I sometimes use the term for children in a joking manner.
If you're a large male, especially if you sport a beard, you will probably experience that smaller children react to you with shyness or fear quite often. I have seen children crying when a young men entered their car. The small kid hiding behind their mother's legs is a stereotype born from real-life experiences.
But the behavior often completely changes when that male person is accompanied by another child that isn't shy around them (e.g., their daughter). Apparently, there's a deep-rooted instinct in children that tells them "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".
> Apparently, there's a deep-rooted instinct in children that tells them "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".
Not just in children, I'm pretty sure that everybody's "threat detector" perceives "male" and "male with a child" completely differently.
I think you're partially correct about the "bad person wouldn't have a child" stereotype, but it's also about the context. Some bad people will have children, but in their presence are likely to be risk-averse and prioritize peace and safety of their offspring. A father away from their child can OTOH get aggressive.
I see your male walking with fluffy dog, and raise you a male with a fluffy dog picking up the poop after the dog. I’m tall, dress in black, and have a black beard (so potentially scary), and after such a maneuver it seems I become the first choice to ask for help.
There is a quote from LOTR that has always stuck with me:
“I thought Fangorn was dangerous.
'Dangerous!' cried Gandalf. 'And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord. And Aragorn is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers, Gimli son of Glóin; for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion. Certainly the forest of Fangorn is perilous — not least to those that are too ready with their axes; and Fangorn himself, he is perilous too; yet he is wise and kindly nonetheless.”
The children correctly assess you as "dangerous". They then assess whether you are wise and kindly, and find you so, making a good ally or friend. Merely wise and kindly people do not make as good of an ally or friend.
Indeed, specifically breed plays a large role, since it reflects what values are important for the owner. A fighting dog is a clear red flag, even a common German Shepherd will make a person look somewhat more threatening.
A Golden Retriever will on the other hand project friendliness. There are small dog breeds like Yorkshire which are rather aggressive, but in my perception they wouldn't increase the threat perception.
These are of course stereotypes, they won't be true every time, but are IMHO useful as a rule of thumb.
How does this translate to health benefits and downsides? Is there a lower incidence of prostate cancer in fathers compared to childless men?
I'm asking since there's an extreme difference in prostate cancer prevalence tied to race (in the US at least) and some attribute this to testosterone level differences.
The differences are however smaller than in your study.
I'm constantly telling my single male friends that they need one good photo of themselves with unrelated wome(a)n on any dating app/profile. It's subconscious.
Not just being a father, but simply spending a lot of time around children causes men's testosterone levels to drop precipitously, so men with children probably are objectively less aggressive in that sense as well.
The persons child can be seen as an interface to them. The same thing happens when people meet a person with their dog - they often interact with the dog first, as it is the easier interface than telling directly to an unknown human being.
It's not just kids. When I'm out on the street (in my slightly dodgy neighborhood) with my kids, people are always nice. Shopkeepers will chat, women will make eye contact and smile.
When it's just me people aren't as open, women will clutch their handbags, get nervous when I suddenly cross the street toward them etc.
My first ever memory, at least in very subjective way, is of my late uncle leaning over the stroller. He didn't eve sport full beard, just proper black mustache, this was early 80s. I recall existential fear from that combination and of course I went bananas full power.
Now as a father I know that kids don't form permanent memories until cca 2.5 years but this one is so vivid and detailed, and the whole setup must have been stroller otherwise whole memory doesn't make sense. I keep telling myself its not some invented memory or dream, but I'lll never know 100% truth.
Yeah small kids don't like that stuff on strangers, maybe it moves the threat assessment into more wild territory.
That 2.5 year thing sounds like the 5 second memory thing for goldfish. That is to say, it isn't true.
The human brain is the most complex structure we know about, there is no way we can know for certain when the first memories form. There are many references to unborn babys knowing certain types of music their mother listened to while pregnant, positive associations with food that their mother ate while pregnant, crying with a particular accent etc.
People very occasionally retain earlier memories, especially of really strong experiences. Childhood amnesia isn't 100% consistent.
It's also possible you were in a stroller despite being a bit older; this is something I see a lot. A kid in a stroller can be transported faster and more consistently than one walking.
