Trolley Problem Sidebar

In my last post about punching people, I touched on the Trolley Problem, and I'd like to ramble on about it a bit here.

The Trolley Problem basically asks you to choose between killing one person or killing more than one.  Sometimes it's phrased as killing one person to stop from killing more than one.  Sometimes it's choosing whether to kill one or more than one.  Sometimes it's killing one to save more than one.  The central takeaway usually is that you've got to kill one or many.

But you can put things slightly differently and say that you either kill many by inaction or kill one by action.  You can take out the trolley and talk about a madman who tells you to shoot one person and he will spare the lives of twenty hostages or something like that.  That puts the ball more in your court: you've got to do the killing, not simply decide which option to take.

And then there's the idea that one person is going to die anyway; the madman will kill all the hostages unless you pick one of them to be killed.  So that one person is going to die regardless, but the blood wouldn't be as directly on your hands if you simply allow the hostages to be killed wholesale.

What it boils down to, however, is that you must choose between options, both of which are sub-optimal.  Simply phrased, is one death preferable to more than one death?

If you're in an action-inaction scenario and you happen not to believe in sins of omission (to use the Catholic turn of phrase, here meaning, "an immoral act which happens because of inaction"), then you would probably choose the path where your actions alone couldn't be blamed for the result.  You'd let the multiple people die because you yourself would be blameless.  And that's... not moral, in my mind.  Simply refusing to act so as not to be blamed is pretty much the worst thing you can do in this situation.  You might decide not to act because you feel that the greater good is served, but that's a choice which should acknowledge that the result is still your fault.

And that's what I think a lot of people actually do in life.  I include myself among those people.  We refuse to act, not because of the greater good, but because we don't want to be blamed.  That's immoral in the extreme, both because of the result and because we're behaving not only immorally but amorally, without consideration of the morality of the situation at all.  We're not trying to justify our inaction; we're simply avoiding action for its own sake.

The Trolley Problem doesn't take into account any personal risk either.  Many people, myself included again, do not act because it would entail risk.  We're cowards.  That's immoral too, although perhaps not amoral.  It's selfish.  And usually it's lazy, because most of the time self-preservation isn't motivated by the thought that it would be in the best interests of the world for us to escape risk.

So perhaps the most important lesson of the Trolley Problem, from a moral standpoint, is that it's important to actually make a damn choice.  Whatever you choose, it is more morally defensible than simply abdicating your responsibilities and letting the dice fall where they may.  In the Trolley Problem, that would be something along the lines of a runaway trolley which has an equal chance of killing one or a group of people unless we actually pick.

Sure, the thing which winds up serving the greater good might happen if we simply let chance dictate.  And it's easy.  We don't have to make a tough choice, shoulder moral responsibility, punch that Nazi even if it makes us a hypocrite and immoral.  And there's no guarantee that our choice would be the right one, so maybe it's just better to let fate decide.  But that's not the moral position.

Make a choice.  Don't sit on the sidelines kibbitzing and offering suggestions.  Make a choice, throw the switch, and yes, you may well make the wrong choice, and people may blame you, and things may not work out.  But it's still important to choose.

On the Morality of Punching People

There's been a lot of talk lately about punching people with whom we don't agree.  Nazis, mostly, although I'm sure people would also debate punching the Klan, bigots, or people who don't like Aerosmith.

I'm a pacifist.  I have the privilege to hold this belief without a lot of testing.  I'm as white as they come, I'm a cis man, I live in a country which hasn't yet started rounding up dissidents, and, while I'm pretty doggone poor, I'm not so poor that I can say I don't have privilege there either.  So my moral resolve on pacifism is a bit like most people who claim they would die before they gave up their faith: it's a nice thought, but when the rubber meets the road, I bet a lot of us would give up our morals quickly enough.  I say this about myself because I can; I assume this about others because of my pessimism about human nature.

So at the bottom, I don't believe you should punch anyone.  Violence is immoral.  I will not sully the names of those people who have held this view and have been tested and have passed with flying colors.  I am not like them.  They passed the test, as it were.  It's very easy for me to say that I believe this.  It's much harder to put it into practice.

