Was Jesus dying on the cross a meaningful act?

Great Debates
141

I’m sorry that you don’t follow. Perhaps I could have been more clear; if that’s the case, my apologies.

It’s essentially that we’re discussing Christianity in general, and Jesus in particular. Norse gods are conspicuously not the Christian god. Nor are they Jesus. So, I don’t see how a discussion about other religions’ gods is particularly relevant to the question about Jesus’ death being meaningful. What does it matter what the Greek gods, Norse gods, Pagan gods, Buddha, Allah or any other god did? They aren’t Jesus and as such can’t really answer the question as to Jesus’ “sacrifice”. At any rate, to discuss the merits, or lack, of the christian myth, you must work within the confines of its premises. Otherwise, you’ve gone far afield from the question. And this is about Jesus having died on the cross, not the Norse gods having died on the cross.

Or, if they can, I guess I’ll need a more detailed connection than “well, they’re all gods, so there.” So, if you want to make the argument that they’re relevant, you’ll have to find someway to link that to whether what Jesus did counts as a meaningful act.

I contend his act - if it even happened as the bible tells it - isn’t at all meaningful given that he’s an immortal god. It’s more like an illusion (which is par for the course at any rate). Honestly, it’s like me pledging to donate money to some cause and then not paying up. Sure, it looks like I did something, but knowing that I wasn’t going to follow through on it molests the underlying significance. He had no intention to remain dead, if you can even count it as a death in the first place. Sure, he looked, but he’s immortal. How does one kill the immortal? Apparently, one doesn’t since he just willed himself back alive. That’s hardly a loss.

The arguments that he took human form to experience what it’s like to be human are equally unpersuasive. It flies in the face of an omniscient god to not already know something. So, either they’re exaggerating their claims about god (he doesn’t really know everything), or, like much of the rest of the bible, it makes for a nice story. Jesus is a literary device in a larger parable, which is loosely a “treatise” on the human condition. It’s not out of line for that era anyway for there to be much ado over the subject.

But a god who died and then raised himself from the dead being meaningful? Hardly. It, like the religious wrong you see on tv, was a sham. It’s also worth noting that given how often the bible is factually wrong, and even internally inconsistent, is it really the authority to cite for the death and resurrection of this Jesus fellow anyway?

Also, it seems a stretch to imagine how a god who was so very active (and had exclusively human concerns? How nice of him to be all powerful and worried about only us) in that time would suddenly one day just, well, you know, go away. Did we become boring? Holding a grudge against us for fake killing his son? What gives?

Edit: I see Diogenes already answered the question, but probably more directly than did I. Either way, he’s completely correct.

Edit 2: Yes, we can just ignore them. Indeed, we discount and largely ignore most gods of the world. So, even that claim fails.

142

The argument I believe is that we have no more or less reason to ignore the Norse gods than we have the Christian one, so if we ignore one we should ignore the other. True from a larger rational standpoint, but not relevant to the question of whether Jesus dying on the cross was meaningful even in context.

143

Actually that passage is a portion of a messianic prophecy. It comes from chapter 53 of the Book of Isaiah. To put that in its proper context, start reading in chapter 40, which begins the portion of the Isaiah known as “The Consolation of Israel”. This chapter begins with a poetical prophecy of the messianic age. Then in chapter 42, the author first introduces the “Servant of Yahweh”, i.e. the Messiah. Later in the book contain several famous “Servant Songs” with more specific predictions about the life of the Messiah. While the first few chapters in this section intermix those with sections that address the nation of Israel directly, the passage that we’re concerned with is clearly marked as dealing with the Servant of Yahweh.

In that passage, both the first and the last verse specifically say that this text describes the messiah. Nowhere does it say that the servant is the nation of Israel. Moreover, a lot of the stuff in their only makes sense if the passage is describing a specific individual, and makes no sense if it’s describing the entire nation of Israel. Why would the passage praise the servant for righteousness and trustworthiness, when Isaiah certainly doesn’t treat the nation of Israel that way? There is absolutely nothing in the book of Isaiah that fits with such a description of Israel. Why would the passage say that the suffering of the servant brings healing, when there’s no mention of any such connection related to Israel as a nation? Why the focus on humble origins? Why the verse about being led “like a lamb to the slaughter? None of this makes sense with a national reading; all of it makes since with a messianic reading.

In his book Answering Jewish Objections to Christianity, Dr. Michael L. Brown does a survey of Jewish scholarly interpretations about this passage and the other servant songs throughout history. He finds that both before and after the life of Jesus, a general agreement among Jewish interpreters that this is, in fact, a Messianic Prophecy:

“Nowhere in the classical, foundational, authoritative Jewish writings do we find the interpretation that this passage refers to the nation of Israel. References to the servant as a people actually end with Isaiah 48:20. Many Jewish interpreters, from the Targum to today, have no problem seeing this passage as referring to the Messiah. They didn’t have any difficulty interpreting it independently from the preceding context of the return from the Babylonian exile. By the sixteenth century, Rabbi Moshe Alchesh said, ‘Our Rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the Prophet is referring to the Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view. So he was saying that all his contemporaries agreed with the messianic reading.”

