Why would God sacrifice Himself ...?

Great Debates
101

Define good.

A self-centered god wants worship for His sake, not ours. A self-centered god would not care who went to Hell and who did not. A self-centered god would not be good.

If God’s goodness is infinite, He could take on any amount of evil and still remain infinitely good. Remember, some infinities are smaller than others.

No, but government is a finite, human invention.

Okay, here’s where you went off the deep end. Concrete things like atoms are not real, but abstract things like moral context are? I could show you a photograph of atoms; show me a photograph of moral context.

Then why will a person’s personality change if he (or she) experiences injury or disease to the brain? Why will a person experience different emotions depending upon how the hypothalamus is stimulated?

Actually, if one fails to prove one’s existence to another, it may be more because of the other person’s stubbornness and closed-minded nature than any logical fallacy.

102

I’m not asking for a baptism. That must mean I don’t need one.

103

You, jab1 certainly have a keen ability to discern false teachings. Certaintly God does need or require your gratitude, anymore than Bill Gates would. If you think the story of the Gospel, wherein a demi-god came down, humbling himself, showing that spiritual perfection is possible, showing that life does not end at physical death is a big inherently unfair show-and-tell since after all he was God – you might be right. But the story at least presents a God who tried the best he could, considering.

As for economic injustice being an offence against human freedom, I would expect a just God to be upset about that.

If I won’t get chided on for quoting Rome

I’m reminded of something Winston Churchill said – “The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it, but there it is.”

104

I was referring only to the visible universe; you know, the stuff you see in the sky on a clear, moonless night. What’s beyond the darkness, who knows? (BTW: Since outer space is black, we know it is not infinite in size or age. If it were infinite, space would be as bright as the surface of the sun because of the infinite number of stars shining for an infinite number of years. Even Einstein failed to realize this.)

105

Gaudere:

Mercy. These are reminiscent of the questions a person well-schooled in Newtonian physics might ask about aspects of Relativity when he first hears of it. Without an understanding of reference frames, how will you explain to him that although you see an object in motion, someone else in some other reference frame might see that object at rest?

Here, you are to think with a spiritual epistemology, and God’s Absolute Reference Frame. Your physical epistemologies will do you no good, except as you might use them to draw analogies.

Before I offer you an analogy, let me request that you look for the part of the analogy that is making a point. The tiny prize you get for discovering some irrelevant flaw will be nothing compared to the prize you get when comprehension dawns.

You are asking me what part of me is God. That is like asking what part of a flame is fire. Think of Goodness as a flame in your heart. Though the flame be tiny, it will shine through whatever darkness. Where there dwells light (spiritual light), darkness is defeated. Where there is God, death is defeated.

Jesus is the Light of the World. His flame is boundless and bright beyond measure. When our flame sputters, we need only accept His offering of His flame. Spirit is the fuel; Goodness is the oxygen; Love is the spark. Life is the fire.

Concern yourself with Gaudere. Let God concern Himself with Hitler.

What does God, Who is perfect, reach for? He reaches for Love. Your spiritual journey, though it be endless in time, is boundless in joy. Heaven is an eternity of making Love.

You speak of your charming “faults”, but I tell you that there is nothing charming about evil. Do not misconstrue an identifiying characteristic as somehow a fault. Think of Jesus and His own charming “faults”. Do you love Him any less, or is He any less God because of them? Recall Jesus the Son of Man and how the same characteristics were either adored or despised by those who “wrote” of Him.

You are thinking of a map. You wish to plot a coordinate set, thus: “God is at (15,5) and at (5,20), but He is not at (0,10) or at (25,50) because there is no goodness at that place.” You must stop thinking that way to comprehend.

God is not at this place or that place. There is no Life outside of Him. He defines Existence, Reality, and Life. He is the Absolute Reference Frame. He is the I AM (before Abraham was — ;)). If God is not at coordinate (0,10), then no such coordinate exists. Remember, the atoms are not real. They serve only to emulate a reality, for the purpose of giving context to our morality. This is not a trick by God; he tells us plainly, “I AM”. He tells us plainly what is the good work, and what is the waste of time. (Remember Mary and Martha?)

You are trying to figure out where He is in relation to the volume of the box. And I am telling you that there is no box.