I also find myself, at times, being less of a pacifist and more of a believer that one should not do undue harm.  What I mean by this is that I don't believe killing anyone is ever justified, but maybe a slap, just a little pain, a rebuke, is morally acceptable.  If no lasting harm is done, is it really wrong to give someone a zetz to knock some sense into them?  I don't know.  I waffle.  This is why I'm pretty sure that, when the chips were down, I would not pass the test.

But there are people who take the moral stance that it's not about the violence, it's about the freedom of speech or expression.  And while I believe that governments should protect freedom of speech, I don't believe that anyone has any expectation to the kind of freedom that people seem to think is enshrined in the Constitution.  There are already plenty of restrictions imposed by the government on speech.  And above all else, freedom of speech simply means, from the government's point of view, that the government can't restrict your speech.  It says absolutely nothing about what non-governmental agents can do.

This is why, for instance, you can't sue a newspaper because they don't print everything you send them.  You could argue that they're infringing your freedom of speech, but you don't have the freedom to force a private entity to allow you to speak.  Newspapers are a bad example.  Let's try Twitter.  Twitter is a private platform.  If Twitter wants to put a rule in place which says you can't use the letter Z in your messages, they have every right to do so, and you can't stop them.  You simply either put up with the rules or you don't use the platform.

This isn't as simple as I'm making it sound: governments can and do restrict what restrictions private individuals and platforms place on their users/members.  In the interest of equality, if the someone found out that Twitter wasn't allowing black people to be members of their site, or was placing burdens on them, that someone could sue, and it's possible that the courts would rule in their favor.  It's tricky.  There are laws which people claim infringe their freedoms which are upheld or struck down all the time.

But beyond that, is there a moral imperative to allow anyone to say anything?  I would argue that no, there isn't.  And unfortunately, much of the time, those arguing that people should be allowed to say things are not those who are directly affected by the things those people are saying.  If I, a white, cis man were to argue that racists have a right to yell insults and death threats at people of color, I would be injecting myself into a situation which doesn't need me: while yes, the welfare of the world affects me, I am not being affected directly by this speech, and thus I should shut the fuck up.  It's not brave, and my beliefs in free speech are not really being put to the test.

So, having explained my moral position, I would like to say conclusively that it's wrong to punch Nazis.

But.

But unless there's some pragmatic reason otherwise, you should probably do it anyway.

"How can you say that?!  Hypocrite!"

Yes.  Yes I am.  I am, along with everyone on this little globe of ours.  It isn't heroic to recognize it. I'm hypocritical.

I don't want to make it seem heroic to punch Nazis either.  But consider the moral prohibition on lying.  One should not lie.  It's a pretty basic moral precept.  And yet, if one were harboring Jews from Nazis, one should lie one's head off.  One should lie and lie and lie and never stop lying in the service of protecting those Jews from Nazis.

And one should know that one is doing a morally wrong thing.  A morally defensible, yet morally wrong thing.  That's what's important.

Philosophers have been phrasing this question different ways for thousands of years.  Most recently, it's the Trolley Problem: what are the ethics of choosing to, by action, take one life while saving five, or by inaction take five lives, saving one.  You can wrestle with this problem, put it through various permutations, and try to justify it to yourself, but I think the thing which gets missed is that there is no morally "right" answer.  Any option you choose, the result is that you will have committed an immoral act.

And that's freeing, in a way.  Because if you're going to be wrong no matter what you do, you can look at it from a more pragmatic point of view, and depending on your axioms and your ethics, you can arrive at a solution.  What you choose illustrates your axioms and ethics, and that's why the problem exists, not as some brain-teaser on how to be more or less moral.

Because you will be immoral, somehow, no matter what.  Because we're all immoral.

So when I say you should punch a Nazi (actually, I think you should do something else other than punch unless you're a trained fighter because punching untrained is a very good way to injure yourself, and I speak from personal experience) I am not ducking the moral issue.  I believe, as strongly as I can believe without being tested, that it is immoral to punch anyone, to harm anyone.  Violence is immoral.  But sometimes you have to accept that the immorality of your action is on you, but the greater good can still be served.  You are not being heroic.  You are doing what must be done.  And if punching a Nazi must be done, then you must shoulder the burden of immorality and punch them.

