Jesus came to Earth again! What?! Would we recognize Him?

[Belinda]

I sometimes fancy I catch a fleeting glimpse of a new incarnation of goodness. However I must not permit myself this fancy because there is nobody and no mundane event which is uncontaminated with evil however subtly interwoven with goodness, and however well meaning the agent is.

The fancy is often sentimental and wishful thinking, and although it's true that there are good acts there are never absolutely good acts, and there is never anyone who should be God on Earth.

[Steve3007]

Belinda:

I sometimes fancy I catch a fleeting glimpse of a new incarnation of goodness.

You mean in a particular person? Nelson Mandela, or Gandhi or Katie Cutler or someone?

I think you're right to conclude that this ideal of absolute goodness will never be found, but I I think it's also unnecessarily pessimistic sounding to say that goodness is interwoven with evil. I've always tended to think of the concept of "evil" as fundamentally unhelpful and non-constructive. It seems to me to be a conceptual dead-end which tends to discourage further investigation of cause and effect.

To me, the only constructive way to deal with the actions of human beings which we regard as morally wrong is to attempt to look for patterns and causes which might help to prevent such actions in the future and, indeed, might help us to understand why we make such judgements of actions.

[Belinda]

Steve, I tend to see goodness in obscure people not famous people, because I never meet famous people.

I am not going to relinquish the concept of evil because suffering is the mark of evil. I am aware that the word sounds archaic and redolent of Biblical oratory but I don't know any plain everyday word that can stand for 'evil'. This is a pity because evil is often banal and marked by stupidity, or sometimes by devotion to duty, or trust in a dogma.

[Steve3007]

Belinda:

I tend to see goodness in obscure people not famous people, because I never meet famous people.

Yes, I strongly suspected you would and, after writing them, I knew that my first two examples were crass cliches. That's why I threw in Katie Cutler (the young woman who raised a lot of money for that old aged pensioner who was recently mugged.)

Despite my previous post, I agree that the concept of "evil" can be a useful shorthand and I wouldn't want to drop the word altogether. I just think that it comes with some serious caveats that we've both alluded to.

-- Updated Wed Apr 08, 2015 11:24 am to add the following --

On reflection, Katie Cutler is not a good example either, because since presumably neither of us know her personally she's just as much a distant "celebrity" as Gandhi or Mandela. But I can't use an example of someone you or I know personally because, as far as I know, we don't have any such people in common!

[Belinda]

Steve, I confess to watching daytime TV and I saw one good person on the Jeremy Kyle Show. No doubt the producer and Kyle saw this in her too and saved her up for an Easter production. Sorry to sound cynical, because this girl did come across as very good indeed.

That pensioner who was mugged, to whom you referred, was a special case of victim because he was so very cuddly and attractive . Some fat old woman in a care home might not merit £ 300,000.

[Steve3007]

I'm not sure if I'd call him cuddly and attractive, although obviously I've got nothing against him. Eye of the beholder, I guess.

But I think what's clear is that personal stories mean a lot more to us than great, remote, visionary leaders. I guess the makers of programmes like the Jeremy Kyle Show, and many other similar programmes (do you remember "Surprise, Surprise" with Cilla Black?), know that very well!

I find the Katie Cutler story moving because, as far as I can see, her actions appear to have been a simple reflex reaction, from empathy and compassion for a fellow human being, to an injustice. But, as you suggested when you said that the pensioner was cuddly, I guess that empathy is, by its very nature, always selective. I doubt whether anybody can honestly claim that they have equal empathy for all living things. Except perhaps Jesus 2, if she ever shows up.

[Theophane]

The appearance of false Christs is a fulfillment of Scripture. (Matthew 24:24)

[Harbal]

The appearance of false Christs is a fulfillment of Scripture. (Matthew 24:24)

I'm sure we'll all be bearing that in mind while we are keeping our eyes peeled for them.

[Lambert]

The appearance of false Christs is a fulfillment of Scripture. (Matthew 24:24)

Matthew should know, where the chief priests cautioned Pilate that the final impostor would be worse than the first and to make sure that he remains buried for 3 days. Then, when the women arrived to see him there he was already gone and so obviously he was one of those.

[Sy Borg]

Yes, absolutely. That's what I meant. We seem to look for two things in all of Nature: predictability and agency. Predictability means patterns (visual, mathematical or other patterns) and agency means looking for minds controlling everything. I suspect the search for agency in the world stems from the fact that we "grew up" having to spend most of our lives negotiating with or outwitting other conscious creatures. Other animals or other humans.

Given the similar upbringing of other similar creatures, such as other mammals, I suspect they probably see agency in the natural world too. I guess you only have to look at a cat playing to see that they think everything is alive.

That's what I was groping for - patterns and agency. Today our environment is other people so agency is ever more important. No wonder so many people get paranoid - the law of averages suggests that someone probably is out to get you . In such an environment "societal glitches" like people seeing Jesus (or Elvis) around the corner or signs in toast are inevitable.

Which reminds me,I made a cartoon about the second coming too!

[url]file:///f:/a_sites4/free-cartoons/relig_second-coming.jpg[/url]

-- Updated 08 Apr 2015, 18:50 to add the following --

So much for morning cognition ...

[Belinda]

The appearance of false Christs is a fulfillment of Scripture. (Matthew 24:24)

There is one false Christ in Syria and Iraq who tells lies to get certain youngish people to go there to kill and be killed.

[Steve3007]

Greta:

I saw that cartoon when I had a look at your website. Nice elvis.

Theopane:

I'm interested to know: Do you believe that Jesus really will come back to Earth one day? I've gathered that a lot of people do apparently believe that. But I've honestly never managed to convince myself that they really do believe it. It just seems to me such a bizarre idea that I've always suspected that, deep down, everyone realizes it's just a story.

[Sy Borg]

Greta:

I saw that cartoon when I had a look at your website. Nice elvis.

Heh, there were so many so-called Elvis sightings, so much speculation about where he was hiding out, why he faked his death etc I could see parallels - the yearning for his return. Maybe symbolising a yearning for a simpler time past, with both Elvis and Jesus?

[Steve3007]

Yes, I see the parallels. I guess there's also the parallel in that he was arguably destroyed by society.

I guess Don Maclean saw the same parallel with Buddy Holly when he wrote American Pie. That seems to be about the loss of innocence of the early Rock 'n' Roll years symbolized by Buddy Holly's martyrdom and usurpation by Dylan!

[Sy Borg]

Ditto Elton John's Candle in the Wind about Marilyn Monroe.

No wonder they are called "stars" - the biggest become like supervovas, perishing early in an explosion of publicity and gossip that scatters their memes far and wide.