I can die for my own sins

[A Tripolation]

Hmm....I didn't quite get the analogy right, since it only covers one person; the penalty was for all people, so the stubbed toe needs to pardon and pay trillions of people.

 

Yeah, I don't see this checkbook balancing.

 

I'll answer this for you. Because He can and He wanted to.

[Marat]

Doesn't it seem profoundly odd that the omniscient author of the universe would make salvation depend on my being able to perform the mental gymnastics required actually to believe that all the nonsensical Biblical rituals 'explaining' (to a Bronze Age nomad, perhaps) how one scapegoat dying for the sins of other people somehow solves the problem of sin? If I can't manage that peculiar sort of mental trick of suspending my rational faculty long enough to take the whole thing seriously, then am I really 'evil' and deserving of eternal damnation, or am I just too sensible?

 

If the metaphysics of the cleansing of sin for other people requires that God become a man to suffer for mankind, then the whole approach is nonsensical, since there is no way to pack something essentially infinitely intelligent, infinitely powerful, and infinitely good into its instantiation as a man, which is something essentially finitely intelligent, finitely powerful, and finitely good. If X becomes a Y which is essentially different from it, then X simply ceases to exist and a Y appears in its place; X does not become Y -- unless you are a Bronze Age nomad who doesn't know how to think in any seriously analytical way.

 

Of course, it does seem to make perfect sense if we are talking about Mediterranean culture circa 30 A.D., when it was the mark of every prominent individual that he was declared a god, so these god-man syntheses (e.g., Hercules was half god, half man) were quite commonly accepted.

[lemur]

I'll answer this for you. Because He can and He wanted to.

 

I think there's more logic to it than that. It's not a quantitative balancing of amounts. It has to do with people suffering for as long as they don't experience forgiveness/redemption. Their hearts are heavy with guilt/shame. When you steal from someone, for example, that person may never forgive you even if you give back what you stole and tried to redeem yourself in various ways to them. They may still just always view you as a thief. So if you care, your heart weighs heavy with the burden of righting your wrong. Jesus preached forgiveness so if being unforgiving is itself a sin, then the debt-holders of sin are themselves sinners. So by accepting punishment from the righteous of church and state and forgiving his punishers for being unforgiving, he is stopping the vicious cycle by saying there is an ultimate authority that everyone is sinning against, and that is God the father, and "God forgives you all because all your sins culminated in my death but I am not dead but re-risen so that you too may live without fear of death and punishment for sin." That's not a quote from the bible but it sort of paraphrases the main ideas, I think. It makes sense if you think about sins as crimes punished in civil court by issuing settlements and debts. If everyone was indebted to everyone else for sinning against them, then they would all have to enslave each other to get money to pay their own debts. So Jesus basically wants to pay off all the debt with his own life because by contributing to the death of God, everyone racks up the ultimate debt, which is then forgiven. Why is it such a difficult concept to explain?

Edited April 25, 2011 by lemur

[A Tripolation]

Why is it such a difficult concept to explain?

 

It's not a difficult concept to explain. By sinning and breaking the covenant with God, man had eternally separated himself from God. God gives us a way back through Jesus. He was pure and flawless. He was the only human that did not deserve to die for the way He lived His life. But he did. And through this sacrifice of pure selflessness, God took all the evil and immorality in this world and forgave it. By accepting the sacrifice, you are admitting that you are not good enough, and will never be good enough, to be in the eternal presence of something as perfect and absolute as the Judeo-Christian God.

Edited April 25, 2011 by A Tripolation

[ydoaPs]

It wasn't really that much of a sacrifice as he didn't really "die"; He was alive and walking the earth for over a month after he "died". And that "sacrifice" doesn't even come close to paying of one person's sins let alone the sins of everyone.

[A Tripolation]

It wasn't really that much of a sacrifice as he didn't really "die".

 

Yes. He did.

 

And that "sacrifice" doesn't even come close to paying of one person's sins let alone the sins of everyone.

 

Yes. It does.

[ydoaPs]

Yes. He did.

Silly me. I must have imagined the part where he was walking around hanging out with his home boys after he "died" for over a month until he decided to teleport home.

 

Yes. It does.

Let's see: the punishment for one person's finite amount of sin is infinite. Jesus paid an incredibly small finite price (a shitty weekend vice eternal torture in a lake of fire). Yeah, that doesn't even cover one person.

Edited April 25, 2011 by ydoaPs

[A Tripolation]

Silly me. I must have imagined the part where he was walking around hanging out with his home boys after he "died" for over a month until he decided to teleport home.

 

You did.