I say this to people who believe that Nazis must be punched.  The people who are directly affected by them.  But they don't need my approval.  They need my support.  And that's a responsibility of those who believe, as I do, that violence is immoral.  If we cannot punch a Nazi, we must do something else to help stop them.  It's not enough to sit here and say, "It's wrong to punch Nazis.  Everyone should have freedom of speech."  If you believe that, then you must fight for the freedom of speech of those who are being oppressed.  Nazis aren't being oppressed.  If you believe that violence is never justified, then you must help those who are attacked.  You must.  You cannot talk about morals sometimes.  Either work for morals all the time, or not at all.

This does not cover all objections to Nazi-punching.  I'm not pretending that it does.  There are purely pragmatic objections which I cannot address because frankly I don't know the answers.  I've heard smart people on both sides, and I think that it's an argument worth having as long as it doesn't distract from the vital work of preventing Nazis from punching others, hurting others, killing others.  There are people who are strong in their beliefs that violence is never the answer, people who have been tested.  They are braver than I could ever be, and they are probably not wasting their time writing things like this, but rather are out there doing what they believe.

All I can say is that sometimes one must behave immorally for the greater good.  Yes, this is a slippery slope, and yes, it is entirely subjective, so there's really no point in trying to argue that others have believed just that and have done horrible things.  We're all human.  We're all hypocrites.  And we're all immoral.  It is important to acknowledge the immorality of our actions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take those actions.

Lastly, if you believe that violence is morally indefensible but that Nazis shouldn't be allowed to speak, may I suggest singing?  It's worked in the past.  It's hard to say much of anything when you're being drowned out by singing.  Aerosmith I can take or leave, but if that's what floats your boat, by all means, stand up to a Nazi today and sing Love in an Elevator at the top of your lungs.

Holy Moly: Side Characters

In Genesis 14 we begin with a story which sounds way, way more interesting than Abram's fruitfulness and multiplicity.

While Amraphel was king of Shinar, Ellasar’s King Arioch, Elam’s King Chedorlaomer, and Goiim’s King Tidal declared war on Sodom’s King Bera, Gomorrah’s King Birsha, Admah’s King Shinab, Zeboiim’s King Shemeber, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar. These latter kings formed an alliance in the Siddim Valley (that is, the Dead Sea). For twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they revolted. In the fourteenth year, Chedorlaomer and the kings of his alliance came and attacked the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the Horites in the mountains of Seir as far as El-paran near the desert. Then they turned back, came to En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and attacked the territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who lived in Hazazon-tamar.

Then the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bera (that is, Zoar) took up battle positions in the Siddim Valley against King Chedorlaomer of Elam, King Tidal of Goiim, King Amraphel of Shinar, and King Arioch of Ellasar, four kings against five.

Now the Siddim Valley was filled with tar pits. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah retreated, they fell into them; and the rest fled to the mountains.

I have no idea who any of these people are.  I'm not an early near-eastern historian.  But boy, doesn't this sound like something straight out of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings?

We've got place names and characters I can't pronounce (I could take a stab at it but fortunately I don't have to, this being a textual medium).  We've got rebellions and kings and infighting.  We've got armies being swallowed up by tar.

But there's no escaping the fact that this is the Bible, not the Silmarillion, so the only reason all of this is important is that Lot, who is living in Sodom, gets captured when the victorious kings sack the city.  We don't hear about pitched battles or strategy.  This is the Bible, and Abram and Lot are the important part.

Did any of this actually happen?  No idea.  The Bible as historical record is... well, we're still in Genesis, and Genesis is as old as dirt.  We're only a few scant chapters away from a great flood which wiped out everyone on earth.  We've covered a lot of ground, what with generations of men who were considered young at 300.  But still, we're in myths and legends territory here.

And beyond that, I have no reason to doubt that all these places and kings had some deep meaning to people in late Stone Age/early Bronze Age Mesopotamia.  It's likely that, as they sat around the fire, proto-Jews would have heard this story and thought, "Oh boy, King Chedorlaomer, he's the king who defeated fifteen dragons in the story we heard last night.  You do not want to fuck with him.  Just more stupidity on the part of those idiots in Sodom, huh?"  But they didn't bother to write down the story of King Chedorlaomer, so he makes this brief appearance in the Bible and then is gone again.  Maybe his story wasn't popular.  Maybe it didn't have a good lesson, just plenty of gratuitous sex and senseless violence.  Maybe King Chedorlaomer would have been played by Bruce Willis.

It's useless to speculate.

