"Jesus Died For Your Sins". Please explain.

Great Debates
21

Thanks, raindog. I know you think he wasn’t (as I don’t, at least not more than you or I are in a spiritual, long LONG term view of the universe), but in my early childhood and mainstream teachings over three decades, it’s clear we’re in the minority (or rather, two separate minorities, as I get that we don’t agree on other matters of theology.)

I’ve heard it over and over and over. Jesus and God (and the Holy Spirit) are all God and God is omnipotent. That was the “convoluted” part I had to think my way through and reach my own conclusions about.

22

I’d like to second WhyNot’s sentiment here. Your beliefs are not mainstream Christianity’s.

And if it comes down to accepting your personal version or that of the billion Catholics and a billion non-Catholic Christians I’d say that for purposes of general discussion, your version can be left out as a statistically insignificant fringe view.

That isn’t saying you aren’t right (although I find your beliefs as silly as anyone else’s) but too few people mirror them for them to be worth talking about in this kind of discussion.

23

My point is that your comments are not supported in the text.

You have it wrong.

And the fact you’re relying on popularity as your argument, just means that you and a billion Catholics are wrong also.

24

Well if you want to be nitpicky, you’re wrong because there is no God, Mary wasn’t a virgin and Jesus has long since rotted to dust. :smiley:

We’re talking about Earth’s most popular religion. The OP was asking about mainstream ideas, not your particular take on the text. We can have the “Explain Raindog’s Fringe View of Christianity” thread some other time.

25

I re-read the OP twice, and best as I can tell she didn’t ask for “mainstream ideas” from Christianity. Can you point that out for me?

I did read that she said “*was hoping beyond reason to avoid the ire of the atheists who might well say “It’s a crazy, nonsensical topic.” *”

Did you miss that?

It is my view that the most relevant answer to the OP’s question was what the bible has to say on the topic----and by extension the people closest to Jesus, including the first century Christians. You posts an answer to the question-----popular or not------is incorrect, as far as the text is concerned.

26

It seems to me this is a thread about what Christians believe. And the vast, vast, vast majority of Christians don’t believe what you’re saying.

If you want to argue that the bible is contradictory and many beliefs are nonsensical, well, go ahead. But that isn’t what I’m taking as the purpose of this thread.

Seriously, what percentage of Christians believe what you do? Way, fucking way less than 1%. That’s fringe and not worth discussing in a thread about the beliefs of mainstream Christianity.

In fact, I’d say that if you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus most Christians wouldn’t even consider you one of them.

Like I say, if some cult of thirty people think Jesus is a space lizard we don’t need to discuss them here either.

27

Really? You don’t think it’s convoluted? First, God being prescient, knew that Eve would eat the apple which he created, form the tree he created, from the snake he created, because of her weakness that he created. But he acts all surprised about it and gets so pissed off that he punishes their children!! For eternity!! Think about that, what fucked up sort of being does that. It’s just about the most evil thing you could do to someone. You set out laws forbidding them from having sex without procreating and then you let them know that any kids they create will suffer eternal damnation. It’s sick and twisted.

But then, you are apparently schizophrenic and one of your personalities rapes a woman and gets her pregnant so that she can bear another one of your personalities. Then you get tired of him and kill him off in a gruesome manner (though no more gruesome than millions of other people through the ages, including two that very day). But now you decide to be all merciful and let people that believe one of you schizophrenic identities was really you, to not suffer eternal damnation. Oh, and they can be the worst, most evil people in the world, but if they sincerely accept the story they will be saved.

Now it get’s interesting. Depending on your interpretation if you live someplace without hearing about all this you will suffer eternal damnation, or you may be safe until you send one of your followers to convert them, at which time having been offered knowledge, and this time refusing it, they will suffer eternal damnation.

28

This isn’t my first GD rodeo.

The OP asked a sincere question. It’s not uncommon to get a sarcastic answer from the atheist peanut gallery—which is just what you gave us. When challenged, you’re offering up the “a billion Catholics believe it, so I’m right” argument.

