So... well, I found Jesus today.

So... well, I found Jesus today.

by Sanjuro | Published on April 11th, 2009, 8:30 am | Religion

I hope I don't disappoint anyone here, and hope no one feels misled, but... I found Jesus today.

This came at the end of a tough week admittedly, and perhaps I'm not at my best. But a call from my friend started the journey and it ended at the feet of Christ. I know my old Atheist buddies will try and talk me out of it, but once you come face to face with the man himself, there is no denying it. .

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Those who want to find him, please know you can follow my lead...

...he is currently at the corner of Burlington Rd (Hwy 70) and Mt Hope Church Rd! He's just kinda hanging out. :lol:

So I get this call after work;

"Hey Sanj, theres a nut hanging from a cross!"

Not believing them (and secretly hoping I'm finally going to meet BHL) I whip around and throttle the car over there, fumbling around for my trusty camera (which your intrepid reporter keeps with him at all times, naturally)

I park in the church lot, and there before me are a gaggle of people in bed sheets and a young man on a cross. The two Roman soldiers should be happy the captain of their regiment wasn't around, for there surely would have been a flogging for wearing those velcro sandles.

I kid only because the whole scene was so bizzare.

Here we have a re-enactment of whats supposed to be the bloody torture of a man, yet it is exposed on the streets and everyone involved seems to be having a good time with it. isn't it the atheist job to be laughing at this stuff??

One thing that really struck me as I was standing there, was this.. Even with their rubber spears and Halloween costumes, Christianity is REALLY hung up on death. They wallow in it. I couldn't help but notice all the symbolism in front of me with the graveyard as the backdrop.

Yeah, yeah....well, I don't go to church so I don't notice these things normally.

Obviously, this kid was unimpressed that the figurehead of his church was being strung up and tortured.. he will know the depth of hell's flame I can assure you. :roll:

So heres the thing, I think we rational folk should all dress up in turtle neck shirts and tweed jackets and try to resurrect Carl Sagan every good Friday. Who's in?

At any rate, I hope these guys had fun. Although it certainly wasn't the point to be humorous, they certainly did lighten up my afternoon. I headed off to the ABC (Alcohol beverage Commission for those who don't live in NC) so I could touch some REAL spirit this weekend with some friends. But then again, we know all about that don't we Mel?

Why are Christians never reenacting that "bear scene" with their youth group from the book of Paul??? THAT would be great roadside entertainment. Till next time!

Sigh....

It happens every year about this time....

The atheists in this forum feel it's their duty to ridicule the Holiest day of the year. It happened last year and it happened the year before. This post (and others the last couple of days) are just meant to inflame, antagonize and hurt those believers that might happen to stop by. It's not cool and it's not funny.

I think I'm going to lay off this forum for a while because I don't think I really feel like associating with you guys right now.

Happy Ressurection Day.

I wasn't very far from there today at all...

I found Jesus today too! But before I could snap a picture of him and put him in a baggie to sell on eBay, my son dipped the Jesus chip in salsa... and he was gone. :roll:

Sanjuro wrote:Why are Christians never reenacting that "bear scene" with their youth group from the book of Paul??? THAT would be great roadside entertainment. Till next time!

Um, Sanj...

The book with the bears in 2 Kings... :mrgreen:

Sanjuro wrote:Here we have a re-enactment of whats supposed to be the bloody torture of a man, yet it is exposed on the streets and everyone involved seems to be having a good time with it. isn't it the atheist job to be laughing at this stuff??

You know, this is pretty interesting. These were a youth group, I suppose? I bet the laughter was borne of boredom at doing this same thing every year (yeah... that same scene has been out on that corner every Good Friday for at least 5 or 6 years), and having a stranger (and really -- who could be stranger than Sanjuro?) walk up and take such interest. That is one question I would have asked them: how much attention do you guys get with this stuff?

But the things that really stand out with these photos: Jesus is clad in pristine white sheets, and the surrounding peasants are dressed in PASTELS?!

They needed BLOOD

So yep: that's truly weird.

BecauseHeLives wrote:
Happy Ressurection Day.

Happy zombie day to you too sir. It's only natural we would find more posts about religious people, when their holidays roll around they come out in droves to do stuff like this.

