My latest observation about Christianity is in reference to how the story of one of Jesus' more famous miracles reveals just how big a dick Jesus really would had to have been.
Let's set out the story as it's usually framed. Jesus has just finished finished feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish (another story for another time) when he decides he's going to spend some time alone praying, and to get rid of his disciples he sends them on ahead, ostensibly to Gennesaret, just around the shore of the Sea of Galilee. There arises an immense storm, however, causing the disciples to fear for their lives as they struggle to row across the lake. In fact, they only manage to get about three and half miles before they see Jesus walking across the water towards them. Peter asks if it's Jesus, and tells Jesus to ask him to walk on water too. Jesus calls Peter to him and Peter steps out of the boat and also starts walking on the water, but he soon loses faith and starts to sink, whereby Jesus reaches out his hand and pulls him up above the water again. When they get into the boat the weather immediately turns docile and they continue on to Gennesaret.
If you'd like to read the original accounts of this "event", the story is in three gospels, Matthew14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52 and John 6:16-21, and I have conveniently included these passages here.
While you're reading the originals, keep in mind that supposedly this is god incarnate. There are writers who contend that this entire episode was designed and executed by Jesus just to teach his apostles a lesson about faith.
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Matthew 14:22-33
And straightway he constrained the disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before him unto the other side, till he should send the multitudes away. And after he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain apart to pray: and when even was come, he was there alone.
But the boat was now in the midst of the sea, distressed by the waves; for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night he came unto them, walking upon the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost; and they cried out for fear.
But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto the upon the waters. And he said, Come. And Peter went down from the boat, and walked upon the waters to come to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and took hold of him, and saith unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
And when they were gone up into the boat, the wind ceased. And they that were in the boat worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.
And when they had crossed over, they came to the land, unto Gennesaret.
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Mark 6:45-52
And straightway he constrained his disciples to enter into the boat, and to go before [him] unto the other side to Bethsaida, while he himself sendeth the multitude away. And after he had taken leave of them, he departed into the mountain to pray.
And when even was come, the boat was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land.
And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking on the sea; and he would have passed by them: but they, when they saw him walking on the sea, supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw him, and were troubled. But he straightway spake with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
And he went up unto them into the boat; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves; for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
And when they had crossed over, they came to the land unto Gennesaret, and moored to the shore.
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John 6:16-21
And when evening came, his disciples went down unto the sea; and they entered into a boat, and were going over the sea unto Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
And the sea was rising by reason of a great wind that blew.
When therefore they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they behold Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the boat: and they were afraid.
But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid.
They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat: and straightway the boat was at the land whither they were going.
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Regardless of the way you interpret this story Jesus comes off as a dick.
Let's just examine this story a little closer, shall we? First of all, let's try to establish a timeline for this event.
The apostles set out at the start of the evening. To determine about what time this would be we would have to know the latitude and time of year so you can plot sunrise and sunset. If we define evening to be the time between just before sundown, or late afternoon, until bedtime then we can get a rough idea of the timeline of this miracle.
If they set out to cross the lake in the evening then they likely would have left before sundown. The latest they could have left in March would have been 6:00 p.m., and in April it would have been 7:20 p.m.. As always, the text becomes confusing. It says they started out in the evening and that it was dark when they were seen by Jesus.
Jesus was praying until the evening when he came down from the mountain and to the shore and saw the peril that his disciples were in. This should indicate that there was enough light for Jesus to see the disciples, however, the text in John 6:17 indicates that it was dark when Jesus saw them, so we can't derive any particular time for this event except that it happened after sundown, so after 6:00 p.m. at the earliest.
Finally, we have to determine when it was that Jesus got to the apostles by walking on the water. The "fourth watch of the night" is when Jesus arrived at the boat the apostles were in. If the "fourth watch of the night" begins at three a.m. and lasts for three hours then Jesus got to the boat sometime between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m..
At most they were to travel 13 miles, but John 6:19 indicates that they had only traveled 3.1 to 4.4 miles by the time Jesus got to them. If you assume that there were two of them rowing at any one time (the passage doesn't indicate any sail and it does refer to them rowing) then it is reasonable to assume that they could maintain a speed of 1 mph even in rough waters. The earliest that Jesus could have come upon them was 3:00 a.m.. This gives them a travel time window minimum of 7 hours, 40 minutes and a maximum of 9 hours.
Okay, the math is done. What does it mean?
If we take the most generous timeline then it took 7 hours and 40 minutes for the apostles to row 4.4 miles, or about a half a mile an hour. We don't know that type of boat that was used but most small rowboats can travel 3 to 4 mph, or a little faster than walking speed, so half a mile per hour indicates a pretty severe storm the apostles were battling.
Jesus saw this. His reaction? Despite the grandiose story being told Jesus actually didn't do anything that we know of for hours.
The average walking speed of a human is 2.2 to 3.4 mph, so it shouldn't have taken Jesus more than 2 hours to reach the apostles. If you are as gracious as you can be towards the timeline, then the earliest that Jesus could have set out for the apostles is 1:00 a.m..
