On Easter Sunday, 2,000-odd years ago today, the ultimate victory was won. It wasn’t a triumph of one army over another, nor of one nation over its neighbour.
It was the triumph of life over death, good over evil, truth over lies, love over hate. To make sure people understood the real magnitude of the victory, they were not just told about it. They were shown the reason to rejoice, and no visual aid has ever been able to match the glory and grandeur of that demonstration.
Overnight, man acquired a new understanding of God, himself and the world in which his drama was to be played out. This new understanding released tremendous creative energy, a reflection of God’s energy that had gone into the Creation.
God’s founding energy created the world; man’s derivative energy created a sublime civilisation, the likes of which have never existed nor will ever exist.
That is our common legacy, and some of us are more committed to guarding and nurturing it than some others. Offered a path to eternal good, some men choose not to take it. Instead, they beat a path to evil, to the precipice beyond which perdition beckons.
Such men must be told the error of their ways. If they won’t listen, they must be told again. And if they still insist on doing evil to others, they must be stopped by whatever means at our disposal.
But they must also be loved, and this is the lesson Christ not only taught but indeed showed in his own flesh. Loving the enemies of good does not mean letting them get on with their evil deeds unimpeded. But it does mean praying for their souls, in the hope that the good God will show them the kind of mercy they do not deserve from good men.
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” explained Paul, making every subsequent, secular promise of equality sound puny and vulgar.
It has not always worked out that way, and it is not working out that way in the Ukraine today. The world pushes aside the lifebelt divinely offered.
It hopes to find unity in itself – only to find discord, devastation and the kind of spiritual emptiness for which no material riches can possibly make up.
But the lifebelt was not taken away. It still undulates with the waves, still within reach of anyone ready to grasp it.
This makes today the most joyous day of the year – regardless of whether or not we are Christians, or what kind of Christians.
On this day we can forget our differences and again sense we are all brothers united in the great hope of peace on earth and life everlasting. We can all, regardless of where we live, rejoice on hearing these words, ringing, thundering in whatever language they are spoken:
Christ is risen!
Le Christ est ressuscité!
Christus ist auferstanden!
Cristo ha resucitado!
Cristo è risorto!
Kristus on üles tõusnud!
Kristus er oppstanden!
Xристос воскрес!
Chrystus zmartwychwstał!
Kristus vstal z mrtvých!
Cristo ressuscitou!
Kristus ir augšāmcēlies!
Christus is verrezen!
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Krisztus feltámadt!
Kristus är uppstånden!
Kristus prisikėlė!
Kristus nousi kuolleista!
Hristos a înviat!
INDEED HE IS RISEN! HAPPY EASTER TO ALL OF YOU!
I cling to the belief that 2033 is the year God through Jesus reveals himself and smites the west. Two milennia Ad is a fair period for humans to evolve or devolve as the case may be. We surely are primed for a reckoning, so far from the path have we strayed. Gonna be a long 11 years of pain, given the total dereliction of duty by our “leaders”
John Mac,
Are you familiar with the works of Emmet Scott and Heribert Illig?
According to them, when the AD calendar was introduced, it was “padded” with about 300 years. The reason for this was the dire political crisis of the time: they introduced the new calendar with a new year 916AD rather than 616AD to give hope that Christians were closer to the “end times” than they really were, and secondly, to compete against the introduction of the Muslim calendar which was itself padded by 200 years. If their theory is correct, the current year is 1722 or 1723 AD, not 2022. Apparently our ancestors knew a thing or two about mortgaging their future…
It will be more than 11 years of pain if all of you are correct.
The cares of this life are nothing. If we were to focus more on the message stated above and the next life, we would all be better off (enemies included).
Happy Easter!
I am forever amazed at the contorted logic of Christianity, as displayed in this article and the comments so far offered. Christianity is based on dogma and circular logic and probably on myth. I therefore dissent from it as to both its structure and its meaning, and also because my upbringing involved a different and equally illogical set of ideas, amongst many others available. How the “owner” of this blog reconciles his acute perceptions of political events with his obtuse and irrational appreciation of religion remains, for me, an insoluble conundrum.
I agree with you, Bernie. I do not for one moment doubt the sincerity of our host’s faith, but I also remain baffled as to how it coexists with his impeccably rational mind.