Also very useful for long walking/bus trips (endurance isn't there yet) or bad weather or still when the kid naps a bit... our twin stroller was good for 30kg for each kid.
I remember being mortally afraid of Santa Claus when I was a little kid, entirely due to his beard. My dad and my grandpa were the only bearded men I trusted. I don't know how old I was, though.
I do, however, know for certain that I have memories from the age of 1-2 years old, which I've been able to date by relaying these memories to older family members who also remember them and having them confirm when they happened. (For example, I remember passing a Christmas gift to my great grandmother, when I would have been 1.5 years old; she died not long after. And I remember the layout of the first apartment I ever lived in, which we left shortly before my 1st birthday.)
But I went through a severely traumatic experience at 3-4 years old that I believe caused me to retain older memories. I remember going through a conscious effort to retain as many memories as I could from before the event by repeatedly recalling them as frequently as I could, and although this probably caused them to become less accurate over time, I still remember them well enough that other people can recognize them and confirm them (the ones that involved other people, anyway).
> "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".
If only the moms at the playground had the same instinct when I pull up in a minivan with my children. Yet for some reason I’m still “stranger danger” to them.
My 2 yo son and I walked into a playground in SF once and I remember these two moms (or nannies) giving me the nastiest look. I started to wonder if they could even see my son (I had recently re-watched The Sixth Sense).
I'm curious since the article doesn't mention it. What has replaced Judas Goats nowadays?
It seems there would still be the same problem of leading the sheeps to slaughter?
With pens and corrals, the animals can be moved naturally from one point to another, following the one ahead of them. There are specific ways to design facilities to move animals through slaughterhouses naturally.
In some places they're still being used though.
Temple Grandin is the woman who got her PhD related to animal husbandry despite having autism then designed the humane method of leading cows to slaughter …her method is required in California but not all states are required to use it. Google the movie “Temple Grandin” it’s a cool movie
It's a quirky story, but I wonder if there are any human-life examples. Like getting invited to a special meeting where everyone gets donuts and coffee, then gets laid off?
Social media influencers who are paid to lead crows to buy products/services by acting like they are customers, despite never spending money themselves come to mind.
One important point is that the judas goat doesn't know they're a judas goat, so as long the influencer just thinks they're living a rockin' life, but they were put in that position by someone who really knows what's going on, then I think this works.
> One important point is that the judas goat doesn't know they're a judas goat
They likely don’t grasp the causality but I guess after 4-5 trips like this they know it’s not going to be an afternoon stroll for anyone other than themselves.
Makes me think of someone who actually benefits from a MLM scheme and gets to interact with others who don’t. In a way also an influencer, but of a different kind than the social media one.
Sure. Sometimes instigators are seeded throughout a crowd (especially crowd of protesters) to get them to shout certain things or steer the protest in a certain way/direction.
Humans also have vestiges of herd behaviour. For example, if one person decides to cross the intersection on a red light (especially pedestrian) then more people are likely to follow even if they would wait for green light otherwise.
Its a horror in a different way. Because after this - your society is dead. The children may recover the innosence, but can you thrust any adult of your group ever again after that? Its the same effect that the survivor of mao, stalin and the likes share. You just know to much about humanity and the other to ever trust them again.
Betrayal was rife during WW2, it was a time where you couldn't trust anyone anymore. There's multiple stories about that in Maus, where people betray their own people and family to gain favors with the Nazis (there's some essays about that if you can't be bothered to read the graphic novel, e.g. here https://brandeis.digication.com/rkoehler/conflict ).
That is, the Nazis gave a Judas some food and other favors if they could find and report jews in hiding.
Specifically, from the U.S. Holocaust museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-cou... . I recently read the Eichmann trial coverage by Arendt, and she goes into this horrible situation in some depth. Getting people to betray and persecute each other for your benefit is probably the most essential definition of evil we have.
In my younger times I used to go to a lot of livestock auctions with the family. There was always a goat just casually standing by next to the egress gate of the arena to lead these panicked animals out, walk back in, and they would always follow it out
The wikipedia article links to San Clemente Island [0]
I mention because I am constantly amazed at the area of land dedicated to the US Military. San Clemente Island is a 34 km long 147 km2 and shows traces of human activity dating back 10,000 years. Currently it's used as a live firing range and has a small naval installation on it.
