DERAIL: So the Crucifixion - What's up with that?

[Juma]

There might be another reason nobody has mentioned your ideas. (They might not be mainstream.)
And I'm going to have to disagree on a couple of points below

1. The incarnation was necessary to allow Jesus to live a perfect sinless life as an example to mankind...

No. It was not necessary.
That's the whole point of Grace.
God doesn't HAVE to do that. Why does God HAVE do something for our benefit?

2. The crucifixion was necessary to fulfill Jewish prophecy in the Tanakh (Psalm 22, to be precise) on the manner of death the Messiah would have. More detail can also be found in Isaiah 52 & 53 on his life and death.

No. It defeats the purpose of a 'prophecy' if you have to contrive to fulfill it.
A prophecy is a statement of what will inevitibly happen.
When Jesus says go to this place and there you will find a colt/foal on which nobody has ridden, He isnt staging an event.
He is just doing what was always going to take place.
The fact that Isaiah prophesied it doesn't compel Jesus.

And that is really all I have to say on this subject. Just couldn't stand reading all of these pages and not seeing the actual accepted reasoning for the incarnation and crucifixion.

Why didn't you mention Gods voluntary desire to do something loving which was entirely for our benefit?

Sancta simplicitas...
You would believe just anything, wouldnt you?

 

[Ruth Harris]

Yes, I get that part - it is as simple as you make it out to be. My question has to do with the why behind it. God made a decision to forgive mankind for the whole apple mishap (which was totally his own damn fault, but that's a separate thread). Before granting this forgiveness, however, he put on a human body, lived a perfect life and then let some people sacrifice him in order to check off some bullet points from a prophecy. Seeing as he is the one who did all that, though, why go through that bother? Why not just skip to the end part where he forgives everybody?

It's not like there was somebody else involved who did something which changed God's mind about withholding forgiveness. It's not like God is an underpowered wizard who needs to invoke an overly complex ritual of having a perfect person sacrificed in order to generate sufficient magical energy to cast the atonement spell - the man is omnipotent, so he can just do things without the need for any preamble. There's just a pointlessness to the whole event which I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around. Also, if he wants people to stop sending him lamb entrails, he can just tell them that he already has more lamb entrails than he'll ever really use, so please stop giving them to him. He sent an angel to the shepherds anyways, so a message about the change in lamb usage would have hit one of the main target audiences and the last sacrifice could have been whichever random lamb had been sacrificed the night before as opposed to it being a person.

Now, you did make a good point about his incarnating himself to live this perfect life as an example to mankind and that's fine. It's a valid reason to pack on a meatsuit and hang out on Earth for a bit. Why there would be some kind of relationship between that and deciding to forgive people and why a need for suffering is somehow in there too is unclear to me.

You are looking for an explanation of God's reasoning? Boy, you are hoping for more information than I realized. I don't know of any reasonable Christian who would even attempt to explain what God is thinking. You might get some answers from those on the fringe but I don't know that I would trust what they have to say in any case.

Ruth

 

[bilby]

Yes it's rather disingenuous to insult someone every which way and accuse them of being ignorant/stupid/deluded
and THEN expect them to engage in dialogue.

Sometimes calling somebody ignorant is not an insult, just an observation.

And while I can't speak for anyone else, I can assure you that I for one have neither the expectation nor the desire to hear any more of your unevidenced, ignorant, stupid and delusional nonsense.

Really. Virgin births; dead people coming back to life; feeding thousands with a few fish sandwiches; and dozens of similarly implausible claims - all evidenced only by anonymous, poorly attributed, and unsupported accounts from the pre-scientific past?

You have to be stupid, ignorant or delusional to give such tall tales a moments credence. And every post you make here provides further evidence for that.

 

[bilby]

Folks ask you to explain the theology of atonement and Jesus' sacrifice
...and THEN they go into some inane spoof routine about Superman and Lex Luther.

