Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Easterology

March 30, 2016 • 10:00 am

This strip “plan 2,” is 9 years old but the author informs us it’s been slightly edited. No matter—it’s still timely. And the whole Easter story and the salvific effects of Jesus (aka God) being crucified has never made any sense to me. I suppose that senselessness makes it even more plausible to a Sophisticated Theologian™. After all, “Credo quia absurdum.”

2016-03-30

16 thoughts on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Easterology”

      1. Interesting, but that still doesn’t explain what bunnies and eggs have to do with Easter.

        I’ve read that Easter was originally a festival worshiping a goddess of fertility whose name resembles “Easter.” It sounds compelling because bunnies and eggs are appropriate symbols for fertility, but there appears to be a lot of controversy about the matter.

        1. When I was a kid, I used to wonder which bunnies laid the Easter eggs. (I knew most bunnies just had littler bunnies). Very puzzling.

          cr

  2. But, but… would an all knowing, all powerful, all loving god need to play the crucifixion charade – or could he/she/it/them just wave a noodly appendage to make things righteous?

  3. I believe because it is absurd – although apparently the Theory of Evolution isn’t absurd enough.

    1. The theory of evolution is very clear and actually explains stuff. You’re not a Sophisticated Theologian™ if you don’t believe in paradoxes that explain nothing at all.

  4. “Cruciversary”. Love it!

    Strange though how Jebus doesn’t know that g*d created “unsinful man” who became sinful by listening to a talking snake and eating all knowledge that was in some type of fruit. Get your facts straight Jebus!

  5. Sure glad he saved us by taking a few nails. Too bad Jebus did not know about evolution or might have known that the sin of one does not get passed on to future generations. Would have saved himself a little pain.

    1. The Lord…visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:6-7 = Deuteronomy 5:8-10)

      A Catholic friend of mine recently “explained” that particular passage by pointing out that the evil people do often has a lasting effect down through several generations. Okay, I can see that. So if we simply substitute THAT obvious and trite observation for the more obvious and clear meaning of the actual words, then hey, look — nothing wrong! Now it makes sense.

      Uh huh. I told him that he should keep on helpfully messaging all the problematic passages to make them reasonable to a humanist. Eventually, he’ll be able to cut out God altogether — and we’ll all be humanists! Yay!

      The theology of the Bible is set against a background of assumptions which we no longer hold. For example, the idea that God logically can’t forgive sin without the shedding of blood or the experience of suffering is “common sense” in an honor culture structured on the concept of essences. Making the Bible more reasonable by interpreting it using enlightened modern standards only protects God by making it irrelevant. Reason is not their friend.

      1. So, if they (Catholics) have the sin forgiven at confession, does that prevent the passage on to future generations? If so, but for a Priest poor Adam and Eve and all of us.

        1. Apparently “iniquity” and “sin” are two different things in Make-Things-Up Land.

      2. I like Shakespeare’s version of that thought from the bible much more: The evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

  6. I had the modest good fortune to grow up in a Methodist church that flat out rejected what theologians call the “substitutionary theory of the atonement”.

    However, I did not realize how crucial it was to the vast majority of Western European Christians, and how pernicious its effect has been on the ability to do basic moral reasoning.

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