106

Hey, One’s got to amuse Oneself somehow… why do you think we exist? :smiley:

107

Tris:

What a joy it will be when we are honored to receive you in our home! I recommend Gibran’s book to you as well. Your insights remind Edlyn and me of his.

108

Jab

Goodness is the free and unconditional giving of Life.

A Of course.

B That would be true unless we are the self-centered God, in which He case you might expect Him to care very much.

C A good god who is not self-centered is a foolish god who would center himself on something other than goodness. We could not depend on such a god. His frivolity would be our doom.

You are confusing measure with purity. His Goodness is infinite in measure, yes, but it is also infinitely pure. No less infinity is acceptable. His is the Absolute Infinity, as it were.

Yes, and a tree is not a person, yet Jesus illustrates a point thus: “A tree is known by its fruit.” It’s merely an analogy (or metaphor) to facilitate comprehension for any who will hear. Perhaps, if you will search yourself, you will recall times that you have spoken metaphorically for that very purpose.

Your photograph is likewise made of atoms. It, too, is not real.

But the moral context burns in your heart, even as you read these words. It will formulate for you your response to me. Were it not real, you wouldn’t even care to come here and make your points.

The events within the self-referential universe are trivial. It all reduces to a single axiom, taken on faith: A is A.

What does it prove that event A will (or might not) trigger event B, except that the atoms will do what the atoms will do? And when you have proven that the atoms will do what the atoms will do, what have you discovered that is meaningful about your own purpose?

When the scientist makes a discovery that was theretofore hidden, is he not delighted? And what is the source of his delight, that he reproduced what was already known, or that he found something new?

The Kingdom of Heaven is like this: a scientist makes a discovery and abandons all his other work to develop the new theory that has been revealed to him.

You cannot prove your own existence because to be able to do so you must first exist. That makes your existence axiomatic. Your conclusion — that you exist — will be the same as your axiom — that you exist. You will have gone full circle and begged the question which, of course, is a logical fallacy.

God go with you, Jab, in your search for truth and meaning.

109

Dear Libertarian, thanks for your thoughtful replies. Interestly enough, I agree with most of your premises, except for one…

**Libertarian wrote:

Of course, Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Therefore, I suppose one could say that Buddha found Jesus. They are One, after all.**

This is where I have a major conflict with your theology. You want to reduce all Gods and Goddesses down to One God, and in particular the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God.

I’m sorry, but this is old, bad anthro theory from the late 19th century. Those early anthropologists (especially the British and Americans) had the idea that civilization evolved from the “savages” with the “old, primitive, superstitious myths” and their plythora of gods to the pinnacle of civilization, the British Empire, with is kind, loving One God, the CHRISTIAN God. Along the way it goes from animism to polytheism to monotheism. Try reading Rudolph Otto’s The Holy to get a good idea of this. Otto coined the term, numen to refer to the concept of god-head and believed that the Christian god best exemplified this numen.

If all the Gods and Goddesses are really just One, why aren’t the messages they give to Humanity the same? Truly, yes, love is mentioned in all of them, but whereas you emphasize that LOVE is the only real msg, other faiths do not. I don’t believe that’s the central message of Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, Islam, etc. Therefore, there are other Gods & Goddesses, giving a specific message to the poeple that follow Them.

Now, to your question to me: Before Abraham was, I am.

To me, this is simply propoganda by the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God to establish his power and position. All pantheons have similar statements. This is simply the Judeo/Christian version of it.

110

Freyr:

It was Genghis Khan who said, “It is not enough that I succeed — other men must fail.”

That is the very antithesis of God’s own sentiment. The Buddha would have you disavow your assumption that it is “us” against “them”. There is One Goodness, One God, One Love known to all who follow Him.

By saying “Before Abraham was, I am,” Jesus did not mean “I as opposed to all the rest of you heathens”. God does not have the mindset of Khan.

Peace and fulfillment to you, my friend.

111

Originally addressed to Libertarian,

Is your objection to the attempt to see that God is, in his infinite character more like oneness, or is it that Libertarian has failed to specify which team God is on?

Being right is really not all that important to me. I know that makes me a trivial target, debate wise. But all I have to learn from are the words left on paper by my ancestors, and the ancestors of others. My great respect for the fathers and mothers of our vast world does not include awe for their scientific knowledge, or accurate record keeping.

