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If Jesus in Deed Never Rose from the Dead, Would Christians Be Jewish Instead?

Whether He is Lord, lunatic, or liar, Jesus Christ is still one miraculous (living) legend.

Depending on how you look at it, Christianity is either A) a hokey cult which spun off of Judaism over 2,000 years ago based on a false prophet who was not actually born of a virgin, or B) the continuation of Judaism which is mainly embraced by those who are not actually Jewish, but instead, as the Apostle Paul put it, “grafted in the vine”.

If it weren’t for Jesus raising from the dead three days after His death or at least people believing that He did, then Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern (Orthodox) Christians worldwide would have a completely different religion all together.  Without Jesus actually being the prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament, there would simply be no Christ in Christianity.  We would still have the Old Testament, though.  And we would still be waiting for the actual Messiah to show up.

What if Jesus really wasn’t the Messiah?  Even if He was simply a fictional character who either never existed or was simply a liar, Jesus would still be the most miraculous man to ever walk this Earth.  Why? Because today, nearly 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion population identify themselves with some form of Christianity. According to Wikipedia, Christianity is still the most popular religion of the world, and that’s not even counting the millions in “underground churches” in places like China.  In other words, it would be simply miraculous that a man who never actually raised from the dead could influence so many millions of people for more than two millennia.  It would be a deceptive and tragic miracle, but still it would be a miracle.

Imagine what an impressive hoax that Christianity would be if Jesus was in deed not the Messiah, and most relevantly, if He simply died like any other Jewish man and never came back to life.  Imagine what a miracle Jesus performed if He never even was who He said He was.  I would have the say that Christianity, in that case, would be the biggest waste of time and energy in the history of the world.

Least importantly would be the question proposed in the title: If Jesus never in deed rose from the dead, would we Christians be Jewish instead?

What religion would Americans and Europeans have accepted, if not Christianity? In the event that the Messiah truly has not arrived yet, would the same Judeo-Christian God be the God we would have embraced, along with the practices of Judaism? Who would we worship instead?  Or what would we worship instead?

Without Jesus actually being the Son of God who conquered death and paid for the sins of mankind by dying on the cross, then raising from the dead, it not only means we are without an eternal hope of salvation- it means a lot of people, for over 2,000 years, have been serving a false, yet still miraculous god.

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Currently Uber Popular Status Update Phrases: Forwards About Religion, Politics, and Knowing People

You think email forwards are so 1998?  Think again.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who constantly send email forwards and those who are annoyed by them.  Of course these days, email forwards have morphed themselves into a more relevant version- by showing up as the offender’s status update on Facebook and/or Twitter.

It’s hard to be cynical about status updates that tell you to repost if you know someone who has had some kind of sickness or disease.  There’s nothing funny about that.  Then they are the ones telling you to repost if you believe in God, are a Christian and proud of it, etc.  Next are the ones telling you to repost if you support the military.  Then it starts getting really generic… repost if you have a family member (like a brother or mom or cousin).  Or if you’re proud to be from the South.  Or if you realize that it’s okay not to like President Obama anymore and you want him out of office.  If all else fails, make your status update a forward about gas prices- because man, that’s truly original.

I guess the question is, at what point in the downward spiral of all-encompassing status update forwards is it okay to be annoyed by seeing them?  I can’t be annoyed about finding a cure for anything; that’s a given.  We all want to find a cure for all diseases in the world as we have all been affected by the loss of someone close to us.  So I’m okay with that one.  And I guess I’m not supposed to be annoyed about the “proud to be a Christian” ones, because I’m not ashamed to be a Christian- but I would be ashamed to post “I’m proud to be a Christian and if you are too then you should repost this”  as my status simply because I’m the kind of person who is annoyed by email forwards:  I’m ashamed of forwards, not my beliefs- whether they’re religious, political, or whatever.

But I think it’s okay to be annoyed by the ones about having a cousin.  And the political ones.  And definitely the ones about gas prices.

To do my part, I am sharing my current Facebook status update with everyone:

‎- Please copy and paste this as your status if you know someone, or have heard of someone who knows someone. If you don’t know anyone, or even if you’ve heard of anyone who doesn’t know anyone, then do still copy this. It’s important to spread the message, even if no one knows anything about anyone. Oh, and the hearts. ♥ ♥ ♥ For goodness sake, don’t forget the hearts. ♥ ♥

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dad from day one: Today I Become a Thirty Year Old Dad (Plus, Why You Should Watch “Wheel of Fortune” A Week From Tonight)

Week 22 (5 months).

