Category: Religion

Categories
Religion

To fight God, and to win.

One day, God said to Moses:

“I’ll give you a land of milk and honey, with snowy mountains on top, a shiny desert in the south, olive trees everywhere, and a perfect beach all around it.”

Moses asked: “What’s the catch?”

To which God replied: “Wait ’till you see the neighbours”.

When my Israeli friend Michael told me this joke, I laughed, because apart from being funny, it is true. Living in the Promised Land, in a way, is a daily psychological struggle. Terrorists can strike at any time, shooting you when you are enjoying a stroll on the Tel Avivian tayelet, or sipping an espresso on a terrace.

On the 6th of April 2023, the Iron Dome intercepted 100 missiles fired from Lebanon within 10 minutes. But the technology is not infallible. The missiles it fails to destroy can fall on your house and kill your entire family in the blink of an eye.

The country you call home is being vilified by most media-outlets worldwide, and so are you. You’re the evil Jewish coloniser killing the poor oppressed Arabs. Nearly the entire globe hates you, or at least frowns upon you. One country publicly announces it wants to ‘wipe you off the map’. A genocidal threat not taken seriously by the international community, signing a deal allowing it to enrich expand their uranium capacity to weapen-grade levels, for ‘scientifical research’.

Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one, right? Well, everyone definitely has an opinion about Israel – the only nation in the world whose right to exist is debated. It is also the only Jewish country in the world, which is precisely the reason its right to exist is so fiercely debated. If it was a Zoroastrian country, nobody would really care. People only care when Jews are involved. This is why the word ‘antizionism’ exists, and the word ‘antinigerianism’ doesn’t, even though humans rights in Nigeria are violated in a manner incomparable to what’s happening in Zion.

In Nigeria (and many other countries in the world, like France) little muslim girls are being cliterectomised. Radical islamists burn down Christian churches and homes, and slaughter the churchgoers and inhabitants. The women and girls are being raped and sold as sex slaves. People barely discuss these horrors, and if they do, the butchers are not being judged loud enough. But when a Palestinian gets killed in a defensive raid from the IDF, people become livid.

People are very selective in their condamnation of violence. They don’t love Palestinians – they envy Jews. If their outrage would truly be aimed at injustice in the world, they would riot at the doors of the embassies of Nigeria. Or Yemen, where pedophilia is legal, and 70-year-old grandfathers marry 10-year-old girls, and do not refrain from consuming the marriage. Or Saudi Arabia, where women are hanged in foorball stadiums because they wore nail polish.

And yet people discuss whether Israel, the only country in the Middle East that is not a dictatorship, where every religion is allowed to be practiced, where Jews and Arabs fight alongside in the Israeli army, where social security, health care and education is available to every citizen, regardsless of their ethnicity or belief, where members of the LGBTQ-community are not thrown off roofs but party with penis-shaped balloons in gay parades, should be allowed to exist.

This article will, however, not elaborate on Israel’s right to exist, but rather on the signification of its name, and how that name is reflective of its fate. As someone who is obsessed with dissecting words, I just had to know the etymological explanation, and why Israel has been named Israel.

The answer is quite surprising. One would think it means something positive, something hopeful, something that reflects the safety Jews feel in the only place on Earth where they are the majority, and are the least likely to be persecuted or discriminated against.

But that is not the case. The word Israel means, ‘he who struggled with God’.

As the story in Genesis, the first book of the Torah, tells us, a man called Yaacov had a dream, or according to Luther, a vision, in which he fought with an angel, who was the personifaction, or materialisation, of God.

Yaacov was also the son of Abraham, and because his twelve sons were the patriarchs of the twelve tribes that would form the people and the nation of Israel, he is also the symbolic father of the nation. It is surprising that this man, who did certainly not embody moral perfection, was chosen by God for such an important destiny. It is even more surprising that God chose to fight him first. But the most surprising is, that Yaacov actually won the fight, and received God’s blessing!

After the fight, God changed his name to Israel, reflecting Yaacov’s past (the fact he fought God) and his future (the founding of the nation of Israel).

If there is one opponent you are likely to lose against, it’s probably an almighty God. The story thus implies that you can engage in a fight with God, and that you even have a chance of defeating Him. What does this all mean?

This strange story, by the way, was depicted by many great painters, like Leloir and Gauguin. Regardless of the question if it really happened or not, it has, like all other stories in the Bible, a metaphorical value, aimed at making the reader understand a certain spiritual Truth. It reflects something that is profoundly true in all of our lives.