Why feign sincerity then (bait and switch) say Jesus never died for anyone because Jesus is a myth.

You seem to be incapable of recognising a rhetorical question.

Jesus IS a myth. You have failed to provide any sound reason for anyone to think otherwise - as have millions of other Christians despite centuries of effort. The best you can manage is 'you just have to believe'. Well no. We don't. You make a ridiculous claim, you have to support it or expect ridicule.

 

[Ruth Harris]

There might be another reason nobody has mentioned your ideas. (They might not be mainstream.)
And I'm going to have to disagree on a couple of points below

1. The incarnation was necessary to allow Jesus to live a perfect sinless life as an example to mankind...

No. It was not necessary.
That's the whole point of Grace.
God doesn't HAVE to do that. Why does God HAVE do something for our benefit?

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

No, God did not HAVE to do it - but this verse shows clearly that he did this as an example to us. This is standard mainstream belief.

No. It defeats the purpose of a 'prophecy' if you have to contrive to fulfill it.

John 19:11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above." (This is where he is speaking to Pilate)
Mark 8:31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. (This is where he was speaking with his disciples)

Both of these verses make it very plain that he expected to be tried and die as stated in the prophecy. There was no contrivance involved, just the recognition that he knew it would happen. Again, standard mainstream belief.

I did not mention grace because that is not what was being asked; they were asking for an explanation of why this was necessary. So I provided the accepted reasons. You may believe differently and that is fine; I was only providing what is considered to be the most widely accepted basis for this belief.

Ruth

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yes, but I'm directing my question to those who don't think Jesus is a myth. You're fine to start a thread about mythical Jesuses and whatever you want to discuss along those lines. The site comes equipped with a button that lets you do that and everything. It's not as difficult as you may think and you should give it a try and you might surprise yourself at the results.

Wait wait. A myth can be historically accurate. Something being a myth doesn't make it make-believe. A myth or mythos is a collection of stories that define a group of people. It's used for generating identity. It's stories which everybody in that culture already knows and they keep retelling them over and over.

A good example is World War 2 for the UK and USA. Nobody is going to claim that WW2 didn't happen. But if you look at the catalogues of movies made about WW2 is pretty clear that we love retelling the same basic story over and over and over. We don't seem to get tired of it. Every culture has these. France will never get tired of the French Revolution. USA will never get tired of the American revolution.

The reason why we often assume that a myth is just made up is because of the Greek Pagan myths, which we assume aren't historically accurate because we're not Pagan. But the Pagans told them as if they were historically accurate. Probably they thought they were heavily embellished and stylised. But they thought there was a core of truth to them. Which incidentally we also believe about every World War 2 movie we look at. It's the exact same thing.

Why I go into depth about this so much is because it's important to understand that myths is not what unsophisticated savages do. Retelling myths is a central part of all human life, and has always been. Atheists tell and listen to just as much myths as the ancient Greeks did. And they're exactly as important to us as they were for the ancient Greeks.

Without myths we have no identity, and we are nothing. It's very important to have myths. And it's equally important to understand why you have the myths you have. You have myths about yourself. It's your life's story. When you retell it I'm sure there's plenty of detail you leave out. You do present a more ideal version of yourself. A mythic version. Completely normal.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Both of these verses make it very plain that he expected to be tried and die as stated in the prophecy. There was no contrivance involved, just the recognition that he knew it would happen. Again, standard mainstream belief.

I did not mention grace because that is not what was being asked; they were asking for an explanation of why this was necessary. So I provided the accepted reasons. You may believe differently and that is fine; I was only providing what is considered to be the most widely accepted basis for this belief.

Exactly. Because he was omnipotent and omniscient. Which means he didn't sacrifice himself. He did it all to himself. Which is just bizarre. It's like a loony in the loony ward stabbing themselves repeatedly with a fork. Who gives a shit what some masochist does to themselves for kicks? Being the lord of the universe doesn't make it less idiotic or worthy of our respect.