I’m not the kind of person who doesn’t want people to know my age.  I think it’s because I’m such a chronological person- I love to keep up with dates.  It’s important for me to remember where I was and what I was doing at each stage in my life.  For the first months of Jack’s life, I was 29.  But at 8:37 tonight, I will officially turn 30 years old.

Amidst all the other major age milestones like 16,18, 40, 50, and 60, I vote 30 as the most monumental.  Being thirty means not being seen as a kid anymore- it’s a true milestone of adulthood. It means I have now lived through three decades and have made enough mistakes to learn from them and live wiser accordingly.  Being 30 means having graduated through a decade of “notknowingness” (my 20’s) and being propelled into a life of definite direction.

I don’t know that I would call this a bittersweet moment.  Sure, I’m a deeply nostalgic person so I always miss the past, but I say despite all the blessings so far, it only gets better from here.  I couldn’t have known that 30 would come during such a transitional time in my life.  Aside from the big move and welcoming my first child into this world,  it’s now that my writing career is officially beginning.

Since August 2005, I have been “blogging for free.”  (Though actually, during my 4 months of unemployment I was hired to write a few stories in a publication format, like this story I wrote about a local businessman.)  But this morning, on my 30th birthday, I will be mailing back two contracts to Parents.com up in New York City for two different stories they assigned me to write.  They gave me the titles, now I write the entire bodies.  And how did they find me?  “Dad from day one.”

I thank God for this opportunity.  And at this point, I still haven’t gone public with what all is going on with my secret “dad from day one” spin-off.  But it is why, in case you haven’t noticed, I bought the web domain names “nickshell.com” and “dadfromdayone.com”.  It’s part of an important effort to establish my name as an author, as my name will soon be part of a well-trafficked  byline.  (The reason I originally bought “scenicroutesnapshots.com” is because at the time, in December 2009, “nickshell.com” was already taken- but it recently and conveniently just came available again.)

A few weeks ago on my Facebook wall I asked my friends for their help with naming my upcoming “dad from day one” spin-off.  The winner was Diana Jung Taub, who sent her idea to me privately.  Though the time isn’t prudent now for me to reveal the name of my spin-off, the time is prudent for you to meet her, on national television.  A week from tonight, on April 27th, Diana will be a contestant on the legendary game show, Wheel of Fortune.  So go ahead and check to make sure what channel and what time it comes on in your area.

Coincidentally, her son was born just a few weeks before my son Jack William. Diana’s son’s name is Jake William, and like the genetic miracle which my Jack has encountered, her son also has blonde hair and blue eyes, despite the fact that both parents have dark brown hair.

Her son, Jake, again.  Not Jack.

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dad from day one: One Year of Consistent “Daddy Blogging” Later…

Week 21 (4 months).

What can happen in just a year’s time?  Here’s a bit of a candid, behind the scenes look at both the history and the future of “dad from day one”.

It was April 13th, 2010 that I not only officially announced to the world that my wife and I were expecting a baby, but also the day I published the very first post (“She’s Having a Baby”) for my brand new series, “dad from day one”.  A year ago, I wasn’t even aware of the term for what I was doing, which now I know is “daddy blogging”.  Perceiving that there was a shortage of pregnancy and baby advice from a dad’s perspective out there on the Internet at that time, I decided to be the first to dad in history to publish at least one weekly post for my daddy blog, beginning with the knowledge of the pregnancy.  After a few months, once I had established my presence in the daddy blogging world, my wife sent an email to the editor of two major magazines for expecting parents, recommending them to read my blog.  One of these magazines expressed interest; the other, we never heard anything back from.

The interested magazine company was American Baby, who decided to feature “dad from day one” in their November 2010 issue, which hit magazine stands in October.  A few weeks later, my son Jack was born.  Two weeks after that, I worked my last day for my employer of five years in Nashville so that I could move my wife and newborn to my hometown in Alabama so we can raise our son near family.  For the next four months, we lived off of savings and eventually had to give ourselves a deadline of three weeks for me to find a job, or we would be forced to move back to Nashville where my employer agreed to take me back- despite all the money, effort, energy, and planning it took to move from Nashville.

