People on X have been saying this thing that Trump never laughs. It’s like that thing they say about him mocking a disabled reporter. That wasn’t true. Or the thing about him saying that if he were elected people wouldn’t need to worry about voting any more. He didn’t say that. Nor did he say he would by “dictator on day one.” He never told Americans to inject bleach or drink fish tank cleaner. The “very fine people” line in South Carolina is a myth. So I shared video of him laughing because those videos exist (just like the videos of him doing the spaz routine). Rational people would say, “Oh, okay, I was wrong.” But most people who say these types of things about Trump are never be wrong, so most came back with, “It was just a chuckle, not a laugh.” I’m not going to get into why that is an absurd rationalization, and I’m not exactly sure why Trump deranges people so, but he certainly does (I think it’s because they are manipulated into being deranged by him—and they want to be deranged). However, I had one person say that my video of Trump laughing at least proves he isn’t Jesus, because Jesus never laughed.
I like unique comments, and I vaguely remembered hearing something about Jesus never laughing. So I Googled it and ran across an article by Kevin Considine, a writer for US Catholic magazine, who, in 2022, said, “There is no evidence in scripture to confirm that Jesus laughed. He gets angry, he weeps, he shows affection, he agonizes over his fate. And the Jesus depicted in Revelation definitely lacks a sense of humor.” But Considine says that’s okay because “Jesus is also God, the author of life and master of the banquet. And this is the same Messiah who has friends, goes to dinner parties, and turns water into wine at a wedding.” And there you go. You don’t have to laugh to be a mighty and good fellow. (I like Jesus, even if he wasn’t real, and, if he was real, even if he was a charlatan.)
Over on Facebook, where Christians who are also Democrats (I know conservatives don’t think that’s possible) are still determined to rationalize the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, even though they should be troubled by it (not just for producers, directors, and performers mocking their religion but for what their mocking intended), they’re sharing this thing by a Baptist preacher who wants to make sure people know that Jesus would have supper with any of the people who were involved in that obnoxious production. I have seen this thing a few times now. I don’t want to make people upset, and that’s the reason I have moderated my irreligious criticisms over the years, but I will return to form for a moment to remind readers that I am unconvinced that Jesus was an actual person, albeit I am sure that he could not have done the things attributed to him, as these things are impossible, so I have good grounds to reject any accounts of his exploits, and I don’t think if he were real he would have had supper with that crew. (It will also give me an opportunity to represent some of my essays from several years ago when my interest in the topic was more keen. See, e.g., Zoroastrianism in Second Temple Judaism and the Christian Satan.)
I do have reason to think that Paul was a historical figure, and, moreover, reason to believe that the figure of Jesus was the work of Paul for the purposes of establishing a salvation cult (see my December 2017 essay Paul: “The gospel I preach is not of human origin.”) Paul did this work thought a process known as Euhemerization, a technique where a mythological figure is worked into history to make it appear as if he were an actual man (see my December 2019 essay The Trick of Euhemerus). This is opposite of deification, where a great man is made into a god. I agree with Richard Carrier that Jesus was likely based on an entity in Jewish angelology who had roots in ancient Middle Eastern and Persian mythologies (see videos here and here). Whatever we might imagine were Jesus’ views on the spectacle we witnessed last Friday at the Olympics, and the aims of it, it is certainly the case that Paul would have identified it as an instance of God turning people against themselves as a consequence of having wandered well of the righteous path with no desire to find their way back to it. Romans 1, which Paul is widely accepted to have authored, is brutal. At the very least, it is difficult to image that Paul would have broken bread with any of the individuals on that stage on Friday night.
Again, I want to remind readers that I am an atheist. Moreover, I see gays and lesbians as deserving of the same rights that I enjoy. I hold many gay and lesbians dear in my life (I want to be careful and not out anybody) and I have my whole life advocated for their movement (see, e.g., this 2007 essay Marriage, Equal Protection, and the Separation of Church and State). I have no ulterior motive in this essay other than engaging in a moment of critique regarding progressive interpretations of the Christian faith, which are deeply flawed, and revealing of an odd denial coming from that camp. While Jesus may have been an actual person, Jesus meek and mild is not the figure one reads about in the New Testament (see Cleansing the Temple: White Colonizer Jesus vs Brown Jesus Meek and Mild). I think Nietzsche had a point when he suggested that this interpretation turned the doctrines into a slave morality. (If that wasn’t exactly his argument, I will claim it.) If I might make one last point on this, as the myth has it, Jesus did not go to his death because he was a nonviolent man. His rampage in the temple indicated the opposite. Jesus went to the cross because it was his purpose to die and give up the ghost and pour God’s love into the world. But love is not unconditional. Neither testament tells us that. Certainly God’s love is not conditional. Hell is worse than annihilation if you think about it; you wouldn’t be in hell for long before you wished for annihilation. Jesus judged. Or at least Paul did. Often quite harshly. Here’s what I mean:
Romans 1 God’s Wrath Against Sinful Humanity (verses 18-32):
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
That last line is particularly interesting. It’s not just those whom Christians watched blaspheme God and Son during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics who deserve death according to Paul. Remember, Leviticus 20:13 states: “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.” Paul also believes that those who approve of those who practice them are worthy of “God’s righteous decree.” I not asking Christians to get caught up in scripture per se, but to see scriptures in terms of what they consistently suggest about the faith, which is that it is heterosexist. Of course, it was written a long time ago and attitudes have changed (not everywhere, obviously). But the old and new testaments are the divinely inspired word of God, at least that’s what we’re told, and the latter submits to the person the path to salvation. Given that this is as direct a line there can be between the Christian and his savior, if the savior or his accepted mouthpiece condemns homosexuality, doesn’t the believer put himself above the authority of God’s word? The would suggest that the absolute were the product of man and that its form and content would be negotiable, or at least alterable. (As it turns out, it’s both.)
It is not for me to answer this question. As I just reminded the reader, I’m an atheist. Always have been. The gene for religious sentiment is absent from my karyotype. But a Christian cannot simply be a person who identifies as such, can he? Anybody can say they are anything. The relevant questions must be these: What does the doctrine say and mean and how do those who subscribe the doctrine act? I am not advocating for Christians to consistently act on scripture. Heavens no. Please don’t. Thankfully, the United States is a secular nation where the doctrine can have—or should have—no purchase in the law (see Rise of the Domestic Clerical Fascist and the Specter of Christian Nationalism; The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom; Submission to God and Secular Society; Neither God nor Gods Give you Liberty; as well as the aforementioned Marriage, Equal Protection, and the Separation of Church and State). This constrains Christians in a way that Islamic states cannot constrain Muslims, with all the hell on earth that makes (Hell on Earth or Earthly Heaven? The Totalitarian Threats Facing the West; Who’s Responsible for Iran’s Theocratic State?). This is what has allowed the good ideas found in the Christian spirit to prevail for all people—and kept the truly bad ideas at bay (see Understanding Christians: The Protective Hand of Nature’s God; Manufacturing Moral Panic Over Christianity; Denying Natural Rights at the Heart of Authoritarian Desire). Is one a zealot? A cafeteria Christian? Or a cultural Christian who respects the framework of the secular republic? Whichever you are, you cannot—at least for truth’s sake should not—rationalize the scriptures you’d enforce, that you have abandoned, or have fallen into disuse with the passage of time. You can certainly argue over interpretation.
freedom and reason 
Someone should write a book about Christian politics and law from Constantine to the Reformation. The ancients and medievals wanted a Christian social order but were still fairly realistic about power and its limits.