Stirring it up

[tinythinker]

I've been stirring @#$% up on the blog, and I'm just getting started. This isn't go along to get along. Stay tuned.

[Metacrock]

those are great man. I would like to put a couple up on my blog as guest shots. what do you think?

[tinythinker]

those are great man. I would like to put a couple up on my blog as guest shots. what do you think?

Which ones did you like? The more recent they are, the more likely they are going to be offensive to someone. The last two and the one I am working on now especially.

[met]

OK, I've been thinking along these lines too lately and, IMO, it's pretty clear from the Gospels that if Jesus is perfect in God's sight, it's still a pretty different kind of perfect from perfection the way we like to understand it. Not perfect the way we think of it at all.

...EG, he insists his disciples go buy some swords. Then, when they actually use one to defend him, he tells them to put it away "for all those who live by the sword will die by the sword."

.... EG his "yoke is light" but "the door to his fathers path is narrow and few shall find it"

Or, here's what I said somewhere else recently about the fig tree incident, just outside Jerusalem:

...it's a weird passage. (Both versions.) Seems almost like Jesus just throws a pique just because he can't have a fig out of season. So he kills the tree and then (and this almost as just an afterthought) he tries to use the whole scene to deliver a supposedly-valuable lesson that somehow - if u ask me - just comes off kind of lame. Just a lame excuse for his bad mood?

... I could prolly go on, but i think u get the idea....

The Jesus of the Gospel records/traditions just DOESN'T strike me at all as (a fulfillment of what our human conceptions are, at least) of a "perfect person." Not when u really look at it. There's too much inner contradiction, and Jessus creates too many conundrums. He's ironic, extreme, difficult. U're never quite sure when to take him literally and when not. He's often very like a shaman... or maybe a Zen monk?

But in the final analysis, who says all that isn't perfect? Could it all be part of his challenge to us...? That's the annoying thing....

[tinythinker]

Yeah, that's the thing, it's how we define think like sin and perfection.

[Metacrock]

I liked the one on was Jesus one of us if he didn't sin and the one on what I like about it and don't like bout it (Christianity). Two conflicting visions. They are both honest and I like the fact that you are willing to discuss hard things. I also think I can identify with some of your conflicts.

[tinythinker]

I liked the one on was Jesus one of us if he didn't sin and the one on what I like about it and don't like bout it (Christianity). Two conflicting visions. They are both honest and I like the fact that you are willing to discuss hard things. I also think I can identify with some of your conflicts.

Ah, well, the next one is now published and it is even harder. I am really wishing I were done. But I started, so I want to make sure that even if I'm a blaspheming heretical crackpot who should be kicked out of the Jesus club, at least the basic outline is there for proper consideration. Too bad this kind of thing doesn't come without the constant sense of doubt and frustration. Or that I mostly feel that way these days about everything "Christian". Some spiritual consolation would be nice, but it and my sense of depth/God have been absent for at least three decades if not my whole life, so why should it start now. Bleah.

[tinythinker]

Ah #$@%, I just noticed a chunk of what I wrote from the one about Jesus and sin in GONE. How the @#$^ did THAT happen? How am I supposed to get it back. @#$^ you Google!

[tinythinker]

Well, temper aside, it was a piece in the middle of the depiction of the moralistic view of Christianity. It's not going to be as good as the original but I will do what I can to replace it.

[Metacrock]

Ah #$@%, I just noticed a chunk of what I wrote from the one about Jesus and sin in GONE. How the @#$^ did THAT happen? How am I supposed to get it back. @#$^ you Google!

O man. That's crazy. I don't know how that happens. Unless in editing you accidentally zapped it and didn't realize it.