Yaacov struggles, and don’t we all? We struggle with a plethora of things: with our friends, our family, our own children, our collegues, our mind, our thoughts. We struggle with ourselves. Struggle is ubiquitous and inevitable, in each human life.

(Humans are not the only creatures to suffer, though. Animals and plants do, as well.)

We struggle because we are trying to cope with life. We are attempting to contend, as the world-reknowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson put so eloquently, with the existential structure of reality. ‘To fight God’ is a metaphorical way of saying life is a battle – sometimes, a really harsh one – and, just like Yaacov suffered when the angel dislocated his hip, life will make you suffer. It’s a guarantee.

It sounds really pessimistic, doesn’t it? But it isn’t, because we struggle with a purpose, and that purpose is growth. ‘No pain, no gain’ is as valid in the material as in the immaterial realm. We suffer, but the good news is, we can rebel against the suffering, and overcome it, even if we are wounded. By taking responsibility, and understanding that we might be the cause of our own suffering.

We can be the victor of our own struggle, like a little plant that struggles its way through the dark Earth, but that keeps on growing until it finally breaks through the surface and reaches the sunlight.

The pain of lifting weights makes our muscles grow. The pain of life makes our soul grow.

The Jewish people have always suffered immensely: from the medieval inquisition, the pogroms in North Africa, the Shoah, the gulags of Stalin, to the current terror attacks in Israel, and the omnipresent anti-Semitism that stubbornly persists until today. They were not the only ones to suffer – all humans did, and still do. But it cannot be denied that the Jew has often been the first scapegoat, the first to blame for collective misfortunes of humanity.

The name Israel thus reflects the Jewish fate, but also the human condition – to struggle. But despite the tragedy the name contains, it also implies that, just like the outcome of Yaacov’s story, we can prevail. Israel, in that sense, means spiritual fulfillment – a state we are all able to attain, just like Yaacov. If only we are courageous enough to fight.

Categories
Fine Arts Religion

Spirituele Kunst.

Tijdens de lessen kunstgeschiedenis waarvoor ik me in 2022 inschreef, wierp ik voor de eerste maal een blik op wat voor mij tot dan toe onontgonnen terrein was: de in India ontstane hindoeïstische kunst, dewelke zich over heel Azië heeft verspreid.

Deze kunsttraditie, die zich voornamelijk manifesteert in dans, architectuur en beeldhouwkunst, is altijd religieus geïnspireerd. Zelfs onderwerpen die voor de westerling profaan lijken, hebben een sacrale ondertoon. Een voortdurende interpenetratie van het immanente en het transcendente, van de micro- en de macrokosmos, is het voornaamste kenmerk van deze kunst.

In Hindoeïstische sculpturen ontwaart men vaak vrijende koppels in kamasutraanse posities. De westerling ziet hierin een erotisch beeld van lust en verlangen. De Hindoe daarentegen, ziet de sacrale unie tussen de lingam en de yoni, tussen de mannelijke, gevende en de vrouwelijke, ontvangende energie. Dit samensmeltende contrast komt ook tot uiting in abstracte beeldhouwwerkjes zoals de shiva lingam, waarbij het verticale deel de lingam symboliseert, en de het horizontale platform de yoni.

Het doel van de Indische kunstenaar is niet het afbeelden van de empirische, zintuiglijk observeerbare realiteit, zoals de westerse naturalist of impressionist. Het is ook geen l’art pour l’art, geen kunstvorm die een puur esthetisch doel beoogt, zoals in de moderne westerse kunsttraditie.

Wat de Indische kunst beoogt, is het reflecteren van de glorie van de goden. Vooraleer de Indische artiest een godheid afbeeldt, mediteert hij over de essentie van die godheid. Het mentale beeld of rupa dat zich dan geleidelijk vormt in zijn brein, het beeld dat hij niet ziet met zijn twee fysieke ogen, maar met zijn derde oog, concretiseert hij in een kunstwerk.

(Over de manier waarop de kunstenaar de goden dient af te beelden, en het mentaal bewustzijn dat hij daarbij dient te handhaven, bestaan eeuwenoude regeltractaten die chastra’s, Sanskriet voor handleiding, worden genoemd. Hindoeïstische kunst is zeer hiëratisch – van deze regels mag niet worden afgeweken. Een criterium van een geslaagd kunstwerk is de getrouwheid van de kunstenaar aan de iconografische wet.)