 

Let's see: the punishment for one person's finite amount of sin is infinite. Jesus paid an incredibly small finite price (a shitty weekend vice eternal torture in a lake of fire). Yeah, that doesn't even cover one person.

 

If you believe the punishment is eternal, then you're a literalist.

[ydoaPs]

You did.

So, you, a Christian, are telling me that the Bible doesn't talk about Jesus walking the earth for 40 days? And you're saying this right after Easter?

 

o.O

 

 

If you believe the punishment is eternal, then you're a literalist.

There's no indication from the texts that you come out of Hell. Even if it's only a billion years of torture, it still doesn't add up.

 

Let's say my friends owe you a quadrillion dollars(look at you, balla), but I owe you nothing. I then offer to pay their debt by giving you 12 cents. Do you offer that as complete payment? Do you then freely give my friends a hundred times what they owe you?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Perhaps we can ask a different question.

 

Is there any conceivable thing you can give God to repay Him for your disobedience? Is there some object or material you can give God that will make up for your sins?

[ydoaPs]

Perhaps we can ask a different question.

 

Is there any conceivable thing you can give God to repay Him for your disobedience? Is there some object or material you can give God that will make up for your sins?

A dead sheep.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

A dead sheep.

God can make as many dead sheep as he wants. Why should your dead sheep do any better?

[ydoaPs]

God can make as many dead sheep as he wants. Why should your dead sheep do any better?

It's probably a carryover from the polytheistic religions.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I see. And it doesn't make sense theologically. And if you can't give God anything that He can't just make for himself, clearly he'll have to provide you with something to sacrifice instead. Something you can't make, but He can. Like, say, a son.

[A Tripolation]

So, you, a Christian, are telling me that the Bible doesn't talk about Jesus walking the earth for 40 days? And you're saying this right after Easter?

 

o.O

 

I'm going to try to explain this as simply as possible since you seem to try and twist every little thing to suit your meaning.

He walked the Earth for a period of forty days, AFTER HE WAS RESURRECTED. You cannot be resurrected UNLESS YOU DIE.

 

 

There's no indication from the texts that you come out of Hell. Even if it's only a billion years of torture, it still doesn't add up.

 

The punishment is told from Jesus' view. And the Bible says time holds no bearing on God. I think it's foolish to assume it's for eternity.

 

Let's say my friends owe you a quadrillion dollars(look at you, balla), but I owe you nothing. I then offer to pay their debt by giving you 12 cents. Do you offer that as complete payment? Do you then freely give my friends a hundred times what they owe you?

 

If I love your friends beyond all measure, and wish for them to not be in debt anymore, and I see that even though you only have 13 cents, you're offering me twelve, then yes. I give them that freely. What's so complicated about it?

[zapatos]

Two things come to mind. Not just relative to this thread but to many of the religion threads.

 

1. Why is it necessary to ridicule someone else's beliefs? I understand why someone will argue against another's beliefs if they feel those beliefs or logic which leads to them are wrong, but why add the ridicule? It doesn't help the debate and only tends to antagonize. Not to mention the fact that it seems a bit rude. I may think your sister is ugly but is it really necessary for me to make fun of her to you?

 

2. On the science forums I regularly hear things such as 'It doesn't matter if it makes sense to you or not...'. The point being that you not being able to understand something does not in itself make it wrong.

 

But on the religion forum, if it doesn't make complete sense with no gaps in logic to someone with even a minimal amount of theistic background, then that person feels comfortable enough to declare those beliefs as false and worthy of, once again, ridicule.

 

It feels as if there is a bit of a double standard going on.

[john5746]

I see. And it doesn't make sense theologically. And if you can't give God anything that He can't just make for himself, clearly he'll have to provide you with something to sacrifice instead. Something you can't make, but He can. Like, say, a son.

 

 

But then why were material sacrifices sufficient in the past?

 

Also, consider this: Why did God make us with "freewill" in the first place? Seems like this "freewill" is important. So, exercising this "freewill" and apologizing and asking for forgiveness would seem to be just as good if not better than thanking God for taking some torture for a day. I mean, if God can make all of these "freewill" apologies for himself, then there is no need for humanity period, so then it just seems to me that the decision for this payment is really arbitrary at best, but more likely just based on the animal and child sacrifices of the past.

[lemur]

It's not a difficult concept to explain. By sinning and breaking the covenant with God, man had eternally separated himself from God. God gives us a way back through Jesus. He was pure and flawless. He was the only human that did not deserve to die for the way He lived His life. But he did. And through this sacrifice of pure selflessness, God took all the evil and immorality in this world and forgave it. By accepting the sacrifice, you are admitting that you are not good enough, and will never be good enough, to be in the eternal presence of something as perfect and absolute as the Judeo-Christian God.