I dont post to anger, I post to demonstrate a different perspective.

Good reporting, Sanjuro, but where is the Easter Bunny with his cat o nine tails?

Edited to add: If people don't want their religion laughed at, they should take out the funny bits. Like the zombie, vampire and cannibal parts. Leave in the love thy neighbor stuff though.

Show some respect Sanjuro. How dare you make fun of the looneys re-enacting their sacrifice. You wouldn't do it if the Muslims were re-enacting the wedding of Mohammed to Aisha would you?

So no making fun of the holy 'day'. Frigga will be friggin' cross if you do.

BecauseHeLives wrote:Sigh....

It happens every year about this time....

The atheists in this forum feel it's their duty to ridicule the Holiest day of the year.

The kids putting on an execution creche in front of everyone driving down Wendover Ave. certainly brought the ridicule on themselves, IMO. I don't make fun of the actual holiday, but fer cryin' out loud... this stuff is hilarious!

Nfidel wrote:If people don't want their religion laughed at, they should take out the funny bits. Like the zombie, vampire and cannibal parts. Leave in the love thy neighbor stuff though.

Well said, sir! Amen, in a manner of speaking...

Nfidel wrote:
Edited to add: If people don't want their religion laughed at, they should take out the funny bits. Like the zombie, vampire and cannibal parts. Leave in the love thy neighbor stuff though.

Quoted for emphasis.

Sanjuro wrote:Here we have a re-enactment of whats supposed to be the bloody torture of a man, yet it is exposed on the streets and everyone involved seems to be having a good time with it...

...Christianity is REALLY hung up on death. They wallow in it. I couldn't help but notice all the symbolism in front of me with the graveyard as the backdrop...

To be fair, I'll say that I can understand why any group would have a re-enactment to illustrate history (like Civil War re-enactments), and for this group on US-70, that's what they're doing because they believe it's true. I find it disturbing to re-enact a "real" death, but oh well...

For me Palm Sunday 2007 was the beginning of the end of going through the motions. I came home from church and blogged about how "I found that I can go to one of the significant Mass celebrations and get turned further from Catholicism/Christianity. I didn't miss the point of the Gospel." I do still think that part of the Easter story is a bit nice if you think about having so much "love" and laying down your life for a friend, but the reason (i.e. because your daddy says you must die for various reasons) for going through torture before death... it's miserable! I don't think "Take a Bullet for a Buddy" Day will ever catch on...

Getting back to being the flippant-she-creature that I am, I did go to church again a few times after Palm Sunday, and here's what happened (an excerpt from another blog):

In another blog, I wrote:Church - I wasn't too interested in paying attention. See, if God wants me to feel welcome, this isn't the way to do it...

Okay, so like, I do the whole Catholic thing, right? Go in, get a dab of holy water and make the sign of the cross, walk up to the pew where my folks are sitting, genuflect towards the tabernacle. Well, I genuflect and pull a muscle! It hurt like a sonofabitch!!! And I was somehow able to not yell muddaphucka, LOL

So I spent the next hour focused on exactly how much my leg hurts and that if God is a friend who very much wants us to visit regularly and is always welcoming, then hmm, maybe God shouldn't inflict pain on me when I actually show up and do a sign of respect. Yeah, I did consider the possibility that if my legs were accustomed to the whole Vatican Rag every Sunday (genuflect, sit, stand, sit, stand, sit, stand, kneel, stand, kneel, sit, stand, etc) then maybe I wouldn't have pulled something, but nah. It's about the same as doing lunges. LOL

As for "Christianity being REALLY hung up on death" (nice pun, Sanjuro), I'd be too if I was banking on an afterlife that is promised to me after making some guy go through torture and death so I can live eternally with him in the land of sunshine and lollipops and rainbows.

Here's what I think I learned about the Bible when I read it, several years ago now. Christians say that the Bible has a single theme that unifies it across all the writers, and all the centuries it was being written. Well, I think that if that really is true (and I really don't think it is, but that's beside the point), then I think it must be that God insists on punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.