Wanneer men kijkt naar gopurams, de felgekleurde pyramidale torens rond tempels die de Meruberg, het centrum van het universum, symboliseren, kan men door de versatiliteit aan goddelijke figuren vermoeden dat het Hindoeïsme een ongebreideld polytheïstische godsdienst is. Deze visie vraagt om nuance – het is eerder een mystiek pantheïsme waarbij alle goden eigenlijk emanaties zijn van de belangrijkste god, Brahma.

Net als het Christelijk mysticisme kent het Hindoeïsme het concept van een Heilige Drievuldigheid. Deze bestaat uit de drie belangrijkste goden: Brahma, Vishnu en Shiva. Deze laatste is de patroonheilige van de kunsten en yoga. Het is een ambivalente god, die op paradoxale wijzen wordt afgebeeld – soms als barmhartige god die goede daden stelt, en soms als vernietiger van demonen.

Wanneer hij wordt voorgesteld als Nataraja, heer van de dans, creëert én vernietigt hij de kosmos, zodat deze opnieuw kan herboren worden in een eindeloze, repetitieve cyclus. Met zijn voeten stampt hij de chaos kapot, en tegelijkertijd gooit hij zijn talrijke armen in de lucht, als symbool van vernieuwing. Een vurige halo omringt hem.

Men kan stellen dat Indische kunst het resultaat is van een spiritueel bewustzijn. Het is een utilitaire kunst, die steeds in dienst staat van de goden – een creatieve inspanning als offer aan het goddelijke, ter bewerkstelling van de harmonie van de kosmos.

Categories
Ethics Religion The Holy Land

Murdered Messiah.

On the 15th of November 2017, the Saudi minister of culture purchased a painting for the impressive sum of 475.4 million dollars at Christy’s auction gallery, New York, rendering it the most expensive chef d’oeuvre sold in the history of art. Its creator was the 15th century homo universalis Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, who entitled it ‘Salvator Mundi’. The masterpiece indeed represents the Saviour of the World, dressed in an anachronistic blue Renaissance dress, holding a crystal orb in his left hand and observerving the spectator with a hypnotic gaze that is so emblematic of Da Vinci’s portraits.

The protagonist of the painting, often referred to as the male Mona Lisa, is of course Jesus Christ, arguably the most famous human of all times, and hence not in need of an introduction. Nearly every inhabitant of every continent on this planet has heard about the Nazarene who stirred up the Promised Land with his groundbreaking ideas that were met with amazement by some and disbelief by others, and who was crucified for proclaiming a message that was apparently too inconvenient for the commanders of his execution.

Not only is this Jewish man the reason that today, 2.4 billion people call themselves Christian, whether they identify as Roman-Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, Anglican, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Presbyterian, or Apostolic, his birthday was also accepted as the universal time standard by the entire world, including Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and atheists.

Everyone is familiar with the story of Jesus’ life, but we all have different answers to the question who he really was. Innumerable books have been written by people – academics, mystics, theologists, popes, atheists, jews, gentiles – who searched for answers to this question.

Baruch Spinoza, a Dutch philosopher from Jewish descent who was rejected by his community and mocked by the rabbis of his days, called Jesus ‘the Greatest Philospher’. Another great thinker, Carl Jung, called him ‘the Ultimate Hero’. Friedrich Nietzsche, often portrayed as an anti-Christian provocateur, thought Christ was the embodiment of the lack of resentment, possessing the innermost light, and being utterly powerful, for only a powerful person can eradicate sin and guilt with self-sacrifice.

What is certain, is that Jesus was, and still remains, a polarizing figure. He was immensely admired by thousands of his followers, but also utterly despised by those who felt threatened by him. He had friends who would kill for him, but also enemies who wanted to kill him. Pivotal figures in history tended to trigger radically opposed emotions: they were simultaneously adored and detested. Christianity is the largest, but sadly, also the most mocked religion in the world.

Equally indisputable is Jesus’ Jewish identity. His mother Mary was a Jew, as were all his disciples and followers during his life, and all the people who spread his message in the first two centuries after his death. Some of those first Christian Jews, who still practiced Judaism but believed Jesus was their Saviour, were delivered to the Romans by other Jews, and brutally executed for their conviction. These Christian Jews were true martyrs: innocent people who were murdered for refusing to deny their faith, without having murdered others.

Antisemites who argue that Jews killed Christ, should be reminded of the fact that the first Christians were Jewish. They risked their lives spreading his message, and without their deep faith and bravery, Christianity would not exist today. Today, Jews who believe Jesus still exist – there are about one million of them and their number is growing. They call themselves Jews for Jesus in America, and One for Israel in Israel. Their founders, Moishe Rosen and Eitan Bar, argue Jesus is the fullfillment of all messianic prophecies and criteria in the Torah.

