Have a Good Friday

Good Morning My Confidants

I hope, truly, that this finds you happy and well. Maybe you have today off for the holiday weekend? One of the only, if not the only, purely Christian holidays that people do get the day off? I know a lot of people that have Monday off as well. Whatever is your case, I wish you only the best on this Good Friday.

So just curious, how many of you know that this is Good Friday? And do you know why it is Good Friday?

Well, according to Christain tradition, today marks the day that Jesus was crucified on the cross. Warning....something that follows may or may not offend you (and I do not mean it to be offensive, okay?), so be warned. If you are easily religiously offended, skip this one....

Okay.... So today is Good Friday and it is because today "celebrates" the death of the great teacher, Jesus, the Christ.

As a kid I was always asking, incredulously, why it was a good Friday if Jesus died, horribly and in perhaps one of the cruelest forms of execution in human history? I mean, it was horrible. Not everyone who was crucified was nailed to their cross. But you rarely lived long. What happened was you smothered. Hanging there that way, even if you were tied to the cross, you could not breath. So, you would have to push up with your feet and legs so you could get a breath. And the longer you hung there, the more you would tired until finally, in total exhaustion, you could not push up one more time and you smothered. Just imagine how terrifying that must have been, just being tied to a cross! There is noting that panics any living animal more than being unable to breathe!

So, why was this terrible death called Good Friday, especially when Jesus is the cornerstone to Christian belief and their religion? Because, as I would say to my mother when asking about this, it sure wasn't good for Jesus!

She explained it was good for humanity, because that was the day the Jesus died to save (evil, scum-sucking) humanity for its sins (I added the scum-sucking, but not the evil). It is a Good Friday because we were saved.

Of course, my problem was always with....even when I was young...WHY we needed saved in the first place....

As I have shared here before (and this is one of the possibly "offensive" parts) that I simply refuse to believe that we are born INTO sin. I can't believe it. And many a Christain will tell you that the reason I can't believe we are born into sin is because Satan wants me to think that way so that I won't accept Jesus as "my personal savior" and that I will go to hell one of these days.

But that is not true!

Because I also don't believe in Satan. At least not the Christian interpretation of Satan. But I do believe in evil. I think that demon possession might even be real. I personally think there is enough evidence that it isn't simply some psychological disorder. But it makes NO sense that an all-loving God would create a faulty angel that would fall from heaven and then make it his mission to take as many humans to hell with him. God is perfect. How could God make such a mistake? What is more, this is BIG for me, why would God allow a force to tempt and lead his children away from Him? Why would God make an adversary? And what is really stupid (for me, I said this could get offensive) is that this adversary would have ANY chance at all in being able to be more than a distraction to God?

IT MAKES NO SENSE!

It is downright silly.

If God loved us so much that He would give His only begotten Son to die for us, wouldn't He have loved us enough not to allow an adversary to lead us away from God in the first place? And I know many a believer would say, "And that is the Devil's biggest weapons! Convincing humans that he didn't exist! Because if we didn't believe in the fallen one, then we wouldn't believe in God, and if we didn't believe in God, we wouldn't believe in God's "only begotten son" and therefore we would all go to hell.

I still nix all of this.

I do think that Jesus (who I believe in) did save humanity. But not in the way the early church said.

According to Buddhist mythology, the Buddha stood up right after his birth, walked, lotus blossoms burst into flower in his footsteps, and he spoke and said, "I am born for the enlightenment of all mankind." And while I don't believe that part, I mention it because I think there have been several teachers who have not only brought teachings, that if we were to follow them, would solve most of the world's problems and have mythologies surrounding them. Just because I don't think the Siddhartha Gautama--the historical Buddha--walked immediately after birth, I can still believe that there was an actual man that became known as the Buddha. Understand I am not implying anything like declaring any of these great teachers as lord and savior. I am saying that their teachings were all about loving and respecting each other. If we all did that, it would save the world.

I deeply believe in the historical Jesus. I deeply believe in the historical Buddha. There is little to no historical documentation to the existence of either, no matter how many people tell you there was. Nothing was written about either of these two individuals (and several others, there is no proof that Moses ever existed) during their lifetimes.

But I do believe in Jesus and I am pretty sure He was Divine.

The reason I believe this?

Because no religion that does not work survives. We are going to see the complete and total collapse of Scientology. It is happening even as I type these words. Because it doesn't work.

But if generation after generation prays to a being, and nothing happens, people are going to stop praying to them.

Depending on how you count it, the Egyptian peoples lived for somewhere between three and six thousand years (counting the first settlers of the Nile region). Isis was one of the most favored of the Egyptian gods. Some believe the first. She was worshipped no less than three thousand years, and was so beloved that her worship spread to Greece and Rome, stretching her worship far past the "end" of the Egyptian empire. In fact, people today worship her.