The Marines regularly fire missiles from camp Pendleton, over the 5 freeway, into the island.
Pendleton is more interesting than San Clemente Island though, in my opinion. It's miles and miles of beautiful prime real estate right on the Southern California coast, used for nothing but practicing amphibious landings, helicopter touch and goes, and firing missiles into the hillsides. You'd think the military could do it in a place that isn't nestled right next to the nation's second biggest metropolitan area.
Federal land is ‘in trust for American citizens in perpetuity’.
That means that in different years different generations will need or want different uses for the land that may seem counter intuitive, but there’s a method to the madness
The EPA does not currently require 100% hazmat clean up of any offshore properties due to cost prohibitive clean up and lack of shipping and storage of contaminated topsoil
…so islands are used for live fire ranges and given varying degrees of warm fuzzy land designations like ‘wild life refuge’ because they are not usually fit for human inhabitants and it costs money the more upkeep/stewardship an area needs …ie the most basic upkeep is fire suppression
But because it’s federal land any entity that can challenge successfully for an activity permit can arrange ‘incidental takes’ and do permitted activities
Unfortunately well-meaning eco non profits use their status to do ‘discreet land conveyance’ under the auspices of ‘creating wild life corridors’ …
it’s a quick and dirty way of getting land owners who wouldn’t normally want to sell to the government but will sell to an eco non profit, who simply conveys the land back to the government anyway, while parcel swapping like trading cards to make ‘wild life corridors’ that often don’t work as intended.
The government can’t currently afford the stewardship cost of all the lands that gets conveyed back, so counter intuitive uses are in effect to help pay
…that’s how an island that can seem pristine can become a wild life refuge with degrees of hazmat-contaminated topsoil that gets target practice bombing on Tuesdays
As for the historical artifacts, historical artifacts are managed via Section 106 of permitting, there are protocols of prioritizing artifacts so that we save what we can but build over if needed, otherwise we’d never get anything done if every burial ground was forbidden to use in perpetuity
What usually makes headlines is when certain tribes complain about the Section 106 permitting, especially if it’s a national utility such as a fuel pipeline. National utilities get higher priority that allows for a ‘streamlined’ version of Section 106 permitting, much to the chagrin of people who don’t know or understand or use their citizen rights, responsibilities, and privileges to learn or change the process.
As for military bases they are huge economic boosters for towns that have them, ergo when their mission changes, or when a different platform gets a higher priority and the bases close some towns try to fund raise to keep them open, but it’s rarely successful more than a few years.
The bases may sit in various stages of disrepair for years before being refurbished for a different mission by the federal government or conveyed back to state/local government and re-purposed.
"The Judas goat is usually sterilized, outfitted with a transmitter, painted in red and then released." In humans there are evolved, instinctual mamalian brains that still act, react, and decide under some influence of amygdala hijack. Men and women, Men and children. Lone wolf men are still scary, and others are weary.
It’s funny, Judas is used as an adjective in other contexts too, like a Judas gate, Judas hole or Judas window, the last often abbreviated as just “Judas”. Are there others?
Then there was that short story by George R. R. Martin, “The Way of Cross and Dragon".
I had never heard of these and had to look them up:
"Judas gate": A small door or gate (still large enough to pass through, I think) set into a larger door or gate (as in a factory).
"Judas door": A small hole in a door through which a person can spy without being seen from the other side. Or sometimes also the same as the Judas gate.
A minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term's objectionable characteristics.
...snip...
Alliteration can be combined with metrical equivalence, as in the pseudo-blasphemous "Judas Priest", substituted for the blasphemous use of "Jesus Christ"
I think the analogy would be that Jesus really was magic, but Judas was blind to it and living in a material state of mind where taking the 30 pieces of silver made more sense than continuing to follow some weirdo. If Judas was a true believer he would have realized that the wine and hookers he could buy with that would be less than useless compared to what he would get in heaven.
My reading of it is that Judas was a "true believer" in the sense that he came to doubt that Jesus was actually the Messiah, because so much of what Jesus did contradicted the popular ideal of what the Messiah represented. From Judas' point of view he was sending a heretic and cult leader to their justly deserved end.