Apart from these Messianic Jews, Jesus is unknown and mostly rejected by his own people. To them, he is an outcast. Billions of others see him as the greatest spiritual leader to have walked the face of the Earth, for whom museums have been filled with thousands of magnificent paintings and sculptures, about whom hundreds of movies have been made, for whom majestic cathedrals, churches, monasteries, hospitals, and universities have been built all over the world throughout millenia.

Jesus’ disciples and others called him ‘rabbi’ or ‘rabbuni’, meaning ‘our teacher’. Little did they know the words and deeds of their teacher would radically change the course of history. And yet some historians say Jesus wasn’t more than – a rabbi. Others claim he was one of the many self-proclaimed prophets of the time, allegedly performing miracles. Jesus did prophesize events like the destruction of the Second Temple and even his own death and resurrection. Foretelling the future, however, was certainly not the essence of his existence, nor were the many miracles he performed. Some theologians bagatellize these miracles, arguing many others accomplished similar healings and other supernatural acts before him.

No other biblical story, however, mentions a prophet who brought the deceased back to life and who even conquered his own death. These miracles are absolutely singular and make Jesus unique. The Pentateuchal prophets have split seas, cured people from leprosy, extracted water from rocks, and struck entire armies blind, but none of them defeated the grave. Another distinctive aspect of Jesus is that he performed miracles not by invoking the name of God, but through his own authority.

Perhaps Jesus was a skilled orator with political ambitions, who had to be removed because he became a threat to the establishment. This, however, would imply he desired status and power – intentions he never showed or expressed. Those hungry for power surround themselves with powerful friends, while Jesus frequented individuals who were deemed poor or sinful, like fishermen, tax collectors, and adulterous women. Jesus also did not indulge in earthly riches; he often slept outside, under the naked sky. He did not assemble an army to wage war, and he never suggested conspiring against the Roman authority.

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” – Mark 12:7

That sentence right there, is the separation of Church and state, fifteen centuries before the birth of John Locke. Perhaps Jesus’ purpose did not lie in conquering lands, but in minds. Was his intention to create a new religion? He certainly did criticize the religious authorities, calling out the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the Kingdom of Hevane in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, not will you let those enter who are trying to.” – Matthew 23:13

However, another of his statements clarifies he did not repudiate the Torah:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law of the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Until heaven and earth pass away, not a yud, not a dot, will pass from the Law untill all is accomplished.” – Matthew 5:17-18

By underlining the importance of even the smallest strokes of the Hebrew alphabet, Jesus made clear his intention was not to rebel against the Mosaic law. The Hebrew letter ‘yud’, resembling the Latin letter ‘i,’ indeed looks like a tiny stroke, floating above the other letters, as if it conveyed a transcendental symbolism. The most fundamental Jewish concepts start with a yud: Yehudim (Jews), the Holy Land (Yisrael), the Holy City (Yerushalaim), and obviously, the most important word, uttered by God Himself to Moses, through a burning bush: Yahweh, His sacred name meaning ‘I am that I am’.

Given this pattern, it would be plausible that the name of the Saviour the Yehudim were waiting for, would also begin with this important letter. Which is the case: Jesus is the Latinization of the Hebrew name Yeshua.

A closer look at the etymology of Yeshua reveals that it means ‘Yah (God) is Salvation’. The messianic character of Yeshua’s name raises the inevitable question: was he the long-awaited Messiah? Was his the anointed one, highly anticipated by his people, oppressed under Roman rule?

When reading the Bible, I was surprised to find out that even the name of the prophet who predicted specific details about the coming of the Messiah, begins with a yud: Yesayah. He said:

”Behold, a young maiden shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” – Yesayah 7:14

Seven hundred years later, his prophecy seemed fulfilled: a young woman named Moriah gave birth to a boy she called Yeshua Immanuel. (Moriah, according to the New Testimony, was a virgin. Jewish theologues find this theologically disputable, as the Hebrew word עַלמָה (almah) means young maiden, not virgin. However, one must keep in mind young maidens, meaning girls who had a marriable age, were supposed to be chaste.
The Annunction story, in which the archangel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the Son of God, confirms this miracle:

“Mary said to the angel: How can this be, since I am a virgin? The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy, he will be called the son of God.”

