Jesus died for our sins, but he was only dead for three days.

The heart of the matter is I don't understand how Jesus' death was a sacrifice.

Firstly, wasn't he executed? To me, this is not the same thing as a sacrifice. My understanding is that sacrifices are made by man to a god.

Secondly, when he was resurrected his earthly body was replaced by a glorified body. If a glorified body is superior in all respects to an earthly body, then this seems more of a gain than a loss. To me, this does not fit within the concept of a sacrifice.

Speaking of glorified bodies, being raised from the dead is miraculous. So why cannot the scars be healed?

alive4now wrote:Speaking of glorified bodies, being raised from the dead is miraculous. So why cannot the scars be healed?

It's more theatrical with scars.

Which reminds me, if Jesus was raised to perfection, why did he still have the holes where the nails were when he invited Thomas to have a feel?

alive4now wrote:Jesus died for our sins, but he was only dead for three days.

The heart of the matter is I don't understand how Jesus' death was a sacrifice.

Someone on the RDF forums once made a statement which went something along the lines of "dead for just three days ? that's not a sacrifice, that's giving up a long weekend "

The heart of the matter is I don't understand how Jesus' death was a sacrifice.

I think the problem is that people look for continuity in fiction literature. We all know that authors embellish a story to make it fun and interesting.

Unfortunately, a bunch of desert goat herders didn’t have access to the Internet and had to rely upon what they heard from the locals when they wrote the bible. Oh, that’s when they weren’t humping their sheep that is. And no, I’m not blaming the authors of the bible, let’s face it, those sheep were fucking gorgeous!

Firstly, wasn't he executed?

Yes, so the story does have a happy ending. The way he droned on and on would have put everyone at the time into a coma. I’m not sure, but I think putting everyone into a coma from sheer boredom was a crime in Roman times.

Secondly, when he was resurrected his earthly body was replaced by a glorified body.

No... actually he is as dead as a fucking doornail... crucifixion tends to have that effect.

Speaking of glorified bodies, being raised from the dead is miraculous.

Speaking of miracles... I’m more impressed that Dorothy and Toto got back to Kansas in one piece. Now that was truly a miracle!

Incidentally I have proof positive that Dorothy and Toto are fine. I have testimonies, written documents and the fact that the wicked witch died, which should dispel any detractors.

I never make it as far as all that when thinking about this. I always get stopped at the sin part. What sins? The word doesn't make any sense. They seem to be telling us it's a sin to be human. Such a twisted, self-effacing ethic I could never roll with. Yeah I've done and said things I regret but they're my regrets and none of them are that bad that someone has to die over them. And don't worry, if I ever done anything horrendous I'll kill myself. Don't feel compelled to put your neck on the chopping block for me. I'm a grown man. I can look after myself.
The whole concept is nonsensical to the extreme. I mean what type of person beats themselves up over crap that much that they feel they need help from a dead dingbat from 2,000 years ago they don't even know?

Secondly, when he was resurrected his earthly body was replaced by a glorified body. If a glorified body is superior in all respects to an earthly body, then this seems more of a gain than a loss. To me, this does not fit within the concept of a sacrifice.

A few hours of pain for a vastly improved body. A lot of people would pay good money for that.

Animavore wrote:They seem to be telling us it's a sin to be human. Such a twisted, self-effacing ethic I could never roll with.

When I heard this as a kid, that we are born into sin, I knew christianity was bullshit and I wanted nothing to do with it.

Arcanyn wrote:

Secondly, when he was resurrected his earthly body was replaced by a glorified body. If a glorified body is superior in all respects to an earthly body, then this seems more of a gain than a loss. To me, this does not fit within the concept of a sacrifice.

A few hours of pain for a vastly improved body. A lot of people would pay good money for that.

FIFY.

The concept of executing an innocent man in place of the guilty one Is sickening, and typical of the morally bankrupt story-telling in the Bible. People who'd let their kids read that shit need a good slap upside the head.

akigr8 wrote:

Animavore wrote:They seem to be telling us it's a sin to be human. Such a twisted, self-effacing ethic I could never roll with.

When I heard this as a kid, that we are born into sin, I knew christianity was bullshit and I wanted nothing to do with it.

Being from a Catholic community we had to tell confession once a month. Looking back at it the contrast between the outwardly penitent act I gave the priest and my inwardly thoughts is quite humorous.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"
(I'm not your son yi crusty auld bollox)
"One month, Father."
"And have you any sins you'd like to confess?"
"Eh... I said a bad word (as if I give a fuck). I got in a fight with my brother (he deserved it). I gave cheek to my mother (and she beat me over it so fuck her)."
"Anything else?"
"I robbed 10p from my mum's purse and bought sweets (I didn't really it's just the other 'sins' were so piss poor I was embarrassed by them that i had to make up a more heinous crime just to feel like something of a bad-ass)."
"Ok. Say three Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers (now fuck off)"

I mean... is this what the whole sacrifice was about? Just to absolve me over nothing? It's laughable in context.

It has always been a problem and a challenge to religions, that at the same time as the followers want to hold fast to the idea of a single, perfect being having guided all of existence, the way they try to explain it all has relied upon a very long series of different people, and worse, has had to struggle with a constantly evolving (and contradictory) learning process about our universe.

