Sunday, January 27, 2013

Modern Day Jesus?

After reading the excerpt on Magic and Religion I began to think about something that I'm sure is quite controversial, so no offense is intended, although I doubt anything will be interpreted as such. But when they were discussing all of the magical rituals that the priests do and the power they portray to the people, I thought that everything they said was odd and far fetched. That got me thinking about how modern day society would interpret a Christ figure. I'm not talking about the second coming of Christ, but lets say there was no Christianity, do y'all think people would believe someone who came and said they were the son of God? Personally, I think that our society would never believe such a claim, and would be more inclined to doubt and find a reason to disprove his power. In today's world we are so concerned with the truth that we would never be able to believe in a modern day equivalent to Jesus. I know it is a little off topic, but I drew the connection thinking about how rediculous these rituals sounded, and how many other western thinkers would probably not trust anything based on magic or things not backed by science and reason. Anyway, how do you think the world would react to someone claiming to have magical powers, would they have a profound influence like Jesus, or be shunned from society?

1 comment:

Madeline Davis said...

I think this occurs pretty often in our society. Not everyone steps out and claims to be the Messiah, but I feel like we have several people stepping forth and claiming to have some kind of special ability, such as clairvoyance or paranormal connection with the dead. While many people in the general public do believe in their claims, others rely on science and reason and disqualify the possibilities of these phenomena. As for a Christ figure emerging, I think most of the population (with the exception of a few religious fanatics) would ridicule that person for insanity.
I feel like as a society, we have become so reliant on facts and science that we have a hard time believing a lot of things unless legitimate proof is spelled out for us.