Jesus never ostentatiously proclaimed to be the Messiah, but identified as such indirectly, in front of a limited number of people. In a Nazarean synagogue, he read out loud the following verses out of the scroll of prophet Yesaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering the sight of the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” – Luke 4:18-21.

Being born out of a virgin mother is another thing of Jesus’ uniqueness. Whether he was a mortal, a divinely inspired man, the son of God, or God Himself can be endlessly debated, but why he was among us could not be expressed more clearly than the verses above do. They contain the essence of Jesus’ mission for humanity: to help and heal people, which is exactly what his actions reflected, but more importantly, to convey a message of good news.

God is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. The story of humanity begins and ends with God, who is Good. In the beginning, something good happened: God the Creator gave us life. In the end, something good will happen, too: God the Saviour who will save us. That is the message of the ‘gospel’, the old English translation of the the Greek εὐαγγέλιον, meaning ‘good news’!

This good news was received with great enthusiasm. Thousands of his contemporaries, Jews and non-Jews alike, travelled lenghty distances in perilous circumstances to come listen to the public speeches of the man they believed to be the Messiah. His charismatic personality and the revolutionary character of his message made him known far beyond the borders of Israel.

However, not all members of his community embraced this message. Many called him a false prophet and ascribed Jesus’ supernatural powers to the Devil.

“But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “it is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” – Matthew 12:24

Incensed by his actions and ideas, they even attempted stoning him on several occasions. Paricularly infuriating was Jesus’ concept of God. He described a God who was forgiving rather than vindictive, a God who was a caring father (he referred to God as his אבא, abba, which means father) endlessly compassionate towards our suffering, rather than an unrelenting judge punishing us for every breach of His law (Jesus himself broke the sabbath several times!), a God who loved all humans equally without exception, including goyim. God was no longer an entity on which humans could bestow their fallacies and shortcomings, a jealous God who demanded adoration, obedience, and bloody sacrifices, but a Being whose Love for His creation was so infinite, it could hardly be grasped by the limited human brain.

He claimed that in the world to come, the first shall be the last, and the last the first. Here on Earth, he taught, the words coming out of our mouths are far more important than the foods we put in it. He called out the hypocrisy of those who rigorously applied the religious rules while being deceitful and dishonest towards others. Praying to God in public for everyone to see, is not piety but vanity – instead, he suggested, lock yourself up in a room and establish a private relationship with your Creator. That relationship is more important than any other relationship you have, even the one with your family. Don’t judge too soon, for you will be judged with the measures you use so judge others. Don’t lie, it is the truth that will set you free. And before throwing accusations or stones at someone, you better make sure you are free of sin.

“Hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” – Matthew 7:5

His most mind-boggling message, however, was related to love:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” – Matthew 5:43-44

It is easy to love your own family, your neighbours, and your friends, but try loving your enemy! The latter suggestion inspired great future leaders like Martin Luther King, who said:

“Love has within it a redemptive power, that eventually transforms individuals (…) Keep loving people, even though they are mistreating you. By the power of your love, they will breakdown under the load. Love builds up and is creative. Hate tears down and is destructive. That is why Jesus said: love your enemies.”

This concept was difficult to accept for a people who were violently oppressed by the Romans and awaited the coming of a Messiah who would revolt against them and relieve them from this oppression. In their minds, the Messiah would be a mighty military leader, saving the Jews from their enemies, not a man who told them to pray for them!

The Messiah they expected was a political Messiah who would fight, be victorious, and rule over an earthly Jewish kingdom, not a spiritual Saviour who would tell them the Kingdom of God is within, and they should pray for those who persecute you. Which is exactly what he did during his agony on the cross:

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” – Luke 23:34

It is noteworthy that despite being hailed as the King of the Jews by his followers, Jesus never emphasized his Jewish identity, nor did he advocate for the conversion of non-Jews to Judaism. He offered his help and healing to all who sought it, regardless of their background. Even Gentiles were not excluded, much to the chagrin of the Pharisees who regarded them as inferior and impure. The word ‘pharisee’ comes from the Hebrew ‘Perushim’, the separated ones – those who avoid contact with goyim at all costs, making them the embodiment of the classical psychological us – versus – them theory.

It was those Pharisaic ecclesiastics who made a deal with Judas Iscariot (note that even Judas’ name, יהודה, starts with a yud!), who agreed to betray Jesus with a kiss for thirty pieces of silver – as predicted by Jesus during the Last Supper.

“When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in spirit and testified, ‘Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.” – John 13:21.