It's not fair to say that Abram and Lot are minor characters in this story: they're just not in the epic battle.  Abram mounts a daring rescue and manages, with a small strike force, to see off Lot's captors and bring him, his people, and the loot back to Sodom.

And here we meet King Melchizedek.  King Melchizedek has a terrific name, and if he showed up in a fantasy movie fighting dragons I would not be in the least surprised.  He's the high priest of what I'm somewhat reliably informed is a deity of some sort, although possibly not the same deity worshiped by Abram.

It's important to note here (and elsewhere, but we'll get there) that Abram might have worshiped the god who winds up being the head honcho in the Bible, but he believed in other gods.  These proto-Hebrews were polytheistic.  This is prior to the Ten Commandments (and even then, monotheism only meant worshiping one god before others, not only believing in one god, but we'll get there when we get there).  So Abram, being a pragmatic man, gives a tithe of 10% to Melchizedek, who then goes back into the background (or possibly Melchizedek gives a tithe to Abram; the text is ambiguous, but it makes more sense to me that Abram is tithing to the priest-king rather than the other way around, rescuing hero or not).  We'll run into Melchizedek's name again, way after we've all forgotten who he is.

The King of Sodom offers Abram the loot as a reward, but Abram says, "No, sorry: god says I shouldn't take anything from you so you can't take credit for me being awesome."  I have to imagine that this the King of Sodom had somewhat mixed feelings about this response.  On the one hand, Abram's refusing a reward, so Sodom gets the loot back.  Sodom has just lost its army and its city has been sacked, so I imagine that the king is happy enough to have a little loot.  But on the other hand, Abram is being a dick.  He's refusing a kingly gift and saying, "Um, sorry, no, I don't need your shit; I'm awesome."

Abram does make sure that his followers are rewarded, so it's possible that this should be read as humbleness and care, and maybe that's how it was received.  Still, if I were king and I just offered you loot, to decline would be a bit rude, but to decline because you say god told you not to owe me any favors... that's got to make me wonder just why you don't want to owe me any favors.

Abram talks about the god who told him this using the same name as the god for whom Melchizedek is priest, so maybe this should be read differently.  Maybe Melchizedek passed on a message from his god in exchange for the tithe, and El Elyon said for Abram not to take the reward.  Maybe El Elyon is the Hebrew God, and it's all very confusing.  This latter possibility is certainly borne out later when later writers use Melchizedek as the ancestor of Hebrew priests.  Still, since Melchizedek doesn't seem to have any purpose in this story beyond being name-dropped (he clearly had other stories about him which didn't make it into the Bible) I think believing that maybe he had something to do with Abram's refusal is justified, if not certified.

In any case, this should probably all be read as, "Abram is special.  Abram is awesome.  You are descendants of Abram.  Therefore, you are special and awesome."  Just so.  There's nothing wrong with this.  All tribes and groups tell founding stories about how special they are.  No need to fret: God and the Bible will continue to reinforce this message.

Holy Moly: Family Strife

So Abram and his family, and Lot and his family, have been kicked out of Egypt.  Why Lot got kicked out when it was Abram who did the things necessitating being kicked out is uncertain.  Maybe Abram made Lot come along.  "So Egypt is getting too hot to hold someone of my awesomeness.  Come on Lot, let's hit the road."

"But I've got a home and lands and friends here..."

"They're not your friends.  You need to come with us."

"But..."

"Come on Lot."

Well, turns out that the land they go to can't support both of their families and flocks.  Or maybe Lot remembered being dragged out of Egypt by Abram.  There's fighting between the clans.

Abram has a solution.  "Why don't you go over there, and I'll go over here.  The land is wide and full of resources.

Or maybe Lot said, "Listen, Abram, I... need to be alone for a while.  It's not you, it's me."

The Bible makes sure we know that there were Canaanites and Perizzites living on the land too.  That's probably because we're foreshadowing some things, but it might also be to point out that Abram and Lot were in hostile territory.  To me, it just points out the total land grab that's going on here.  I'm not bashing Abram and Lot; they're not going around lopping off Perizzite heads or anything to conquer the territory.  But it does smack a bit of the white man landing on the shores of America and claiming the land because hey, no one's living... sorry, could you brown people move out of my sight line... as I said, no one is living here.

Lot heads to Sodom.  Sodom is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  We'll get back to them.