My own take on it all, is that religious explanations began as attempts to find the inner peace and comfort that comes from feeling that one has some control over one's life. Perhaps even ultimately from trying to get small questioning children to be quiet when one is trying to sleep after a long day's hunt-and-gather. Once begun, in an anthropomorphic fashion, all the other complications were added on, much as we occasionally make so many changes and updates to a machine, instead of replacing it outright, that maintaining all of the twists, band-aid fixes, and work-arounds in the machine, becomes a life-long task for a huge workforce.

The reason for most of the contradictions within a religion such as Christianity, IS that the bulk of it's followers want to both hang onto the original concepts, so as to have the psychological comfort of long continuity, AND still deal with new learnings in science, as well as to add in more adherents by making THEIR myths and faiths seem to be a part of the Christian beliefs.

So there are lots of not-very-well-done band-aids and work-arounds attached to Christianity, by a LONG series of modifiers who had very different goals at each juncture in history. It is therefore an act of ignorance, if not ingenuousness to self-righteously complain that all the bits and notions don't match properly into a smoothly functioning unified design.

Made of Stars wrote:

Arcanyn wrote:

Secondly, when he was resurrected his earthly body was replaced by a glorified body. If a glorified body is superior in all respects to an earthly body, then this seems more of a gain than a loss. To me, this does not fit within the concept of a sacrifice.

A few hours of pain for a vastly improved body. A lot of people would pay good money for that.

FIFY.

Don't really agree with the 'vastly' though when it comes to cosmetic surgery; the methods used today are still pretty limited. Though that might change in a couple of decades if we get really good at tissue engineering.

I was thinking more of knee and hip replacements, pacemakers, glaucoma surgery...

Animavore wrote:

akigr8 wrote:

Animavore wrote:They seem to be telling us it's a sin to be human. Such a twisted, self-effacing ethic I could never roll with.

When I heard this as a kid, that we are born into sin, I knew christianity was bullshit and I wanted nothing to do with it.

Being from a Catholic community we had to tell confession once a month. Looking back at it the contrast between the outwardly penitent act I gave the priest and my inwardly thoughts is quite humorous.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"
(I'm not your son yi crusty auld bollox)
"One month, Father."
"And have you any sins you'd like to confess?"
"Eh... I said a bad word (as if I give a fuck). I got in a fight with my brother (he deserved it). I gave cheek to my mother (and she beat me over it so fuck her)."
"Anything else?"
"I robbed 10p from my mum's purse and bought sweets (I didn't really it's just the other 'sins' were so piss poor I was embarrassed by them that i had to make up a more heinous crime just to feel like something of a bad-ass)."
"Ok. Say three Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers (now fuck off)"

I mean... is this what the whole sacrifice was about? Just to absolve me over nothing? It's laughable in context.

Heehee!
Same here, we had to make up sins. And I. for one, didn't have the faintest idea what the other sins were that priests vaguely referred to. That's how innocent I was.
And when it finally dawned on me, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why anyone would confess to those sins.....I mean to a priest that knew you? No way José.

igorfrankensteen wrote:The reason for most of the contradictions within a religion such as Christianity, IS that the bulk of it's followers want to both hang onto the original concepts, so as to have the psychological comfort of long continuity, AND still deal with new learnings in science, as well as to add in more adherents by making THEIR myths and faiths seem to be a part of the Christian beliefs.

Yup.

Ironically enough, penal substitutionary atonement (Christ died for your sins, you scum!) is the new dogma on the block, cooked up around the 16th Century. Before it we had Satisfaction (God's honor needed to be satisfied) and Ransom (the Devil had rights over the world, and Christ died to pay him off). PSA is now drawing endless flack for its barbarity, and Christianity would benefit no end from ditching it. But as you say, many Christians have too much invested.

Christ "dying for our sins" makes zero sense, but the Atonement isn't an integral part of Christianity. The Orthodox churches believe something wholly different (Christ died so he could bring union with God through the Resurrection), and liberal Christianity has no truck with PSA (preferring either Christ Victorious or no model of atonement at all).

The message: dogmas suck, religions aren't how-to guides, embrace them as experience and story instead.

Made of Stars wrote:I was thinking more of knee and hip replacements, pacemakers, glaucoma surgery...

Even still, those areas are still limited - we're still some way away from being able to restore people back to a state equivalent to that seen in people without the conditions requiring corrective surgery.

Byron wrote:

igorfrankensteen wrote:The reason for most of the contradictions within a religion such as Christianity, IS that the bulk of it's followers want to both hang onto the original concepts, so as to have the psychological comfort of long continuity, AND still deal with new learnings in science, as well as to add in more adherents by making THEIR myths and faiths seem to be a part of the Christian beliefs.

Yup.

Ironically enough, penal substitutionary atonement (Christ died for your sins, you scum!) is the new dogma on the block, cooked up around the 16th Century. Before it we had Satisfaction (God's honor needed to be satisfied) and Ransom (the Devil had rights over the world, and Christ died to pay him off). [snip]

Yeah. We heard about God and his gambling problem.

I remember one of the born-agains explaining this whole sacrifice thing....
It wasn't about the physical pain (he said)... it was the ignominy that Jesus had to endure when he "took our sins upon himself".

Get over it, Jesus. We know that you were just the scapegoat/fall-guy/whipping-boy. It's your post-resurrection conduct that disgusts us... like doing fuck-all while your followers tortured and burned innocents... in your name, no less. Yeah, that's right, you could do the whole smiting thing over a bit of insincere charity, but you weren't the least bit perturbed by a few centuries of unbridled cruelty.

And you missed the date of your big comeback in May this year. You also missed the second-chance Second Coming in October. What'sa matter? Stuck on the toilet again?