On Jesus - why specifically was suffering and dying required?

Great Debates
221

As I was going from Christian believer to spirtually leaning agnostic and my beliefs changed fairly significantly I began to form/understand what I see as a principle of what Jesus and other religious figures have taught.

IMHO, it boils down to love and truth, and the journey to conitinually discover the depth, bredth, and meaning of those.
Relating to your post of what we thought were facts and chnages in our perception.

If we place truth as one of out priorities, truth in being honest with others , truth in our self examination, truth in embracing facts and discarding false perceptions and traditions, we strive to move forward based on what we percieve to be true at the present moment.
So, when I was a Christian, I was being true to myself at that time. True to what I percieved as truth and fact at that time. When I started asking questions of doctrine and myself I gradually let go of certain beliefs. That was also being true to myslef and placing truth itself as a priority.

As people we are intellect and emotion and part of being true is learning to balance and evaluate those aspects of our humanity. We need to discern when we are hanging onto something that isn’t true and why, and why we resist embracing and dealing with the truth that life inevitably sends our way.

When believers hold onto dogma and the teachings and traditions of men over facts they impede thier journey rather than improve it.

222

Because God is said to know all thing ahead of time, a human parent does not. I would not tell my children,you can go to the movies or not, I don’t want you to go, but if you do I will kill you, isn’t the actions of a good, loving, supreme being, but a cruel one who knows ahead of time his child choose to go. God has to be more caring than a parent that is not certain if something will harm it’s child.

According to the Bible God knew ahead of time everything that would happen,but punished all his future children as well, even though he knew that the monster Satan that he created, would harm them, and they being innocent beings would act as they did! Even Jesus didn’t know God’s will, if quoted correctly he was quoted as praying,‘IF’ it be your will let this chalice pass from me". If is a very big word even though it has only 2 letters!If god in human form doesn’t know his won will how is anyone else to know?

223

If Jesus was God( in the sense that many believe he was), then if he didn’t know the father’s will, how can he expect mere humans to know it.I see in John 10 THAT JESUS THOUGHT ALL HUMANS WERE GODS. not in the sense that we think of the word god today,but centuries ago when the word God meant anything with power. The Pharohs could declare them selves gods, the psalmist called the people gods.

224

i am with you, I want the truth,even if what I had believed was not truth I would gladly accept truth,over belief. Truth gives strength,and helps people more than belief. Some times we humans are afraid of truth,but it is still the best thing we have in my opinion. Could I be wrong…of course. I am still serching for the truth and I know I will never in my life time know all of truth,nor do I believe it is possible for any other human to know it either.

225

Faith.

Jesus understood that there is a level of Faith that grants power. Things that people today would actually make fun of because of the little Faith we have.

Things like Laying on of Hands, Tongues, etc.
These abilities were performed via Faith in God. Things that others might consider Godlike abilities. The misunderstanding would be that the person was a God, and not that God was acting through that person via Faith.

Jesus was put here as a human. He performed his miracles through Faith in the Father. Jesus had to go through life as a human without sin, and be punished for everyone elses sin. Thus, a sinless Man has paid the price for everyone else.

226

Just because God knows people will make the wrong choice, doesnt absolve them of punishment.

How many parents raise their kids to do drugs, drink, commit crimes. How many kids do? We all know some out there will do it, does that absolve them? Nope.

My daughter will make mistakes. Those mistakes have a consequence. I can teach, talk, etc, and she will still make the mistakes. Just like God has taught us, and just like we will make mistake.

The Bible says God knows there will be those with hardened hearts.

God knows not everyone is going to believe. He has provided the materials for teaching, yet, there will be those who brush Him off.

There is a consequence for that decision, just as if your dad said dont steal, and you get caught stealing.

227

Faith and Knowledge have two very different definitions in every dictionary I have ever encountered.

Haven’t seen a case of laying on of hands that didn’t turn out to be fraud or failure. Cite, please?

228

LOL cite please

Read the bible. Oh wait, you dont consider the Bible a source of Citing. Gee I think I will just pick and choose what to accept based on my preconceived beliefs. Yeah, thats the ticket.

Listen, so youre not a person of faith. But that is the basis of One’s belief in God, Faith.

LOL, cite please. Thanks for the giggle today

229

You have a misunderstanding about how to properly reason.

That isn’t an insult, think about this: If you assert that something is happening, you can’t demand that someone prove it isn’t.

For instance, if you assert that Santa brings gifts, you can’t prove he brings no gifts to anyone anywhere, that would require total knowledge of the world and chain of custody of every gift given.

So in order to prove that Santa is bringing gifts, you should ask for evidence of Santanic gift-giving. If no evidence of it is found, it is acceptable to assume that there is none happening.

In that way, laying on of hands has never, in the history of the world, been shown to do anything that suggestion and random remission or healing of illness can do without laying on of hands. That is to say, we don’t have video of someone with a huge gash that is healed in real time by laying on of hands. We don’t have video of someone’s leg regenerating after being amputated. And so on.

In the absence of this evidence, it is safe to assume it isn’t happening. Since to require evidence that it isn’t happening, you’d have to watch every human on Earth and see if any illnesses or injuries were cured by laying on of hands.

I’ve read the bible. It is exactly what I would expect a primitive bunch of ignorant men to write during the bronze age. It has zero information they couldn’t have had. For instance, God thinks the sky is a rock dome. He thinks there was a world wide flood. He (as Jesus) thinks that the end times are imminent. It’s just a book, written by confused and frightened people trying to make sense of a world they couldn’t understand.