Now, would people continue to worship her for thousands of years if she didn't answer their prayers? Of course not! A few generations maybe. Even a few hundred years if her press agents were good enough. But after a time people would have given her up!

What am I trying to say in this morning's ramblings?

First, this is the same with the worship of Jesus.

Now I don't hang with most of what religion says about Jesus. I do NOT believe in original sin and therefor I do not see the need for Him saving us from our sins. I do NOT believe we are born into sin. I believe we are born PERFECT and it is time that makes us "evil" or not. That it is our personal choices in what we do with our lives that makes us "good" people or "bad" people.

However, I go back to this. If Jesus was all made up, or if he wasn't in some way Divine, then why have people worshipped Him for no less than 1700 years and on to two thousand years? Somewhere along the way, if it was all propaganda, it would fall away, just as Scientology is falling away.

And second, that God does exist and "wants" (as much as we can possibly understand what an infinite being could possibly want) relationship with It's creation, just as we want relationship with our children. And since God is infinite and beyond understanding, God presents Itself in ways that we can understand. For some it is Isis. For some Ganesha. For some Astarte. For some Alah. For some Jesus, the Christ.

I am not an atheist! I believe in God. I just don't believe in my mother's god. I do not believe in a God that for all intents and purposes was made in man's image. When people say, "I can't believe in a God that would allow....such and such, fill in the blank (war, disease, rape, murder, etc). And the reason for that is what they are not believing in is a God that we have been taught to believe in. A God that is male, sits on a throne, who favors some people over others, and/or who punishes with forever-hell. The gods that humans made up share our characteristics. From volcano gods to Zues to Jehovah, gods that act like us. Gods that get pissed off. Gods who love, not unconditionally, but with conditions. Belief in these gods arose in humans anthropomorphizing what they saw in nature. A volcano exploding could LOOK like it was pissed off, so early humans would therefor try to appease this god.

But that is not what God is.

We cannot possibly understand God. God has no body. God has no nerve endings. God has no moods. God is something unexplainable. God lives in all times, in all places. How good God get in a bad mood? How could it have favorites? Why would it punish or reward? To say God is above us as we are to ants doesn't even begin to explain the difference. Us above amoebas doesn't begin to explain the difference. We cannot prescribe or give something the is beyond understanding human characteristics.

So, my point?

I believe that God made everything from Itself. From "star stuff." And therefore we are made from God-stuff. The old myth/story about God breathing into a handful of dust and creating the first man.

Most of us (and for all of history) will never reach our potential....but I think a handful of humans did. That there was something about those few that allowed them to be all that we can be. And it is there that their "Divinity" comes from. I think a man born in the middle east two thousand years ago achieved that, was special. Mozart wrote his first symphony at the age five. How is that possible??? That is the age we enter kindergarten, where many of us ate paste and some bite their classmates! But it is true. We know Mozart did this as fact.

So there was something about Jesus and Siddhartha Gautama and who knows, maybe a woman who lived on the banks of the Nile River named Isis that allowed them to access our full potential and that allowed them to do miraculous things that any of us could do if only we BELIEVED. But who can believe that much? Only a few....

And these people became teachers with amazing messages....first and foremost with Jesus that we should love our neighbor as ourself, and to love God. And if every single one of us loved each other, how could there be war? There would be no rape. There would be no disease.

God does NOT allow all this shit to happen!

WE DO!

Now were I go here is that I do believe that after death, Jesus and others are still accessible. And the reason that people continue to believe in them hundreds or thousands of years past their deaths is because their prayers are BEING ANSWERED. From the eight chapter of Matthew, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.”

And finally (because I do have a point), what can even those who do not and will not believe that Jesus and other Divine beings ever existed get out of Good Friday? Why the same thing we do with any parable. Any allegorical story. Any fable. Any simple story used to illustrate a moral lesson.

Today is a day that, per an essay at NewsBytes:*

"Good Friday symbolizes the promise of renewal and hope amid despair. The narrative of resurrection signifies the triumph of light over darkness, offering solace during times of adversity. In today's fast-paced world, it encourages individuals to seek redemption, embrace change, and nurture optimism for a brighter future filled with compassion, unity, and spiritual growth. It's a beacon of hope for all."

In other words, today can be a day that we celebrate renewal. Hope. Our triumphs over dark times. Our hope that if we are in a dark time, that we will "rise" above those problems. That we seek redemption, not to a judgmental God, but to those people that we have harmed. That we change and grow. That we be optimistic or reclaim fallen optimism. That we are compassion to others, the "way" that Jesus was for having compassion for us all. That we grow. And that we live our lives in a way that gives others hope.

All that would make for a very good Friday indeed.

Anyone want to dedicate you life, along with me, for trying to be the best that we can be?

We very well might change the world!

Happy Good Friday!

Namasté,

BG "Gentle Ben" Thomas

*https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/lifestyle/importance-of-good-friday/story