And let's take this whole "eternal existence of the soul" matter off the scope for the time being, because that is not an idea that was in place from the beginning of the process. The oldest writings of the Jews don't say anything about living forever, or going to heaven or hell or paradise or gehenna or whatever. No, if you read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Judges and so forth, you'll see that none of that mystic crap is present. That came later, when the Jews added in the cool-sounding crap from religions of the surrounding peoples -- Egyptians, Persians and so on.

Anyway... There are numerous examples of mass punishment for individual "crimes" in the OT. God sent pestilences to kill thousands when someone withheld booty from war, or when there was an unauthorized census, or when someone married a non-Jew, etc., etc., ad infinitum. The message: God will make sure that many will suffer or die even if they didn't step out of line, so keep that in mind if you feel like doing something God doesn't like.

As the Jewish religion evolved (and yes, it is rather easy to trace the evolution of the religion if you read the book in the order in which they were written) this concept of extravagant punishment that included even those who hadn't been involved in a "crime" against the rules carries forward. I think this is about the only reason that the story of Jesus even comes close to dovetailing with the Jewish religion, though obviously it is a hard sell for any intelligent Jew who has studied his TNK book.

Because in the story of the Gospels (as interpreted by Paul and the writer of Hebrews), you have a blameless man being punished unjustly for everyone else's crimes. Paul and the other interpreters of the Gospel stories absolutely wallow in this take of Godly injustice. I don't think it's a "death" thing per se... it is a central theme of unjust punishment for an imaginary crime. Torture and death is just a scary means to an end -- impressing on followers the gravity of the story.

As Nfidel pointed out, the good parts of Jesus' message, in his speeches in the Gospels generally stand by themselves without the necessity of adding all this mystic, eternal life BS that wasn't even part of the oldest version of the Jewish religion. So I think Jefferson had it right when he created his own Bible. He tossed out the nonsense, all the counterproductive crap that lent itself to hatred of self and hatred of Jews, and kept the bits that make some sort of real sense. The crucifixion adds no real value to the good parts of the Bible. It is the ultimate expression of the theme of God's injustice. That, I think, is why non-believers find this celebration so worthy of comment.

BecauseHeLives wrote:Sigh....
It happens every year about this time....
The atheists in this forum feel it's their duty to ridicule the Holiest day of the year. It happened last year and it happened the year before. This post (and others the last couple of days) are just meant to inflame, antagonize and hurt those believers that might happen to stop by. It's not cool and it's not funny.
I think I'm going to lay off this forum for a while because I don't think I really feel like associating with you guys right now.
Happy Ressurection Day.

I'd be happy to make light of some Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Scientology, Mormon, or Raelian holidays if it'll make you feel less singled out. I have to listen to all this Xtian gibberish about how Halloween is an evil, pagan holiday that encourages children to enagage in devil worship every year, so join the annoyed club.

It must not bother you too badly, 'cause you keep coming back. Martyr complex, maybe? "Sheep amongst the wolves" kind of thing?

Or maybe your faith ain't quite what you say it is? I was there once. Baptists used to call it "being under conviction". Later on I realized what it really is: reason, education, and experience trying to re-assert its influence over your brain.

Sorry, but it is funny to us. If you don't want to look like a nut, do the cross-thing in the back-yard or something, not out by a public road.

The Rain King wrote:
I'd be happy to make light of some Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Scientology, Mormon, or Raelian holidays if it'll make you feel less singled out. I have to listen to all this Xtian gibberish about how Halloween is an evil, pagan holiday that encourages children to enagage in devil worship every year, so join the annoyed club.

It must not bother you too badly, 'cause you keep coming back. Martyr complex, maybe? "Sheep amongst the wolves" kind of thing?

Or maybe your faith ain't quite what you say it is? I was there once. Baptists used to call it "being under conviction". Later on I realized what it really is: reason, education, and experience trying to re-assert its influence over your brain.

Sorry, but it is funny to us. If you don't want to look like a nut, do the cross-thing in the back-yard or something, not out by a public road.

Exactly. I dont think anyone here has been unduly harsh. I'm sure if we lived in a predominantly Muslim society we would be making a heck of a lot more posts about Islam.

The fact is, once you publicly show your ass, you cannot expect someone not to be there ready to smack it (something I know all too well, believe me).

