When Christians keep going on about Jesus dying for humanities sin, I wonder what sin exactly he supposedly died for? Can any of the Christian dopers explain?
Any and all of them. Jesus committed no sin and was crucified, in essence and doctrine, becoming a human sacrifice. This leads to the concept of God forgiving your sins and allowing you into heaven.
Especially the Original Sin. All humans have it due to Adam and Eve getting kicked out of Eden. Silly really as there was no Adam nor Eve nor Eden.
One key point that many Christens miss is that while Christ died for our sins and forgave all sins, he added to that in his lifetime by stating that while you are forgiven you should go and sin no more.
ALL sins, except one against the Holy Ghost. I think you’ve confused sin with original sin in this case.
??? it’s all a lie? Why did no one tell me?
:rolleyes:
I suppose it is silly, really, that you are wasting your time saying that. Everyone knows that the event either did or didn’t happen based on your faith. This isn’t clever, funny, or witty, it’s tired, tired ground that just wants not to be stepped on for a while.
Since the answer to this will differ according to one’s theology (or lack of it), this is better suited to Great Debates than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
People may believe that it did or didn’t happen but I doubt the word “know” is accurate here.
I believe it didn’t happen and like it when someone ALWAYS points it out.
The reason why I put this in GQ was because I was looking for the answer from Christians who believe in this type of thing.
I think that’s untrue. Every single person that knows OF the subject knows that there are two options: you believe, or you don’t.
Obviously if you aren’t a Christian, and think the whole thing is made up, then any input you have is just a time waster. When you come in here to say “nothing, because it never happened” when you very well know the context is belief, it isn’t witty or snarky.
To me, it looks like someone jumping up and down saying “Look at me! I just figured it out - there’s no god! Aren’t I so forward-thinking?”
Let’s talk about music, anyone know about this little band called The Beetles? I think they could get big!
Quit presenting it as if it were a novel concept. Quit wasting OP’s time.
We need to commit the ultimate sin against God, and see that God complete accepts the judgement and punishment we impose on Him and He forgives us for us to realize that we are already forgiven for everything.
God has already forgiven everything, but it’s up to us to realize it, Jesus made it possible for people to realize that there is no sin that can ever separate us from God.
The block is in us, not in God.
Not really - most of us atheists here are former Christians, and in my experience, we understand the basics of Christianity way more than most Christians do.
To answer your question, standard Christian theology is that mankind is tainted with Original Sin because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. Sins require a blood sacrifice, and Jesus was the sacrifice that gets us all off the hook for Original Sin, plus whatever other sins we’ve committed.
An important note is that even if someone could live his whole life without sinning (think of a baby dying), there’s still the Original Sin that requires blood to be spilled.
God punished all of humanity for the actions of their ancestors. So benevolent.
FYI: I no longer believe any of this, but years of religious training are hard to forget.
The answer lies in Atonement Theology. The “sin” Christ supposedly died for is generally all violations of God’s will committed by humanity, but in Western theology it is more specifically linked to the “original sin” of Adam and Eve. In this theology, the sin in the garden of Eden cost humanity the holiness and justice received from God, which left humanity with a sinful nature (the RCC calls this “concupiscence”).
Theories for how exactly Christ’s death atoned for humanity’s sin have waxed and waned over the centuries, but there are two main categories. The earlier is the Ransom Theory, which in summary interpreted original sin as a handing over of humanity to Satan/death, and that the only way for God to win humanity back fairly was to pay a ransom to Satan in Christ’s death. Medieval theologians modified this somewhat because it seems silly to have God owe anything to Satan; they made humanity the debtor and Christ paying the debt based on his perfect humanity–this is the Satisfaction Theory.
A second interpretation was promoted by the theologian Peter Abelard: Christ’s example, teaching, and martyrdom was supposed to be a moral influence that incentivized humanity to move away from sin. This is the Moral Influence Theory of atonement; it has the advantage of making God seem more forgiving and willing to judge based on personal choice, rather than a merciless bookkeeper settling old scores.
Both theories are accepted to some extent by the major Christian denominations, though the moral influence theory is probably more popular with most.
And Space Ghost.
I wasn’t saying that an atheist wouldn’t be able to give a worthwhile answer, I was stating that “nothing, because its a fairy-tale” is a worthless answer. One has to overcome the hurdle of whether or not they believe to answer the question.
In other words, the OP shouldn’t have to write every single time a subject of this matter comes up: “please don’t waste time by saying it is all made up anyway because by that logic jesus is frenchfried milkshake American flag”
Its a waste of time, the poster is aware that is not conductive to conversation on the topic, and they come off as an obnoxious douche.
As others have said, the answer is all sins. We believe that because Jesus died and was resurrected, we are completely set free from the burden of all wrongdoing in our past and free to love God and each other, without reservations or fears caused by the burden of that past wrongdoing.
Those actions changed the nature of humanity, so that all humans are now by nature sinful (as CJJ* explained so clearly).
I suppose it amounts to the same thing, since howsoever much they may have wanted to be pure and one with God, those later humans had no option but to express their sinful nature*. For which they were and are punished, of course. It’s only fair.
*Until Jesus came, after which one was still sinful but one could do one’s best and be forgiven what one couldn’t help.
So let’s recap:
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I can’t help what my ancestor did, but I am by nature sinful and so I must be punished.
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However, now there is a mechanism through which I can be forgiven for things over which I have no control.
You know, I started this as a serious response to marshmallow’s post, in order to be fair and try to answer objectively. But the more I try to wrap my head around this doctrine, the more twisted it seems.
Roddy
Hijack, but what is the one sin against the Holy Ghost that can’t be forgiven? I’ve seen many different answers.
It would be attributing something that was obviously good and of the work of God to Satan when you knew it wasn’t. When Jesus heeled the sick the Pharisees twisted its meaning as proof that Jesus was heeling through the power of Satan. Jesus called them out as having committed an unforgivable sin against God and the Holy Spirit. Then went on to explain to them them that Satan could not do good deeds that exalted God because that would divide Satan’s house and a house divided could not stand.