to him [Jesus].—Dialectic is also quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any ‘truth’ can be proved by argument (—his proofs are inner ‘lights,’ inward feelings of happiness and self-affirmation, a host of ‘proofs of power’—). Neither can such a doctrine contradict, it does not even realize the fact that there are or can be other doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of imagining a contrary judgment…Wherever it encounters such things, from a feeling of profound sympathy it bemoans such ‘blindness,’—for it sees the ‘light,’—but it raises no objections.”—§32, The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche

And a lengthy excerpt from a recent blog post by John W. Loftus…
Check out the full article: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/07/beversluis-jesus-who-was-he.html#links

“That portrait also ignores many other passages in which Jesus not only becomes angry, but erupts in ‘vindictive fury’ that prompts him to lash out at the scribes and Pharisees with appalling abusiveness, calling them a ‘generation of vipers,’ ‘hypocrites,’ ‘fools,’ ‘blind,’ ‘serpents,’ and ‘whited sepulchers,’ and upbraiding them with even more menacing threats of being cast into uttermost darkness and a ‘furnace of fire in which there is only perpetual weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth’ (Matt. 11:21-24, 12:34, 13:42,49,23:13-33,25:30,25:41-46; Mark 6:10-12, 9:48; Luke 11:39-52). The frequency of these ‘Woe unto you!’ passages and the obvious glee with which this eternal punishment is described and contemplated is altogether remarkable. This extraordinary torrent of invective is not directed at social injustice or poverty or hunger or oppression or slavery or tyranny, but at people who disagree with him. These violent outbursts bespeak a zero tolerance for dissenting opinion and a very conditional interest in (and concern for) prospective followers. Is not that sort of behavior indicative of a "psychological profile" that bears looking into? Even if it is not the behavior of a lunatic or a megalomaniac, it is not quite what one expects from the main character in ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told.’ Plato and Xenophon never portray Socrates behaving in such ways. On the contrary, he characteristically responds to disagreement and lack of interest with cool detachment and impenetrable unflappability. I cannot imagine him resorting to name-calling, insults, verbal abuse, and threats of the kind that fill the synoptic Gospels.”

This sort of approach to alternative hypotheses is not intellectually humble. Everything is foregone. This is a necessary attribute to be an all-knowing deity, but when such is the ideal for the Christian, it tends to incubate a self-fellating, cognitive myopia—a complacency of faith. There is a deep acquiescence (a.k.a. subservience) in this Christianism—the subservience of reason, of open-endedness, of dialectic. Not all Christians are anti-dialectic, but the Christianity of the synoptic Gospels is anti-dialectic.

...So he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

"But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always profits such a regime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it and do not mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes." -- Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."

Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

"Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"

Jesus’ subservient actions should be contrasted against his proclamations of his transcendence, divinity, power; he will sit in judgment of men at the right hand of God—this behavior is, in any other human being, suspicious. It is a possibility with such a personality type that he would wash the feet of others for depersonalized, symbolic, self-sanctifying reasons. A full, clinical pathology is impossible from this remove.

I would like to remind everybody that my post was satire, not systematic theology. These few comments are not exhaustive; there are several other non-Christian perspectives that I would love to include & discuss, but such extended additions would be too humorless for me.

Jesus answered, "Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

I would like to quote Ludwig Feuerbach, an 18th century philosopher & theologian:

“God concerns himself about me; he has in view my happiness, my salvation; he wills that I shall be blest; but that is my will also: thus, my interest is God’s interest, my own will is God’s will, my own aim is God’s aim—God’s love for me is nothing else than my self-love deified.”

And some more…

“God is the…unrestricted omnipotence of feeling, prayer hearing itself, feeling perceiving itself, the echo of our cry of anguish. Pain must give itself utterance; involuntarily the artist seizes the lute that he may breathe out his sufferings in its tones. He soothes his sorrow by making it audible to himself, by making it objective…
…Hence man turns away from nature, from all visible objects. He turns within, that here, sheltered and hidden from the inexorable powers, he may find audience for his griefs. Here he utters his oppressive secrets; here he gives vent to his stifled sighs. This open-air of the heart, this outspoken secret, this uttered sorrow of the soul, is God. God is a tear of love, shed in the deepest concealment over human misery.”

But we still suffer from a lack of servants today, as you keenly point out, "You are hooked up, as they say; my selective grace is free of charge, & handy for the lazy, morally unmotivated masses who do not feel it essential to do good works, but desire prizes." I don't disagree with you that the prize-loving freeloader Christian exists, and perhaps you would agree with me that his philosophy is a perversion, not a paragon.

“His” philosophy is an exclusively Christian perversion, not a Buddhist or Taoist perversion. Is there something latent in Christianity that permits this, or is it just a vast curious coincidence among Christians?

“…Only read the gospels as books calculated to seduce by means of morality: morality is appropriated by these petty people—they know what morality can do! The best way of leading mankind by the nose is with morality! The fact is that the most conscious conceit of people who believe themselves to be chosen, here simulates modesty: in this way they, the Christian community, the ‘good and the just’ place themselves once and for all on a certain side, the side of ‘Truth’—and the rest of mankind, ‘the world’ on the other…This was the most fatal kind of megalomania that had ever yet existed on earth: insignificant little abortions of bigots and liars began to lay sole claim to the concepts of ‘God,’ ‘Truth,’ ‘Light,’ ‘Spirit,’ ‘Love,’ ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Life,’ as if these things were, so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to fence themselves off from ‘the world.” — §44, The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche.

