crucifixion

The crucifixion is among christianity’s most enduring scenes that manifests the unparalleled love that god has for his creation. As stated in the bible, the father was willing to sacrifice his only begotten son – Jesus Christ — to be savior of mankind. It was supposed to be the testament that would undeniably prove the covenant between god and man – something that should have erased any doubt about the sincerity and good heart of the Christian god. And for most of non-menorah lighting, non-ramadan fasting, non-chakra-opening folk, this single act of sacrifice wherein someone akin to the gods voluntarily submitted himself to earthly pain was more than enough to convince them that god is indeed good.

 

But when one really delves into the crooks of the circumstances surrounding the crucifixion, it becomes more apparent that it is not as black and white as the roman catholic church would like to paint it to be. Following the basic catholic tenet of the trinity (a long disputed concept that was eventually resolved in the Council of Nicea), the father and the son are two different personas, but in the end, catholicism still maintains a monotheistic preference due to the implications of the ten commandments. Due to this claim by the church, the only begotten son (jesus Christ) becomes a virtual equivalent of the creator – the father himself.

 

Ask yourself this: If you have two personas – one being the father and the other being the begotten son — and you decided to sacrifice one of your personas to be the savior of mankind, is there any sacrifice that ever took place? While the supposed end effect of absolution of sins is still the end result, the gravity of the sacrifice still remains in question. Considering that the father had the power to create and infinite number of equivalents of himself, is losing one (and eventually resurrecting it) that much a big loss?

 

If we go the Machiavellian route and justify the end being absolution against the seemingly deceptive and overrated ‘sacrifice’ by the father, we could still find major flaws in the logic used by the creator to engineer such a blood fest. The main idea behind the crucifixion was for the son of god to take the sins of mankind upon himself and absolve it himself on the cross. There’s a very heroic quality into the degree of sacrifice that the son did. It is not unlike the well celebrated and admired sacrifices done by war heroes, rescue workers and even the legendary young Dutch who died plugging the holes on the Lowland dikes with his little fingers. Needless to say, the willingness to give up one’s life to ensure the safety – or salvation — of others is moving in itself. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the sacrifice that the son made sends people to tears in gratitude.

 

Of course, this only becomes poignant if it were clear that the son indeed saved man from a perceived enemy. Arguably, the enemy in question is sin itself. The creator himself detests sin, and while he may not have created sin (this contradicts the very essence being the creator of everything, though) he has indirectly created the concept himself. He imbued man with free will instead of giving man the inability to sin, disobey and harm others. Had he chose the latter option, would have been a much better place. The only trade off on that option would be that the world would be a less ‘exciting’ place. If you were a god who sits in his high perch every seeing everyone just loving each other and living in harmony, it would be indeed boring. That would have been the only trade off. The disadvantage of man not being able to have free will would be moot because if god had just not created the concept to begin with, man would have never known that such a state of existence exists. Had god not willed it, it would have never existed in any shape or form.

 

On the other hand, what is the trade off for ‘free will’? Easy, the good part for god is that since man is not inherently good to begin with and can be very impressionable to certain influences, man becomes more dependent on god to find the ‘right path’ to attain salvation. In short, for a lifetime’s worth of ‘free will’ you are wagering your soul for a one-way ticket to heaven or hell. It is quite a lot to ask for a ‘creation’ to be put under an immense stressor considering that he never wanted to exist to begin with.

 

In essence, the crucifixion was supposed to the act that would save mankind from sin and the fires of hell. Incidentally, the father is either directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of both of these perceived enemies. He could have willed to not make these things exist from the beginning of time OR to have simply willed them out of existence within a blink of eye from the beginning to the slice of time that we are existing now, but he chose and continues to keep those two factors to remain. It’s either of two things – the christian god is a sadistic, unmerciful being whose intentions are far removed from what is stated in the bible or the christian is simply an incompetent manager who couldn’t even save himself from being fired by Donald Trump if he were to join the TV show ‘Apprentice’.

 

The crucifixion is at best, a greatly orchestrated passion play with Judas Iscariot playing a big part in ensuring its execution (pun intended). Ironically, modern-day christians still detest him not knowing that the most grand of christ’s gestures would have never taken place without his betrayal. Clearly, christians want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to revel under the trappings of christ’s death, sacrifice and ressurection, but at the same breath, they also think that christ was killed under the wrong premises. And yes, christ allowed Judas to ‘betray’ him. Even if it was done indirectly, god was responsible for planning the possible outcomes of man’s actions – after all, he was the one who constructed the universal set of possibilities. Despite the fact that god didn’t physically wire mankind’s brain into doing specific actions, the mere stipulation that certain hurtful actions were present in the universal set can put much of the blame on him via command responsibility.

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