Oh, so God said he suffered in the book that he supposedly wrote. Trump also wrote a book in the same way God did. A book where Trump claims supposedly sacrificed everything to succeed. Not convinced it's true. Even if God really exists that still is no argument for that the Bible should be taken seriously.

I don't understand how anybody can find this convincing. It's so convoluted. I understand the standard Christian story about this. What I don't understand is why they believe it.

 

[iolo]

The ultimate Roman colonialist punishment was to torture people to death in public. There seems to be no doubt that the early Christians believed that, incredibly, their man just got up and walked away, so they could tell Caesar to go fuck himself, though using different words. The question is why they believed that, to which I can only suppose the Muslims are right and he wasn't dead. A huge 'religious' superstructure doesn't help in any way - you have either to believe the 'religious guff, imagine a huge, complicated plot, organised, presumably, by Martians, deny history or come to such conclusions as mine. Up to you.

Ultimate punishment indeed!

Do you think Jesus of Nazareth was publically tortured and executed by the Romans?
I do. And any (extraordinary) claim that, by their incompetence, the Romans would have accidentally allowed Him to survive their quite deliberate public display of brute force seems
very hard to believe.

Rush job to get it in before the Sabbath.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Guys: Keep in mind that my post was intended solely to explain the mainstream Christian view to abaddon about what grace was lost according to standard mainstream thinking. I did clarify that post since I messed it up and inadvertently misled bigfield to an erroneous understanding of what was intended.

But don't you about what is true? If you say, this is just what I believe you are saying that truth is just whatever you want to be true. Ie, you don't care what is true. It's so common to hear this from Christians. But if you don't care what is true, then why is faith important? If truth isn't the foundation of belief then what point is the belief?

What you read in my post is not intended to tell you what I believe. I personally don't think we have any way of knowing exactly what life was like in the beginning.

Sure we do. That's why we have science. A great tool for finding out what is true.

But to answer bigfield's response to my clarification I will tell you that the basis for the mainstream belief that all creatures were vegetarian is Genesis 1:29-30.

Just more evidence you don't care about the truth. If you suspect that all creatures were vegetarians at some point, it's easy enough to test. Those genes should still be present in the genome. The Bible cannot help you settle this issue. It's not that kind of a book. You really need to set the Bible aside and start doing research. If you don't, you're just proving you don't care about what is true.

And then we're back to where we started. If truth doesn't matter then what's the point of faith?

If the truth doesn't matter to you then why bother discussing things?

 

[Learner]

Sure we do. That's why we have science. A great tool for finding out what is true.

Indeed science is a great tool , unforunately the science is currently "insufficient" to really tell you about early life. For example the missing link ... the supposedly connection between man and ape. There was of course Lucy but it turned out to be a hoax , can you imagine that?

There should be.. by simple common sense many 'missing links' all over the place ,or at least in Africa NOT JUST ONE ! This is one of many accepted examples more akin to 'science fiction' I'm afraid . The debate still continues.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Yes, I get that part - it is as simple as you make it out to be. My question has to do with the why behind it. God made a decision to forgive mankind for the whole apple mishap (which was totally his own damn fault, but that's a separate thread). Before granting this forgiveness, however, he put on a human body, lived a perfect life and then let some people sacrifice him in order to check off some bullet points from a prophecy. Seeing as he is the one who did all that, though, why go through that bother? Why not just skip to the end part where he forgives everybody?

It's not like there was somebody else involved who did something which changed God's mind about withholding forgiveness. It's not like God is an underpowered wizard who needs to invoke an overly complex ritual of having a perfect person sacrificed in order to generate sufficient magical energy to cast the atonement spell - the man is omnipotent, so he can just do things without the need for any preamble. There's just a pointlessness to the whole event which I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around. Also, if he wants people to stop sending him lamb entrails, he can just tell them that he already has more lamb entrails than he'll ever really use, so please stop giving them to him. He sent an angel to the shepherds anyways, so a message about the change in lamb usage would have hit one of the main target audiences and the last sacrifice could have been whichever random lamb had been sacrificed the night before as opposed to it being a person.

