Journal on Jesus: Model of Faith, Model of Humanity
Summary of Jesus: Model of Faith
This section was all about evidence for the existence of God through the natural world and through the human person. At the very end of the section we also talked about knowledge of God through Jesus. The two former parts of this section, the ones on the natural world and human person, were secular reasons to believe and gain some knowledge about God and the latter one, knowledge throught Jesus, is a Christian reason and a Christian way to gain some insight into God.
The goal of the section seems to be to get us to see that we should have some belief to answer the existential questions such as "What happens when I die?" or "Am I good?". One good way to answer these questions is with God. Then since we can gain a deeper knowledge of God through Jesus, Jesus would also be an acceptable way to help answer these existential questions.
Three Important Ideas
Pascal's Wager
Pascal's Wager basically says it is better to believe in God than not believe because of the consequences. He says that there could be a God or there could not be a God and that we can either believe in him or not beleive in him. There are then four outcomes:
1)There is a God and you believe in him. With this outcome, you are granted eternal life and happiness at the cost of some time spent believing and helping others and maybe some small amount of harrassment.
2) There is a God and you do not believe in him. With this outcome, there was a chance for eternal life and happiness but because you did not believe in God and maybe even mocked those who did, there is only a chance that you will obtain it and not a certainty.
3) There is no God and you beleive in him. With this outcome, you could call the time you spent believing in God or helping others a waste of time or the harrassment you may have suffered unneccessary, but you didn't really lose anything. You never had a chance of gaining eternal life and happiness and all you lost is some time, but you most likely didn't hate the time you spent believing and helping others so almost no harm done.
4) There is no God and you do not believe in him. With this outcome, you never had a chance at eternal life so you don't really win but like with the previous outcome I guess you don't really lose either. You probably still had at least a relatively happy life while you were alive.
As you can see, it is probably best to believe in God rather than not believe in him since you can gain the most from believing in him. It will only make you happier or,at the very least, as happy as you would have been if you didn't believe in him. Of course your idea of the outcomes could be a little different from mine because its possible I was overly optimistic, but you should still get the point; it doesn't hurt to believe in God and in fact you could possibly gain something. This definetly should not be your only reason to believe in God but it is still a logical reason to believe or a supplementary reason.
Religion as a Crutch and the Book's Response
Bertrand Russell, and English philosopher, claimed,
"There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dares not face this thought, and he therefore cannot carry his own reflections to any logical conclusion."
Simililarly, Karl Marx, the father of communism, claimed,
"Religion is the opium of the people."
The book responds by saying that religion is definetibly a crutch, but it is a neccessary one. It compares us to cripples and says that we need that crutch to stand up and so that we do not keep falling down. I beleive that that is a good way of looking at things.
The Argument From Conscience
This argument starts by saying that our conscience is the final authority when it comes to right and wrong and that it decides what is right and what is wrong based on our knowledge, intuition, and personal experience.
The intuition is something that is common(or at least starts out common) among all human beings. The Time Magazine article on What Makes Us Good and Evil said that little kids have the same sense of what is right and wrong due to intuition, though they may not listen to it. This only supports the argument. Since it is common through all human beings you could say that our intuition comes from God. Our knowledge and personal experience, on the other hand, comes from our own lives and can influence our conscience and possibly overwhelm our intuition when deciding what is right or wrong. It is also true that everyone listens to their conscience and does what they believe is good. Though everyone's idea of good can change based on personal experience and current knowledge.
Image that makes me think of Jesus
The movie "Kingdom of Heaven" makes me think of Jesus so of course a poster for the movie would make me think of Him. I believe that one of the core messages of the movie is that you can find nobility, in the sense of good character, in someone regardless of religion or culture or anything else. That seems like something that Jesus would certainly agree with. Then since the movie is set in Jerusalem and Balian, the main protagonist, shares some of the qualities Jesus might have and since Balian is Christian himself, the movie further makes me think of Jesus.
Short Reflection on Jesus
I think that the poem "Peacemaking is Hard" by Daniel Berrigan is a good place to start when talking about how I view Jesus. Here is the poem:
Peacemaking is Hard
hard almost as war.
The difference being one
we can stake life upon
and limb and thought and love.
I stake this poem out
dead man to a dead stick
to tempt an Easter chance--
if faith be
truth, our evil chance
penultimate at last
not last. We are not lost.
When the lines gathered
of no resource at all
serenity and strength,
it dawned on me--
a man stood on his nails
as ash like dew, a sweat
smelling of death and life.
Our evil Friday fled,
the blind face gently turned
another way, toward life
a man walks in his shroud
I think that this poem says that if we seek peace(and I beleive we should) then one of the best role-models is Jesus. Following him leads to peace but it can be hard. In fact, I think it was even hard at times for Jesus to seek peace. He did his best though and did not give up. That thought brings me to a reading we had at a prayer service a while ago.
An Excerpt From The Star Thrower by
Loren Eisley
I awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean's edge and greet the new day. As I moved through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a youth, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.
As I approached, I sadly realized that the youth was not dancing to the bay, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the youth the purpose of the effort. "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves," the youth replied. "When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back to the sea."
As the youth explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, strectching in both directions beyond my sight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth's plan became clear to me and I countered, "But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference."
The youth paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said, "I made a difference to that one."
I left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. I returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea.
My Basic Understanding
I think that both the poem and the story excerpt together give a basic understanding of who Jesus was. Or at least they summarize my basic understanding. Jesus was always seeking peace and though he probably knew that he couldn't reach everyone, he still wanted to help as many people as he could. I think he was the boy in the poem and we are the starfish and then maybe the apostles are the man.