The Pharisees brought Jesus to the Romans and asked them to crucify him for blasphemy and claiming to be the Messiah. Despite Jesus’ awareness of the outcomes of everything he said and did during his ministry – he predicted his betrayal, arrestation, and crucifixion during the Last Supper – he did not try to flee. When confronted with the accusations and questions of the Jewish Counsel, King Herod, and Pontius Pilates, who all wanted him to perform miracles on command, he did nothing and remained almost entirely silent.

In charge with the ultimate decision over Yeshua’s life or death was the latter, who was the Roman governor of Judea at the time. He washed his hands with water in front of the crowd, saying the innocent man’s blood would not be on his hands. The crowd responded:

“His blood shall be on us and our children!” – Matthew 27:25.

Pilate’s decision to authorize Jesus’ execution should be understood within the political and social context of the time. His primary concern was maintaining order and stability in the province of Judea, prone to unrest and rebellion. The Jewish chief priests viewed Jesus as a threat to their authority and sought his execution on charges of crimes he did not commit: blasphemy and claiming to be a king. The latter offense could be seen as challenging Roman rule.

Pilate likely saw Jesus as a potential instigator of unrest but also recognized that Jesus’ claims did not pose a direct threat to Roman authority. However, faced with pressure from the Pharisees and the threat of a potential riot, Pilate chose to appease the Jewish leaders and maintain order by authorizing Jesus’s crucifixion.

His decision was a politically expedient compromise to preserve his own position, not a reflection of Jesus’ actual guilt or innocence. But it was Jesus’ own people who betrayed him, turned him in, and insisted he should be murdered. Pontius Pilatus indeed washed his hands in innocence, but the Pharisees did the same thing by handing Yeshua over to the goyim to crucify him and rid themselves of the responsibility of the crime they demanded but did not execute themselves.

In the 33rd year of his life, on a Friday at 9 o’ clock in the morning, Yeshua was nailed to the cross on Golgotha, a rocky hill outside the city walls of Jerusalem, on which he suffered an excruciatingly painful death, exhaling his last breath at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. (I can’t help but notice the abundance of 3’s – even 9 is a multiplication of 3 – and associate it with the Holy Trinity, the most mysterious concept in Christianity.) Only his mother Mary, his close compagnon Mary Magdalene, a few other women, and his youngest disciple John, were courageous enough to show their faces at the execution on Golgotha. The rest of the disciples were hiding, terrified of undergoing the same fate.

Jesus’ dead body was taken from the cross and layed in the arms of his weeping mother – a scene that was carved into stone by thousands of sculptures. A replica of Michelangelo’s pieta adorned the hall of the Catholic school I was raised in. I remember staring at Mary’s face and imagining how she must have felt when she saw all the blood and wounds on the tortured body of her son. The prophet Isaiah prophesized Jesus’ execution among two criminals and burial in the tomb of a wealthy man:

“He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.” – Isaiah 53:9

On the third day, which marked the beginning of the Jewish week, it was a woman who discovered Jesus’ tomb empty. Christine Pedotti, author of the book ‘Jesus, the man who loved women’ posits that this detail lends credence to the authenticity of Jesus’ biography, suggesting that since women were not held in as high esteem as men during that time, it would be unlikely for the Gospel authors to attribute such a significant event to a woman.

Jesus’ treatment of women was revolutionary: he regarded them as equal human beings capable of engaging in meaningful conversations, rather than relegating them to domestic roles such as cooking and cleaning. The first person to see the ressurected Jesus was Mary Magdalene. He later appeared to all of his disciples, and a crowd of 500 people. Jesus had performed his greatest miracle: he stood up from the dead.

I still cannot grasp how my religion teachers in high school failed to explain the deeper meaning of the cross and the gigantic philosophical, moral, and spiritual value of Jesus’ life. Luckily, entire libraries have been filled with books of brilliant thinkers, like Erich Fromm, who tackled the subject of Christ from a psycho-analytical viewpoint, Emmet Fox, who explained the hidden meanings of every recorded sermon in the New Testimony, and the contemporary psychologist and author Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, who explained his views of Christ in his Biblical Series.

The life of Christ is a mindblowing metaphor of the human condition. Every moment of his life, every figure he encounters, every aspect of his existence, reflects something that occurs in all of our lives. You, like Christ, have a mission to fulfill on Earth. That mission is the cross you must carry. Your path will be strewn with obstacles and problems, that will inevitably result in suffering. In that sense, Yeshua’s story is universal and eternal: it has not only happened before, but it is happening right now, and will always happen. What happened to him, will metaphorically happen to all of us.