A book that’s written thousands of years ago isn’t compelling evidence. Do you assume that the Bhagavad Gita is magical? Why not? It’s a book that was written thousands of years ago, so Krishna, and thus Vishnu must be real, according to your standards, right?

So, to sum up, you can’t ask for a cite that something didn’t happen. If you want to provide evidence that it did happen, you need to providence that it did happen. This is a very basic step in effectively reasoning things out.

230

“LOL”
“giggle”

Are you this rude when discussing religion with Christians?

231

After thinking this over, I wonder why you accept that the Bible or your own thoughts doubt that Facts(truth) aren’t facts or truth,because they are of man, when you ownrbeliefs, thoughts, and everything ever written,taught, said or thought was of a human being. The belief is from another human or one’s own mind, any one can say God said or did something, but that is just a belief because it cannot be proven so one’s faith is in a human not God.

232

Inded we can think or believe something is fact,that is what religions do,but it isn’t necessarily fact, or truth, truth exists even if we think other wise, many believed(some still do) that the world was flat, even Augustin in the City Of God, wrote it was impossible for the earth to be round. Belief is just that. Fact may be unknown but can later be proved,once proved Faith is no longer faith but fact.Fact erases belief.

233

Because God punishes with death if one doesn’t do what he wills. Even Jesus didn’t know God’s will. He is quoted as saying,“IF” it is your will meaning he didn’t know the will of God. If I told my child,"you can go to the movies if you so will it, but if you do go, and I don’t want you to go I will kill you"It is hardly free will!

234

It is true that people believe Jesus were put here etc. but that isn’t necessarily true, and much of it is contradictory. It is belief in another human who stated that it was of God, but we are just taking his word that it was, God does not necessarily have any thing to do with our beliefs. We do know that it was humans who decided what was of God, what God said, or did. There are people on this board that believe they get their directions directly from God, but that is belief, not proven fact!

235

This thinking proves to me, that if it were true, God is a terrible monster who is out to see how much pleasure he can get from punishing his children, and loves to see them suffer. I expect a supreme being to be better than myself. I would not punish my child if i knew I could know ahead of time how to teach it so it could see the future, and know the harm the action would cause. Nor would I give it the ammunition to do harm, whan I knew it would harm my child or some others child.
If God didn’t want sin he was well capable of creating beings that don’t sin but seemed to want some to suffer,even tiny helpless children who never were yet capable of sin, and had them born with deceases that cause them much pain and some only live a very short time. Some are born with parts of a twin in their body’s some conjoined,etc. and many other small babies were destroyed by God himself with the floods, wars (he was said to sanction) and raining brimstone on whole cities just to kill a few adults. Not my idea of a loving , caring all knowing ,all powerful God.

236

I grew up in a protestant tradition, so we didn’t have confession. This is my understanding from a non-participant’s view. But yes, sin is a separation from God, so every time the Catholic sins, he is once again separated from God. That is the point of Confession - to get granted absolution, i.e. the recleansing. That is the point of Last Rights, to get absolution before dying. Otherwise, you die in sin and thus separated from God.

It is a two step process. Step 1: Jesus die and suffer for the sins of everyone. This makes salvation possible. Step 2: each individual get absolution for sins, i.e. take credit for Jesus’s sacrifice. This only works for prior sins, so must be repeated for later sins.

My protestant tradition was “once saved, always saved”. We didn’t do confession. It was argued that you needed to be true to God and sincere in your desire to be with God, which would lead you to do what God wanted for you. If you erred, you acknowledged your sin to God directly, but there was no seeking absolution, it was simply awareness of your error and attempt to rectify your behavior.

Different denominations have different rules. Saint Cad asked about confession, so I attempted to answer.

Do you have any evidence they used the word “god” differently, that they didn’t really mean the same thing we do as a god?

That is the claim we are addressing, but it does not answer the question, why.

The Bible even sometimes says that God hardens their hearts.

Snerk. Hey look, it’s Satan Clause!

237

Are you?

And yes. It is a failing of mine. I tend to make my points with a bit of bite, but not immediately. You see, I treat those like they treat others.

Of course your Czarcasm, so I didnt think my Sarchasm would be an issue. I guess that you dont live up to your screen name.

238

I may not be the best to answer this but here goes.
Sins require punishment. Thus, since we all sin, we all would get punished. Since an innocent man paid the price for others (punished without sin), it gives a loophole.

Someone has to pay for the crime as it were. If Jesus hadnt, we all would.

239

First, God doesnt strike you dead wiht sin. We all would be dead. We do have a limited life span, and that life will be judged by God.

Jesus had to live life as a Human. If he lived it otherwise, he wouldnt have had to make the choices we have to make. Jesus knew what he had to do, live a life with sin, in a environment we have to live. Faced with the same temptations, same needs (food water etc), under the same rules etc. Doing so and being sinless and living as God teaches meant that all man can achieve this, via Faith. Jesus didnt “know” Gods will every moment, there is a distinction.

240

I know my child will make mistakes. I know she will be punished for them. I teach her to make the right choices, but there will be times when she doesnt.

I guess I am cruel and derive pleasure from this based on what you just said.

He did create those beings. They did something that gave them knowledge of sin. They disobeyed God. So what youre saying is, God should have created automotons. Thoughtless beings who did what was told without choice.

God gives each person the opportunity to benefit from His Love. This is like saying, My Dad punsihes me so I dont think he is loving and caring