# Was Jesus dying on the cross a meaningful act? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 19, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309 "2009-06-19T18:12:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/21 "2009-06-19T19:42:11Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Can someone tell me when “Jesus - The Teenage Years” is going to be released? Or is that going to be tied in wwith his comeback? It [already has](http://www.amazon.com/Lamb-Gospel-According-Christs-Childhood/dp/0380813815). **ETA:** And yeah, I have the same question/issue as the OP. I think Jesus’ story is much more compelling as a man than as God. Human sacrifice is meaningful. Divine sacrifice in the Christian universe is kind of meaningless IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/22 "2009-06-19T19:43:35Z")
> [@Lanzy](#): > > Maybe the point is to demonstrate just that. If you “know” beyond any doubt that you have a reward after death, anything can be endured as it is all temporary? Christians are supposed to have that certainty of destiny based on his sacrifice. > > BTW IANAC If jihadists suicide-bombers are absolutely certain that act will speed them to Paradise, are they brave or not? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/23 "2009-06-19T19:45:43Z")
> [@Lanzy](#): > > Maybe the point is to demonstrate just that. If you “know” beyond any doubt that you have a reward after death, anything can be endured as it is all temporary? Christians are supposed to have that certainty of destiny based on his sacrifice. > > BTW IANAC This is a major oversimplification. In reality, [soteriology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soteriology) is somewhat more complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/24 "2009-06-19T19:47:18Z")
The trinity and resurrection are beyond silly, if you saw it in a movie you’d walk out muttering about how Hollywood won’t hire decent writers. God decides that he wants people to go to heaven. Instead of letting them in, like a sane person would do, he transubstantiates and lives as a human for thirty years. Then he gets uppity about His people not following His rules, rouses rabble and gets imprisoned and tortured to death by the secular powers that be. As he’s dying, which is utterly meaningless since he’s immortal, he asks himself to forgive people who believe in himself and allow those people into heaven. :rolleyes: The only way it would make any sense at all is if in existing as a human he learned what we struggle with. But no, you have to assume that he’s all knowing and all powerful. Which is stupid in and of itself, the most powerful being in the universe doesn’t need to be _all powerful_. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/25 "2009-06-19T19:49:01Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Well, I suppose Bill Gates giving a starving child $5 for a meal is meaningful to the child and perhaps you could say that was a nice thing for Bill to do. > > But on the spectrum of grand gestures I would not hold out Mr. Gates in this case as someone to be admired for it. If another starving child decided to share half the loaf of bread with the other starving child I would see that as a much more profound and grand gesture. Well I am not sure that’s the abitrator of meaningfulness. You gave me 25 million isk when I was a noob, it was certainly meaningful to me even if it was irrelevant to you. Even now I could make 25m isk in less than an hour so I understand why it was no big deal for you, but it was still meaningful. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/26 "2009-06-19T19:49:26Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > The trinity and resurrection are beyond silly, if you saw it in a movie you’d walk out muttering about how Hollywood won’t hire decent writers. I would also give the opinions of someone who did not understand the plot of the movie the consideration they deserve. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/27 "2009-06-19T19:51:06Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I would also give the opinions of someone who did not understand the plot of the movie the consideration they deserve. Would you also give senseless fanboys who eat up any garbage without critical thought proper consideration? I’m looking at you Lucas! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/28 "2009-06-19T19:51:30Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > This is getting a little off topic, but please keep in mind that the good people who developed christology (and soteriology) had a very different perception of time than we do. To them, “God’s time” is completely simultaneous, for the godhead experiences everything at once and in one divine moment. There is no indeterminacy in God’s view because the healing of the cosmic rift by Christ is all part of God’s plan. We just perceive it as a roughly linear series of events. > > Even if the event itself was predetermined, in a certain way of thinking, it does not make Christ’s passion any less meaningful or real. The drama of the event is entirely internal to Christ. _Non voluntas mea sed tua_ and all. There is also Christ presented as the Logos, that Christ’s actions make meaning even possible. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/29 "2009-06-19T19:54:54Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Would you also give senseless fanboys who eat up any garbage without critical thought proper consideration? > > I’m looking at you Lucas! 😃 Senseless fanboys? Probably not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not actually a believer and have no spiritual axe to grind here. But it takes a special kind of person to call people like Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Bec, and Thomas Aquinas “senseless fanboys without critical thought”. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/30 "2009-06-19T19:56:26Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > There is also Christ presented as the Logos, that Christ’s actions make meaning even possible. If you want to talk about John, crap, I am going to have to wait until I get home to take out my books. It’s easy to end up in some very deep water really quickly with John. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/31 "2009-06-19T19:56:53Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Senseless fanboys? Probably not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not actually a believer and have no spiritual axe to grind here. > > But it takes a special kind of person to call people like Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Bec, and Thomas Aquinas “senseless fanboys without critical thought”. I think we should all aspire to be special. Each of the above believed in something utterly far fetched with no evidence by the way. There are smart people who believe, but believing isn’t smart. