On the story of Jesus Christ

According to the Bible, a woman was impregnated without having sex.  If this happened today, we would all laugh, point fingers, and feel pity for the Virgin Mary who thought she was pulling one over on us.  Mary was deemed the “immaculate conception” and the work of God, which there have been no documented cases of since.  Maybe God never did anything that people could point to and say, “look”. I would presume this is why we only needed one Jesus Christ – to prove that God existed. Jesus Christ brought the gospel to earth with flair and pizazz – there would be no questioning his power.  He was probably not allowed to do that, but he may have been a very rebellious son. In faith, I suppose one should not question these things; understanding that, I still have to be very skeptical.

From prior posts, you should know that I believe many Bible stories bear truth. However, I believe they have evolved over years to provide the most persuasive storytelling. I am in no way denying that a man known as Jesus Christ actually existed. He was probably an incredible man who did great things for others. He was probably a very personable man, one of great persuasion, one of great passion. 

But, he was a man who walked on water. He turned water into wine. He arose from the dead. All of these things sound like illusions that we would never believe happened today. It all sounds vaguely familiar to what popular magicians might do. Is it possible Jesus Christ was an altruistic illusionist?

This reminds me so much of David Blaine who made a cup of coffee overflow with change for a homeless man. He also froze himself for three days and came back to life. Was Jesus Christ the first illusionist of our time? Did any of this actually happen? Even if not, does it all sound plausible? Well, the question is whether that is important. To be fair, religions don’t always have to be plausible. It would be hypocritical to downplay other religions on the basis of my own belief system. To quote Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan: “We should rank our beliefs not by plausibility but by the harm they may cause”. There is something to be said for this. Still, I believe that considering alternatives is always important. Challenging beliefs is a part of believing – it should be inherent, natural, and encouraged.

I’ll leave this one off with this: I can question as many stories as you like. There are many others. Without Noah and his Ark, none of us, nor any animals, would actually exist on earth. We’ve found the fossil remains of dinosaurs but have not found any of the species that were left to drown in the flood. Let’s just call it even: we are dealing with a few fables in the Bible. Ask any Zookeeper. I’m sure they’ll tell you that housing a pair of every animal specie is not plausible. Not only that, how would they all be distributed to their natural habitats, procreate, and rebuild the population as if nothing happened?

Peace out with something to think about… ORIGIN