# Judas Has A Point; or, Why Then? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 28, 2001, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766 "2001-05-28T10:02:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marcus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Marcus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/21 "2001-05-29T14:38:40Z")
We’re living now with the effect of 2000 years of some people practising (or at least trying) what Jesus had to say. I believe that the general “coarseness” of humanity has been refined considerably over those 2000 years. A stitch in time… If Jesus appeared today and demonstrably proved his divinity, I believe that there would still be cries of “My god is better than your god, s/he just hasn’t played his hand yet.” ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/22 "2001-05-29T14:43:00Z")
> [@](#): > > How does a fiery pillar cause us to love one another? How about swarms of locusts? Or Sodom and Gomorrah? Or fiery angels or walking on the water or water into wine? As Jesus made quite plain, they don’t. > [@](#): > > All I was saying was that there is some record that God knows how to get our attention. I was addressing the previous posters who believed that modern society is too jaded to notice a miracle. I understand. > [@](#): > > The second half of my post just stated that I think humankind has moved past the age of miracles. I don’t think someone bearing a universal message needs miracles anymore for his message to resonate to a billion people. I don’t think that they need to rely on the supernatural at all. Someone could teach us to love one another without blackening the sun in today’s day and age. A truly omnipotent God just would have it on His Option List. I see your point, but I would clarify that we need not be taught how to love one another, but merely decide whether we will. There is also the matter of that love’s source, without which, love is impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/23 "2001-05-29T15:22:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*How would seeing the sun blackened cause us to love one another? \*\* “I’m not going to turn the sun back on until you kiss and make up.” ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/24 "2001-05-29T16:31:55Z")
> [@](#): > > I would clarify that we need not be taught how to love one another, but merely decide whether we will. There is also the matter of that love’s source, without which, love is impossible. Hmmmmm. The source of human beings loving human beings. I think I’ll go out on a limb and say, “human beings”. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/25 "2001-05-29T16:52:10Z")
Why didn’t Christ come in the age of mass communications? As the posts above have shown I think the answers depend entirely upon whether one accepts the basic premise of Jesus’ divinity. If you do, then you will find some justification for the time of His manifestation. If you don’t, then you will find any number of historical contexts in which he might have more effectively preached his message. I wonder whether Webber was aware of such an analysis when he put those words in Judas’ mouth. I find myself interested in the “alternative messiah” possibilities. If we accept the dual premises: divine Christ + values free will then might have been the ideal time/place for manifestation. Is it today’s world of instant communication and (generally) free international exchange? Expanding with European colonization was certainly effective for “spreading the word”, but I find it difficult to argue that said expansion was in any accordance ogt principles of free will. The Mongol expansion is an interesting possibility. After Temujin the Mongol influence spread across Asia, into northern Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Yet the Mongols lacked the entrenched social structures to establish a cultural hegemeny over their military conquests. If one were truly aiming for maximum dispersal with minimal cultural coersion He might use such a context. Jebe the Christ has a nice ring, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/26 "2001-05-29T17:10:46Z")
**[Tracer** hat on] > [@](#): > > The source of human beings loving human beings. > > I think I’ll go out on a limb and say, “human beings”. No, **Spiritus**. The **result** of human beings loving human beings is human beings – very small ones. 😃 **[Tracer** hat off] Seriously, I believe **Libertarian** has the exactly correct view on the hijack this thread took – typically, any supposed “modern miracle” is subject to Snopes-style investigation with presumable debunkery. There was a case some years ago of a person _verus mortus_ who supposedly came back to life after prayer over the corpse – I believe somewhere in the Southwest. The truth value of this apparent urban legend I don’t know, but it was not treated with the supposed honest skepticism that one would seek to be applied to it. (Note: honest skeptics who would, by their own admission, “think long and hard about the implications of a miracle they had definite proof of” are **not** being tarred by this comment – but rather those who would reject any supposedly supernatural occurrence as “impossible.” I’ve come to grief over comments about “skeptics” that offended the honest skeptics here, and don’t mean to slam them, anymore than they mean to slam **me** when they comment something about purblind Christians who’ll believe _anything_ in defiance of logic if some tortured explication of the Bible suggests it.) My long-standing understanding of the answer to the O.P. is this: For reasons of His own, God decided to operate largely through the Jews in B.C. days – His self-revelation not being confined to them, but expressed most fully through them. Jesus came at the time when stable, peaceful government was for the first time the rule throughout most of the known (ancient) world but during the last generation when the Jews remained a stable, land-holding people, before the 70 A.D. Jewish Revolt and consequent diaspora. His teachings could therefore be founded on a known body of lore (O.T. Judaism, in particular the Hillel school of Pharisaism) but carried throughout the known world, and thence to the later-discovered lands and nations. The timing was precise to be at the end of one historical sequence and the beginning of the next at the one point in time they overlapped. Besides, while historiography was a known discipline at that time, it left _just enough_ room open that a formal commitment to believe was called for. “F.D.R. died for your sins” would not have the same potential for disbelief – the **facts** , if not the metaphysical implications, would be obvious to everyone. I don’t **know** that this was a part of His plan, but it seems _post hoc_ to be implied, _propter hoc_ though that becomes. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2001, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766/27 "2001-05-29T18:22:22Z")
Poly You could always turn the question around on the most recalcitrant hyperskepctics: why haven’t there been any decent philosophical arguments against miracles since Spinoza and Hume? 😉 Beyond that, I’m not sure people understand at all what is behind miracles. They look at miracles as some sort of conversion technique, rather than the expression of love that they are. Consider Jesus before the Teachers of the Law when they demanded miracles, or before those who had eaten His miraculous loaves and fishes when they demanded more miracles, or before Pilate when he was fairly licking his chops to see a miracle from this man he’d heard so much about. How many miracles came out of these encounters? Marcus > [@](#): > > If Jesus appeared today and demonstrably proved his divinity, I believe that there would still be cries of “My god is better than your god, s/he just hasn’t played his hand yet.” You’re right, and not only that, they would require that Jesus meet Randi’s first condition, a divinely funny notion! 😃 Spiritus Good to see you back in the fray. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judas-has-a-point-or-why-then/66766.md?page=1)