I don't understand the Jesus died for our sins thing.

[Angry Irishman]

Religious people are stupid and their crap isnt supposed to make sense.

Well since you put it that way I'm sure the religious masses will completely change their collective minds.

 

[sportage]

WOW! So many misguided responses.
And WAY WAY WAY far too much over-analyzing of an answer so simple.
First... forget most of the biblical wording.
That has been so misinterpreted over the years.
Or twisted like pretzels to suit current society or ones personal beliefs of the moment.
The far right wing religious fanatics know that little game play all too well.
Not to mention the perverted side of misinterpretation. For example...
The bible has been interrupted to justify slavery.
The bible has been interrupted to justify bigotry.
The bible has been interrupted to justify mass murder. Just ask Hitler about that one.

No, the answer is so simple that most people, even so claimed highly religious people and scholars would miss this answer to the ops question.

Upon the cross, Christ cried out,
"forgive them for they know not what they do".

That is the correct answer.
Thats all.

 

[Kadarin]

The most applicable quote from the Christian scriptures is, "I come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it" (where "the law" refers to the Jewish law, including animal sacrifice.) So the general interpretation is that animal sacrifice, while not invalid, became unnecessary.

I'm reading this as I can atone for my "sins" by sacrificing animals (or whatever the hell Jewish people did back then).

I'm not Christian, so it all sounds stupid to me.

 

[actuarial]

You gotta understand that there's very specific rules for getting into heaven, and he can't change those. So he used, apparently, the only avenue he had to help us in.

Please disregard the fact that he is all-powerful and actually created heaven.

 

[Lonyo]

Jesus didn't die and go to heaven.
He died, came back, lived for a bit, then went to heaven.

He basically knew he wasn't going to be properly dead anyway, so it shouldn't count.
Effectively he didn't die for our sins, he pretended to die for our sins, then went off to heaven afterwards. And now everyone acts like he died for our sins.

You can medically die and then come back, most people wouldn't say you really died.
God was basically like an advanced doctor in the story who brought him back from serious injury, not really from death. He didn't actually sacrifice his son at all, because he would have known he would be back.

The sacrifice was Jesus letting himself go through a bunch of pain for a while, before being brought back mostly healthy by God, and then going off to heaven a bit later. God didn't sacrifice anything.

 

[Cuda1447]

The logic runs as such:

• God created humankind in perfect state, endowing them with free will because without free will there can be no love.
• Humankind chose to fuck it up, thereby introducing sin into the world and separating themselves from God.
• God, in his mercy, introduced a way to atone for sin through sacrifice (animal sacrifice, in this case.)
• This approach dictated a sort of 1:1 sin:animal ratio (because animals aren't all that awesome, I guess?)
• To instead substitute a once-and-for-all sacrifice something more mega and intense and awesome than animals was called for, so God totally perfect and sinless and not at all deserving of death, became incarnate
• And willingly died, undeserved. The act more than equaled out all the sins from ever, making it a simple matter of deciding to willingly accept that act on your behalf.
• Since you don't mess with perfection, death couldn't keep a good guy down. Three days, Cadbury eggs, yada yada and all that.

So God was pissed at humans for sin. So to save humans from God... he created himself sa a human... and killed himself, so that he could forgive humans?


Wouldn't it have been easier to just say "Alright guys, we kinda fucked up. Let's start over, be good this time"

 

[Smoblikat]

So God was pissed at humans for sin. So to save humans from God... he created himself sa a human... and killed himself, so that he could forgive humans?


Wouldn't it have been easier to just say "Alright guys, we kinda fucked up. Let's start over, be good this time"

But then our leaders god wouldnt be able to control us. It is very convenient that we must suffer for a single sin commuted thousands of years ago.

 

[leftyman]

I like how they wrote Mary Magdalene right out of the story and turned her into a hooker.

 

[surfsatwerk]

I like how they wrote Mary Magdalene right out of the story and turned her into a hooker.

But a good hooker, like the movie Pretty Woman.

 

[leftyman]

But a good hooker, like the movie Pretty Woman.

She was always washing his feet too...kinky.

 

[Born2bwire]

I swear FBB is the best troll here.

Didn't he post something like this before?

 

[sourceninja]

Normal human dying for a cause they believe in is sacrifice. Why? Because they have faith. They don't actually know if their cause is right. The believe there is a god and that their death will bring them closer to that god.

Jesus knew without a doubt there was a god because he WAS GOD. No sacrifice. In fact when jesus cried out to God, he was just talking to himself. The whole thing is silly.

 

[SamQuint]

God/Jesus wanted to leave a big impression. By becoming human like us and going through human pain and suffering it showed his love for us in a way that most people could see that it was truly a "sacrifice".

Since we are still talking about him 2000 years later it seems to have worked.

 

[sourceninja]

God/Jesus wanted to leave a big impression. By becoming human like us and going through human pain and suffering it showed his love for us in a way that most people could see that it was truly a "sacrifice".

Since we are still talking about him 2000 years later it seems to have worked.

He was just like us. I heal the sick, turn water into wine, raise the dead, etc regularly.