Now, you did make a good point about his incarnating himself to live this perfect life as an example to mankind and that's fine. It's a valid reason to pack on a meatsuit and hang out on Earth for a bit. Why there would be some kind of relationship between that and deciding to forgive people and why a need for suffering is somehow in there too is unclear to me.

You are looking for an explanation of God's reasoning? Boy, you are hoping for more information than I realized. I don't know of any reasonable Christian who would even attempt to explain what God is thinking. You might get some answers from those on the fringe but I don't know that I would trust what they have to say in any case.

Ruth

I don't understand why not. The God in the bible is presented as a rational actor who constantly explains the reasons behind his actions. When he kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it". When he told Noah to build the Ark because he was going to flood the world, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it". When he scattered mankind after the Tower of Babel, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it". When he sent plagues to Egypt, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it".

While one may agree or disagree with the various judgement calls he's made, he's always been very upfront about explaining his reasons. One can almost always explain what God is thinking because his actions make sense within the context that he makes them. When God destroys a city, you know why he destroys that city. When God frees a group of slaves, you know why this group of slaves is being set free. The crucifixion story is a glaring anomaly in his behaviour which is distinctly different from all his other behaviours. It's not just that the story doesn't make sense, it's that the story doesn't make sense in light of who the character in the story has been shown to be.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Folks ask you to explain the theology of atonement and Jesus' sacrifice
...and THEN they go into some inane spoof routine about Superman and Lex Luther.

Why feign sincerity then (bait and switch) say Jesus never died for anyone because Jesus is a myth.

Who's feigning what? We're adults here. I most certainly enjoy watching Superman triumph over Lex Luthor. The difference between your reading about your Superman triumph over bad juju and my Superman triumph over Lex Luthor is that I don't tell people my Superman is real. But you tell people that your superman is. That's the diff.

If you were a child and you were showing me how your superman doll flies around the room and is going to protect us all from the bad guys I'd have a different approach. Seriously, however, as an adult, you believe in a literal Superman that flies around the sky, gets itself whacked and then comes back to life, and you want me to treat that as acceptable adult behavior. Not gonna happen outside the institutional walls.

I truly enjoy being fooled by a good movie, Superman or whatever. That's why I do it and psychologically I understand how my brain operates. But I do not act it out as if it is real and talk about it with other adults except as fantasy, a good story, good literature, good theatre, good connections, good acting.

I hope you can understand.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

And then we're back to where we started. If truth doesn't matter then what's the point of faith?

If the truth doesn't matter to you then why bother discussing things?

Some people feel better being scientifically accurate with their truth. Other people, mostly people lacking a high degree of scientific curiosity or simply lacking in the mental requirements needed to understand science, make up their truth. And I am not insulting anyone, simply stating the obvious.

If some professional athlete made fun of me for not being able to perform on his level I'd know the guy is a jerk.

But how is it possible that a person reads a story about an ancient hero and takes it literally? How is it possible that a person reads a story about a dude coming back to life and flying around in the sky and takes it literally? How is it possible that a person reads a story about a dude allegedly performing physically impossible things yet believes the dude and the story is literally true?

The answer is Ontology, namely that some people construct their reality, their truth, not based on scientific observation and conclusion but based on feelings.

It's impossible for me to comprehend how a person could on one hand go to a doctor, be prescribed and accept scientifically sound and proven medical procedures, yet on the other hand go into a building and pretend to turn food into a long dead religious figure so they can eat that person's body and drink its blood. My brain does not allow me to do the latter. My brain would have to be different. That my brain would have to be different is a conclusion I base on simple observation and conclusion using the scientific principles that give my life reality.