But the whole narrative was written after the fact to justify Christian claims of being the legitimate heirs to God's covenant and condemn the Jews as a people for "betraying Jesus" so expecting any degree of nuance beyond "Satan made him do it because Jews are greedy" is likely expecting too much.
This doesn’t explain him becoming overcome with guilt, returning the money, and hanging himself after the fact.
And the entire message of the New Testament is to offer the Jews salvation and explain how their old ways were wrong. The New Testament explicitly condemns absolutely nobody, instead offers salvation to absolutely everybody, which the only condition being that they ask for it. This is in stark contrast to the old testament, in which only the Jews would be saved and all else are condemned.
Not to mention the New Testament explicitly states there is no Jew or Gentile in the body of Christ. The distinction is entirely abolished. And Jesus calls Judas a friend, and says he could avoid this all if he wanted to but he must do it to fulfill the scriptures.
All in all it seems like you are reaching for a reason to say the New Testament is anti-Jew, when it is truly not against anyone (except perhaps those unwilling to love God and their neighbor).
This isn't something I made up, nor is it even controversial[0]. Antisemitism was a common cultural and political element of the early Church and its establishment of self-identity as separate from Judaism, and the belief (sometimes codified into Church doctrine) that the Jews were cursed by God for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, and the villification of Judas as the symbol of that curse is almost as old as the Church itself[1].
Certainly you will be able to find people saying anything if you look. But you can't present a wiki page where some guy "asserted" something was true and use that to justify your claim that it "isn't even controversial".
People will use anything to find a reason to dislike other people. You can be a part of perpetuating those malcontentments, or you can look at the entire rest of the New Testament which at every turn denounces condemnation and emphasizes love above all else.
If what Solzhenitsyn said about the line between good and evil is true, then it’s fully plausible that Judas could be a true believer but still betray Jesus. Same with Peter’s denial.
>Which makes the name a bit of a misnomer - Judas knew what he was doing.
Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , like you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts that the person was a God and at the same time this Gods would want me to believe based only on that old,censored book that contradicts itself with reality and morality 100 times. I would have censored this story too if I was there.
> you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts
The COVID years have inoculated me against that line of thinking (pun intended). If people would deny that the bodies piling up in hospitals are conclusive evidence of something more than "just a flu" then I can totally imagine an individual seeing a miracle and arguing "dunno, maybe he was just a little dead". And I've definitely seen people take money to argue in favor of policies they know to be false, harmful, or both.
I'm also atheist, but I don't have a problem with the Judas story. Firstly, I don't think that the miracles happened as depicted, so a real-life Judas may have thought "I bet he switched the wine and water flasks" or "I know there's just submerged rocks under that water".
Alternatively, if he truly believed in Jesus as a god, then he might think "how could they kill a god?" and would want the silver as he'd expect it to be funny when the Romans couldn't kill him.
It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.
I can imagine Judas hearing someone recounting a miracle and he'd be shaking his head and thinking "I was there, that's not what happened at all".
> It's unlikely that miracles happened as described in biblical texts due to the length of time between the events and the recording of them. I'd also expect people to exaggerate or even fabricate stories to boost other narratives, so there's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding them.
I don't think that does justice to the historical weight of the New Testament accounts. We have multiple eye witness accounts of the events surrounding Jesus' life, recorded within a few decades of the events themselves and emerging from an oral tradition that placed a premium on verifiable accuracy. The early Church writings we have (for example Eusebius) make it clear how concerned the first Christians were to ensure the historical reliability of their teaching, and how strongly they opposed the spreading of stories that were of doubtful veracity. In fact, the New Testament itself repeatedly tells its original readers to verify its accounts by asking other eye witnesses (e.g. Luke 1, 1 Corinthians 15).
Of course He did, it's recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels the He exorcised demons quite frequently, and He even empowered others to exorcise demons. Indeed people exorcise demons in His name to this day. Just because the gospel of John doesn't mention Him exorcising demons doesn't mean there's any sort of discrepancy - he simply didn't feel a need to include it because he was more focused on the nature of Jesus than His specific actions.
As far as I am aware there are no contradictions on the Bible. People often point to the sorts of cases claiming a contradiction, when really it is two authors describing different aspects of a thing that are all simultaneously true.