God says to Abram, "Hey, so this land is all yours and you're going to have so many descendants that they'll be like specks of dust."  Are the Canaanites and Perizzites consulted?  Of course not.

But there are other ways to read this: God is still obsessed with the "being fruitful and multiplying" thing.  At the time, if you were an extremely beset-upon tribe like Israel, pumping out the offspring was probably not just a good idea but a matter of survival.  I'm not even talking about the horrifying infant mortality rates: they're living in lands which, while God has given the land to them, are still occupied by other tribes who might not be friendly.  Increasing the size of the clan was for safety as well as anything else.

These are just-so stories, people.  There's nothing wrong with that.  Why does Israel live here now?  Why do we have these lands?  Why are people trying to oppress us?  See, there was this guy named Abram...

Holy Moly: Land Grab

Genesis 12 begins with Abram, Sarai, and Lot, along with the family, continuing the journey to Canaan.  Only it doesn't.  It begins with God telling Abram to leave his home and head to Canaan.  Let's remember the strange chronology of the Bible and move on.

God says to Abram, "Head to Canaan and I will bless you and all people through you.  This land will be yours."

I can't help but wonder what the Canaanites thought about this.  Some guy shows up, says, "Hey, so, this land is mine because God gave it to me."

But the Bible doesn't really care about the Canaanites, as has been amply demonstrated already.  So this part is more important because it's a continuation of God making certain people His chosen.  Abram is, if not the first Jew, at least the father of Judaism.  He's the chosen.

Where's Canaan?  Why, it's the area where Israel is today.  See, God gave it to His chosen people, which is why that particular area of the globe is so peaceful and no one ever fights about land.

I'm not going to bash Israel (the state, not the character in the Bible) because I'm not really interested in being called anti-Semitic.  But if you want to know the origins of the problems in that part of the Middle East, they're right here, where God gives Canaan to the ancestor of the Israelites.  I'm not blaming the Israelites for taking God up on the offer at all.  It's choice real estate.  But that's why Israel is where it is and not, say, North Dakota.

Abram doesn't stay long though.  He's a nomad so he travels the land, going where the flocks go or where the water is or where the food is available.  He becomes something of an absentee landlord of Canaan, which I can't help but thinking that the Canaanites probably appreciated.

Famine strikes the land and Abram and his retinue head for Egypt.  Egypt, at this point, was probably the place to go if famine was striking.  The Nile delta is a fairly reliable food source, and the infrastructure could support a larger population.  That's not to say that Egypt never had famines, but it was more stable than the desert of Canaan.

So Abram heads there.  I imagine that he was probably just one of many refugees from the famine, and I can also imagine that the Egyptians might have been a little hesitant to take in more people.  But the problem isn't that Abram will be turned away at the border, but rather than apparently the Pharaoh wants to increase his harem.

Abram knows his wife is a looker, and he knows that Pharaoh tends to take a shine to new female faces, but he also knows that Pharaoh doesn't like those new faces to be married.  He's worried that if the officials find out that Sarai is his wife, they'll kill him and she'll wind up with the Pharaoh.

So he does the only logical thing and attempts to disguise her as an ugly woman... no, just kidding, he totally tells them she's his sister, and yes, absolutely, she would love to join the Pharaoh's court.  It doesn't say, but I'm pretty sure Sarai didn't just go to court to be a pretty face.  Pharaoh makes her his wife.  So Abram is pimping out his own wife to save his skin.  Classy.

God gets pissed, as God is wont to do, and sends plagues down on Pharaoh.  Which seems like a pretty shitty thing to do: Pharaoh may be in the market for wives, but he didn't know the woman was already married.  He even treats her and her "brother" quite well.  But God doesn't care.

Pharaoh finds out what's happening and kills Abram... no, only kidding again, he tells Abram, "Jeez dude, why did you tell me she was your sister?  Now your God is pissed at me.  I wouldn't have married her if I knew.  So, be a bro, take her back and get the fuck out of dodge before God makes it worse."

That, at least, is what he means.  Maybe we're supposed to read it as Pharaoh punishing Abram by exiling him, but frankly, had I been Pharaoh and had I gotten a reputation for killing men and taking their hot wives, I would have just killed Abram.  We never see any evidence that Abram was right in his paranoia.  Again, maybe we're supposed to just know that Egyptians are bad and everything Abram says is true, but if so, why does Pharaoh let him keep all his profits from pimping his wife?