Don't misunderstand, however, I still love to pretend, but I know when I'm pretending.

 

[Ruth Harris]

You are looking for an explanation of God's reasoning? Boy, you are hoping for more information than I realized. I don't know of any reasonable Christian who would even attempt to explain what God is thinking. You might get some answers from those on the fringe but I don't know that I would trust what they have to say in any case.

Ruth

I don't understand why not. The God in the bible is presented as a rational actor who constantly explains the reasons behind his actions. When he kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it". When he told Noah to build the Ark because he was going to flood the world, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it". When he scattered mankind after the Tower of Babel, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it". When he sent plagues to Egypt, he said "and by the way, this is why I'm doing it".

While one may agree or disagree with the various judgement calls he's made, he's always been very upfront about explaining his reasons. One can almost always explain what God is thinking because his actions make sense within the context that he makes them. When God destroys a city, you know why he destroys that city. When God frees a group of slaves, you know why this group of slaves is being set free. The crucifixion story is a glaring anomaly in his behaviour which is distinctly different from all his other behaviours. It's not just that the story doesn't make sense, it's that the story doesn't make sense in light of who the character in the story has been shown to be.

Okay, I think I finally understand what you are after here. You are wanting the reason stated by God in the scriptures for the necessity of the crucifixion of Jesus to forgive the sin of the human race. Do I have this right? If so, this may take me a little while; this is not as simple as the stated reasons for the examples you gave since it is an overarching theme which runs throughout the Bible.

Ruth

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Yes. That's what I'm after. Say that God decided to give an example of a perfect life to humans. Why is that related to forgiveness and why couldn't he have given ths forgiveness before living this life, halfway through living this life or a thousand years after living this life, as opposed to right at the end of living this life?

God isn't a weak, limited being who's bound by restrictions and rituals to get things done. He doesn't need to tie one action to another action in order to make it happen. Most importantly, there's nobody except God who's doing anything here, so it's not like he's being inspired by somebody else's actions to make a choice that he wouldn't have made on his own.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Sure we do. That's why we have science. A great tool for finding out what is true.

Indeed science is a great tool , unforunately the science is currently "insufficient" to really tell you about early life. For example the missing link ... the supposedly connection between man and ape. There was of course Lucy but it turned out to be a hoax , can you imagine that?

There should be.. by simple common sense many 'missing links' all over the place ,or at least in Africa NOT JUST ONE ! This is one of many accepted examples more akin to 'science fiction' I'm afraid . The debate still continues.

The term "missing link" is nonsense. Every individual of every species is a missing link. Unsurprisingly turns out to be a bullshit term invented by creationists who don't understand the theory of evolution. Whenever I read blog posts with titles like "top ten reasons why evolution is false" it's all just misunderstandings of the theory. The theory of evolution is incredibly robust. It's one of our most robust scientific theories. There's just so much indipendently verifiable data.

What debate?!? The debate of evolution only exists in the heads of creationists. There is no debate within science. You'd have more luck arguing that gravity is false.

In what way was Lucy a hoax? Lucy was a fine specimen of the Australopithecus species. Today we've found a whole bunch of them. I think nine all together, if I remember correctly. Lucy is not alone. She wasn't our ancestor. But close relative. And if we bring in all the specimins of all the hominid skeletons we've found we could populate a medium sized rave party. We've even found plenty of hominid samples of DNA which we've sequenced and hey presto, we can pinpoint exactly where they fit into the tree of life next to us. So please explain yourself? What do you mean?

Picking on the theory of evolution as an example of how dodgy science is reveals so much about how little you know about science or the scientific method or how scientists agree on what is fact and what is speculation. The theory of evolution is one of the most robust theories we have today. Back in Darwins day it was mostly speculation. But since then we're got acres and acres of evidence. Everything alive has the ability to disprove the theory of evolution, if it was false. But it's clearly not.

