Easter Sunday and Remembrance Sunday

Easter Sunday and Remembrance Sunday have two things in common, and one of them is that they are Sundays.

The other is that they make us feel better about death.

Both are linked to a human pattern of thought wants to attribute purpose to a person dying. "Jesus died for our sins." "Soldiers died to keep us free." To which I have to say, "Sentimental tosh. They were killed." 

Or, since the grammar checker advises against the use of the passive voice, "Someone killed them". 

Or, to remove more vagueness, it wasn't "someone" who killed them, it was another man (on the whole). 

"A soldier killed them."

...or a Government employee of some kind, whatever term you choose -- a man (or a woman) employed or co-erced to behave in a way that served policies that had been formed by other men in authority. Pilate's power came from the ruling Roman empire. Rommel and Himmler and other generals derived their authority from Hitler's Nazi regime.

So let's rephrase it yet again:

"The Empire of Rome killed Jesus."

"The Nazi party killed Corporal Jones and his mates."

And both can be boiled down even further into:

"Political power and greed killed them."

I don't believe for more than half a minute that either group of victims was intending to "die for us". 

The notions of sacrifice that are attached to Easter and Remembrance Sunday have been put there by other people, and that's because humans don't like guilt and regret and loss, and they do like a story to have a purpose; the same way we like fiction better than news broadcasts, and conspiracy theories better than science. Humans like over-simplification - the "elevator pitch".

Still, if we must have a story and a purpose, then let's respect Jesus (if he existed) and the war dead (who definitely did) for having been regarded as a notable threat to a policy or a system. 

But consider also the possibility that the lofty notions of sacrifice or deity have been attached to their deaths afterwards, by those who survived, to make them (us) feel better.