So it is not a single Rabbi saying that it might be a messianic prophecy. It is a Rabbi saying that he finds broad agreement on the point.

Further, I might point out that this is typical of your style on the board: bashing any sources that you don’t agree with, but failing to post any sources that back up your side of the argument. If it’s true that “the vast majority of Rabbis” take the position you describe, why don’t you provide some evidence of that rather than trying for proof by repetition?

144

I guess that’s as fair an interpretation as any as to what he meant. I’m not really sure what his point was.

As to the first part, I don’t think it simply does to discount all gods on the basis of discounting one. That’s akin to discounting all of science because in the past one scientific theory proved wrong. It doesn’t follow, logically, that discounting an entire predicate because of one subject is wise. Now, I happen to disbelieve in any god, but that’s not my reasoning as, to me, that reasoning is about as persuasive as any argument for a god: we don’t know what happened, God did it!

Surely some people have more or less a good reason for believing in their god than anyone else’s. Largely because they believe it, the reason isn’t particularly relevant. What is relevant is that they have found whatever convincing.

145

A doctor in what exactly? I read his website, nowhere on is listed the source of his supposed doctorate. Is he a doctor the same way a drag queen is a woman: by wearing the guise?

146

The question of where he got his doctorate is irrelevant to this debate. What’s relevant is whether the things he says are true. If anyone wants to offer factual evidence that the majority of Jewish scholarship on Isaiah 13 does not treat it as messianic, I’ll be happy to look at it. Dr. Brown does list an impressive collection of Jewish scholarly texts endorsing the messianic interpretation; not just one. While his book isn’t online, this website also has a large collection of prominent Rabbinical writings in favor of messianic interpretation.

147

Not the same thing; there’s NO reason to consider any god more real than any other. Not one has ever been proven real, or even any objective evidence presented that it might be real. The same isn’t true of scientific claims; some scientific claims have more evidence than others; some have been proven true, and others false.

148

It’s relevant if he doesn’t have one; or do you think that honesty is optional?

While the strength of argument is based on the evidence to support it, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be particularly suspicious of people who are willing to fake a Ph.D. to bolster their claims because adopting such a title gives a false air of authority.

Having read over his website, I see nothing but assertion; I don’t see scholarship. Assertion isn’t argumentation, and argumentation isn’t evidence.

149

Please cite for me a single scientific theory which has been proven true. You will, of course, fail at that since there’s no such thing as “proof” in science. Proof is left to mathematics and formal logic; science has only evidence and the reasonable inductions drawn from it. But that isn’t proof.

It’s not precisely the same thing, which is why I used an analogy. But the analogy is sufficient to illustrate the point.

150

Seems you are stretching the definition of “proof” a bit far here.

For instance scientists know than under certain defined conditions water freezes at 0[sup]o[/sup] C. You can do the experiments yourself and I would qualify that as proof that water freezes at that temperature under the specified conditions.

Theories in a way are more powerful than facts. A theory is really a collection of facts which point to a larger concept.

151

You are using a definition of “proof” created by the believers, so that they can pretend that science is just as baseless as their own delusions. A definition of “proof” that’s only used when someone wants to defend religion or similar empty claims.

As for an example of a scientific theory that’s been proven true; evolution comes to mind. There’s massive evidence for it, we can actually seen it happen in faster-breeding species; it’s real.

152

No. It seems you lack an understanding of the terms as they’re used in science.
Proof in science is a creation of popular understanding; it certainly isn’t something we use. We have evidence. The reason it isn’t proof is because that implies that a theory is unassailable, which is never the case. All theories are subject to revision given future evidence. Proof leads in one direction, evidence does not.

Incidentally, showing that water sometimes freezes at any particular temperature isn’t proof of anything. It’s evidence which lends support to the idea of the different phases of matter. There’s no law which requires water to freeze at any particular temperature, and at least one good theory which doesn’t. The whole water freezes at 0ºC or 32ºF is a convention used; it’s not some inviolate property of water. Even if it were a fundamental property of water to freeze at some particular temperature, so what? We’d just have to rejigger our models to account for that. But it’s hardly a proof; at best it’s an anecdote that there are some conditions under which water will freeze at precisely 0ºC.

I suppose the conditions of which you speak are 1 atmosphere, no contaminants. I’m left wondering where one goes to actually find this water.

And no, that isn’t a theory. A theory is a general principle which explains a large collection of facts. It isn’t a scale of a hierarchy going from fact, to theory to law.

153

I don’t deny that evolution is real. But that doesn’t mean it’s been proved. There’s just, as you said, overwhelming evidence to support it. But that isn’t proof; there is no proof in science, only evidence.

I think the problem here is that you two refuse to accept the terms as they’re used in science instead preferring to use them as they are in the vernacular. This isn’t appropriate as the words carry different meanings in normal everyday speak than they do in science.

