One thing I never understood....

[Duelist925]

Technically speaking, the serpent is never actually identified as Satan and may even be metaphorical in nature. The association with Satan came later in history. Much like many things with Christianity, a lot of the meanings and symbolisms are actually late comers. The appearence of Satan for example was completely made up later on. Same with angels.

Angels are actually scary as fark all if you go by their real physical description. -.-

There is a Reason the first thing most angels say to a human is "Fear not!" or some variation there of.

[Ghel]

I agree with Faroohk. There's a number of problems with the concept of Jesus' "sacrifice." I'm going to concentrate on two of them.

The idea of a substitutiary sacrifice is inherently immoral. Killing another person or animal in no way atones for my misdeeds. Making a sacrifice to appease God because burning flesh smells sweet to him doesn't make amends for the things that I supposedly did to offend God. Nor does a sacrifice "take away" the sin, as many Christians claim - it merely removes the punishment.

Additionally, Jesus' masochistic weekend in Hell is not, in any way, a sacrifice. According to the story, he came back to life and now rules the universe as a god. That's not a sacrifice. At least when Elvis died for our sins, he stayed dead.

[Andara Bledin]

Oh, yeah, 'cause allowing yourself to be crucified and then die an agonizing death from exposure is just such a cakewalk.

^-.-^

[DrFaroohk]

But why did it have to be that way? It all seems like it was God's idea.

It would make more sense if there was Supreme God, God, and then Jesus. Then Supreme God would be like "Your humans suck dude. I'm gonna kill them." Then God says "Wait wait no, let me send Jesus down there to talk to them."

Then Jesus fails, and then Supreme God is like "Ok, time to kill the humans." And then God says "Wait wait wait....I'll let you have Jesus if you let me keep Earth going for a while longer."

Supreme God says "Sure that's fine with me."

That would make sense to me at least.

But when God doesn't have anyone to answer to anyway...so he sends Jesus down, because he decided to, then he decided to kill Jesus to satisfy some rule he made up anyway....

I'm really trying not to dump on the Christians here, its just...this smacks of like an abusive relationship.

[Ghel]

...this smacks of like an abusive relationship.

Yes, yes it does. I've heard this comparison before, and I quite agree.

[Mytical]

Here is the thing. Though God 'knows' the ending, I believe he knows 'both endings' ie what will happen depending on the free choices made by humans. There is no twist in the story he does not anticipate. He may hope for the 'optimal' outcome, even if he knows the optimal and not optimal outcome. So he was hoping mankind would use their 'free will' the right way, and pick the right path. He sent his son down to tell people the right way. Not to die, even though he knew it was the most likely outcome.

He had hope. When the outcome that he feared come to pass, he had two choices. Throw away his own rule book, declare free will over, and save his son. Or. Let them kill his son, and keep free will. He sacrificed his son to keep his rules, not to break them.

Just because you are 'all knowing' and can see the future, doesn't mean that there are not many possible futures. He just knows ALL the outcomes. Its like those 'choose your own adventure books' from years and years ago. He's just read every possible ending..and is hoping that humans make it there.

Of course those who do not believe will typically think the worse about it. With a few exceptions. Oh he sent his son to die, etc etc.. when that may not even be close to the case. Only god knows.

Ask him (or her) when you see them

[Kheldarson]

First of all, Jesus = God but does not equal the Father. This is the Mystery of the Trinity. And yes, it's one of those Mysteries that we have to take on faith for a large part. But let's leave that for another discussion. So, if Jesus is God, then God himself is saying that he is going to breach the chasm that we humans have created between Himself and us in a very prominent and symbolic way. Because that's all a sacrifice of the lambs, goats, etc. was. A symbol. We were showing that we were sorry for our sins and the lamb represented the best portion of ourselves and our gifts that we were willing to give to the Lord to use. So God took that symbol and performed it to the most perfect degree, rendering all other symbols unnecessary.

So, not an abusive relationship, maybe a little masochistic, but as Christ put it, "No greater love hath he than one who lays down his life for another."

[HYHYBT]

The idea of a substitutiary sacrifice is inherently immoral.

How about volunteering to pay a debt for someone who cannot?

[Ghel]

... the lamb represented the best portion of ourselves ...

This is funny, but I have to explain why. There are many types of sacrifice, and many cultures consider self-sacrifice (that is, sacrificing a part of oneself) to be the greatest sacrifice. From what I understand, this is the original reasoning given for circumcision, and circumcision, I imagine, would probably be considered by some to be sacrificing the best portion of oneself.

How about volunteering to pay a debt for someone who cannot?

Paying a debt is not a valid analogy.

The proper analogy is taking some else's place at the gallows. If my brother does something for which the sentence is death (let's assume, for the moment, that this sentence is just), is it moral for me to take his place? Is it justice for me to die and my brother to go free, even if I take his place of my own free will?

Now, let's look at the reason people are sent to Hell (which is what Jesus' sacrifice supposedly saves us from). Most Christians say that the reason people are sent to Hell is because Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating a piece of fruit. So we are being punished for something we didn't even do. Then, instead of sending us to Hell for this supposed crime, God has Jesus killed instead. But Jesus didn't even have to finish the punishment that was intended for us. He just had to spend two days in Hell in place of billions of eternities in Hell (for all those non-believers who have died throughout all of human history). And we only get to benefit from Jesus' "sacrifice" if we believe the story.

[Gravekeeper]

Sigh, can we please not turn this into another "Rawr, Christianity is stupid!" discussion, Ghel? I was hoping we could avoid having that thread yet again. This forum has been so slow lately, can we not discuss something here without turning it into a challenge to see who can piss higher at the sky? Its tiresome, pointless and no one involved is going to change their opinion on anything, so why bother?

[Hyena Dandy]

Oh, great, its this thread again.

Let's not and say we did.

[Boozy]

If you don't want to engage in a particular line of debate, don't. We don't force anyone to participate in a discussion they find frustrating.

Making public announcements about why you will not be participating are unnecessary.

With that said, this thread appears to be more about difficult or seemingly contradictory Christian doctrines, and not whether or not those doctrines are true. So let's try to keep it on track.

[Ghel]

Ok, I removed my conclusion from my last post. If anybody has objections to the rest of what I said, I'd be willing to discuss it.

[SkullKing]

I always thought that Jesus' sacrifice was a show of faith in humanity.

we have a saying "to put your hand in the fire for someone". It means to sacrifice something of your so that someone will give someone else a chance.

It wasn´t about being sacrificed to clean our sins. It was something more along the lines of.

"Father, I am being crucified, and yet ask you not to interfere. I do this to show you how much I believe humanity has the potential to learn, and how important it is that they are given this chance. I undergo this trial of pain to show you my resolve, to show how much I believe in what I believe."

that was my understanding.

The whole "sacrifice to clean our sins" makes it sound(to me) like sin is a currency. Adan and Eve had a debt of sin to pay off and so their descendants are still paying. You can make payments by suffering yourself(fasting and stuff) or by making others suffer, and this others have values ranging from small(lambs) to huge(Jesus, the ultimate lamb). And hell is some sort of debtor's prison.

[Gravekeeper]

I don't think Hell had much to directly do with Adam & Eve? The burden they took on was essentially the suffering of living. Disease, pain, aging, childbirth, etc. Original Sin, Hell, all that stuff came in, in the New Testament didn't it? There's no concept of Original Sin before that or outside of Christianity. Its not present in Judaism or Islam.

Hell is basically the punishment for sin in general, and God doesn't interfere because, basically "I gave you free will, you choose to be a dick, thems the consequences". To interfere would be to deny you free will, or so the argument goes.