Look, I don’t believe in soteriological arguments because I don’t believe the premises, either. But given the premises, the arguments are complicated and are often logically sound. Being a Christian does not necessarily impair one’s capabilities of formal argument: despite your assertion that they crumble under scrutiny, they are still here and are still argued by resort to rigorous formal logic.
The fact that you do not believe them is kind of a side issue.
I read it in college, too. I’m happy to argue it, but I really want to make it about the text and not about my epitome. You can find it here.
So Plato was as much a theologian and a fantasist at times as he was a philosopher. So what? How does that make medieval theologians expounding endlessly on “god-men” and magical spirits any less silly than talking about elven swords?
In the desert Jesus could not fail. Apparently he was tempted but I am not sure how you can be truly tempted without the option to give in to temptation. So was it just God trying to learn what it feels like to experience a given feeling? Sort of an experiment? Did Satan, knowing it was God, really expect he’d be successful? I mean honestly, why would Satan waste his time on that short of being bored and having nothing else to do?
On the cross Jesus cannot die and knows it. Yes his mortal body is done in but that is just a shell. He is God, he is eternal, he has no fear of maybe going to Hell. There is no doubt, it is a fact to him. So how is it meaningful that he died for us? He didn’t die.
I’ve never seen one I couldn’t refute. I’ve never seen an explanation for the notion of sacrificial atonement that didn’t contradict Christianity’s own theological premises about God.
Really? Can an argument be logically sound if it must dance around the fact that it’s premises contradict themselves?
Even if so, one could still say the same thing about the star-wars fanboys. ‘Given the premises of the Star-Wars universe, the arguments are complicated and are often logically sound.’
Yes. The rule that says you don’t dish out what you’re unwilling to take yourself.
God takes on Himself the penalty for allowing His creations to totally eff themselves & each other up.
Btw, I do believe all humanity is potentially redeemed and in the end, will be enveloped in the Embrace of God. But it may well be that some will fight that embrace and will be tormented by it- they may well be allowed to burn out of existence.
Countless humans have suffered much greater agonies for much longer durations than Jesus suffered the day he died. Tell the five year old kid dying of cancer and screaming for morphine how tough the Son of God had it.
Man with a million trillion dollars says to man with five dollars: “I’m going to take either four or fourteen dollars from everyone. If you can’t pay, you go to hell. But it’s all fair - I’m taking four or fourteen dollars from myself too!”
You have to ignore a whole lot to pretend it’s even possible for God to ‘dish out’ the same things to himself that he dishes out to us. Starting with almost that everyting that’s posited about God and working down from there.
The circumstances of the payer really do have an effect on the severity of a penalty. Pretending otherwise is…pretending.
Here’s hoping it’ll be quick and relatively painless.
Jesus as the man that walked the earth did not know everything - He did not know all things of man around him (Mark 5:31), nor all things heavenly (Mark 13:32), so on many issues He was going on faith on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as we also are asked to do - Jesus had to demonstrate the way we are to do it. So He knew that He must die, and believed that He would be raised back up based on faith. As such once Jesus said to the Father, not my will but Thy will be done" Jesus accepted that fate and it was not going to be changed.
All the sins of the world were placed on Jesus at that moment, His death satisfied the law that sin must lead to death, at that exact moment the sin debt of the world was paid.
So the death was meaningful in that was final payment, though the check was mailed earlier.
Ridiculous. Is “sin” then something that can be yanked off one person and put on another then ? And since the only “law” involved was your imaginary god’s decree, he could have just changed it.
Like Diogenes says, the entire idea is incoherent.
It has no real meaning for me except it has led untold million people to attach a dangling dead guy on everything they can think of. I have a low gore tolerance level and picking THAT to hang around your neck is just…ewwwwww.
It also makes people write songs like this:
I went to church for the first time in about 25 years and damned near ran out when they started singing that. Completely creeped me the fuck out. It makes me really wonder about Jesus-folk. For all the talk about gods kindness, they sure do focus on the gory shit.
Agreed. But it really had to be a gory death, no? Let’s suppose this Jesus died at the same age, but from eating bad fish his father sent him (from the clouds, of course). Instead of the body on the cross it would be supermarkets loaded with fish sans ice so believers could feast upon the same quality fish their savior feasted upon.
At least the fake body on the cross smells better.
If one takes all the things that Jesus is quoted as saying, they contradict each other. When Jesus was accused of Blasphmey He said" Why do you say I blaspheme because I call God my father, when your fathers did". He was referring to the psalmist who is quoted a saying," Don’t you know you are gods, sons of the most high"? He also said more often than not…My Father and yours.
He also was quoted In Matthew chapter 16 as saying he would return in all His glory with His angels before some of the people standing there saw death. It did not happen. There are no 2,000 year old men (or women ) now living after 2,000+ years. On one hand He is quoted as saying I come to bring a sword not peace, yet He is called the prince of peace!
If my child told me,“Mom I am going to die today at noon, but I back on Sunday morning”, I would say okay, will you want breakfast when you get home? A soldier dies for his fellow country men, he doesn’t know when he left that he will come home, his sacrifice is greater.
I would think it would be a greater sacrifice to live 2,000 plus years teaching humans and going through the terrible illinesses that some have to go through than to die for 36 hours and know you will continue to live.
He could not be wholly God and man unless man was also God.