More apropos would be the accounting of Judas's death: Matthew describes him as hanging himself, whereas Acts says he burst open in a field. However this isn't a contradiction either: it may simply be the case that he hung himself in a field, then over time grew bloated and burst open.
My point is that out of all the inconsistencies and bizarreness of various bits of the bible, I find the Judas story itself to be plausible and I don't have a problem with it. I don't think the miracles happened as described and most likely have mundane explanations for them (c.f. magic tricks where many audience members can believe in disappearing elephants), but it's likely that Jesus did exist as there's good evidence that he existed as a historical figure (e.g. evidence of his brother's grave).
I think that was the point of the person you're replying to. Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.
I have heard a story that Judas didn't actually betray Jesus willingly. It had to happen this way and Judas just played his role. Makes the story more tragic and less black and white.
> Either Jesus performed actual miracles, but then the Judas story doesn't make sense; or Jesus was an ordinary mortal, but then Christianity doesn't make sense.
The assumption here is that people will unconditionally believe and follow a person who performs miracles. But human beliefs and actions are more complex than that. People regularly refuse the evidence of their own senses, or that of knowledgeable authorities, if it contradicts their prior world view. They also regularly act contrary to better knowledge if they think it's in their interest.
So I think it's perfectly plausible that Judas experienced all of Jesus' miracles, but out of a mix of personal disappointment (Jesus not living up to Judas' expectations) and greed decided to betray him nevertheless.
If the Jesus miracles happened as described, then it's possible that Judas may have considered Jesus to be unkillable (who can kill a god?) and thus would accept the silver as he could then laugh at the romans' attempts to kill the unkillable - that would certainly explain his regret when Jesus does die for a while. Alternatively, maybe Judas was told to play along with his betrayer role by Jesus as it was part of the divine plan.
There's too many alternative explanations to say that either the miracles were false xor the Judas story was false - I don't see that they're necessarily connected.
> I mean miracles like reviving a person that was dead for days, curing blind people, extremely ill people
I would consider those miracles to have the most plausible explanations. There's any number of medical conditions that can make a person appear to be dead for days and that's the reason that coffins were sometimes fitted with a bell that could be operated by the "dead body" in case they'd been buried alive after being mistaken for dead.
Blindness can be caused by neurological conditions and presumably be cured by a person encountering someone that they believe to be a representation of their god. The problem is that medical knowledge at that time was limited to say the least, so even assuming that the reports are 100% accurate, there's still a lot of uncertainty as to the conditions that were cured and indeed if they were permanent cures.
Personally, I don't think it likely that we have accurate representations of the miracles described in the bible, so it's somewhat meaningless to dissect the stories that were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down (biblical scholars may be able to show that modern bible descriptions have been changed from the original source documents during translation etc. as well).
Have you read the Bible? The walk on water is explicitly described as being very far from the shore on a lake they were all very familiar with, and further it is written that Peter walked on water as well when he had faith, but when his faith faltered he began to sink. That is not how rocks work.
I'm sure I read a theory somewhere that Judas was actually the true savior. We are told Jesus suffered for our sins, but his suffering was momentary, whereas Judas's suffering in hell is infinite, without being compensated by any posthumous veneration (quite the opposite - eternal vilification). Jesus's execution was just a sideshow by comparison - a distraction from the true sacrifice.
One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.
After all we have doubters and people who betray for money today in all walks of life.
What's even more noteworthy about miracles is the report that some of those who had the miracle applied to, who were healed even some of them didn't believe or even say thanks! The point of the miracle maybe was not really to make people believe... it's a mystery to me.
>> Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism ,
> One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.
The story? Certainly!
Evidence of that specific god? Not at all (it's actually the opposite).
Let me put it this way:
You get told a story about how someone, $LEADER, had millions of people following his proposal to get rich, hanging on his every word, believing his every utterance, because he claimed to have the people's interest at heart.
Believable? Maybe.
Then you get told that one guy from $LEADER's inner circle, who saw every thing that $LEADER did, and heard everything that $LEADER said, stopped believing that $LEADER was, in actual fact, capable of doing what he said he could do.
Believable? Sure, much more than before.
But .. that still doesn't provide any evidence that $LEADER was, in fact, who he claimed to be, nor that what he claimed was true, nor that he believed what he claimed to be true.
In fact, it's just the opposite - we now have more reason to believe the story, but disbelieve the claims of $LEADER.