From Nietzsche back to Feuerbach—and the following point argued by Feuerbach is perhaps the most germane for us; think, as you read it, of these terms: “in-group” & “out-group.”

“All the horrors of Christian religious history, which our believers aver not to be due to Christianity, have truly arisen out of Christianity, because they have arisen out of faith. This repudiation of them is indeed a necessary consequence of faith; for faith claims for itself only what is good, every thing bad it casts on the shoulders of unbelief, or of misbelief, or of men in general. But this very denial of faith, that it is itself not to blame for the evil in Christianity, is a striking proof that it is really the originator of that evil, because it is a proof of the narrowness, partiality, and intolerance which render it well-disposed only to itself, to its own adherents, but ill-disposed, unjust towards others. According to faith, the good which Christians do, is not done by the man, but by the Christian, by faith; but the evil which Christians do, is not done by the Christian, but by the man.”

The phenomenon of in-group/out-group processing is not, of course, exclusively Christian; it is, however, essential to Christianity—to the maintenance of the theory of a “pure Christianity” (which is cherry-picked Christianity). “Pure Christianity” is psychologically comparable to “pure Communism.”

And because of sin, which entered through one man, we suffer today from "shortage, war, famine, earthquakes, storms, & other habitually recurring human crises." But also through one man we are delivered from those things: (Romans 5:12-20)

I would ask the question, “You still believe in the Adam & Eve myth?”—but I have my answer. Never mind the parallels between the Sumerian antecedent Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament, never mind the lack of archaeological evidence, never mind the myth-structure, never mind a considerable amount of available biblical scholarship, never mind the theory of evolution…no, it is preferable to believe in the chatty snake & poisoned fruit casuistry.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.

"Christianity makes suffering contagious." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

"Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

"The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

"God hated the world so much that he sent his only son so that whoever does not believe in him will perish and be denied eternal life.” – (source unspecified)

And Jon, although the haughty and proud attitude of God in 'My Struggle' makes for an entertaining character, it's disparate from the example we have in Jesus, His son:

Jesus is said to be “one with the Father”—the Old Testament God. I think what Mark Twain wrote about that Old Testament Father is quite eloquent:

"There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy's campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. all 'creatures that breathe,' all houses, all cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?" – Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth

"Strange...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!" – Mark Twain, ibid.

I am sorry, readers, that this has become a quote-off, a battle of other’s wits; it is nonetheless, I hope, interesting & edifying. There is always somebody who said it better.

I will try to limit my excerpting to only the juiciest & well-written.

"At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?' He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.'"

And

" 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied:' 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hand on these two commandments.' "

The disciples did achieve a partial success; they became “like little children” in every manner save physiological. I do have the sense when I am reading the New Testament that I am reading the works of the prepubescent.

Jesus loved love—how cottony-soft. I am sufficiently impressed; I am ready to glaze over the acts of the One God (three gods?) of the Old Testament: the genocides, the infanticides, the caprice, the humiliation of others, the gloating, the divine narcissism, etc.

For Christ’s sake, read the Old Testament. I am not saying that it is an entirely barbaric collection of works, only that it sometimes depicts its god character as, no offense to you (you are not He), a bullying & vainglorious douche.

And the same Jesus commands us to not judge others. Not their taste in music, not their convictions, not their bouffant hair styles or Willy Wonka suits, not their Michael Smith DVDs, not their platitudinous Biblical t-shirts. And I hope his followers would also not only suspend their judgment, but also grow to avoid judgment organically, including that of atheists or homosexuals or whoever else organized religion has smeared.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.” (Matthew vii. I, 2.)—What a strange notion of justice on the part of a “just” judge! --§45, The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche

Jon, I've harped on some of the points I can counter, and have left many - indeed many solid ones - untouched. Not that my opinion holds any sway, but the essay is a solid critique of post-modern Christianity that hopefully would have some post-modern Christians assessing their own post-modern diversions from Jesus' example and more strongly desiring the spirit of a humble foot-washer.

First, subtract all cases of the phrase “post-modern” in this paragraph. Second, give Jesus a little more credit: he also ascended to heaven, transfigured, pimp-walked on water, made a storm chillax, resurrected & pulled a lamb from a yarmulke; foot-washing was a stop gap job.

You and I do not know if Jesus actually performed this act of altruistic self-petting. You & I do not know if Jesus actually did most of what is ascribed to him. We have the writings of persuasive religious salesmen: they knew what worked the crowd (the congregation). Pity, humility, sympathy, friendship, love, etc. are marketable. You like it. You focus on it. You tilt everything in that direction. You smoothen the canonical outliers. You feel loved.

Sincerely,

Your free-willed brother

P.s. I'm compelled to ask: "Is the choice between reform or extinction a moral choice?”

As for this quote, “Is the choice between reform or extinction a moral choice?”—This quote occurs at the end of the essay, as an example of a possible question, not a necessary question: that is, it is not relevant to the thesis, nor is it a dichotomy I would consider present in every moral scenario. The last paragraph demonstrates types of moral questions that, given the hypothesis of the essay, must be considered anew: must be viewed nakedly, as things biological, emotional, economic, statistical & (as Nietzsche would say) Human, All Too Human.

Derren Brown Instant Conversion: Part One


Derren Brown Instant Conversion: Part Two