Just like the Sanhedrin despised Christ for speaking a truth they didn’t understand, some people in your life will despise you, too. Just like Judas betrayed Christ, some alleged friends will betray you, with the same proverbial kiss. Just like Peter and nearly all the other disciples abandoned Christ when he was crucified, some will abandon you, when you most need them. But just like Mary Magdalene, his mother, and his beloved disciple John always loved Christ and never left his side, some will love you unconditionally, and follow you every step of the way. Their love makes your life worth living.

Just like Yeshua chased away the Devil in the desert, you must conquer your own demons, acknowledge your dark side, face your suffering, heal your pain, and through this all, strive to become a better version of yourself. That is your ultimate purpose, the very reason you exist.

You can also choose not to better yourself – you are a being with free will. But if you do, and if you manage to get through the difficult times with faith in God, or Love, or Goodness, or Righteousness, or whatever it is you believe in, you will be transformed, and you will have become your own Messiah.

The old you will die, and the new You will resurrect.

The true meaning of Jesus’ life, whether one believes he was a rabbi, a politician, an instigator of unrest, a spiritual master, the Messiah, or the Word of God incarnated, is the promise he gave us. Anyone who follows him as the Truth, the Way, and the Life, will be saved.

I want to finish this essay with a brilliant comment I read somewhere on the internet:

He had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
He had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
He had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.
He had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.
He did not live in a castle, yet they called Him Lord.
He ruled no nations, yet they called Him King.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.

Categories
Religion

God Believes in Science.

In the ever-secularising West, many proudly identify as anticlerical. Christian feasts are still celebrated – we decorate the Christmas tree and stuff ourselves with Easter eggs – but we no longer know, or want to know, what we are celebrating. Nobody goes to Sunday mass anymore except for some elders – watching Netflix is way more exciting than listening to the monotonous preaching of a pastor who looks like he needs a coffin. Miracle-performing Messiahs who walk on water and resurrect from death are fairytales anyway. Religious writings such as the Bible are archaic documents full of senseless violence (except for the Quran, not a bad word about that literary pearl, please), and wearing a crucifix is now frowned upon.

Since Nietzsche has declared God is dead, atheism is on the rise. We no longer need God to answer existential questions, science will do that. Why do we exist? Why do we suffer? Where do we go when we die? Do we überhaupt go anywhere? All of these questions have, however, remained unanswered by scientists. Only quantum physicists are now beginning to unravel aspects of consciousness that mystics have speculated on for millenia.

Yet the average Westerner associates the belief in a transcending consciousness and the existence of a divine Creator with a lack of intelligence. To him, empirically demonstrable data are the only valid source of knowledge and the sole path leading to Truth. And not without reason: only of hypotheses we can perceive with our senses and test with reliable scientific methods, can we claim with absolute certainty whether or not they are valid.

Since we can’t perceive a divine being, we can only believe in it. But faith is a feeling, and feelings are unreliable guides to rational individuals who see objectivity and quantifiable data as exclusive measures. The majority of scientists prefer not to believe in things, and certainly not in a Creator, although they have no proof of the inexistence of that Creator. Believers cannot prove that God does exist, either – but that is where faith comes into play: whoever believes does not require evidence.

The western atheist is convinced that Church and science do not mix, and that these two irreconcilable antagonists have been engaged in a bitter battle since the emergence of the latter. A struggle that only ended when the Church lost its political power. One not insignificant fact, however, is being overlooked: the fact that the Catholic Church, target of postmodern ridicule, has by far been the largest disseminator of science in the Western hemisphere over the last millennium. This essay thus attempts to counterbalance the oversimplified conflict thesis of animosity between church and reason that the unbeliever is so eager to address.

This conflict thesis is mainly fueled by the backlash two historical scientists received for their revolutionary vision. Commonly accepted in the 16th century was the Aristotelian perception that Earth was immobile and the center of the universe. A Polish clerk called Nicolaus Copernicus labelled this geocentrist theory as false, and claimed Earth revolved around the sun, like all the other planets of our galaxy. This controversial thesis caught the attention of Pope Clement VII, aka Giulio de ‘ Medici, a progressive pope who was a member of one of the most influential Italian families of the Renaissance. After this initial acceptance, the heliocentric view was banned by the Church, under pressure from hysterical protests from Protestants who found it a reprehensible idea. Copernicus’ book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelistium ended up in the Index of the Forbidden Books until another pope approved it again three centuries later. Despite his controversial theory, Copernicus remained in good terms with the Church, and it was under the auspices of the Church that he made it known.

