2 posts tagged “jesus”

I have always struggled with the issue that human beings are in some way special.  The idea that the world was made for us and to be ruled by us seemed like a bunch of crap.  If that is the case then before there was us then we must decide who the world was made for before us?  The chimpanzee's?  That sounds just about as ridiculous as that it was made for human beings. 

The world was made for all of the creatures, plants, and substances in it.

If Jesus came to us because we are special.  He came to us not because we were special in a good way.  But because we are special in a horrible way.  We were the first of all that roamed, grew, and died on this earth to not understand how the world worked, and who the world was made for.  Our pride told us that it was made for us and that everything in it was ours to protect or destroy.  Jesus Christ must have come to us because we were the first species who needed it.  Not even the first species but the first culture.  Native people did not need a savior.  They knew how to live in harmony with the world and with the creatures in it and the creator and spirit who moves through all things.  We didn't understand how to fit in peaceably, without harming other species, the planet, or ourselves.  We even needed Him to come as a man because we are too prideful to have listened to anyone else.   So yes, we did and do need a savior, but I think we completely misconstrued his message even so.  Our bible is inspired by God but written by men who suffered from the same pride issues as the rest of our culture does.  The world is so much bigger than "us".  Jesus Christ was a man, a great philosopher, and leader of a revolution.  God is not a man.  Nor a woman.  Nor anything of the kind.  We cannot even imagine.    I am fairly convinced Jesus was sent to us, and I know that we needed him, but I am still pondering his relationship to God.  I don't really believe in the trinity, but I believe in Jesus, God and Spirit.

I am still figuring things out, but I am trying, honest, and not leaving anything to be ignored.  

So I am reading Plato's Republic...  I just finished book I which is mainly about Justice.  I never thought I would be so intrigued by a justice argument because I guess honestly I didn't think it was all that confusing.

I of course believe that justice is a good thing and that it makes a person happy to have justice.  And I also believe (along with Jesus) that in order to be a good and just person, we should be just to our friends as well as our enemies.  So I guess the hang up occurs because somehow even though we believe these things, we also believe that justice is an eye for an eye and giving each person what they are "owed".  But if a person wrongs us does it become just to harm them?  I don't think that is justice, because justice is good, and a just person seeks not to harm anyone.  It is the function of an unjust person to harm someone, and in addition harming a person would only cause that person to become more unjust.  (I kind of lost where I was going with the end of that Plato does it a lot better obviously and i am just trying to summarize)  My conclusion is that I agree with what Plato concludes... if justice is not an eye for an eye than what is justice?  Maybe he will get more into that later...I have no idea where the book goes from here but so far I like it...

On another note if justice is eye for an eye and God is just which I don't think anyone would deny.  How would God be just and at the same time look over all of our sins.  Obviously most Christian's response would be because Christ covers up our sins to present us whole and blameless before God.  Which on this note I can't really disagree too much.  This actually supports that justice is an eye for an eye and just Christ took the place of the "eye" we deserved to lose.  But this is counter to what Christ preached and lived which was to turn the other cheek.  To be spit on and not spit back.  Does this mean that God the father should be just but we as humans and even Christ should be unjust?  For if Christ was just, and justice was an eye for an eye, then Christ would not have turned the other cheek but would have hit back.  Now I hardly think that is the truth.  And I hardly think Christ was unjust.  If justice is a virtue and Christ embodied the way we should live as humans then he was the most virtuous person that ever lived and therefore the most just.  On this note maybe we should rethink our idea of justice and what it really means for Christ to die for our sins.  I see a hole brewing and its this: maybe it is not our job to serve justice but that of God and it sounds like a southern baptist argument for fire and brimstone.  But once again... does this mean that we are to be unjust while we wait for God to serve justice?  I think not.  I think really our idea of justice is just flawed.  I think seriously flawed, because it is something completly different than our understanding.  The only thing is... I don't know what it is.  Seems to me (at least so far and I may be just ignorant because I haven't finshed the book yet) but neither did Plato at the end of Book 1 of the Republic. 

So lastly, since I do live in Virginia, how about the death penalty.  Is that Justice?