In science, proof doesn’t exist. Evidence does. Evidence either supports or a theory, or doesn’t. To call it proof presumes that the theory is inviolate, which goes against the idea of a theory in the first place. Consider this. It doesn’t say the proof of evolution, or the theory of evolution has been proved.

Scientists don’t talk like that, which is why I said that proof is left to mathematics and formal logic. A proof means that something is necessarily the case and has been shown to be it, and that there can be nothing which would shake that. That flies in the face of the scientific method considering that we require of scientific theories to be potentially falsifiable. Proofs aren’t falsifiable.

154

Dr. Brown has a Ph.D. in Ancient Languages and Literature from New York University. So much for that accusation. He has also held several academic positions and published a number of articles in scholarly journals.

I quoted a book by Dr. Brown, not his website.

155

First off you were the one who brought theory into it. I did not see the word used when you answered about proving theories.

Second, seems you are using the mathematical concept of a “proof”. Let’s see the dictionary definition of a proof:

So, “the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact.” By that definition a lot of theories are proved till shown otherwise.

You also must be careful to keep in mind what the theory is telling you. Newton’s equations work great! Want to send a person to the moon? All you need are Newton’s equations. That said Newton himself knew that while his theory described the behavior of gravity (among other things) he was fully aware that it did not describe how gravity works. How it does what it does. Also, Newton’s laws fail when you get to some extremes and then you have to invoke Relativity (which then also seems to fail at some even more extreme circumstances).

Nevertheless those laws work fantastically well within the parameters they are meant to work and they generally note their own limitations. Raving about how it is not “proven” seriously misses the point. You cannot prove you exist. I have never been to Tokyo so as far I am concerned it is not proven Tokyo is really there. Non-starters and in any discussion on Tokyo I think it is more than appropriate for me to assume Tokyo is, in fact, there if we are discussing that city. Despite an inability to “prove” its existence to me.

Err…by definition 0[sup]o[/sup] C is the freezing point of water under particular, defined conditions. If you change those conditions or change the scale to Fahrenheit or Widgets then you have moved the goalposts.

156

Why, exactly, is death a ‘payment’ at all?

Also, why are we subject to an infinite penalty for a finite crime?

157

Sigh. Did you expect that with science I’d have mentioned the scientific untheories? Or the scientific imaginings? Or the scientific poetry?

It was mentioned about proof in science. I said, and this is quite true, that no such things exists. Please cite for me any scientifically, peer-reviewed study which claims to be proof of something. Since you seem to think that proof abounds in science, this should be of no moment.

It would make sense to use to the mathematical definition of proof considering that mathematics is the language of, wait for it, science. It’s also curious that I said no scientist uses proof in that way. To respond to that, you quoted a dictionary. Great work there using a dictionary to show a claim about some scientist.

Your point? This isn’t exactly news.

This is all well and good, but it strongly supports not calling it proof. A proof doesn’t change. It’s always applicable; it is a proof after all. At best, you’re talking about a conditional proof, which only holds under certain circumstances. But that’s a mathematical concept, not a scientific one. Science has no proof; it has evidence. No amount of bad citations on your part will somehow make that change.

I haven’t changed goalposts. You’ve too narrowly limited the question. Does generally exist in those circumstances? No, they’re artificially contrived. For instance, you can make a set of conditions such that water won’t freeze at 0ºC. Does that mean that sometimes it won’t freeze at that temperature? No. But neither is proof of the freezing point of water generally. The best either shows is that sometimes water freezes at some temperature, and sometimes it freezes at a different temperature. That isn’t proof.

Stephen Jay Gould probably said it best when he said, “The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world.” And later on, “We can never prove absolutely, but we can falsify.”

Now, you see what I did there was appropriate. I quoted an actual scientist in a discussion about what science is about; I didn’t go find some dictionary that explains the vernacular not used in science. Perhaps that technique would have merit were it to discuss the meaning of “proof” in science; it does not, nor does it purport to.

158

I do not even know what you are on about.

Der Thrihs said: “Not the same thing; there’s NO reason to consider any god more real than any other. Not one has ever been proven real, or even any objective evidence presented that it might be real. The same isn’t true of scientific claims; some scientific claims have more evidence than others; some have been proven true, and others false.”

Where was he mentioning theories? Then you go on about theories not being provable. We get sidetracked on some nitpick.

Now see what I did there was appropriate. This is a thread based on theology. As such the dictionary, vernacular definition of a proof is entirely appropriate. Evidence sufficient to prove God or Jesus or Christian Theology overall need not meet your mathematical definition of a proof but a definition that achieves: “the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact b: the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning.”

159

It came up because what he said is factually untrue. If you’re fine with that, then so be it. I generally prefer accurate information to inaccurate information; perhaps we’re just different.

160

Really. :rolleyes: So are you claiming that all scientific claims have the same level of evidence ? Or that some religions actually have evidence for being true ?