We left it in God’s hands as I left my readers in suspense from March 16th until March 24th, as I too was in suspense regarding the future of where my family would live.  It was no coincidence or bout of good luck; but instead, a miracle: God provided a marketing and sales job at one of the world’s largest playground equipment companies in the world.  Plus, the day after that, I was offered the job (which I obviously took and now enjoy so much), I received an email confirmation from a major publishing company that I had been selected for a regular part-time writing job that will take “dad from day one” to the next level, like a “spin-off”.  In a few weeks, I will be ready to go into details about it…

But I will say this: As of yesterday, Parents.com (the website for Parents magazine) assigned me my first huge “non-blog” writing assignment, completely separate from my “big surprise”.  I will be writing a Father’s Day article for them and I am extremely excited about it!  Soon after, I was approached by a writer who is doing a Mother’s Day article for Parents.com who will be using some of my input for her writing.  Can I just say this?  I love Parents.com! And my wife and I were already subscribing to their magazine before they discovered me.  This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The irony of writing this one year anniversary of consistent weekly daddy blogging is that it’s in this post that I must announce that starting today, “dad from day one” is changing to a monthly format, and later into a quarterly format in January 2012. With all the writing I will be doing (as part of my “big surprise”), I have to re-prioritize my few free hours each week.  That means less new posts here in general on Scenic Route Snapshots, but the new parenting material I will be writing will be seen by more than the thousand people a day who read my site here.  I’m movin’ on up, and you, my dear readers are going with me!

So what can happen in a year?  All of the above.  The good, the bad, the suspenseful.  And thank God for it all.

Thank you, my faithful readers- even if you just recently tuned in.  You’re all a part of this.  Especially those of you who know me personally and help me out with “dad from day one” topics when I ask you on facebook.  You encourage me. And despite already being a positive kind of a guy by nature, encouragement is still a good thing.

Bonus:

A couple of months ago, I briefly mentioned that Jack will be getting a new cousin- my sister and her husband are having their first child.  They recently found out it’s a girl!  My sister’s due date is July 2nd, which means that her daughter and Jack will be in the same school grade.  Here’s the most recent picture of her:

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dad from day one: Jack Meets Max the Cockapoo (AKA “Falkor the Luck Dragon” from The Neverending Story)

Week 20 (4 months).

Fun Word of the Day-

Cockapoo: A  cross breed dog, bred for the first time in the United States, by crossing an American Cocker Spaniel or English Cocker Spaniel and a poodle (in most cases the miniature poodle or toy poodle), or by breeding cockapoo to cockapoo.  (Thanks Wikipedia!)

I have always been curious about the day Jack would finally meet his first dog. Up until this point, Jack has been introduced to several “dog like” creatures, including stuffed animal dolls of E.T. and Gizmo, but never an actual living canine.  We spent the past weekend with some good friends in Nashville who happen to own the coolest dog I have ever met.  Admittedly, I’m not a dog person.

But Max the Cockapoo is the equivalent of Falkor the Luck Dragon (that flying dog thing from The Neverending Story).  And that is a very good thing.  In fact, one of life’s biggest disappointments for me, as a kid in the ’80’s, was accepting the fact that there truly is no such thing as Luck Dragons.  Max the Cockapoo doesn’t fly through the air, but he is one of the few dogs I have met who truly accepts me as I am and who doesn’t smell bad.  He is one chillaxed dog. Therefore, he is totally my speed.

Naturally I had envisioned Jack and Max instantly becoming big buddies, since in essence, Max is the dog equivalent of Jack.  I imagined Jack smiling real big whenever Max would walk up to him and I even expected Max and Jack to take naps together.  But this bromance didn’t unfold that way, in reality.  It’s not that they didn’t get along.  It’s that Jack didn’t realize that Max was a living dog.  Instead, I believe, Jack thought Max was the shag carpet rug he’s used to lying down on in our living room at home.  To Jack, Max was simply a moving shag carpet rug.

But being the classy dog he is, Max didn’t take it personally.  However, Max still did his dogly duty of looking after Jack.  When Jack would cry, Max would rush over and sniff him.  Of course, we humans fed and changed Jack’s diapers accordingly, but Max’s habit of sniffing Jack was his way of treating him like the youngest pup in the litter.  Even when Jack pulled Max’s face fur, Max was cool about it.

It was by observing Jack and Max together that I taught myself that dogs don’t actually smell “bad things”.  Instead, every smell is simply just another interesting smell.  So the couple of times that Jack passed gas and Max hurried to come smell it, Max was simply getting a different form of a doggie treat.  At least Jack could give Max that much.  And it made great entertainment for us humans to watch.

For now, Max the Cockapoo is a white shag carpet in Jack’s eyes.  But one day, Jack will understand the difference between humans, rugs, and dogs.  And this inevitable friendship will occur.  Jack will befriend the canine equivalent of himself and the two of them will be Joe Cool buddies, at last.