Is It Being A Cringelord To Use Memes That Expose Jesus As a Cringe Lord?

 

I posted this
in an "Ex Jehovah's Witnesses" group.

In reply to that meme, someone said
"Sounds like Edgy Atheist nonsense but okay"

==
In reply, these are my thoughts about that:
==

Think about it.

The meme addresses a very specific component of Christian fundamentalism.
And it's relevant here because it's a thing the JWs have in common all other Christian fundamentalists.

The idea being challenged is this:

That we should look for (and find) an innocent martyr;
to use as a scapegoat.

And to be a scapegoat for what, exactly?
For everything.

The idea is that we can mentally and/or ritually escape accountability for our own personal moral debts (character failings and misdeeds against others), by assigning the responsibility for those to the scapegoat.

That way, when the innocent scapegoat dies holding those on our behalf, as if those are now HIS sins, ...

we can envision (or claim) that those moral debts died with him.

And thus, now, we have a clean slate.
And that slate will remain clean ever-after, no matter what we ever do to do anyone, just as long as we can say someone else is responsible and paid for whatever we did wrong, are doing wrong, and may yet do wrong in the future.

--- Adding further insult, 
the same bullshitters claim that everyone just instinctively knows that this is what we're all here to DO. 

They think anyone who thinks and lives contrary (or casually without) that violently cringe, ritual blood-magic narcissism, ...

must be seen by a "GOD" (and his bestest fans ever) as worthless TRASH;
 to be eternally disposed of
 for the moral "crime" of being ...
NOT as ridiculous "as God intended". 

Christians got this set of ideas from at least four places.

They mixed:

1. The ideas of the Hebrew animal sacrifices (but did not really stay loyal to the meanings of those rituals).

2. The older cult practice of human sacrifice made to appease wrathful deities.

3. The older cult practice of scapegoating sacrificial lambs and goats, with the idea that when IT dies carrying their sins, their sins die with it. So now they have a clean slate again and can quit feeling burdened (or being blamed) for crap they did since the last time they ritually (e)scape-"goat"-ed.

and
4. Clinical Narcissistic Personality Disorder;
-the most common disorder shared among "Bible" writers. 
It absolutely shaped their views and values. 
==

It's cruel and irrational.

If any martyr ever volunteered for such a thing,
then they were guilty of egregious self-abuse, and of enabling other people's irresponsibility. There was a very unhealthy martyr complex in play for that character. 

Gross emotional blackmail is also in play.

"Look at this violent thing you're making me to do myself. 
Now you're obligated to love and worship me for my sacrifice". 

Worse yet, in that story, Jesus went out of his way to manipulate others;
with the INTENT of dying by their hands.

It's the iron age equivalent of "Suicide by Cop".
 [This a point someone else in that same thread had already pointed out. And I'm glad to see this realization spreading]

Worse yet, that same cartoon character then went on to take ZERO responsibility;
- putting the blame entirely on the people he successfully manipulated into it.

Although, we shouldn't be surprised by that. Because the "Jesus" character bluntly declared that he never takes any personal responsibility for what he ever says or does.

John 12:49
I have not spoken on My own, but the Father who sent Me has commanded Me what to say and how to say it.

John 5:19
So Jesus replied, "Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does.

He just thinks, says, and does whatever the voices in his head tell him to. 

And then he postured over those 'lesser people' as someone magnanimous enough to "forgive" them; for what he manipulated them into doing. 

All the while, we're supposed to just...not...notice 
that if he KNEW he would bounce right back to life and gain super-powers as the master of the universe for the rest of time, ...
then he wasn't even TRYING to make a real sacrifice. 
Nor could it be a true "sacrifice" by any meaningful definition of the word. 

Granted, that day's pain would be horrific.
But that's not the thing Christians say we must "accept" as our payment. 

Meanwhile, 
the entire idea of using someone else as a scapegoat for our shitty shit, ... flies directly against the entire notion of personal accountability; upon-which all ethics do and must rest.

It just gets even uglier when those same "recipients" (of that hollow promise) then go around bragging about how GREAT it is(!) 
 that an innocent man was brutally murdered.

What makes that so great?
 
It gave them the chance to be posthumously adopted as his heirs (according to what they've been told),
so they could inherit a fortune they didn't have to earn.

 Legend has it 
it's a fortune so great that they can eventually retire on it;
in absolute luxury. 

When?

When they move into the mansion of their "real" Daddy; 
as his forever-children. 

It also discourages pro-social maturing by making it trivial to do the WORK it takes to keep growing into more and more socially ethical and accountable people. How so? Because the "promise" is that our human-to-human behaviors and virtues aren't what we'll ultimately be judged by.
Worse yet, the entire "Great Commission" is actually a mafia-type Protection Racket.

The "offer" is to protect you 
from what their mysterious and violent BOSS 
will do to you
if you don't join his "totally not a gang". 
["We can talk about your charitable donations to the cause ... later"] 

But it's legal because of religious privilege.

And it will remain legal in most countries
because the "peace loving" mafia lemmings will cry "persecution" if anyone tries to revoke even the slightest bit of that privilege. 

They'll also use their ethically dirty, deeply entrenched, political leverage to assure it.

Beyond that, the most radical of them would get increasingly violent in their domestic-terrorist attempts to re-secure their "God given" privileges. 

Meanwhile, the more passive members would shout "Hey, it's not me doing that violence" (which they have personally funded, politically enabled, and eagerly wait to benefit from);
just as they do now. 
--------
Now, even if you 'see it all differently',
it should finally be evident that it's not fair or reasonable to denigrate or dismiss such memes as something that smacks of being some atheist cringelord.

These are real issues.
The posted meme is merely a short-form of some very carefully thought-out considerations.
If it had been presented (instead) as a few carefully worded paragraphs, ...
none of the people who need to hear it would have even bothered to read it.
It matters.
And while many people will summarily dismiss a challenge presented as a meme,
those same people will also ignore, dismiss, or twist all attempts to present the same issues in a more word-heavy form.

-Anything they can do, some people will do,
to avoid uncomfortable, inconvenient, or ego-bruising truths.

Those are the very same self-protective reflexes that keep most JWs from realizing how problematic their theology really is.

It's how people insulate themselves from the growing they don't want to do.