Not so fast. The divinity of Jesus is not central to the OP’s question. In fact, I’m not posting from any particular dogma, and it just so happens that my personal views are entirely consistent with those billion Catholics.

Should the OP rely on snarky comments from atheists for her sincerely posted questions?

It would seem that most atheists here have read the bible cover to cover, and apparently most of them in different source languages and translations. Have you?

Because I’d love to go over the texts with you if you’d like.

29

But it is central to Christianity. One can assume that when discussing Jesus dying for our sins, the point is to elicit responses along the lines of Christian theology. And as far back as A.D. 325, there is general consensus that a Christian believes Jesus was divine. Other Abrahamic faiths that acknowledge Jesus as a prophet but not as divine don’t really matter in such a discussion.

30

Yippie kai ey?

No, I’m explaining how the actual churches in general approach the topic and instruct their followers. You are explaining your particular crackpot theory and demanding that it receive equal time with the mainstream. Your beliefs don’t represent any significant number of Christians. So why are you interjecting them into a general question?

It’s central to the OP question because it sets the framework for how mainstream Christians see the resurrection and salvation.

Well she did thank me. And until you decided to post your fringe view that isn’t supported by any mainstream Christian church everything was going along nicely.

I did read the bible cover to cover in a semester in college. It’s pretty dull.

Since I think the bible is terrible fiction I can’t imagine many things I’d rather do less than discuss the finer points of theology with you. Especially since the vast majority of actual biblical scholars think you’re wrong.

31

It is central to much of Christianity but it is not relevant to the OP. In fact, the only reason it is brought up in these discussions is to highlight the dichotomies, inconsistencies and [apparent] senselessness of the [purported] sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Those are valid criticisms and worthy of discussion and debate. But…the divinity of Christ need not be a part of the OPs answer, *unless you’re picking on those inconsistencies. *

So it is particularly ironic that when someone answers those criticisms of Christianity with a challenge to see if modern day Christianity is perhaps out of step with first century Christianity, the bleachers crowd hide behind Christianity.

Back to the OP, there is an answer to the OP from the bible that doesn’t require the question of Jesus’s divinty to be asked or answered.

It’s only when we broaden the question that these inconsistencies come into play. And it’s particularly ironic when someone comes along and [essentially] says, “let’s investigate these inconsistencies” the poster hides behind the Catholics.

32

Lets cut to the chase. It would seem that every atheist here has read the bible cover to cover, although virtually every single time there is the qualifier that relieves them of the responsibility to show us that. i.e. it was a long time ago, when I was in college etc etc etc.

Are you prepared to discuss the biblical answer to the OPs question using the bible?

Yes or no.

33

It’s convoluted and doesn’t make sense. I can handle logical convolution, but not illogical convolution.

The mainstream churches teach that

God is Love.
Jesus is God.
Jesus is Alive.
God created everything in the Universe, knows your every need, and will address your beseechings (on his own time, of course).
Has the power to wipe out people he considers “evil.”

OK, I can get with those things. Even if you ignore the things in the Old Testament that don’t jibe with them (like if God is Love, why would he play that horrible “gotcha” on Abraham? Why would he let Job suffer like that? Why would he let Lot’s wife turn into a pillar of salt just because she made the mistake of watching her lovely decorated house go up into holy fire? Why punish all the Egyptians for the stubborness of one pharoah?)

The things that don’t make sense to me:

Adam and Eve were given free will, because God didn’t want robots as Childen. But because he is the ultimate Creator, which would imply that he knows something about his creations, he knew Adam and Eve would eventually sin. Instead of being Love and forgiving him, he rejects them and not only taints the two of them with a scarlett letter, but he does it with all the subsequent generations. Even though he (and anyone else with an IQ above a potato’s) could guess that this would happen eventually, since he created objects with free will. The odds that Adam and Eve and the billions of descendents they would leave would continue to be innocent and untempted by the serpeant is so slim that it boggles the mind that God would be surprised by the turn of events that occurred. He might as well have just created Adam and Eve will scarlett letters already emblazened on them from the get-go.