I did not learn of God, I met Him. I called Him Jesus. He did not correct me, on that issue. I do not assume that was because I am right. I assume that it was because there were more important matters He wanted me to attend to.

I call him Jesus still. I proclaim that He is my Lord. He did not tell me to despise you, if you do not. He told me that love is the greatest of all things in the world, and that faith, and hope and love are all in the world that will last.

112

For those of you still following along, I too will give a brief explanation of Libertarian’s (and possibly, it occurs to me, Triskademus’s) belief system, what the rest of Christianity calls Gnosticism, a belief system which pre-dates Christianity, but infected it early on and rears it’s head from time to time in various forms.

Gnosticism believes that man’s has a part of him self which is inherently united with the Godhead, usually described as a “flame” or “light.”

The fall of man is a fall of this flame, a piece of God, into the world of matter, which in their belief system is an illusion – some going so far as to claim the atoms are the creation of an evil trickster god anti-thetical to the real God, others leaving the question of why God would make a false world of atoms open ended.

Salvation comes from a discovery or revelation that matter is an illustion. Gnosis is a Greek word for this “knowledge” which is required for their form of Salvation. “The Gnostic Saviour, therefore, is entirely different from the Christian one. For:”

Because Gnosticism believes that matter is an illusion, morality or ethics are not important to them. They talk of love, but do not define how one expresses love the way Jesus did. The call of love for them is essentially a call to spread the “knowledge” that matter is an illusion and that all are part of the Godhead if only they would realize it, and that knowledge instantly “saves” the person who realizes it.

quotes from the Catholic Encyopedia.

113

Lib. You’re a lovely person, and it’s good to see you posting again (for however long you can find the time).

As usual, though, I find your argument a bit frustrating. Although you’ve been careful not to misrepresent your own beliefs or to mischaracterize those expressed to you in this thread, I can’t find in your replies the congruency which must exist between your OP, which seems to defend the intrinsic relevance of the resurrection mythos central to orthodox Christian dogma, and your various statements in regards to orthodox Christianity and other religions:

[/quote]
“…whatever sounds a man utters with his mouth and tongue — Jesus, Buddha, Unicorn, Satan — these tell nothing about whom the man is calling. If his heart is filled with love, he calls out to God…”
[/quote]
“…I am not saying that the difference between Christianity and Buddhism is trivial. I am saying that Christianity and Buddhism themselves (and all other religions) are trivial…”
[/quote]
“…Religion sucks… Infested with petty politicians, it is the enemy of God…”
[/quote]

Believe it or not, Lib, you’ve taught me alot in the year I’ve been posting to this message board. I thank you (and Poly and others) for showing me the validity of religion while I still reject its necessity (and while you, it appears, cast aspersions on its utility). But I think you expend far too much rhetoric on trying to explain your elegant gnosticism within the incompatible framework of theism. This leads, IMO, to increasingly unwieldy analogies (Newtonian vs Einsteinian physics, Cartesian coordinate sets, etc.) that have limited illustrative value except within the reference frame of physical reality — which you have explicitly rejected as irrelevant to God.

I believe your viewpoint is that you cannot directly impart your lesson to others. Love must be realized within each individual’s heart and you can only show them how to look for it. Your question to Freyr is the telescope you’ve chosen; it seems a good tool for the job. I must say that your efforts, as heroic as they tend to become, to reconcile the example of Jesus with certain ideologies of the religion named for him have not aided my understanding (others’ mileage may vary).

In all truth, I say this to you: The Christ is not necessary for Love, nor is the Buddha, nor Mithra, nor the Mahatma, nor any such paradigm. They are smoke and mirrors. (“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face…”) To paraphrase a recent cultural icon, you don’t need to be a smart man to know what Love Is.

114

Oh, let’s not even get into the implications of Christian metaphors in “The Matrix”… :wink:

Esprix

115

Xeno:

First, because I care about what you think, let me tell you that I am not a Gnostic any more than I am Pantheist.

Examine these musings:

“… Gnosticism … claimed to be the only true form of Christianity, unfit, indeed, for the vulgar crowd, but set apart for the gifted and the elect.”

When have I disinvited anyone who will accept God’s Grace from the Kingdom of God?

“The Gnostic Saviour does not save.”

