That Old Favourite: "What Would Jesus Do?"

we've all heard it, usually in response to something somebody thinks we shouldn't be doing. 

"would jesus do it? probably not - would he condemn me if i were to do it? probably not. Matt 7:1 ? so why are you judging me?"

I think its a good expression to use and apply. Hehe.

Using the "what would Jesus do" works against all religionists who try to force their opinions and rules on those of us who are just not interested, but if we use it as Tim says, as a kind of guide for our own actions, we would not go far wong if we can get an answer. The problem often is that 21st century moral dilemmas are not that easy to answer sometimes.

If we live by the Golden Rule as far as our fellow humans are concerned, we will do the least harm.

 Amen!

I wish the JWs would base their teachings around Jesus. Things would be so much more pleasant!

... and less complicated.

Tim: I wish the JWs would base their teachings around Jesus. Things would be so much more pleasant!

true!

You mean, like, raise the dead and feed multitides with just a couple fish?  Take away the sin of the world?  Start a church?  Not sure that's a rational goal...

You mean, like, raise the dead and feed multitides with just a couple fish?  Take away the sin of the world?  Start a church? -No

Not sure that's a rational goal... -Surly that's not a rational goal!

Somebody saw my car the other day and told me that Jesus would be driving a Prius.

I try not to use it when in Synagogue.

It's pretty hard for me to keep quiet when I hear this coming form uber-witlesses; I want to scream "I know what he would do, destroy the borganization, literature and then you!"

UGH 

Jesus is not here now! He did many things when he was on earth that raised a few eyebrows, so we cannot honestly say what he would do today, especially if it is a matter of conscience. (Oops I forgot witlesses aren't suppose to own one of those, the borganization takes it from you.)

Somebody saw my car the other day and told me that Jesus would be driving a Prius.

Our Lord is not a pretentious a-hole, so the Prius is impossible.

What would Jesus do?  What would Jesus do if confronted by endless rules?  From what I read about Jesus (and that is not accurate because it was written 40 years after the fact), he seems to have plenty of tolerance for people doing different things.  Jesus would not worry about a person just because they chose homosexuality or because they are somewhat dishonest.  Instead, Jesus would work on stimulating those people to think for themselves.  Dishonest people, when trained to become value creators, will find that creating wealth pays better than extorting it.  Jesus understood that, and realized that it takes lots of time to develop free thinking in people.

What Jesus didn't tolerate was corruption within the organization.  While people that were dishonest were accepted, those who intentionally suppressed others were not.  Jesus had zero tolerance for organizational corruption, particularly among religions that were supposed to be teaching the truth.  Endless rules were not part of the game for Jesus.  Fact is, Jesus would pick grains of wheat on the Sabbath, despite that technically it was "work".  And Jesus had zero tolerance for the scams going on within the religion.

I could think of quite a few things Jesus would not tolerate within the witlesses.  First, anyone that abides by the thinking of the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger would be turned away from it--Jesus would not blindly obey them.  Jesus would bash the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger for forcing its members to obey it at all costs.  Mandatory field circus, pious-sneering, shaming people for not attending all the boasting sessions, making comments in the words of the paragraph when they should be able to pick apart the material, repeating the same death threat as "imminent" for more than 135 years, and constantly changing the meanings of words would not be tolerated.  And I would imagine Jesus would have a few things to say about requiring everyone in field circus to conform exactly to standards of everything from dress to style of walking.

Additionally, I don't think Jesus would want everyone doing exactly as Jesus did.  True, Jesus didn't smoke (because smoking is such a waste of resources, not because it's immoral).  I would also imagine there are a lot of other things Jesus never did--eating kiwi fruit, for instance--simply because he never left the middle East.  So, the washtowel is going to say that anyone born outside the Middle East or that travels outside the Middle East is as good as dead because Jesus never did it?  Jesus rode donkeys--so we should all give up planes and cars and bicycles, and start riding donkeys?  Jesus never saw America, so no one else should?  What about the Far East, Europe (north of Turkey), Australia, New Zealand, or parts of Africa outside Egypt?  Jesus would never have gone to Nigeria (because his means of transportation wouldn't get him that far), so what should people already living there (remember, they are currently having more Washtowel studies per baptized witless than other countries) going to do?

I can think of many other things Jesus would never have done simply because he didn't have the circumstances.  Like looking things up in a library (which never existed), let alone the Internet.  Like getting in a car (which didn't exist in those days).  Like seeing skyscrapers that are more than 400 meters tall (they didn't exist).  Like using the Metric system as most of the world has today (the American system, let alone the Metric system, were not around and widely used in those days).  Like seeing planets beyond Saturn.  Like using a printer to print documents, or MP3 files to record music.

That whole "What would Jesus do" is thus rubbish--unless they wish to go back 2,000 years and confine operations to the Middle East.

What's so great about Jesus?  Did he even attempt to overturn the sexist, racist, homophobic attitudes of his time? No, and he was rude to his Mum too!

Sure, I could pick and choose some of the worthwhile things he said but take him as a whole and in context and he really wasn't all that.