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/32 "2009-06-19T20:02:30Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I think we should all aspire to be special. Each of the above believed in something utterly far fetched with no evidence by the way. > > There are smart people who believe, but believing isn’t smart. And not believing isn’t especially smart, either. It is amazing the things even atheists believe without any shreds of evidence. As it turns out, humans have massive cognitive biases that affect every aspect of our lives. How examined are your beliefs? After years of searching, Anselm realized that faith seeks understanding (_fides quaerens intellectum_), and not the reverse. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/33 "2009-06-19T20:07:07Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Jesus was true God and true man, completely both at the same time. There was a possibility that He could have sinned, but He was tempted as humans are and didn’t succumb. Actually, if he was God, then there _wasn’t_ any possibility he could have been tempted because God, by definition, cannot sin. > [@](#): > > And He \*\*was \*\*scared before the crucifixion–He knew what was going to happen and prayed that He wouldn’t have to go through with it. Ultimately though, He prayed that God’s will be done. But he WAS God, so how does it make sense for him to have prayed to himeself, or for him to have a different _will_ than himself? If their wills were different somehow, and God killed Jesus _against_ his will, then God is just a murderer, isn’t he? There is no willing sacrifice in that event, just a murder victim. > [@](#): > > To me, what you’re talking about IS the power of the sacrifice He made. Even given that He was God, He allowed Himself to be debased, tortured and killed so we could be saved – that’s huge! Saved from what, though? There’s the rub. The only thing he was supposedly “saving” us from was HIMSELF. Why not just skip the whole charade and simply make an executive decision not to send us to Hell or to whatever it is that we supposedly need to be save from? What’s the point of a sacrifice? What does God need a sacrifice for? Christian salvation theology is completely inane and falls apart under the least bit of scrutiny. The real, historical answer is that Christians came up with idea of Jesus as a Pascal-surrogate because they needed to come up with _some_ kind of explanation as to why their Messiah had been executed as a criminal. Because it’s grounded in primitive, tribal notions of sacrificial appeasement, it doesn’t really square with an omnimax God, though. The whole Christian soteriological structure is child’s play to pull apart. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/34 "2009-06-19T20:07:33Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > If you want to talk about John, crap, I am going to have to wait until I get home to take out my books. It’s easy to end up in some very deep water really quickly with John. Heh, I look forward to it. You know me, I am a big secondary source person so I’d love to see how this is presented biblically. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/35 "2009-06-19T20:10:22Z")
**Diogenes** My friend and I were talking about the Jesus as Man and Jesus as God thing the other night over a six pack. Something that I thought of, and I am by no means so knowledgeable of the bible that I can quote it verse by verse, is that when Jesus is talking to man he does so as God, and when he is talking to God he does so as man. To me that speaks to his limitations as compared to the ultimate God, but also to his transcendant status as compared to man. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/36 "2009-06-19T20:12:44Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Christian salvation theology is completely inane and falls apart under the least bit of scrutiny. That’s, um, like, your opinion, man. Have you at least read the Cur Deus Homo? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/37 "2009-06-19T20:17:40Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Senseless fanboys? Probably not. Don’t get me wrong, I am not actually a believer and have no spiritual axe to grind here. > > But it takes a special kind of person to call people like Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Bec, and Thomas Aquinas “senseless fanboys without critical thought”. How about overrated blowhards, pendants and sophists? I’ve read them. When you really dig into them, they just start sounding like ancient Comic Book Guys. Fan wanking, self-important, supercillious expositions on fictional characters and invented premises. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/38 "2009-06-19T20:18:09Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > And not believing isn’t especially smart, either. It’s smarter than believing; all the facts are on the unbeliever’s side. It’s not _ **especially** _ smart to be an unbeliever, simply because Christianity ( and religion in general ) is just so damned stupid. It’s just not hard to see it for the nonsense that it is. It requires great ignorance or serious self delusion to actually buy into it. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/39 "2009-06-19T20:22:40Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > And not believing isn’t especially smart, either. Of course it isn’t, but it is the default state. You have to embrace the irrational to become a Christian. So not-believing doesn’t mean you’re smart, but beleiving does mean you’re doing something stupid. > [@](#): > > It is amazing the things even atheists believe without any shreds of evidence. As it turns out, humans have massive cognitive biases that affect every aspect of our lives. How examined are your beliefs? I constantly question my beliefs. Thanks for asking. > [@](#): > > After years of searching, Anselm realized that faith seeks understanding (_fides quaerens intellectum_), and not the reverse. And after years of searching, he still decided that it was easier to believe in something without any evidence because it made him feel better. Like I say, plenty of great people believe, but plenty of great people are drug addicts too. Brilliant people can do profoundly stupid things. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309/40 "2009-06-19T20:24:33Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I remember hearing somewhere that Einstein wasn’t terribly good at math. Is that analogous? It is not true that Albert Einstein wasn’t very good at math; it’s just that he was not a formally trained mathematician and therefore tended to make a lot of assumptions or methods that were valid or at least workable but that would not meet the standard of a formal proof. While David Hilbert was arguably as influential (if not moreso) in the development of the Einstein field equations as the nominal author, the formal mathematics for General Relativity stemmed from Einstein’s conceptual understanding of the theory. As for the question of the o.p. I have no opinion and no god in this race, but remember: For life is quite absurd And death’s the final word. You must always face the curtain with a bow. Forget about your sin. Give the audience a grin. Enjoy it. It’s your last chance, anyhow. So,… Always look on the bright side of death, Just before you draw your terminal breath. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-jesus-dying-on-the-cross-a-meaningful-act/500309.md?page=3)