Was Judas Really That Bad?

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Purple Knight
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Was Judas Really That Bad?

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Post by Purple Knight »

Question for debate: Was Judas Iscariot really that bad?

I don't hate Judas. Nothing about his (admittedly not fleshed-out) character bothers me. I could have been his friend even after the betrayal. That doesn't mean I agree with anyone betraying anyone, and perhaps this is me being messed-up, but nothing Judas did really bothers me to the point I'd cut ties if I knew him.

First I ask myself why he was stealing from Jesus's group. There are basically two unforgivably horrible things you can do in that time where you'd need large sums of money: Drinking, and gambling. I don't think Judas probably did either. Signs point to him being a bit of a fatty so maybe he overindulged in food, but coming from my perspective (I see welfare recipients whip out an EBT card for grocery carts full of what I consider indulgences like $10 tiny little bottles of pomegranate juice and snobby cheeses) that's not really that bad. Reverse two thousand years and maybe the guy just wanted to have meat every day. Maybe the disciples ate mostly grass or often went hungry. Morally right? No. Understandable? To me, definitely. I can't condemn someone for stealing if it's for food.

And what did he do with the blood money he got? He bought a field. He didn't drink or gamble away that money (those would be dealbreakers for me). He bought something that he could invest in that would be useful later. Add some seeds and a couple servants or slaves to a field and you've got a farm. A farm is not a bad thing to want. That's the kind of greed I don't have a problem with. Yes, it was paid for by a life, but lives were routinely bought and sold in those times to pay for whatever you wanted; there was legalised slavery.

No matter how I look at this, I can't really get my mind round to a perspective that paints Judas as a terrible person. And not that this excuses it, but let's be honest, if Jesus was really a wanted man but went about to populated areas to teach, he was going to be caught eventually anyway. From the perspective of Judas, he's probably thinking, it'll happen sooner or later so I might as well have the silver. He might have even been uncomfortable with being a disciple at that point, and wanting it to be over. Or he might have been legitimately scared to be following around a wanted criminal all day, and acting primarily from that. Perhaps he was unsure. If we're unsure, we do tend to default to the law.

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Re: Was Judas Really That Bad?

Post #101

Post by Purple Knight »

Clownboat wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 9:44 amFollowers feelings for Craig do not change his bad behavior into good behavior.
I actually think they do. I think morality absolutely does make the difference between an action that we would normally assess as wrong, and an instance in which they were not wrong. Craig's morality is superior. We correctly assess this in the case of anyone who went against Nazis or (sometimes) Romans.

So-and-So was a morally correct revolutionary and thus, they are right and the law is wrong. Every moral person makes this assessment in the case of Nazis.

But my question is, how do I bloody know that, right now, this instant, today?

I'm terrified I'll see a BLM riot and a BLM revolutionary hurt someone. Because what do I do? Are these revolutionaries morally correct? Does that give them the right to break the law? Probably yes, but honestly I have no way to know. I must make a guess, and since I'm evil, it's very likely that whatever I guess will be wrong.

Just as the game is rigged in favour of Jesus, it is rigged against me and against Judas, and that's just how morality works, and ought to work, even for the areligious.

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Re: Was Judas Really That Bad?

Post #102

Post by Difflugia »

Purple Knight wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:14 pmThey're a lot like libertarians in that way and I have extensive experience researching libertarianism, since a libertarian's only argument is, "lol go read ignoramus you obviously don't understand X."
Snort!

"Who is John Galt? he asked with an affectation of superiority."
Purple Knight wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:14 pmWhat bothers me especially is how easily everyone assesses that Judas was wrong, particularly since I believe there are morally correct revolutionaries among us today, and I am very well supposed to ignore when I think the law is wrong and follow it anyway...
Image
Purple Knight wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:14 pmBut increasingly I believe there are no such actions, when the going rate is to essentially put in, "by the way, he was evil" to completely reverse the morality of what we would normally assess based on actions. Increasingly I believe that an evil person can only do evil deeds, and a good person can only do good deeds, and the deeds themselves don't matter.
I'd look at it the other way; merely asserting (as John does) that a good action is evil can't make it evil. Equally true, mere assertion that an evil action is good doesn't make it good. Convincing someone to donate to the poor is good in itself. Just saying (without evidence, since the author of John wasn't omniscient) that Judas wanted to steal the money does nothing but "poison the well." It's just like claiming that lawful merchants were breaking some unspecified Jewish law to retroactively justify a physical assault on them.

Did Jesus actually do good things or did his followers just retcon the bad things he did? Did Judas do bad things or did the Jesus fanbois just retcon the good things he did?
My pronouns are he, him, and his.

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Re: Was Judas Really That Bad?

Post #103

Post by Purple Knight »

Difflugia wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:31 pm"Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison."
The author doesn't mean that. Or, I should say, the author doesn't mean to apply that to everyone, or every law. He can't possibly. Every last one of us has our pet peeves where we think the law is wrong, but we don't just go out and break it. Or maybe he means a government that punishes people without them having broken laws. I know he can't possibly mean break laws you think are wrong, though, because if everyone did that, it would be chaos, and he well knows that.
Difflugia wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:31 pmI'd look at it the other way; merely asserting (as John does) that a good action is evil can't make it evil.
Someone's assertions do in fact cause things and people to be good. I can prove this by addressing every alternative.

Good doesn't require universal consensus since good exists and some people disagree. Murder is wrong despite the objections of one, or indeed many. If Nazis had won, that wouldn't make them moral, therefore, it isn't a numbers game or majority vote, either.

If good is good despite anyone's assertions, and is, for lack of a better way to describe it, inscribed on the fabric of the universe, then good is unknowable. Good also can't be relative to the time and place and nobody gets an exception. If it's inscribed on the fabric of the universe that the age of consent is 18, then it's 18 and someone having sex with a (former) 18-year-old in an airplane that flies through a time zone into a place where it isn't midnight yet is evil. Seem silly? Well it is. Obviously some things are relative, but a morality that simply is, would go against this entirely.

The only thing left is that assertions do in fact count. But whose? It's not majority, so some people must indeed be special. I've observed people being moral and what I've found is that the people with the greatest morality in fact create morality. Not everyone can do this, but some can. I don't know how people get to be this moral, what causes it, but I do know it is true from both logic (debunking every alternative) and observation.
Difflugia wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:31 pmDid Jesus actually do good things or did his followers just retcon the bad things he did? Did Judas do bad things or did the Jesus fanbois just retcon the good things he did?
I don't think it matters. And it's this way in secular morality, too. There are no evil actions, just evil people.

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