I'm pro-Egyptian, as has probably become evident.  I'm not anti-proto-Israelite, but it seems like Abram gets off lightly in this story.  Maybe Pharaoh doesn't kill him because Pharaoh's pretty sure that if marrying Abram's wife makes God pissed, then God will be really pissed if Pharaoh kills Abram.  It's a story written from the point of view of worshipers of Yahweh rather than Horus, so Yahweh is obviously going to be the most powerful.

The Egyptians didn't survive to pass on a Bible, or at least their religion didn't.  It's a shame, because I'd like to read the opposite side of this story.  But frankly, I have a feeling that even if the ancient Egyptian Pantheon were still being worshiped today, Abram wouldn't merit a mention in their Bible.  That's not to say that the story is false, just that people tell legends of things which make them look good or make their gods look powerful.  Maybe it's spin.  Maybe it's not.  But in any case, I feel like Pharaoh acted pretty well, given the circumstances.

Holy Moly: Shem's Descendants

We're going to breeze through some more geneology here because we should now all understand that yes, it's important, but no, it's not terribly interesting.  Shem begets Arpachshad, who begets other (male) people, and it's not until the children of Terah (or rather, the male children, because I bet you there were some daughters in there) that it gets interesting.  But let's step back for a moment.

Who the hell built the Tower of Babel?  Because according to the Bible, everyone but Noah's family was wiped out by a great flood.  See, if I were writing the Bible I would have put the Babel story somewhere else, after Noah and kin have gotten to the business of repopulation.  But I didn't write the Bible.  Nobody did.  It's a collection of stories and legends and history that got lumped together thousands of years after the fact.

So let's assume that Babel actually took place somewhere in the hundreds of years of geneology which comes after it and move on, shall we?

Terah's son Abram is going to be important.  So is his grandson Lot.  And it's important that we know right up front that Abram's wife Sarai is unable to bear children.  That will come up later.  But at the end of the passage, Terah and his sons Abram and Nahor, plus his son Haran's son Lot, plus their assorted family units, have left the land of their birth and are heading to Canaan.  Cliff hanger!

Since this is a short one, let's talk briefly about the division of chapter and verse in the Bible.  It's not very good.  It breaks up stories or puts stories together.  I'm not sure exactly how it came to be, but I can tell you that it didn't come to be because some guy named Moses sat down at a certain point and wrote it all down and divided it thus.  Why am I dividing my discussion of the Bible up by chapters?  It's easier.

Also, Haran is a place and a person.  Who came up with this?  It probably means something, but I'm not even sure the people who collected the stories know for certain.  Maybe Haran just happened to be on the way to Canaan.  Anyway, that's where Terah dies, and his descendants are going to head to Canaan because God told them to.

Easter

It's a busy time of the year for Josh (to whom we've spoken previously) so it took me a few days to schedule and then we both had to cancel because he was slated to appear on a waffle in Reno and I had a rehearsal for a play.  But I finally got to sit down with Jesus again to talk a bit about Easter.