 

[DrZoidberg]

And then we're back to where we started. If truth doesn't matter then what's the point of faith?

If the truth doesn't matter to you then why bother discussing things?

Some people feel better being scientifically accurate with their truth. Other people, mostly people lacking a high degree of scientific curiosity or simply lacking in the mental requirements needed to understand science, make up their truth. And I am not insulting anyone, simply stating the obvious.

If some professional athlete made fun of me for not being able to perform on his level I'd know the guy is a jerk.

But it's a question of being propelled by the search for truth. Ok, I've studied epistomology. And it was many years ago. So I may not be the best at relating to people who haven't.

But anybody making a claim has clearly thought it through. They must have done some research on the matter. If you keep digging, step by step it will eventually reveal what problems there are. Research in the age of Internet is incredibly easy.

People saying things that obviously are false have cleary not done their homework. Were they ever interested in the truth? Or is it just a narcissistic urge to hear their own voice? The answer is the latter.

My big question is WHY? Why do they keep doing it? Why don't they get called on their bullshit at ever turn, even by their own? Why aren't more Christians skeptical within their own church? To me, if you're not skeptical about something you don't care about it. Could it possibly be true that all Christians don't give a shit about their own religion? I'm not saying they do care. I just don't get it? What's the point having a meaning of life this vacuous and uninteresting? Who finds that meaningful?

 

[bigfield]

But anybody making a claim has clearly thought it through. They must have done some research on the matter. If you keep digging, step by step it will eventually reveal what problems there are. Research in the age of Internet is incredibly easy.

People often just repeat what they've heard from others and will believe extraordinary claims based on the thinnest anecdotal evidence. Zero research.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But anybody making a claim has clearly thought it through. They must have done some research on the matter. If you keep digging, step by step it will eventually reveal what problems there are. Research in the age of Internet is incredibly easy.

People often just repeat what they've heard from others and will believe extraordinary claims based on the thinnest anecdotal evidence. Zero research.

Which is fine. But then they can't turn around and say they care about what is true. Just believing rumours is not informing yourself.

I know lots of people who aren't intellectually curious. They're people who just chase pleasure and just want to have a good time. None of them would enter into an argument about anything intellectual. Because they don't care. They'd never claim they were intellectual. But I live in an atheistic society.

All Christians I've talked to on these forums are both anti-intellectual while also claiming they are intellectual. How is that possible?

 

[couch_sloth]

Some people feel better being scientifically accurate with their truth. Other people, mostly people lacking a high degree of scientific curiosity or simply lacking in the mental requirements needed to understand science, make up their truth. And I am not insulting anyone, simply stating the obvious.

If some professional athlete made fun of me for not being able to perform on his level I'd know the guy is a jerk.

But it's a question of being propelled by the search for truth. Ok, I've studied epistomology. And it was many years ago. So I may not be the best at relating to people who haven't.

But anybody making a claim has clearly thought it through. They must have done some research on the matter. If you keep digging, step by step it will eventually reveal what problems there are. Research in the age of Internet is incredibly easy.

People saying things that obviously are false have cleary not done their homework. Were they ever interested in the truth? Or is it just a narcissistic urge to hear their own voice? The answer is the latter.

My big question is WHY? Why do they keep doing it? Why don't they get called on their bullshit at ever turn, even by their own? Why aren't more Christians skeptical within their own church? To me, if you're not skeptical about something you don't care about it. Could it possibly be true that all Christians don't give a shit about their own religion? I'm not saying they do care. I just don't get it? What's the point having a meaning of life this vacuous and uninteresting? Who finds that meaningful?

Because that isn't the way Christianity works. For the most part, Christians are taught that they shouldn't be skeptical about their religion, and they shouldn't dwell on their doubts.
e.g. You're encouraged to believe that doubts are a sign of weakness in the doubter (Their faith just isn't strong enough!). Believing in things by religious faith is seen as a virtue.