The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed space with his self-made telescope and became an open supporter of Copernican heliocentrism. In 1633, the Inquisition charged him with suspected heresy. His punishment was house arrest for life and the mandatory reciting of the Psalms three times a week – a mild punishment in times when women were tortured and drowned for feeding black cats. It wasn’t until 1992 that Pope John Paul II admitted that Galileo had been wrongly accused. Seven years later, NASA honored the rebel by naming a space probe after him. Today, Galileo has already completed 34 tours around Jupiter.

Indeed, the medieval Church silenced voices if it believed they contradicted the Holy Scriptures. Yet these events must not lead to the oversimplified view that Church and science were each other’s arch enemies.To quote the historian Lawrence M. Principe: “From historical records it becomes clear that the Catholic Church was probably the only and longest lasting patron of science in the history of mankind, that many contributors to the Scientific Revolution were Catholic, and that several Catholic institutions and perspectives have exerted an extremely important influence on the growth of modern science ”.

Everything starts with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in AD 476. The monks in the abbeys preserved and copied from morning dew to moonlight the astronomical, geometric, medical and philosophical knowledge of the Greeks and Romans in manuscripts. The oeuvre of the Greek thinker Aristotle in particular would play a major role in the development of science in the coming centuries.

Early medieval priests studied these manuscripts and many became, inspired by the healing miracles of Christ, doctors treating the sick. Nuns took on the role of nurses. The abbess Hildegarde von Bingen was an important motet composer, but also wrote botanical and medicinal books, including The Book of Simple Medicine and Natural History, an encyclopedia on the natural sciences. The first hospitals in Europe, such as the beautiful Hospices de Beaune in France, were thus Catholic institutions. Today, the Christian saints’ names of many modern hospitals are silent witnesses to this.

The mathematical findings of monks allowed the construction of the majestic Gothic cathedrals – an architectural revolution triggered by the urge to build houses of God that reached heaven. These spiritual skyscrapers with vaulted roofs and polychrome windows were not only places of prayer, but the first observatories to study the sun. By strategically placing primitive ‘cameras’, the incidence of light and the position of the sun were analyzed. In 1582, the Julian calendar was thus transformed into the more precise Gregorian calendar. Today, this is the worldwide official measure of time orientation.

Cathedrals were linked to scholae, educational institutions that metamorphosed over the centuries into the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, and the other numerous universities in Europe. Christian theologians there studied the translations of Aristotle’s thought and sought to reconcile their beliefs through argumentative, critical, and dialectical thinking. This is how scholasticism developed the first rational, scientific method. This was a giant leap forward in logic.

God’s creation was physical and could be understood through sensory inquiry, but God Himself could ony be found in prayer and meditation. In 1265 however, the priest Thomas Aquinas attempted to empirically prove the existence of God and came up with five proofs of God. His complete scholastic writing Summa Theologiae is considered to be the foundation of empirical thinking.

Aquinas was a Dominican, but of all the Christian orders, it was the Jesuits who contributed the most to the formation and dissemination of Western knowledge within and outside Europe. They theorised the circulation of blood, observed the surface of Jupiter, the nebula of Andromeda and the rings of Saturn. Numerous missionaries traveled to China, such as Brother Johan Schall. Because his astronomical measurements were so accurate, he was appointed chairman of the Qing Dynasty Mathematical Court, where he improved the Chinese calendar. (However, he was charged with the crime of sheltering illegal immigrants in his churches, was sentenced to incarceration, and died in prison – or how to bite the hand that feeds you knowledge.)

Harvard University’s star rating system exists today thanks to brother Pietro Angelo Secchi. Other brothers did pioneering work in meteorology, spectroscopy, geomagnetism, geophysiology, geology, and seismology. The latter is even called the Jesuit science, because their contribution was so great. In some Asian and African countries, the Jesuits established the first scientific institutes. The Belgian physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaitre came up with the Big Bang theory, and the Augustinian priest Gregor Mendel founded modern genetics.

The disdain of the Church by the critical atheist thus hungers for nuance: The Catholic Church, despite its censorship of controversial scientific discoveries, has for centuries been the greatest stimulus of many academic disciplines in Europe, and its missionaries have spread knowledge on other continents. Pope John Paul II wrote to the Director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.” Or, as Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics, famously said:

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”