Wortfish wrote:

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

I see no inconsistency. Someone had to pay the debt for the forgiveness of sins. That meant someone had to suffer.

So you never forgive anyone, for anything, unless they suffer ? What a despicable mentality.

aban57 wrote:

Wortfish wrote:

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

I see no inconsistency. Someone had to pay the debt for the forgiveness of sins. That meant someone had to suffer.

So you never forgive anyone, for anything, unless they suffer ? What a despicable mentality.

You can forgive a debt, but someone still has to bear the burden of it. It won't just go away.

felltoearth wrote:Why can’t god just suck it up? I mean, omnipotent and all. No skin off his ethereal back.

Again, you are just expressing your own incredulity. You don't know God or how he thinks.

And neither do you, if you assume he exists. You're just making shit up to fit your preferred narrative, you haven't got a single shred of evidence for anything you say on the subject.

Me, I'm partial to debts that are made up so you can try to convince someone they need to pay it back. It's blackmail for gullible people.

Wortfish wrote:
From my own sources in the spirit world,...

Wortfish wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Why can’t god just suck it up? I mean, omnipotent and all. No skin off his ethereal back.

Again, you are just expressing your own incredulity. You don't know God or how he thinks.

Introduce me.

Again, you are just expressing your own incredulity. You don't know God or how he thinks.

If you believe you know how God thinks then you'd better hope there is no God or you're in for a world of torment. Meanwhile, probably best to get yourself a mental health checkup.

Wortfish wrote:

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

I see no inconsistency. Someone had to pay the debt for the forgiveness of sins. That meant someone had to suffer.

There is no need for a 'debt for sins' except that God decided there was.

And there was no need for the concept of 'sin' unless God decided there was.

And the 'sin' in question was simply disobedience, so God could just forgive without needing all the convoluted manufactured debt and son-death scenarios to resolve it.

When someone does you harm, getting someone else to pay for that sin is completely illogical.

Finally, Jesus is not 'the son of God' in the sense of being someone wholly independent, according to the Bible, but actually is God - so in order for God to forgive humans the 'debt' they owe 'him' for doing something 'he' decided was a sin, 'he' chooses to send himself as his son to be killed by them in order to forgive them, which is really what he wants to do.

And this is meant to make sense.

Wortfish wrote:

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

I see no inconsistency. Someone had to pay the debt for the forgiveness of sins. That meant someone had to suffer.

Why was there a debt in the first place? Only because God decided on it -- even assuming that the Adam and Eve story is true -- which it isn't.

The Christian notion of sin and Jesus' "ransom sacrifice" is completely illogical. It's contradicted by simple genetics. About 27 years ago I wrote an essay about why this notion is ridiculous. I sent it to the Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters and called in a favor to get them to answer it. The answer? "Don't ask unprofitable questions." The debt/ransom idea boils down to: Bad things must come in pairs.

Here's the essay:

God's Justice: Sin, Imperfection, and the Ransom Sacrifice

Wortfish wrote:

AlanF wrote:

I'd like to get comments from people on my argument. Are there flaws that Christian defenders can exploit? Etc.

Thanks,
Alan

I think this is what many would call "an argument from ignorance and personal incredulity".

From my own sources in the spirit world,

*power off*

Another thought: Suppose a man commits murder and is convicted in court. The judge passes sentence: the murderer must spend the rest of his days in prison. The man's son pipes up and says, "No! Let me do the time in place of my dad!" Does anyone in his right mind think that justice would be served by that? Of course not.

The fact is that the notion of a "ransom sacrifice" has its roots in the primitive notion of strict eye-for-an-eye justice, where who supplies the balancing eye is irrelevant. This primitive and ridiculous notion is found throughout the Old Testament and shows how those writings are derived from primitive Middle Eastern goat herders barely out of the Stone Age.

Spearthrower wrote:
When someone does you harm, getting someone else to pay for that sin is completely illogical.

It's also perfectly immoral. For a book that claims to be the source for human moral code, it's a bad start. And I don't even talk about the dozens other immoral things in there.

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

well, there's ample proof in OT that god in anything but omniscient, the necessity for having jesus cruelly killed may be the proof that it is actually not all powerful either... or just another nail in the coffin of the good god and more proof that whatever divine being there is in the babble is actually an evil sadist.

Wortfish wrote:

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

I see no inconsistency. Someone had to pay the debt for the forgiveness of sins. That meant someone had to suffer.

Forgiveness is not a debt, it is to be given freely or it's worthless, moreover, if the 'debt" is over the original sin, then it's not for us to pay it, but for the serpent who tempted eve and the evil god who set us up in a lose lose game in the first place by demanding blind obedience since without eating of the fruit, there was no way for man to know that disobeying was wrong in the first place.

Wortfish wrote:

felltoearth wrote:Why can’t god just suck it up? I mean, omnipotent and all. No skin off his ethereal back.

Again, you are just expressing your own incredulity. You don't know God or how he thinks.

if you believe you do, your hubris is such that you ought to set yourself up as the new pope.

AlanF wrote:Another thought: Suppose a man commits murder and is convicted in court. The judge passes sentence: the murderer must spend the rest of his days in prison. The man's son pipes up and says, "No! Let me do the time in place of my dad!" Does anyone in his right mind think that justice would be served by that? Of course not.

It's not even that. It's like having an unrelated guy, who is already serving concurrent life sentences for other people, offer to do the father's term as well, and that being accepted.

No justice system works like this, but perhaps that's because we don't let murderers design justice systems, the way we let priests invent systems of morality.

Wortfish wrote:

Hermit wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, the Christian religion is based on the idea that God sent his Son to suffer and be crucified so that he could show his love for humanity through redemption. That is entirely consistent with a loving God.

Have you never been struck by the absurdity of the omnipotent Christian god's incapability to redeem humanity unless humans kill his son? Ignoring the utter absurdity of this scenario I can only marvel at how much that god must have hated his son.

I see no inconsistency. Someone had to pay the debt for the forgiveness of sins. That meant someone had to suffer.

Firstly, you and your god have never heard of debt relief or debt cancellation. Yes, it's a thing. What exactly prevented your god from saying something like: "Now listen up, humanity! Collectively you have totted up an enormous amount of debt to me, what with all your sinning, but, generous, all-loving god that I am, I forgive you. Not only do I forgive you, but I'm cancelling your entire debt, just like that, because being omnipotent, I can do that. Proof that I am an all-loving god too, don't-cha think? So all loving, that I won't even require my only son to be killed by way of said debt's repayment"

Secondly, when humans sin, they sin against each other, not some god. If, for example, someone robs someone else, s/he owes a debt to the robbed person. Your god lost nothing in the process. He is not entitled to restitution.

Your god is an absurd proposition.