St. Januarius, Miracles, and the Proof of God.

Great Debates
461

I agree that, of the various subtopics in this thread, the question of what the hell christians think crucifying somebody accomplishes is among the most interesting. (Though I’d be okay with discussing what it would take for atheists to be impressed by crying statues too.)

So then, let’s look at this. Let’s see if this explanation makes sense.

What’s the difference between a self-sacrifice and committing suicide?

Supposing you jump in front of a truck. That’s suicide.
Supposing you jump in front of a truck to push somebody else out of the way. That’s self-sacrifice.

So what makes “getting killed for disturbing the peace and annoying the moral majority” a sacrifice rather than suicide?

Obviously the act itself has no effect from a mechanical perspective. Jesus is not full of magical blood that makes angels sprout from the ground when he’s punctured. Which means that the act itself has to impress somebody.

So what made this suicide into a sacrifice?

Based on this (specifically the tail end of it) the reason why Jesus got himself executed was because God told him to get himself executed, and what pleased god was that somebody was finally being obedient to him. So in other words, something like this:

God: Damn you all, you’re so disobedient, I’m so pissed at you!

Jesus: I’m not disobedient.

God: Okay, yeah, you’re fine. The rest of them, though, they’re gonna burn! Floods and fire and pillars of salt for the lot of them!

Jesus: Can’t you ignore all that and focus on how wonderful I am instead?

God: I expect obedience as a baseline. Normal obedience doesn’t impress me.

Jesus: Well, what would impress you?

God: If you did something really stupid and pointless and painful, that no sane person would ever choose to do, just because I said so.

Jesus: Like what?

God: First you go get mortal like all the rest of these losers. Then you suffer, like, a lot. Just absolute tons. In fact, I’d want you to go through it twice - first I’d want you to pray so hard you bleed for it, and like, all your friends will sleep through it! Nobody will be there to watch you bleed!

Jesus: Why would I want them to - I mean, oh my, that sounds awful.

God: I know, right? I wouldn’t be able to handle it if my angels stopped praising me for even one moment. And get this, later you get mocked and ridiculed, with no praise at all, and while that’s happening you’ll get stripped and beaten and your head will get poked with those thorn things I made and then you’ll get nailed to some of that wood I made and just hang there and suffer!

Jesus: That really does sound awful!

God: Doesn’t it? And you’ll be like that for most of an evening!

Jesus: That… what?

God: Yeah! And then I’ll suck you straight back up here and shower you in glory and praise you lots forever. You’ll be loved by everybody, almost as much as they love me! (But not quite.)

Jesus: You know, I’m liking the sound of this.

God: And after this amazing, incredible display of obedience and suffering the likes of which nobody has ever experienced ever, I’ll be so happy with you that I doubt it’ll even cross my mind to give the rest of those worms the eternal torture they deserve.

Jesus: What? Oh, right, them. Er, are you sure that me suffering for a few hours balances out billions being tortured forever?

God: What? I dunno, I’m eternal, I don’t really ‘get’ this whole ‘time’ thing. Don’t you think it’s fair? Should you get tortured for longer?

Jesus: Oh no, no no no, an evening is a very long time, much suffering, very much suffering.

God: Right, like I said.

Jesus: So when do we start?

God: Just as soon as I get around to starting humanity on that planet I made for them. Which I’ll do any minute now.

(4.5 billion years later…)

462

Many. But in dealing with Protestantism, the whole thing can be thrown out in principle when one comes to the conclusion that Jesus founded a visible Church. I have investigated Protestant arguments for an “invisible Church”, in fact, that’s the tradition I was brought up in, and I find it lacking. I have come to the conclusion that there are way too many logical contradictions in the very concept of Protestantism.

463

This is a great point and as you know there has been debate about this for centuries.

464

That’s funny-I have been to several Protestant churches through the years, and I have never heard the term “invisible church” before. Is this Catholic in-house speech?

465

No. It’s a theological concept that is fundamental to Protestantism. The Reformed denominations (Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc) and more historically-minded Protestants talk about it plenty.

