The Whole Jesus Thing

Historically, meat sacrifice served a number of practical and social purposes. Most societies ate most of the sacrificial meat, leaving only a small part for the god(s). As meat was not easily obtained at the time, slaughering and eating a farm-raised animal would require some special justification, such as 'the gods demand it'. Also, the sacrifice usually involved the whole community, thus helping to reinforce social bonds, enhance the status of the family that offered the sacrificial animal, etc.It's not difficult to see how such practices, reflected in the Torah and the OT ,were used as a basis and justification for Christian theology.Other than that , the proposition that the Christian God requires sacrifice so badly as to send Himself to be sacrificed, smacks, to me, of reverse theological engineering, making up principles on-the-fly to fit the contradictory recorded events.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Isn't the fact that the vast majority of people on this planet don't believe in Jesus, proof that that the patch didn't work ?What does that say about the patch supplier ?I suppose I could understand it from Microsoft, but..God ....?!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi EasyPriest and welcome, In other words, God had himself killed, to appease himself and stop himself from killing us. How does that even make sense? When you say he 'died in a sense' I presume you mean in the physical sense. In my eyes, this is a bit of a cop out. If Jesus was God, then, for all we know, he didn't suffer at all. It could all have been a theatrical performance. What is the point of a sacrifice if nothing is lost ? To me, this is absurd : God sacrificed piece of himself (but not really), so he could seem to abide by the requirements that he imposed on Himself ??!!Also your statement above seems to imply that evil and sin would be cleansed from this world by means of this sacrifice. This clearly hasn't happened.So, the way I see it, the only point of the whole Jesus saga is that we don't get instantly killed by God when we sin (like in the O.T), but rather be denied a chance in the afterlife. It's only the method of punishment that's changed, nothing else.This message has been edited by Legend, 11-02-2004 06:43 AM

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

How is that different from 'God had himself killed, to appease himself and stop himself from killing us' ? But WE didn't have to be killed or go to hell before the system came into place, either. We could just repent and accept that we sinned. That's exactly what I'm saying: It's only the method and timing of the punishment that's changed. Before Jesus, if we sinned we were killed and rotted in hell (not always, but that's another absurdity for another thread). After Jesus, if we sin and don't accept Jesus we rot in hell after we die.You're making it sound as if the system was already in place by someone else and unchangeable, so God had to find a 'loophole', in order to exploit the system. This contradicts God's alleged omnipotence and omniscience. He designed the system, he could change it anytime and on, top of that, he already knew about the system's weakness when he put it in place, so he could have designed it properly to begin with. I meant suffering on Jesus's part. If he was man AND God, then, for all we know, he could be feeling no physical pain while being nailed to the cross. After all we know he exhibited super-human powers (miracles, etc.). And how does God destroy sin in the O.T? By wiping out whole tribes! So, God did demand blood. When you sinned you paid with blood.
In contrast, after Jesus, it seems that 'his very nature demands that sin be destroyed' is no longer in force, as sin hasn't been destroyed. That always struck me as a highly ambiguous and absurd doctrine.
Does it mean that :
people who lived before Jesus and sinned are in hell now?.
people who lived before Jesus and sinned and repented are in hell now?.
people who lived before Jesus and sinned and got killed by God for it are in hell now?.
people who lived before Jesus and sinned and didn't get killed by God for it are in hell now?
people now, who haven't heard of Jesus and have no concept of the Christian sin, go to hell when they die ?
If Jesus has absorbed God's necessary destruction of sin, then sin doesn't have to be destroyed any longer ?
I could go on, but I'll stop at these, although the ambiguity is endless.To sum it all up, what was Jesus's purpose ? Why couldn't we live as before and be saved if we repented ? How can an omnipotent and omniscient God have to send a 'patch' for his system ? Hope you get the drift.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Don't mean to be rude but I'll preempt cctman's answer here.It will be based on the approach :'Good things happen to you because of God/Jesus, bad things happen to you because of you/satan/someone else'

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Yup... I was right.Where do I pick up my $10 ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

sorry, but I don't see it either. Could you point it out to me please?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

so, when you said you can 'see it', what you really meant was 'you can imagine it', or 'you can wish it was there'.I'm sorry but if the words aren't there, I can't see it. It's as simple as that.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

quote:

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I didn't say that I couldn't see it, I can see it quite plainly, I think that maybe you misunderstood what I posted

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No, I didn't misunderstand and I never claimed you said you couldn't see it.You say you 'see it'. We're both looking at the same passages and you claim they foretell of human sacrifice. For the same reasons that purpledawn outlined in Message 133, I can't 'see' this. There are two explanantions for this :1) I've got reading difficulties.
2) You don't actually 'see it', but you 'imagine' it or 'wish' it.As my reading ability is more than ok (as testified to by all my previous posts), I have to conclude that it is reason no.2.If you disagree, you can point out where in those passages, it foretells of human sacrifice. Otherwise, there is no reason to accept that it does, other than wishful thinking.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

quote:

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-1+-1=-2

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where's the logical negative in that??

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

So, was He Man?or was He God?was He both?...or neither?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."