With the release of "The Gospel of Judas", I decided it was time to discuss my religious views.
I believe Jesus was a great philosopher. Whether he was any more divine than you or I is debatable. I believe what he had to say was more important than whether he performed miracles or rose from the dead. If one requires magic tricks in order to accept wisdom, then one is looking in the wrong places for wisdom.
That being said, I have always considered the story of Christ to be incomplete. For example, Judas never made sense to me. How could you drop your life in order to follow a man whom you believed to be the son of God, only to betray him later? This would only make sense if Judas had a change of heart about Jesus. But if that was the case, why would Judas commit suicide later? Another change of heart?
It might be explainable if Jesus had done something to anger Judas, but nothing like that is mentioned in the Gospels. So we are left with a crime, but no motivation.
Which brings us to "The Gospel of Judas". In it, Jesus asks Judas to betray him, so that Jesus can fulfill prophecy. THAT makes sense. In "The Last Temptation of Christ", Judas is presented the same way. In that film, Judas is shown as Jesus' best friend, which is WHY he betrays him (because Christ did not trust the others as much as he did Judas). Again, that makes sense.
Perhaps Judas' motivation was left out of the Bible strictly as an oversight. Or perhaps "The Gospel of Judas" provides the real motivation. I lean towards the latter answer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I, myself, am no scholar of Christianity or Bible (since I am nota christian in the first place). But its good to see somebody to try to look at his/her religion through the lens of reason, rather than faith.
When I consider religions, taken in general, I most often wonder "We have so many religions. Quite a few of them claim that theirs is The Way to God, (most predominantly Christianity, Islam and to an extent Hinduism). Quite often they counter each other. What if all the religions got God and the way to reach Him totally wrong? What if the Truth about Him and the Path to Him is yet to be revealed? What if all one has to do to reach Him is something like identifying a means of living that doesn't bother others (human or otherwise), sincerity at such a work and has nothing to do with prayers?
Thank you Badhri. I could not agree more.
I personally believe there is an underlying wisdom in all religions. But it is only through reason that we can recognize that wisdom.
Post a Comment