That is too abstract for me. When I hear that Jesus died for people's sins, that means that he literally got crucified because of the abuse of worldly authority by the state and church. Likewise, I think all the people supported these institutions because they were themselves indebted by sins, which they were suffering for in submission to authorities. So not only did Jesus preach liberation through the holy spirit and forgiveness of the sins of ones enemies, but he practiced it by saying "forgive them they know not what they do" when he was being persecuted and crucified. So it's not like a situation where he forgave the sins of criminals by criminalizing the government/police. He forgave everyone's sins by reducing them all to the same unified corruption against him, and by allowing them to sacrifice him in forgiveness for their sin, the debt was paid with his loss and restituted with his resurrection in the body of Christian faith and good will.

[A Tripolation]

But then why were material sacrifices sufficient in the past?

 

In the old days, sacrificing your best bull, sacrificing a good amount of sheep, or the most bountiful of your crops means that you had faith that God would take care of you, even if you let go of material possession. That's why it was acceptable, and practiced, then.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

But then why were material sacrifices sufficient in the past?

Paul holds that obeying the law is not sufficient to make up past for disobedience. Remember that sacrifice is part of the law -- if you break a rule and make the appropriate sacrifice, you are still obeying the law. However, should you disobey God and, say, worship idols, coming back to the law will not save you. If you skip your mortgage payments for three months and then start paying regularly again, you will still be indebted to the mortgage company for those three months.

 

As for why the law includes sacrifices to God, I think A Tripolation has it.

 

I'm not sure one can rationalize this to become completely consistent, though.

[lemur]

Paul holds that obeying the law is not sufficient to make up past for disobedience. Remember that sacrifice is part of the law -- if you break a rule and make the appropriate sacrifice, you are still obeying the law. However, should you disobey God and, say, worship idols, coming back to the law will not save you. If you skip your mortgage payments for three months and then start paying regularly again, you will still be indebted to the mortgage company for those three months.

 

As for why the law includes sacrifices to God, I think A Tripolation has it.

 

I'm not sure one can rationalize this to become completely consistent, though.

The situation that seems to keep arising in the stories of Jesus is that people would sin against others in denial of their own sins. Hence, when a prostitute was going to be stoned, Jesus said that the one without sin should cast the first stone and they all put down their stones. So, likewise, even the highest priests (pharisees) and highest state officials (Pilate and the soldiers) were not above sin. Their sin was unforgiveness and failure to consult Holy Spirit for divine revelation. Thus Jesus said to forgive them because they don't know what they're doing - i.e. they didn't understand his teachings and the spirit of forgiving enemies and loving sinners (i.e. everyone). But since he forgave them even for this, all debt was released and people had to live in forgiveness of having committed the ultimate sin, destroying God (foresaking Holy Spirit).

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Their sin was unforgiveness and failure to consult Holy Spirit for divine revelation.

I'm not sure I saw much about divine revelation when reading the New Testament. Where do you draw this idea from?

[A Tripolation]

He forgave everyone's sins by reducing them all to the same unified corruption against him, and by allowing them to sacrifice him in forgiveness for their sin, the debt was paid with his loss and restituted with his resurrection in the body of Christian faith and good will.

 

How is this different than what I said? He took all sins and forgave them.

[keelanz]

The theological view is that God did not create sin; rather, he created us with free will, and we chose to disobey.

 

 

 

That's the trick of the Incarnation. Because Jesus was human, he was paying the debt rather than God just forgiving; because he was simultaneously God, he was actually capable of paying back the debt. The Trinity (or at least a man-God duality) is required for the doctrine of the incarnation to succeed.

 

Im not a theologian but if we take all omni's to be true (which i take is the standard belief of god) then giving us free will is kind of a paradox which is saying that god isnt everything but he is everything that is commonly seen to be good.

 

perhaps jesus was a phoenix? if for arguments sake we dont take the bible literally(lol) then maybe the idea OF jesus rose again; word spread to new lands about a specific HUMAN who was willing to give his life for all that was considered good, like standing up for the common man against the dictator of the day and spreading the word of love (god?)

 

the rest are fairy tails for the kids?

Edited April 25, 2011 by keelanz

[A Tripolation]

Im not a theologian but if we take all omni's to be true (which i take is the standard belief of god) then giving us free will is kind of a paradox which is saying that god isnt everything but he is everything that is commonly seen to be good.

 

How so?