The Whole Jesus Thing

How is Jesus dieing for us the 'ultimate gift'?Was not Jesus God? So God killed himself so we could go to heven?How could God kill himself? Why does he need to apease himself with sacrifice, let alone his own sacrifice?Heck, why does he need apeasing at all? Couldn't god just make everyone 'saved', why does he need to kill himself for it?I saw a websit once that had the quote:God loves us so much that he sent himself to be killed to apease himself so he woulden't have to burn us all in hell. If we don't belive this, he will still burn us up in hell because he loves us so much.Can anyone explain the mechanics, and/or logic about how salvation is supposed to work?

No christians or Creos wanna give this topic a go?I think it may yeild interesting results.

Sounds like a great Idea!I have allways been curious as to why god desired sacrifice at all. At the end of the flood it states that the smell of burning meat was pleasing to him (god). Anyone out there know what the whole idea surrounding this is, so we can then explore the jesus myth further?

Thought I would revive this thread with a bit of a rephrase.Simply put, why was it thought by ancient peoples, including the Isrealits, that their gods liked burnt meat? Where did the concept come from? Any ideas guesses?And as for the christians, I would really like to understand why the christian god was so interested in burnt lambs and such?

Ummmm... ya...

Hey angel, thanks for the reply. It's been ages since I have been active in this topic, good to see people are still interested in the question. How does a man's brutal torture and execution take away our sins? If this is god we are dealing with, im sure he could come up with a less grusome way. I thought he was god made flesh? Isn't that the point of the story? Are you suggesting that Jesus and god were different enteties all together?If so, how does this affect traditional christian theology? Why did he need to die, if not to apease an angry diety? Furthermore, if Jesus was this diety incarnate, then esentialy we have a diety killing himself to apease himself. So... which old law says there has to be a human sacrifice to keep god happy? this is god we are talking about, why the hell would he care if we kill a goat and burn it, much less murder a man and string him up.What is the point of sacrifice to god? Why did he want the Hebrews to kill sheep, and why did he want the romans to kill a man?

I guess my whole problem is the idea that god needs a methodology at all. A god dosn't need rules. He needs no particular methods to do anything.So saying that he HAD to kill jesus to remove sin is stupid. He dosn't HAVE to do anything. He's omnipotent he can do anything he wants. So the idea that we even need a reedemer is absurd.Furthermore, why would blood be an atonemnet for sin? What does god gain from spilled blood that removes his anger or wrath tword the sinner?Again its a question of methodology, a real god does not need to take steps.

So then whats the point of him doing anything symbolic on earth if he's not gonna reveal his purpose?He may as well not exist if we will never understand his meaning or desires. Then, for all practical intents and purposes, he is arbitrary and irelevant. But Jesus's death was meaningless. God was gonna see him in heaven anyway, why would it be tragic in any way? There is nothing tragic about the story, for tragedy something must be lost, nothing was lost in jesus death so why should I feel greatfull for what was done "for me".Personaly I don't want to think anyone was sent to his death for my sake, and would I have been asked I would have said no thank you. For Christianity to come around after the fact and ask me to be greatfull for some poor guy god killed 2000 years ago, I think is insulting.Im not going to be greatfull for a good mans death, especialy when it accomplished nothing and could have been avoided. Jesus death was ultimetly unecissary and meaningless. God proved no point with it rather than he is bloodthirsty.Many inocents have died worse deaths than Jesus in the times before and since his existance. His death rings no more special to me than all the other wrongfull murders in the name of ideology. They are not a testament to gods grace, but rather a condemnation of the human condition.This message has been edited by Yaro, 11-08-2004 04:01 PM

* DUPLICATE POST *This message has been edited by Yaro, 11-08-2004 03:58 PM

Sorry, I wasn't saying that christianity was stupid, only that the reason and/or justification was ... well... dumb.I mean, it dosn't make sense. It may have been to harsh a word. My apologies.I will do more on this topic later. Gotta finish up here at work.

Ya, I have allways been curious. I proposed it before, but I think the trhead fizzled in light of more popular ones.I asked about animal sacrifice in the OT and related it to the Jesus myth. It was very interesting to me that the bible mentions how the scent of burning flesh is pleasing to god etc.I never understood how someone could take their sins and transgressions put them into a lamb and kill it. That makes no sense to me.But as you noted, it's defiinetly another topic alltogether which I would be pleased to follow should anyone propose it.