466

Right - people have been trying for centuries to make what happened to Jesus make sense within the theology. The debate continues because nobody’s come up with an answer that both makes sense and that also allows them to keep believing in the type of God they want to believe in.

Myself I consider this all to be on the level of writing fantasy fiction, and one thing I expect of my fiction is logic and internal consistency. “Mysterious ways” = “plot hole”. Forget making me believe this stuff, if you or any theist wants me to consider it above rank fanfiction it should at least make sense!

467

This cracks me up, and yet still leaves me wondering how it’s not polytheism.

468

What science does is just way cooler.

469

So, just so we’re clear: You admit that your ‘holy word of god’ was entirely written by oh so very mortal men, such as yourself, that certainly were not any more knowledgeable than you are about the ways of the world, and some parts of the bible that were supposed to be accurate (were some parts of the bible supposed to be not accurate?) are not accurate, but there is no way of knowing which parts are which, or in what way they may be inaccurate or why, so you rely on other oh so very mortal men to ‘interpret’ that for you, knowing that -they- may also be inaccurate in their interpretation (either knowingly or mistakenly).

Religion - and particularly the institution that you bizarrely think bolsters the claim of legitimately for your specific religion - is man-made. Very obviously so.

What do you think hell (the Christian ‘damnation for eternity’ hell) is like?

470

Well, there are a few approaches. One is to say that Jesus isn’t divine - he’s just like everybody else, only obedient. Or at least he was - after giving up a weekend or our sins he got promoted to head minion, but he’s still a minion and there’s still only one person who’s packing divine power. In this scenario Jesus would be borrowing God’s powers when he does miracles, not exercising power of his own.

And then there’s the trinity approach.

Or as I call it, the “say things that don’t make sense enough times that people stop bothering to argue back” approach.

If you go and promote Jesus to the state of actual divinity alongside God, that makes you polytheistic, obviously. But Godianity - excuse me, Christianity - doesn’t want to be polytheistic, so they get around this by claiming they’re all the same god, or all aspects of the same god, or something. It all boils down to what’s handiest at the given moment.

And anytime you’re trying to understand Jesus’s alleged self-sacrifice, you really want him and God to be separate people, because I’ve never seen or heard an explanation for the Jesus sacrifice that makes a lick of sense if God and Jesus are the same person. All the explanations end up making God sound schizophrenic at best, and completely insane at worst.

471

Here are some quotes from early theologians…

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrneans 8:2, AD 107.
“Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist, which is celebrated by the bishop or by one whom he ordains [i.e., a presbyter]. Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there, just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”

St. Polycarp, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, 8:1, & 16:2, AD 156.
“When at last he had finished his prayer, in which he remembered all who had met with him ant any time, both small and great, both those with and those without renown, and the whole Catholic Church throughout the world. . .
And certainly the most admirable Polycarp was one of these [elect], in whose times among us he showed himself an apostolic and prophetic teacher and bishop of the Catholic Church in Smyrna.”

Tertullian, Demurrer Against the Heretics, 20, AD 200.
“Where was [the heretic] Marcian, that shipmaster of Pontus, the zealous student of Stoicism? Where was Valentinus, the disciple of Platonism? For it is evident that those men lived not so long ago – in the reign of Antoninus [AD 138-161] for the most part – and that they at first were believers in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in the church of Rome under the episcopate of the blessed Eleutherus [AD 175-189], until on account of their ever restless curiosity, with which they even infected the brethren, they were more than once expelled. . . . Afterward . . . Marcian professed repentance and agreed to the conditions granted to him – that he should receive reconciliation if he restored to the Church all the others whom he had been training for perdition; he was prevented, however, by death.”

Clement of Alexandria, Stromaties 7:17:107:3, aft. AD 202.
“From what has been said, then, it seems clear to me that the true Church, that which is really ancient, is one; and in it are enrolled those who, in accord with a design, are just. . . . We say, therefore, that in substance, in concept, in origin and in eminence, the ancient and Catholic Church is alone, gathering as it does into the unity of the one faith which results from the familiar covenants, – or rather, from the one covenant in different times, by the will of the one God and through the one Lord, – those already chosen, those predestined by God who knew before the foundation of the world that they would be just.”