Replace $LEADER with SBF and the context with cryptocurrencies.
>One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity.
Not for me, if someone that was in the inner circle and witness so much did not believe then expecting me to believe this stories is too much. Anyway other issue I have are the contradictions with the reality and that the God morality is incompatible with my morality so even if he existed 100% I would not worship him.
>In his imaginary conversation with God, Fry says he would tell him: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right.
>“It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
>Pressed by Byrne over how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, Fry says: “I would say: ‘bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’
>“Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him?! What kind of god would do that?”
If you believe all the miracles are true, you'd see Satan entering Judas to tempt him as kind of a big deal. The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.
> The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.
Isn't one of the main points in Christianity that people have free will and so Satan wouldn't be entering and controlling Judas, but would more likely be telling him falsehoods and persuading him to sell Jesus out? i.e. a normal man can always overcome Satan by choosing God, even if it's just right at the end of their life.
You're supposed to have free will, but nobody is immune to the temptations of sin and at some point even the holiest men fail. Jesus forgives all if you ask.
The abolition of slavery was almost entirely a Christian effort. So yes civilization my right be "more advanced" without Christianity, but it wouldn't be a civilization I'd want to be in.
>If you believe all the miracles are true, you'd see Satan entering Judas to tempt him as kind of a big deal. The kind of thing a normal man couldn't really overcome.
So Judas was setup by God? Give him a test that he will fail?
I also hate the story where God allows Satan to kill some extremly good person children to test him and later to reward him the "good" God gives the man other children( f that God, he kills your children, you pass the test and he is so heartless or impotent to restore your children - an average human would not be such cruel)
It's almost as if the whole thing is just stories based on the knowledge and values of the vocal population at the time - women and children being property, mixing crops or fabric being an offense, pigs being off-limits because the parasites killed (depending on your local variation of abrahamism), etc.
My "favorite" part of this is the section of the Old Testament/Torah about "sexual immorality" - if a man violates an unbetrothed woman, the punishment is a fee to the father and marriage to the poor girl. If betrothed, both man and woman is stoned to death (unless it was outside the city), as the woman being guilty for not screaming loud enough to get others to stop the act. Oh, and the reason you shouldn't take your fathers wife is to not "uncover your fathers nakedness" - nothing to do with the woman itself. (Deutoronomy)
The Judas story marks the biblical transition from the Bad Drunk god that was violent, arbitrary, and demanding of human sacrifice (eg. Isaac, Jesus) into the Feudal Manor Lord god that bestowed the divine right of kings. Many a Roman empoeror or medieval European king gained a throne through the betrayal and sacrifice of others following that model and it was justifiable because it had divine precedent.
>So Judas was setup by God? Give him a test that he will fail?
Yes. My theology is rusty, but that is supposed to be what sin is. Nobody is free from it, everybody is tempted and fails.
Judas' great crime wasn't selling Jesus for forty silver, Peter is supposed to have committed the same crime by thrice denying Jesus (that never made sense to me, but it's what I was told). Peter realized what he had done, repented, and returned to Jesus while Judas realized what he had done and let his guilt drive him to suicide. He "betrayed" Jesus' forgiveness.
Like many distinctive parts of the Gospels, the Judas betrayal is included in the story because it lends credence to the idea that Jesus is fulfilling the Hebrew Messianic prophecies from David et al.
The New Testament is pretty open about the fact that what Jesus claimed can be pretty hard to believe. The other disciples doubted Jesus too for a very long time. Yet eventually, what they heard and experienced convinced them enough that they preferred to be put to death rather than deny its truth. What makes you think Judas is more trustworthy than them?
(In fact, the Bible's willingness to talk about the weaknesses of its protagonists makes it all the more believable to me. If the early church leaders had "censored" the story to fit their own interests, why did they leave in all that embarrassing stuff about themselves?)
If you're a large male, especially if you sport a beard, you will probably experience that smaller children react to you with shyness or fear quite often. I have seen children crying when a young men entered their car. The small kid hiding behind their mother's legs is a stereotype born from real-life experiences.
But the behavior often completely changes when that male person is accompanied by another child that isn't shy around them (e.g., their daughter). Apparently, there's a deep-rooted instinct in children that tells them "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".