Bad Jesus

I'm glad God never chose me to be Jesus, because I would have made a lousy divinity.

You know that part of the gospel when Jesus goes into the desert to fast and pray for forty days, and then Satan comes to Him and shows Him all the Cool Stuff He's missing out on, like first century equivalents of iPods (whatever they were) and free passes to Cirque du Soleil (whatever that was)?

Well, see, if I had been Jesus, I'd have switched alliances in a heartbeat. I'd be all, "Smell yah later, God!" to paraphrase one of my friend's favorite allpurpose expressions.

I kind of wonder if Jesus didn't go over to the Dark Side, and maybe that's why God got Him crucified, because it pissed Him off royally. Any way, I don't know, if God made me fast in a desert for forty days and had torture and crucifixion in store for the end of my life, and then some dude claiming to be the Dark Prince came along and was like, 'Hey, I can give you an entire city if you just bow down and swear allegiance to me!" I might be entrepreneuring enough to accept, especially if he threw in free books, music and knitting supplies whenever I wished them.

The only reason I mention a theory as heretical as Jesus becoming Darth Vader's stoolie is because well, He was supposed to come back imminently (well, imminently for way back then any way), wasn't He? And did He? Did He?!

You see, this is where conventional Christians and myself part ways, because they keep claiming He's coming back, and I say, "Yeah, prove it."

This is the part of Christianity that completely lost me right around the time I figured out Santa Claus was really mom and dad staying up really late trying to figure out toy assembly instructions written in Japanese and searching vainly for D batteries in order to make Christmas magical for their kids.

I'm talking, of course, about the complete suspension of reality necessary to "believe" in the whole Jesus story. It may have made sense to some backwater Aramaic speaking Jewish guys back in 34 CE, but I'm not sure the story tracks in a world where we have running water, electricity, and routinely pooh-pooh time-travel Michael J. Fox movies of the great caliber of Back To the Future for space-time-continuum plausibility issues.

I guess I'm saying I like my religion without historical conundrums like, "What about the people who existed before Jesus did? Do they get automatically grandfathered in on Judgment Day or something?"

Any way. I can't believe I went to divinity school, to tell you the truth, as I was surronded by people studying to be ministers who earnestly talked about stuff like What Would Jesus Do?, except in a more formal, pseudo-intellectual way. I always thought that was vaguely creepy, actually, going to school with ministers-in-the-making. Especially since so many of them turned out to be lushes with dubious moral character more befitting of a slimey DC politician.

Rather than religion, I like the idea of creating a What Would Jamie Do? ethical set up. First, it's completley self-centered and relativistic, so no real need to speak of a "community of believers." Second, it basically means I can do whatever I damn well please, with no pesky saintly intercession or other heavenly correspondance needed.