St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter of Cyprian to All His People 43 (40), 5, AD 251.
“They who have not peace themselves now offer peace to others. They who have withdrawn from the Church promise to lead back and to recall the lapsed to the Church. There is one God and one Christ, and one Church, and one Chair founded on Peter by the word of the Lord. It is not possible to set up another altar or for there to be another priesthood besides that one altar and that one priesthood. Whoever has gathered elsewhere is scattering.”

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 18:23, AD 350.
“[The Church] is called Catholic, then, because it extends over the whole world, from end to end of the earth, and because it teaches universally and infallibly each and every doctrine which must come to the knowledge of men, concerning things visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly, and because it brings every race of men into subjection to godliness . . .”

St. Augustine, The True Religion 7:12, AD 390.
“We must hold to the Christian religion and to communication in her Church, which is Catholic and which is called Catholic not only by her own members but even by all her enemies. When heretics or the adherents of schisms talk about her, not among themselves but with strangers, willy-nilly they call her nothing else but Catholic. They will not be understood unless they distinguish her by this name, which the whole world employs in her regard.”

St. Augustine, Against the Letter of Mani Called ‘The Foundation’ 5:6, AD 397.
“If you should find someone who does not yet believe in the gospel what would you [Mani] answer him when he says, “I do not believe”? Indeed, I would not believe the gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.”

Vincent of Lerins, Notebooks 3:5, AD 434.
“What then will a Catholic Christian do if a small portion of the Church has cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith? What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member?”

Also an Anglican theologian named Rupert Matthews compiled a book with a list of every Pope in an unbroken line from Francis back to Peter.

472

When you consider that JESUS CHRIST promised that the aposltles would not die before his return - it makes ‘more sense’ that he had to mean something more spiratual than physical.

Unless you mean he fullfilled that promise - well after those same apostles were dead, mind you - by ‘creating’ the catholic church as his ‘physical’ thing here on the earth - which still doesn’t have HIM returned.

This entire dogma is built on a ‘hope’ - keep telling people how much life here sucks, without the church (whichever flavor you want to give it) you will certainly burn/die - you need jesus to be with your loved ones - pray hard enough -

It all fucking snake oil.

Despicable.

473

Charlatans and self serving drivel - every bit of it - repeated ad-nauseum thruout the centuries by other charlatans trying to sell shit.

And as another poster said - it’s circular logic - Catholics saying the Catholic church is ‘the church’ because thats what the Catholics believe.

474

Yeah, I confess I can’t believe that anybody would put forward the argument “They told me that they’re honest, and an honest man wouldn’t lie about that, so I have little choice but to believe them” and expect to receive anything but laughter.

475

Yeah - you have to really appreciate this one -

[QUOTE=
St. Augustine, Against the Letter of Mani Called ‘The Foundation’ 5:6, AD 397.]
“If you should find someone who does not yet believe in the gospel what would you [Mani] answer him when he says, “I do not believe”? Indeed, I would not believe the gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.”
[/QUOTE]

<bolding mine> - now is that the “authority” that says “convert or die”? or the ‘authority’ of the state that created it? It certainly doesn’t necessarily mean “the authority as given by GOD”…

“I would not believe the gospel if the church didn’t make me” - is not a convincing argument for this.

476

Honestly Augistine’s verbiage reads to me like he was only saying he believed because he feared the church would break his kneecaps if he said otherwise.

That’s…probably not what he actually meant.

477

Well, the bible is somewhat fuzzy on the subject of kneecaps.

478

Except Timothy.

479

None of which satisfies the logical flaw, that Jesus was descended from David – by adoption. It is there, in the text that was selected by the council of Nicaea. Did they not read it first?
But I still want to know what this sacrifice was that Jesus made. He gave up a weekend for the sins of humanity? Woof.

480

I assume you are referring to Matthew 16:28? If not, please specify.

That passage has historically been interpreted to be referring either to the establishment of the Catholic Church at Pentecost (which is “the Kingdom” that he referred to many times) or the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70. Catholics have always believed that Jesus is with us physically as well as spiritually in the Eucharist. “The Son of Man coming in His kingdom” clearly fits with either event.