Given the above, it seems awfully unfair to blame humans for the act of their distant ancestors. If humans couldn’t even “behave” in the perfect land of the Garden of Eden, what made God think they could behave in a world full of death, pain, and hunger? He was not only punishing them and their future children, but setting them up for more and more failure. It’s kind of like punishing your kids for shoplifting by locking them up in a candystore and saying “don’t touch, even when you get hungry.”

So then God realizes this and starts to hate his creations so much that he destroys them. Except for good ole Noah. Why not have the story begin with Noah, then? It sure would have made God come out looking a lot better. And did Noah carry with him the seed of sin left by Adam and Eve? Why was he shown grace while no one else was? The fact that God was able to show favor to certain humans, even though everyone carried the same taint of original sin, showed that he was aware that people could still be good while also sinful. Which makes the whole let’s-send-Jesus-down-to-save-people thing unnecessary, correct? Unless he let Noah go up into hellfire too. Which contradicts the “God is Love” tenet that Christians latch onto all the time.

The logic, as I was taught, is as follows: Humans used to be so horrible, horrific creatures because they wouldn’t follow the 10 commandments and the close-to-impossible-to-follow Levitical Laws, apparently because they were all tainted by what Adam and Eve did. It’s like by biting the forbidden fruit, those two created a genetic mutation of evil that was passed down through the generations, and nothing the people afterwards did could fix it. God threw all of them away once they were done living their horrible, horrific wretched lives, he was so sick of them. And yet the Old Testament contains accounts of apparently “good” people, like Abraham, Moses, Solomon, David, Ruth, Ester, and all the prophets. Again, I ask, are these people tainted just like the rest of their peers and similarly destined for the hellfire? Or will God show them grace because they were obedient and good? Because if it’s the latter, then that makes the point of Jesus’s sacrifice yet again unecessary.

If Jesus is God and he’s Alive, then he didn’t sacrifice himself. Sacrifice means giving something up permantly to display your love and devotion. But Jesus is Alive and we’re all told that we will meet up with him once we die. In fact, we are taught to pray to Jesus and he will give us strength. So apparently he was not “lost” or “given up”, because although he’s not here in the flesh, he’s still quite “present” in our lives. Especially since he’s also God. And God is everywhere. So just how was his “death” supposed to accomplish anything. Was it just performance art? Christains should stop using the “lamb of God” and any other reference to sacrifice, and just say “God wanted to create a spectacle like Harry Houdini use to do. Wasn’t it amazing that Jesus, supposedly dead, rose from the dead after three days in a dusty tomb!” That makes a ton more sense than Jesus-as-God’s-sacrifice does.

Now the resurrection is inspirational, but again, it doesn’t go to the matter of “cleansing us of our sins”. It just further emphasizes that he’s both supernatural and very much alive…that the sacrifice was not “for real for real”.

Some will say that we should look at how Jesus lived his life as a role model for being “good”. OK, I can get with that. I can’t think of anything really bad that Jesus did, except for that time he called a gentile woman a dog (but he did kinda sorta apologize to her) and he also a cursed a poor fig tree that would not produce fruits. But I would argue that it’s easy to be a role model when you know you are the Son of God and you can perform miracles. Did Jesus really have a choice to be anything other than “good”? Yes, he was tempted in the desert and almost succumbed to the devil, but if Jesus is God (or at least closely intimate with him) then he knew that the whole history of the world would play out differently if he did falter. That’s a little different than being tempted to take the last cookie from the cookie jar when you know the only consequence is getting a “time out.” God-as-Jesus was not human the same way you and I are. It’s like pointing at Albert Einstein and telling a mentally handicapped person that he can be just as smart if he worked hard enough. Just ain’t gonna happen.

Basically, the illogical points that no one has been able to reconcile to my satisfaction:

  1. Does not the very nature of “original sin” take away the central tenet of free will? If original sin automatically sends people to hell, then isn’t that functionally the same as creating evil robots who are destined to hell?

  2. On what basis does God discriminate good and bad people before the “sacrifice” of Jesus. Or was it more like everyone was bad, but some less bad than others?

