I'm tempted to see that new movie, 'The Passion of the Christ'. Although I'm atheist, for the first eighteen years of my life I went to church every Sunday, and the story of this 'son of god' sacrificing himself is one that still has a certain hold over my attention. From what I can tell, Gibson's version seems to have really emphasized the pain that the man went through. On the other hand, some critics were putting it on the same level as a disembowlment scene from 'Braveheart', which doesn't sound really appetizing.

The notion of sacrifice got my mind going in a number of different paths. First, besides the logical rationale I have for not believing in God, there is the anger that I feel when I think about this Christ character. He allegedly grew up a perfect man. He wasn't born conjoined at the head with an identical twin or with any number of horrendous, terrifying birth defects. And if there is an all powerful God, what sin is he punishing children born with horrible birth defects for?

And I think about people I know who have died slow, agonizing painful deaths that took months, and I compare it to the few hours or days that this alleged 'son of God' 'sacrificed'. And if he was God, he had an advantage that none of those sufferers did: He KNEW what lay ahead. He didn't have the uncertainty. Yet this alleged son on God, in his moments on the cross supposedly said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" What kind of crap is that? Didn't he know? Wasn't he the son of God? How could he make a statement like that? And then I think of one true believer who lay dying and never openly questioned her faith. Suffering for months from cancer, yet never once heard to utter, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It just blows my mind. How have so many billions of people explained this stuff away?

And then on the other hand, I have a certain admiration for Christianity, and in particular the Catholicism that I was raised in. Because it does focus on the notion of self-sacrifice. The ideals that it sets for itself aren't all bad. Learning to take pleasure in giving to others. Tolerance for people of all ethnic groups. There are people like my sister, my uncle, and my cousin for whom Catholicism has been basis upon which they have built lives filled with good deeds.

The problem has always been that the ideals are so far removed from normal human behavior that they become near impossible to reach. People fail, and the knowledge of failure and of the near impossibility of success create a underlying double standard. There is the ideal of what we are supposed to do, the knowledge of its impossibility, and the reality of perpetual failure. So we end up with priests can't live up to the standard and in their own self loathing engage in despicable acts. (I'm not expressing this well. But screw it. It's my blog and I'll be incoherent if I want.)

Incidently, two priests that were associated with my parish have been implicated in the recent sex scandals. One of them came as a complete shock, but the other one - well let's just say I had some suspicions when I was an altar boy.