Did I not say in this very thread that Jesus saved (is saving, will save) me?

“There is no sin to be atoned for, except ignorance be that sin.”

Have I not said that sin is coldness of the heart, that is, the absence of Love? When have I said that sin is ignorance? In fact, have I not made clear that all the knowledge and intellect in the world is worthless without Love?

“Of a real Saviour who with love human and Divine seeks out sinners to save them, Gnosticism knows nothing.”

Have I not called upon the most grievous sinners on earth — those who invoke the name of God to create contention, confusion, and serve their own ends — to repent and change their ways? Did not Jesus do the same?

I have paid no attention in this thread to the argument underway about piddly shit. I consider it a hijack, but my consideration in that regard is irrelevant. I am not a moderator. I therefore ignore it and commune with those, like you, who inquire of me about Love.

Now. Rest assured that the Resurrection is no myth. God manifested Himself in the light cone in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But what is significant is not the event, because the event was nothing more than quantum belches. What was (is, will be) significant is the Goodness that caused the event.

Yes, Jesus rose from the dead, manifested in the light cone at a specific coordinate set. But the rising from the dead of one man, no matter how important or holy, is of scant significance the rest of us. Say that a hundred men begin traversing an obstacle course, but only one is capable of completing it. What good is his feat on behalf of the men who remain stuck in the mud?

Some would tell you that what Jesus did was run the obstacle course for you, that now you don’t have to because, by some mysterious exvocation, he was your proxy. I tell you that is not so. What Jesus did (does, will do) for you is assist you, guide you, and be with you through every step of the obstacle course to its completion.

He saves us not from living but from dying. He is not a fast-track to Heaven; He is the Host and Owner of it. He is not a bridge to some destination; He is the Destination Itself.

If you look at “the Christ” as a paradigm, then you have heard, not what He says, but rather what men say He says. To minimize Him is to minimize yourself, because whatever Life there is in you is He.

You are right that a man need not be smart to know what Love is. As He said, “Father, thank you for revealing these things to those who are simple minded, and for hiding them from those who think they know it all.”

God go with you, Xeno. Your kind words have comforted me. I can’t stay much longer, but one day soon, who knows, we can all enjoin another discussion as wonderful as this one. Peace.

116

Thanks for your kind reply, Lib. I don’t know how soon you’re leaving again (it seems imminent from your last paragraph) but I want to respond briefly to these comments:

Truthfully, I was uncomfortable calling you a gnostic; however, while I found the term a clumsy way to characterize you, I thought it was a close enough approximation. I apologize for my inaccuracy. (But I still don’t know that “LOC” describes your beliefs particularly well, either!)

Aren’t we all?

I guess my point is that the Resurrection, whether literally or figuratively true, seems to be unnecessary to the propositions that “God is Love” and “Love is Salvation.” I don’t mean to minimize its allegorical importance, but as you say the event [Resurrection] is meaningless outside of the context of Infinite Love. IOW, without Jesus, Infinite Love still exists. If the obstacle course of your analogy is only negotiable for us through the experience of one who has completed it, why then is the Path secondary to the Destination? You seem at times to say one need only love to be saved; if merely by negotiating that Path we reach the Destination, why then is Jesus needed?

(And by the way, my embarassing addition of the article “The” to “Christ” was a superfluous slip of the mind as a result of including “the Buddha” and “the Mahatma” in the series. :o )

117

**Libertarian wrote:

It was Genghis Khan who said, “It is not enough that I succeed — other men must fail.”

That is the very antithesis of God’s own sentiment. The Buddha would have you disavow your assumption that it is “us” against “them”. There is One Goodness, One God, One Love known to all who follow Him.**

Here we have a problem again. I’m not making a distinction of “Us vs. Them.” I hear you saying ‘there is One God and he goes by many names, Jesus, Buddah, Shiva, etc.’ I’m saying 'No, there are many different Gods and They go by many different names. It isn’t “Us vs Them” it’s simply “Them.”

**Triskadecamus wrote:

Is your objection to the attempt to see that God is, in his infinite character more like oneness, or is it that Libertarian has failed to specify which team God is on?**

My objection is that he’s claiming there is one God going by many different names. That’s old, bad theology and anthropology. I’m saying there are many Gods going by many different names. You’re claiming Monotheism, I’m claiming Polytheism.