Well, I wasn't always a non-believer. At one point it all seemed to make sense, but then, it slowly started coming apart in my head to the point I just didn't get it anymore.I used to be a sort of Christian agnostic. Thinking, "well maybe there is a god, and Jesus lived, but if it's true or not ain't for me to figure out". It wasn't until a good friend of mine became a born again Christian that I ran into the conflict that brought me to this website to begin with He was telling me how I was "lost" and all these things. Basically he wanted to convert me, I guess his pastor put him up to the project from what he told me latter on.Anyway, our friendship was strained by the event with me moving much farther away to the point of pretty much atheism. we are still friends, though we rarely talk about religion anymore. Or politics for that matter So I do understand the Christian doctrine, but I am more interested in the rationalization of the doctrine. How can it maintain it's structure under the heavy weight of scrutiny. The thing is, we have a god who's making arbitrary rules for no purpose whatsoever. The rules he puts in place don't need to be there by shear virtue of gods omnipotence. This means that the wages of sin don't have to equal death.Sin doesn't have to exist. Death doesn't have to exist. And I don't see why we get the blame when god is the one who invented the stuff in the first place!Where does god ever show guilt in the bible over being so foolish as to leave us in the garden with the tree?At least Einstine and Oppenheimer expressed deep remorse and guilt about bringing us the bomb. God didn't so much as bat an eye when he wiped the slate clean with the flood.We were never grateful for the atomic bomb, why should we be grateful to a careless god who senselessly has, yet another person, murdered for his satisfaction?We didn't listen after the flood, why should we listen after Jesus? Maybe god should take a hint and realize that maybe we don't want a diety to add to the violence of our world.If Jesus is divine however, his death is neither tragic, or poignant, it's a slap in the face to us mortals.God cannot die. I know Angel subscribes to a non-trinitarian theology, but most Christian doctrine holds the Augustinian concept of a trinity as ... well... as gospel If this is the case then we have three immortals. God, a spirit, and Jesus. Jesus dying was basically god playing blackface to us humans; a sad mockery of our predicament, considering that god doesn't truly die, nor does he truly suffer.Jesus knew he would be back home after the third act. All his bloodshed was for naught, because by his very nature he was eternal. We, humanity and god, lost absolutely nothing through Jesus' death and thus didn't really gain anything from it either. Yes, I went to a missionary run evangelical Junior High School. We had a bible class every day as our standard curriculum. On Fridays we would have chapel where a preacher would come and give a sermon.We read the bible in it's entirety. At least I did.At one point I was a classics scholar in college where I also read and studied the entire KJV bible as well as the individual books of the OT in koine Greek.

Heheh, salvation 2.0 ehh Ya, I understand the idea. It still dosn't make sense to me tho. One of the strict rules you were supposed to follow for example was sacrifice of animals etc. Why on earth would God want a dead lamb?It's just silly.It seems, for a god that loves us so much, he is going thrugh such trouble to make things complicated. If he took our punishment for us, then certainly that's all it took. We are all forgiven period. No need to "accept Jesus", his death already dealt with that.Furthermore, why bother turning into a man at all?Just snap your fingers and wipe away sins. Easy no? See, I even came up with a better solution! So, if I ran out onto the highway and got run over by a truck, did I kill myself or the truck?God killd himself, he knew full well he was coming down to die. He killd himself.If I shoot myself in the head, did I kill myself or the bullet?Get it? Apease in this context means something like: Satisfies his anger. He didn't sacrifice anything tho, he's God!Sacrifice implies that something is lost in the process, God didn't lose anything. He knew going up to the cross he was gonna rise again. Where is the sacrifice?It's like superman, you know hes gonna win anyway, so why bother with all the extra drama? This implies that Jesus was A) not god or B) god talking to himself.
In case of A I have no argument, Jesus was not god. In case of B you got God PRETENDING to talk to himself and PRETENDING to be scared etc. So, why judgement? Why punishment?Removing the whole "accept Jesus" thing means we all go to heaven right? I mean, that was the purpose of the sacrfice, to wash it all away.So why the extra clause?

Then what do you make of these verses?This may have some cross-over with the "What's to be taken litteraly", but I remember you mentioning that you belive God has a phisical apearance. He has a nose, eyes, body, etc.I can only interpret this verse to mean that god indeed enjoyd the smell of the burning flesh.As far as human sacrifice, Moses conducted a massive human sacrifce to the Lord at His bidding.Here is a verse where Moses is divying up the loot amongst his followers and god. (BTW, this is a very bloody raid in teh book of Numbers where mosess kills hundreds of people, forces young girls into marrige, and others into slavery) 32 people sacrificed to god.There it is folks, mentiond along with the beasts, the gold, etc. all offerd to god after he sanctiond the bloody raid.What is your take on these sacrifices?

Har har har har hardi har har.Actually, it's more like this:1) invisible 1-legged purple iguanadons from space exist!2) You can't refute me unless you prove their non-existance!True... but useless.God is the same way, we can pull dozens of things out of our ass and say it exists and make the same argument as above. It's useless.This is because there is no evidence of it's evistance in the first place. There is no presciednt or exidence from which to even atempt a refutation.This message has been edited by Yaro, 11-11-2004 01:17 PM