Recently the spring issue of a Christian "magazine" came to my family's house. It was one of those freebies that are sent through the mail, worth looking at for about five minutes before tossing into the recycle bin. Not surprisingly, the editor had a few words to say about how Christians can be sure of the Resurrection. Her so-called "proofs" involved flowers budding from seeds and butterflies developing from caterpillers. Because life is constantly changing, death is supposedly just another "transition."

Yeah, right. Most freethinkers will probably recognize that this is a comparison of apples and oranges. There is a big difference between potential and/or dormant life and no-longer-functioning life. However, I think many Christians, like this editor, view the Resurrection as a slightly more advanced version of resuscitating some trauma victim. But the concept, properly understood, involved a complete re-creation by God. Not a budding flower or butterfly, but more like a new tree appearing from the stump where the old one had been chopped down, its leaves and branches ground to mulch. To fully grasp this, it must also be understood that most ancient Jews did not believe that consciousness survived the death of the body. They believed that God would "re-create" everyone at the end of time in order to be judged. The apostles' claim was that Jesus was "re-created" early as a vindication of his work and a sign that the end of time was near. Nowdays, one of the few theistic groups who still hold the old beliefs about death and resurrection are the Jehovah's Witnesses, and most Christians call them a cult. Actually, they *are* a cult, but that's another issue.

The Witnesses also deny the doctrine of the Trinity, which is rather interesting, since there is a connection most Christians don't realize. According to the "substitutionary" theory of the Atonement, Jesus' death was necessary to "pay the price" of our sins before God. But if Jesus is supposedly God himself, then can he really die? Leaving aside the notion of him going into something like suspended animation, let's assume (for the sake of argument) that he was really, really dead: consciousness gone and everything as the ancient Jews would have assumed. That still leaves the Father and Holy Spirit out there somewhere. Since all three "persons" of the Trinity are supposed to be part of each other, we now have a scenario where God is two-thirds alive and one-third dead. Is it just me, or is this not making any sense?

Theists say that God can do anything, but as Cardigan pointed out in "God, Ltd.," there are paradoxes inherent in a broad, sweeping concept like omnipotence. Death, as something that takes place in time and space (which God is supposed to be beyond) is pretty much an either/or type of thing. Even those who claim to see the tunnel, the light, and the long-lost relatives call such visions "near-death" experiences.

To sum up, those who would say that Jesus "died for our sins" should throw the Trinity doctrine out the window because if it's true, than the Substitutionary Atonement is meaningless. You can't have it both ways. In 1 Corinthians 3:19 we read, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." That may be so, because from where I sit, a lot of His followers are making fools of themselves by believing inconsistant ideas.