Did Jesus Really Exist?

(*Shakes his ass to Gorillaz's 'Dare'*)

CNN chronicled a recent suit brought up in an Italian court. The suit, filed by Luigi Cascioli, is against a local priest who claimed in a church bulletin that "Jesus did indeed exist." Casciolli's suit claims that the Catholic church, via explicitly implicating the Rev. Enrico Righi, 1) fraudulently deceived people and 2) made financial gains by attributing a false name to someone.

Of course that someone is Jesus Christ or, as Cascioli believes, John of "some place in Palestine."

Interesting.

Cascioli wants to "denounce the abuse that the Catholic Church commits by availing itself of its prestige in order to inculcate...facts that are really just inventions."

...fascinating. While I don't think the facts (or some or most of them....at least a few) that the Catholic Church spews out are inventions, I'm behind the guy's intentions. You know, somewhat. Hell, all the way. The church sucks and does nothing for me (so I would imagine God might not find it altogether pleasing).

"We aren't optimistic -- unless the Madonna makes a miracle, but I don't think that will happen," Cascioli joked.

I can always get behind a good Madonna joke.

"Cascioli says he is merely going through the necessary legal steps in Italy so he can ultimately take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, where he intends to pursue the case against the church for 'religious racism.'"

Now this, this is the crux of the article to me. The church as an institution is corrupt and decrepit, yet still wields amazing power over the masses. I would love to see the church held accountable for the uncountable abuses it perverts against those that love it. And singling out Christ as the lie that the church has perpetuated in order to abuse is an incredible way of seeking such accountability. Of course, I doubt the guy has much of a chance and sadly the focus (if there is any) on the trial will be about the fellow's denyng the existence of Jesus and not the atrocities of the church.

Though, perhaps a much more interesting way of changing the church's faults would be to reform it. But I'm sure that's just much too complicated for anyone to consider.

"I was born against Christ and God," he said. "I'm doing it (the complaint) now because I should do it before I die."

The quotation above confused me for a moment. The article spends almost the entirety of its length focusing on Cascioli's words against the church as an institution. He even goes so far as to say he has no problem with Christians professing their faith. And yet he ultimately equates the church and God, instead of continuing the previous statements about attacking the corruption of the church.

Of course, as I think of it, God in the eyes of an atheist is nothing more than a creation of man. Therefore the logic of the Cascioli's final words doesn't fail. In fact, it makes perfect sense. Cascioli equates the man-driven church as an evil, deceiving institution because it reaps money from those convinced to believe in Christ. And similarly, he equates God and man, the former being a construction of the latter to serve as the reason for all that happens in an inexplicable world. And thus, God is evil for deceiving everyone about himself.

The bastard.

Well, if you were an atheist.