I did not learn of God, I met Him. I called Him Jesus. He did not correct me, on that issue. I do not assume that was because I am right. I assume that it was because there were more important matters He wanted me to attend to.

Possibly, or it’s quite possible you got His name right in the first place. I called upon Jesus many years ago and ended up with an argument in my head for 3 days. It only ended when I said “thanks, but no thanks, this isn’t for me.” What you seem to be missing is the idea that when a person rejects Jesus as God, they are NOT condemned or end up in Hell. They simply are called to a different path. I was and other Pagans will attest to the same thing.

118

Xeno:

Because without Jesus, Love does not exist. He is Love. Not Jesus, the ugly bag of mostly water, but Jesus Who dwelled in the heart of the ugly bag of mostly water.

I wasn’t saying the path is secondary to the Destination, just that the path and the Destination are not the same. The path is important because, without it, there would be no expression of your will. And that expression is the whole point of the exercise, and why the atoms “exist”.

But you’re right. My time is either nearly done for a while, or else I will have more of it than I wish. After the weekend, I expect to be very busy or very idle. I hope for busy.

Freyr:

In the manner you express, you are certainly correct. There are many different gods that go by many different names. And that does not concern me. I begrudge no one who wants to worship the god of his choice.

I can speak only about the God I worship, Who is Living Love. And all that I’m saying about Him is that sometimes people might call Him by this or that phonemic combination. What bothers me (enormously) is any invocation of His name that is blasphemous. Some, for example, will call out the name of Jesus to condemn someone, as though Jesus were their private voodoo doll. I remember when the woman screamed out at Madalyn Murray O’Hair, “You’ll know the love ‘o Jesus when you’re burnin’ in Hell!”

Clearly the Jesus invoked in a curse bears zero resemblance to the Jesus I worship.

119

Ok, so God is all that is real. You are a small flame and Jesus was a big one (or Jesus is all flame). When a person wholly turns from good, their flame goes out, yet the Flame remains infinite. (We’ll ignore any quibbles about conservation of energy here.)

I am exploring your theology. A useful way to do such a thing is to ask about the hypothetical consequences for various more-or-less hypothetical persons: an evil person with a little bit of good, a good peron who does not worship “correctly”, a sorta-good-sorta-bad person, an evil person who repents, a mostly good person who never repents, etc. That is all I am doing. So for this purpose, I am concerned about Hitler.

Oh, I dunno. I’ve always had a bit of a thing for bad boys… :wink: Would I, say, relinquish any traces of my temper? Is anger evil or simply a “quirk”? Where does indifference fit in here? It can be neither good nor evil.

OK, so Love is infinite and perfect. If this is so, what is the purpose of breaking up into little pieces? You say freely given love is the best–but how can any love be “better” than what it was before it divvied itself up? It was always infinite and perfect. It seems the net result of God’s breaking himself up is a reduction in the amount of Love, making love a smaller infinity. In the end, you will have less Love, although some of the tiny flames will apparently have personalities and memories added. Is somehow the I that I am now, even reduced in amount since I am not perfectly good, superior to the larger flame that I was when wholly part of God?

xenophon41:

Well, “Christ” is a title, so I’ve seen him referred to as “the Christ”. We probably never would have noticed anything odd had you not brought it up. :wink:

Freyr: I think you two may have to agree to disagree. Your initial axioms are too far apart; Lib’s God is pure love and all love is all the same love, your many Gods are not so. Lib accepts as axiomatic that all “Gods” that love are one and the same, while you take various God’s followers (or the Gods themselves) at their word when they say they are different. But FWIW, Lib’s rather nontradtional theology does not appear to result in you going to hell becuase you do not have the tradtional Christian Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I admit the “Buddha is my savior” comment threw me for a bit, too. :wink:

120

While I am loath to make any more on-topic posts to this thread, I’d note that the focus for the last few posts is one that NYCNative and I and a number of others are targeting over at the Pizza Parlor. If anyone is interested, I’ll give them the URL for the thread.

And, just as an observation, Xeno’s “embarrassing mistake” was in fact not one at all. Just as Gautama Buddha was Gautama the Buddha, the Enlightened One, not the son of Fred and Martha Buddha, Jesus is the Christ, i.e., the Anointed Messiah par excellence.