I was influenced, when I was young, by Bertrand Russell’s classic book Why I am not a Christian. Link is below:
Russell acknowledged that Christ was good and wise although he preferred the Buddha and Socrates over him. But Russell also criticized Christ as portrayed in the New Testament. One of the passages containing this criticism is given below:
Then Christ said, “The son of man shall send forth his Angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
And he goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another and it is manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth or it would not occur so often.
Russell goes on to add that the Buddha and Socrates were unperturbed when people would not listen to their doctrine and teachings whereas Jesus had an attitude of indignation. This attitude is not uncommon to preachers but it does somewhat detract from superlative excellence.
All these are good points but my perspective has changed after living life. At my first reading of this book I was a teenager if I remember correctly and I took Russell’s book as gospel. Now at age 59 and having lived through being victimized by society I would regard Jesus’s attitude of indignation as a trait that shows his human side. I would not criticize him for that.
I am not in any way comparing myself with Jesus but having been victimized I cannot judge or condemn myself for the feelings of rage and hatred I felt quite strongly at various times in my life. The portrait of Jesus in the New Testament may be intended to give the message that it is quite all right to feel bad when people ill treat you.
But you need to follow the Christian teachings regardless of how you feel or do not feel. Your feelings are transient. Try not of be enslaved by your feelings.
Swami Vivekananda writes in Practical Vedanta that it is impossible to love God if you cannot – at first – love your fellow man. He makes the point that the Universe is One and by loving mankind we are acting to benefit ourselves.
But I think love is something more than just a transient feeling. I cannot blame myself for feeling what I have felt at various points in my life. But I was able to exercise some sort of control and did not act on the basis of these feelings.
Condemning myself for feeling what I did would have taken me to insanity. What was required (in addition to control) was some method to deal with these feelings. And those methods are available in Buddhist teachings. Specifically Buddhist mindfulness and meditation methods.
Please refer this book below if you are interested in taming your bloodlust:
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