These seemed like nice people. Misled, but nice.

Sanjuro wrote:Exactly. I dont think anyone here has been unduly harsh. I'm sure if we lived in a predominantly Muslim society we would be making a heck of a lot more posts about Islam.

Au contraire there, mon bud. I think we would be keeping our infidel mouths shut and lying low while we peddled enough heroin and lace burkhas to GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE !!! They stone people like you and me, or at least cut off body parts I've spent my whole life trying to keep. One of Saddam's sons actually used an Iron Maiden on people and shocked their dainty bits with car batteries. Uhnh-uh. I wouldn't be writing or saying anything in those circumstances that might make me seem "special".

Sanjuro wrote:The fact is, once you publicly show your ass, you cannot expect someone not to be there ready to smack it (something I know all too well, believe me).

Wouldn't know, I attained a state of perfect enlightenment and utter perfection long ago.

Cecil weighs in on riding the cross:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/080411.html

This is the part that really gets me:
" Usually the victim remained on the cross until birds and beasts consumed the body, but to avoid complaints the Romans allowed some crucified Jews to be buried, as evidenced by a crucified-but-buried skeleton discovered near Jerusalem."

I just don't get humans. Apparently there weren't any complaints about nailing Uncle Levi to the cross in the first place, but boy, did they get huffy if you left his heinie for the buzzards ! Exactly why the Romans would give a sh*t about complaints is a little hard to imagine as well. They don't strike me as having been sensitive, politically correct types, and if it were a matter of quelling possible uprisings, then why not allow all of them to be buried? Again, WTF did they care? " Yeah, yeah, go bury him already ! But there's an additional late fee tacked to the rental if that shovel's not back by dusk! Now get the b----d down from there and get outta my sight !"

After a little thought, I'd venture that a more reasonable answer is that the crucified person's family/friends bribed the hell out of somebody, probably an offcial, the executioners, or most likely, both, to let them bury the body. In medieval times, people who were to be burned as witches and heretics sometimes paid off the executioner to have a small bag of gunpowder hung from their necks or placed near vital organs. Nobles would tip the executioner to ensure a quick, clean beheading.

I could be wrong, but it seems to make more sense to me that coins motivate more reliably than complaints.

I was driving home today, through the thunder storms that are cranking up right now,and drove past this church. I thought, "Well, they'll have skipped this display for this year on account of safety reasons."

Um... no. They were out there today. In the rain, clustered around their life-size crucifix.

Couldn't be sure, but I think they may have had a stuffed Jesus hanging out on the cross.

Weird.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:I was driving home today, through the thunder storms that are cranking up right now,and drove past this church. I thought, "Well, they'll have skipped this display for this year on account of safety reasons."

Um... no. They were out there today. In the rain, clustered around their life-size crucifix.

Couldn't be sure, but I think they may have had a stuffed Jesus hanging out on the cross.

Weird.

Wow, I'm so ticked off that you stole my thunder.. I had a "Resurrection!!!!" thing all planned out for this thread. Oh well...

You snooze, you lose... April 11th, 2009, 8:39 am Reply with quote

You snooze, you lose... :roll:

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:You snooze, you lose...

Yeah, I could somehow magically take the new photos before I got down there this afternoon. A MIRACLE!!! :roll:

There is a lot to debate regarding religion/beliefs/christian dogma but I don't see this thread adding anything significant to it. Whatever happened to the "live and let live" that was mentioned in other recent threads?

eddiebuckle wrote:There is a lot to debate regarding religion/beliefs/christian dogma but I don't see this thread adding anything significant to it. Whatever happened to the "live and let live" that was mentioned in other recent threads?

I haven't read where anyone is saying these folks shouldn't have the right to continue their torture/zombie live action roleplaying activity. And we have every right to make fun of them. That IS live and let live.

eddiebuckle wrote:There is a lot to debate regarding religion/beliefs/christian dogma but I don't see this thread adding anything significant to it. Whatever happened to the "live and let live" that was mentioned in other recent threads?

I'm not hindering anyone from doing stupid/dangerous things in an effort to further their religion. If someone does that, they should expect to be told, "Hey -- that's really stupid and/or dangerous."