What took him so long? Since it was still evening when Jesus came down from the mountain and evening ends at midnight (at the latest), the best we can do for Jesus is that he spent an hour knowing that his apostles were stuck battling a life threatening storm in the middle of the Sea of Galilee valiantly trying to obey his orders and did nothing to respond to it. If you really don't like Jesus then you can make the story even worse by just going with the other side of the timeline, that the apostles left by 6:00 p.m. and Jesus arrived at their boat at 6:00 a.m.. If you also assume that Jesus came down from the mountain shortly after 6:00 p.m., then the jerk waited 10 hours to do anything about the peril his disciples were in!
What a dick!
To draw a parallel to most other bible stories, what's written on the page and what people think is written on the page are completely different.
So, here's the story framed another way (actually, just including ALL of the story).
Jesus, being God (but man, but still God, but still man...) knew exactly how this whole episode would play out (omniscience) and knew that there was a fierce storm that would blow in after he ordered them to set out to cross the lake. He also knew that they would be unable to successfully navigate the waters once the storm started, and cutting the speed that the apostles were able to row to an eighth of what it should be indicates an extremely strong storm, one that would certainly be life threatening. Still, he sent them. He gave them no justification for sending them on ahead and there's no indication that they asked for any, just blindly obeying their master.
They left somewhere between 6:00 and 7:20 p.m. and Jesus was still on the mountain praying to and praising himself. Being God, Jesus knew that he apostles were in mortal danger but he gave them no advance warning or assistance. Indeed, he knowingly sent them into peril!
Even worse, he allowed them to suffer, needlessly, for hours while he did nothing.
Now comes the point, moral or lesson that is claimed to be the reason for this passage.
Jesus, you see, was trying to teach a lesson about faith. There you go.
You may have a been a Christian who was thinking that the story did seem to paint Jesus as a dick and were looking for the reason that theologians have come up with to justify his actions in this story. You proudly state that the apostles didn't show enough faith to face the storm in Jesus' name and that is why they failed. You point to the side story of Peter walking on water as an act that encapsulates the whole episode, since Peter had enough faith to actually walk on water, but he quickly lost his faith when fear intervened. You must ALWAYS have faith, or you may die needlessly. There is no situation so dire or dangerous that your faith won't magically fix everything, if you have enough...
Okay, let's examine this point.
The apostles were supposed to have enough faith that they could actually use Jesus' powers for themselves, and they lacked this faith which is what put them in peril. Peter actually had enough faith but he lost it because he got scared that he was violating the laws of physics.
Problem is you can't get that from the narrative. You see, the apostles were exhibiting GREAT faith. I'm no fisherman or sailor, but I feel pretty confident that any rational person in the circumstances that the apostles found themselves in would have given up and headed for shore long before the third watch. It's difficult to conceive of experienced sailors like Peter, Andrew, James and John not wanting to pull into a port during a storm of such magnitude and it is fair to assume that the reason that they didn't was because they had faith that their god would watch over them and keep them safe.
Now one could argue that this is exactly what their god does since they actually are safe, but nowhere in the text does this god take credit for keeping them safe until Jesus arrives, and then instead of making it clear that he'd been keeping them safe he instead chides their lack of faith. This seems to be a common theme in the Christian universe, that no matter how much faith one exhibits (we can never know how much faith one actually has but can discern some amount of commitment from their actions) it is never enough to actually get the job done, and Jesus needs to come and do it for us. Often he makes a big deal out of it, sleeping through storms that make his disciples sick, and when they have the balls to wake him up he sets everything "right" as though it's beneath him, rebukes everyone for not being Jesus and then goes back to worshiping himself.
So, we have all the apostles exhibiting great amounts of faith, and instead of their god recognizing this and rewarding their faith, it behaves like it doesn't really exist and either maintains their hazardous surroundings or does nothing to help. Either way, considering that this is how the faith of his own disciples is rewarded it is amazing to me that people would fall for it.
So how about Peter? What's the deal with him? He didn't exhibit any more faith about the storm than any of the other apostles, didn't even have faith that a person who could actually walk on water was Jesus or that Jesus would be coming out to rescue them (again). He didn't stride off the boat to meet Jesus, he asked Jesus to invite him to walk on the water. Just jumping over the side and walking would show great faith, but asking for an invitation shows just the opposite. So how was he rewarded?
He got to walk on water.
How did that turn out? Well, for some reason, after exhibiting enough faith to actually walk on water, he lost it all because he got scared. I've noticed that, with most people, when someone is actually successful at the task they're trying that it actually increases their confidence. Peter was already a competent walker (we assume) so I wouldn't expect him to fall down when he started to walk, and he didn't. Strangely enough, after being rewarded with miraculous power for NOT showing faith, Peter lost it all for no apparent reason just when he was actually performing a miracle. I have a hard time believing that Peter had enough faith to walk on water when he'd never done it before and wasn't even sure it was Jesus, but once he was sure it was Jesus and that both Jesus and Peter were walking on water it was time to reject what was happening and somehow lose this faith. The story isn't credible (I know, I'm being redundant).
So let's do a quick recap.
Jesus knowingly sends his closest friends into mortal danger and then watches them suffer in fear without doing anything for hours. When he does do something he doesn't just reward their faith by granting them safety, he showboats (again) and chews them out. Then he grants to Peter the power to walk on water and blames Peter when he falls in.
Jesus is a dick, and the only lesson about faith that one could take away from this story is that it's like all biblical concepts. Faith can do anything, but no matter how much you have it will only act on a random basis, and it's your fault if it doesn't act on your behalf.
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