Aquinas, Scotus and the other scholastic theologians showed, I am reliably informed, (Richard Cross) that Christian theology is a complete system. That is to say, if you accept the premises, the presuppositions, then no contradictions arise. In this sense it’s more certain than mathematics, which turns out to be incomplete; that is to say, there are true theorems which cannot be proved. (Gödel)
I’m afraid the rationality of Western Christianity is a subject you need to study before making such pronouncements. In particular, the development of Aristotle’s philosophy through scholastic theology is an exemplar of perhaps the deepest and the most rational thought ever fomenting in man’s mind. Meanwhile, you’ll notice that most of the great minds in history (including most of the great scientists and political thinkers) saw no contradiction between faith and rationality. In general, by way of avuncular advice, even extremely intelligent and educated people (some of them my closest friends) sound dumb when they try to argue against religion — especially when their opponent is well-versed in it. Religious, especially Western Christian, thought is man’s most sublime intellectual achievement, and attacking it from the platform of ignorance is never a good idea. As a younger man, time is on your side — get the right books and learn.
“no contradiction between faith and rationality”
That is surely an irrational statement? Faith is a mental attitude in which some proposition(s) are accepted even though they conflict with logic/rationality. And that is the stopping-point for my thinking. I cannot accept the fundamentals of religion(s) because they conflict with logic/rationality.
Scholastic theology, I admit to not clearly understanding. But to the extent that I do grasp it, think it is just a way of obfuscating simplicity and/or introducing faith into the argument.
‘Not clearly understanding’ doesn’t seem to put any limitations on forming strong opinions. That’s how it should be — we do live in modern times.
Not many people understand the scholastics. They worked from first principles and derived their conclusions via the most rigorous logic. They did the work so that we don’t have to!
“ I am forever amazed at the contorted logic of Christianity”
So am I, but I absolutely love it!! Atheism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, and Communism are, by comparison, worthless corpses that have absolutely nothing of value on offer. Christianity has a whole pantheon of brilliant saints who amaze me with their brilliance, thought, erudition, and astute observations. The West’s abandonment of its own extremely rich Christian heritage in favour of intellectual necrophilism is unbelievably shameful in my view, and a sin of such profundity that I cannot imagine God ever forgiving.
You are absolutely right. If we accept their premises, their system isn’t just a rational but a sublime structure. Accepting their premises is treated as a gift from God in religion, and as a hypothesis in science. We come up with a supposition and then test it against available facts. If it passes the test, it’s true. That’s unvarnished Arstotle, as baptised by Aquinas. In a way, any thinker, certainly any scientist, has to proceed from first principles. A scientist has to believe that the natural world functions according to rational and universal laws — so do we. The problem with atheists, as opposed to agnostics, is that they can’t argue the toss without committing rational solypsisms in every sentence. I think that’s God’s punishment for not understanding what the ultimate reason is.
I have noticed you usually ignore the cries of “irrational!”. That shows intelligence and a fair bit of restraint. Easter seems a good day to respond. I would add a few thoughts of my own, but I could not state them as eloquently as you do so I shall leave it. I think “my upbringing involved a different and equally illogical set of ideas” may point to the root of the issue.
The illogical set of ideas referred to judaism. Is that what you mean as the root of the issue? If so I certainly do not understand your meaning.
My point was that many people who lash out at a given religious belief or the concept of God have an event in their past that fosters the sentiment. For some it is the fact that an event did not go the way they would have liked (say, the death of a loved one). For some it is rebelling against their parents and “old fashioned” beliefs.
Perhaps you have made an in-depth study of philosophy and theology and come by your opinion honestly. I do not know, but that phrase did catch my eye; and it is certainly not the first time you have posted here about the irrationality of Christianity. Knowing the author’s history it just seems to be baiting him for an argument.
Bernie, you should have come a little more prepared than “(Boot’s) irrational and obtuse appreciation of religion”. Have you not read this man before?
How to contribute to comments in a blog is not a simple matter to me; I am not sure that I understand it to any worthwhile extent and my attitude is correspondingly very tentative. Indeed. it takes considerable persuasion to press the “send” button. Thus, my responses tend to be guided by the thoughts of the moment rather than reflect a deep accumulation. It is, after all, a transient medium. Thus, while I do have some inkling of what to expect from Mr Boot, I tend to treat each day’s emanation as complete in itself and so try to leave my expectations at the door (so to speak). It is clear, however, that he and I cannot possibly have compatible views on any religious subject; my contributions aim (if they aim at anything) to ensure that a sceptical and disbelieving attitude is represented somehow; I express the views of one dissenting and ill-educated Jew.
“Represented somehow”? This attitude rules the modern roost, it’s overwhelmingly dominant. Mine is one of the few dissenting voices crying in the wilderness, and it’s so feeble as to be practically inaudible. And here in this space, Paul’s injunction holds: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female…”
Too deep for my feeble understanding, I fear.