Intransitive Lie (IL): Okay, I think we're recording now.  First off, congratulations on your anniversary.
Joshua ben Joseph (JC): Which one, the Good Friday one or the Easter Sunday one? (laughs)
IL: I imagine there are some folks who would probably congratulate you on the former.
JC: I think we talked about that a bit before.  It's not a day I forget, but I don't celebrate it per se.  I'm usually doing seder around then anyway, so my time is taken up hiding the afikomen for the kids to find.  That's the way we do it in our family, anyway.  I have total respect for the families that have the kids hide it though.
IL: So do you celebrate Easter?
JC: Of course.  It might seem a little egotistical of me, but I've got reasons.
IL: Such as?
JC: Well, first off, Eostre throws a heck of a party, so I always make it over there for that.
IL: So you're saying that Easter is really a pagan holiday co-opted by the Christians?
JC: Come on, learn your history.  Easter is called Easter in the Anglo-Saxon world because of the festival.  And the whole fertility thing?  Sure, that's from the Germanic tribes.  But Easter is celebrated when it is because of Jewish holidays, so while it's a happy coincidence, Easter is Easter.  Give the Christians a little credit.  They may have brought in some other traditions, but they didn't decide that I got my ass handed to me by the Romans because it nicely coincided with a fertility festival.
IL:Well then, how about the other reasons?
JC: It was a good day.  It didn't last, but it was a good day.
IL: Because you were resurrected?
JC: Sure, why not?  No, actually, not at all. I don't celebrate Easter because it was the day I came back.  But it was the day when all my brothers and sisters realized that the story doesn't end with death.
IL: So the resurrection is important?
JC: It was important to them.
IL: How so?
JC: Because despite Christians really trying to make my life the story of my death, or the story of Pentecost, my brothers and sisters really wanted everyone to know about Easter Sunday (or Saturday, or Tuesday, or whatever day it was because we didn't keep good calendars back then).
IL: So they wrote it in because they wanted you to come back when you didn't?
JC: This is turning pretty controversial, ain't it?  No, they didn't retcon my death out because the fans didn't like the ending.  They told the story of Easter because it was important for you to know that love wins.  I know a lot of folks say that the resurrection is blatantly tacked on to the end of the story, but that's what it is, a story.  And the story only works with Easter at the end.
IL: So you weren't resurrected?
JC: Does it matter?
IL: To a lot of people.
JC: That's because they're hung up on Good Friday.  Or they're hung up on Revelation and are expecting a Second Coming.  Quick aside: it never made sense to me that you call it "the Second Coming of Christ" when you believe in the resurrection.  Shouldn't it be "the Third Coming of Christ?"  God, Mary Magdalene and I used to make such horrible jokes about how I was just the Son of Man and three times might be asking a bit much.  Can I say that here?
IL: Yeah, we go blue relatively frequently.
JC: Mary's a card.  She tells the worst "I like my women like I like my..." jokes ever.  And she was doing it in Aramaic before it was cool.
IL: Step back to what you were saying about Christians being hung up on Good Friday.
JC: Right, sorry.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, lots of people want my resurrection to be historical fact, like pix or it didn't happen.  But that doesn't matter.
IL: In what way?
JC: If you're hung up on the symbol of me on the cross, then you've got to have the resurrection because that way you don't have to feel too guilty.  If you're hung up on Revelation (the book, not the concept) then you've got to have the resurrection because that's what you're expecting will happen to you at some point when I come back and wail on the antichrist.  But the resurrection wasn't about that.
IL: Then what was it about?
JC: It was about... well, two things.  And nice red uniforms.  I'll come in again.
IL: They get Python in Heaven?
JC: And unscrambled Skinemax too, but no one watches it.
IL: Sounds boring.
JC: Wait 'til you meet God. Porn doesn't hold a candle to that.
IL: I'll take your word for it.
JC: And no, we didn't kill Graham so we could have him all to ourselves.  But all joking aside, two major reasons for the resurrection.  First, because it shows love wins.
IL: You said that, yes.
JC: And second, you can't really blame them.  Their guru was dead.  They weren't looking for proof of life after death.  They just wanted me to stop by and tell them it was okay.  Hell, Peter was pretty sure he'd killed me himself.  The guilt on those guys.  So the resurrection is important for you because it shows that love wins, but for them, for my brothers and sisters, they just wanted to know if I was okay.  If anything I'd said was true.  And that's what the resurrection meant to them.  Later on it got made into this big deal and people started hoping it would happen to them too, but I never said it would.
IL: What about all the, "resurrection and life and he who believeth in me shall never die," routine?
JC: You guys have a real problem with taking things literally.  Like the whole bread and wine thing.  Understand metaphor, for Christ sake.
IL: So...
JC: You're going to die.  Every last one of you.
IL: Thanks for clearing that up.
JC: I did.  I was killed by a bunch of assholes.  Chances are you won't go that way, but does it really matter whether it's crucifixion or heart disease?
IL: So you were lying?
JC: I was speaking of a greater truth.  Believe in love and you won't "die." Sure, you're going to shuffle off the mortal coil, cease to be, ring down the curtain and join the choir invisible...
IL: You really do like Python, don't you?
JC: You're going to kick it, in the vernacular. But there's death and there's Death, and you won't capital-D Die if you believe in love.
IL: We're all very confused now.
JC: Read the parts I said in the Bible.  It's all there.
IL: So you're not going to give us a straight answer on the resurrection?
JC: You wouldn't understand it if I did.  I mean that in the nicest way.