  3. Jesus dies for humanity’s sins and therefore “saves” us from eternal damnation. But that’s not true. Because if you don’t believe, or you believe and don’t repent all your sins, then you can still go to hell. Why is belief in Jesus (or rather, believe that he “saved” us) more important than following the 10 Commandments and following Jesus’s teachings to the very best of your abilities? If you can still go to hell and do everything “right”, then Jesus didn’t really save us, did he? He just gave us an escape hatch, and not even an easy one to obtain. (What? You think it’s easy to believe in a virgin birth, prophesized a thousand years before? You think it’s easy to believe a man could not only turn water into wine and feed the multitudes from just a few loaves and fishes, but also raise two men from the dead, himself and another? And that the only records of these events have not been edited to make the story picture perfect? Really?)

  4. He gave us an escape hatch from a punishment that he, or his father (it’s so confusing), created in the first place. Why not remove the need for the escape hatch, since the Old Testament shows us that God did actually love some people, all without Jesus’s intervention? Removing the horrible, over-the-top punishment seems a lot easier, especially for the diety creating all the rules, than what actually happened.

  5. None of us asked to be born into “sinful” bodies. So why should we be grateful for being “saved” from a predicament we did not do anything to deserve? I have told a few lies in my life (though I’ve never given false testimony against anyone, which is all the Bible prohibits) and perhaps stolen a few grapes from the grocery story when I was a kid. And yes, I might have been petty or catty or disobeyed my parents a few times. But I’m really struggling about what other sins I’ve committed that would warrant me being “saved”. I’m not an angel, but I’m not a dirty rat drowing in pond scum either. Christians command us to love Jesus for helping us so much, but I just can’t. I don’t have anything against him, but I can’t love someone just because he decided to matyr himself for a cause that doesn’t make sense to me. And to go right to the heart of the problem, if he truly “saved” me from hellfire, then God is not Love. Because surely a loving God wouldn’t send me to hellfire just because I once rolled my eyes at my mother and stole some grapes at the grocery store when I was little. Right?

Right?

34

I already answered the OPs question. You are the one attempting to interject your bizarre fringe view into the conversation.

We’ve already had this discussion by the way, I told you once before that I’d read the bible in college during a semester. You demanded I reference specific chapter and verse in that thread too.

I don’t know why I have to explain this to you, it seems like any intelligent adult would understand this, but reading a book once, a decade or more ago doesn’t make one a scholar on the subject of the book.

Only a fool would expect that a claim about “reading a book once” meant you can quote from memory specific chapters, phrases and themes. Biblical scholars do much more than read the bible once, they read other scholarly works that give insights, go over specific passages time and again and try to understand in great detail the historical, cultural and narrative context of the book. Of course the book is rubbish, so this is largely a waste of time, but to each his own. :smiley:

To reiterate: Your views represent less than 1% of Christians. They are meaningless in any general discussion of Christianity. Interjecting them is simply a cry for attention, it does nothing to address the OP’s question.

35

OP here. To be frank, Lobohan, CJJ*, and Walther Ego pretty much answered the question for me. But I totally understand that it’s the kind of question that begs more discussion and spins out into broader context, so … carry on!

[munches forbidden apple]

36

You could have just said “no.”

37

Right! Or, rather, I agree with you that these things are puzzling.

38

I wanted to illustrate how utterly inept the question was.

Remember, you’re the one with the fringe theory. There are more atheists than people who believe what you do. :smiley:

39

How about you and I discuss this from the texts from the position of Catholicism? I mean, I was raised a Catholic and know quite a bit about Catholicism.

Are you prepared to have that discussion?

A simple yes or no will suffice.

40

Why Catholics? Most non-Catholic Christians also believe in Jesus’ divinity.

Also, this isn’t Law and Order, I don’t think you can compel me to answer nuanced questions in simple yes or no terms.

In any case, I’m not arguing for or against the divinity of Christ. I don’t believe that God exists, so Christ’s divinity is a foregone conclusion. I’m just saying that your opinion of his divinity is so utterly unaccepted that it isn’t worth inclusion in a general question about Christianity.

As I say, someone somewhere believes Jesus was a space alien. You want to include his fringe view in every discussion about Christianity too?