No he was like a GM in a mmo when the rest of us are players. GM's are not playing the game. They have in game avatars sure, but their just hanging out.

 

[surfsatwerk]

... trying to make his way home.

 

[dank69]

Buck meow, buck meow.

 

[balloonshark]

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That's all you need to know.

This is one I don't get and have been questioning. Lets say there is a tribe in a remote village in South America. They have had no contact with outsiders so they know nothing of Christianity. These people are very neighborly, work together and help each other to survive. These people only take from the environment what they need, waste nothing and do not pollute. They are in harmony with their environment. Why shouldn't these people who treated each other and the Earth with respect be permitted to go to heaven? These people seem far purer than anybody I know.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Is there anything in scripture that now specifically disallows sacrificing animals to cover sins? If we chose to do it, would it work?

What about stoning? It was a common practice back then and is in the Bible. In fact, it is still common among the Muslims in certain parts of the world.

Sorry, that region of the world has been a hotbed of discontent for thousands of years and spawned three of the worlds great religions with similar roots and similar evil concepts.

I'll take the pagan view common among the native peoples around the world. They worship the air, and land and even the animals they kill for food -- much healthier...


Brian

 

[ViperXX]

As a previous Christian, I can verify that Christianity only makes sense if you go into it assuming it to be truthful and make sense. Or, rather, that if it doesn't make sense to a human, it's OK, because only God is supposed to truly understand..and Christians are fine rolling with that. But from an outside, logical, objective analysis, it and most other religions or religious-like beliefs (or "relationships", whatever) actually make zero sense. Of course, a religious person is almost always discouraged from even considering these outside views as serious or making true sense, so, really, both sides don't and can't understand or make sense of "the other side."

The real question I have is this: Why would God give us free will knowing full well every action that would occur in the future and then choose to punish us for that? If you say God didn't know what would happen, then you don't actually have a God, because God is clearly defined as being omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

So, God had to have known full well than humans would sin down to every last detail in the event. Of course, if God knows everything that will happen, how do we have free will? We would perceive ourselves as having free will, but God, being outside of time (according to what I was taught), would be able to see the entirety of humanity's existence.

I'm also suspending logic here, because God is apparently outside of time, yet God clearly acts within "our" time according to the Bible. So, let's ignore than inconsistency. Even then, our perception of time and free will would be more akin to an illusion than anything else.

So, in this case, humans wouldn't have free will, or at least not truly free will (which I'd argue is the only kind of free will). Our entire existence would have already been predetermined. So, God would have known we would sin no matter what. In a sense, it would more appear that he is at fault for us sinning, as he was the one that laid this path out for us (or, at least, saw the path in its entirety from the beginning and did nothing about it otherwise).

No free will. God knew we would sin and did nothing about it even though he is against sin. God still chooses to punish us with Hell if we don't repent. Why? How can that seem anything other than petty, unreasonable, and illogical to anyone? It just shouldn't make any sense at all, period.

Imagine if God were instead a computer programmer, and humans are just AI implemented in one of many worlds. The whole notion of sin and punishment for it would be akin to the programmer knowing full well he left bugs in the AI code, knowing that it would cause unwanted results from the AI, and yet still getting angry at his own doing as though it was the AI's fault from the very beginning.

God is no god at all.

This is the greatest sin. To know Jesus is the Christ and then to deny him. There is no forgiveness for this.

 

[Tweak155]

I think focusing on just the death is the focal point of the problem / argument here. Sure, dying is a big deal to us and seems insignificant to someone who goes straight to heaven. But that obviously isn't it.

Jesus was sacrificed by the meer fact he even had to become human in the first place. What father here would willingly sacrifice THEIR child to abuse that they need not experience? Not to mention torture and then death (taking out the death factor you still leave torture).

Whether you believe the story is true or not, you should at least be able to appreciate submitting your child to abusing circumstances is a sacrifice. It IS a sacrifice because it was the choosing of doing so.

So you can bash religion, that's fine, but not being able to understand a rather simple concept (whether fact or fiction) isn't a fault of that religion.

 

[dank69]

This is the greatest sin. To know Jesus is the Christ and then to deny him. There is no forgiveness for this.

That's exactly what I tell all my victims right before I rob and murder them. Hopefully they take my words to heart so I can hang out with them again in heaven.

 

[balloonshark]

This is the greatest sin. To know Jesus is the Christ and then to deny him. There is no forgiveness for this.

Reason #4562 for not wanting to be part of a religion.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

 

[JTsyo]

OP before you think he wasn't affected:
Relevant

I don't know what you people did to Him, but He's never been the same.

 

[Brian Stirling]

This is the greatest sin. To know Jesus is the Christ and then to deny him. There is no forgiveness for this.

I believe Jesus existed and that he was crucified, but I believe he was just a man. I also believe that he had no special comm link to god.

I also believe that Muḥammad was just a man, that he was no messenger beyond what ideas came to him, and that he, to, had no special comm link to god.


Brian

 

[Juddog]

Basically God, in his all-knowing and all-powerfulness, decided to create man, create a rib-woman, create sin, create a talking snake, then since he's omniscient knew the talking snake would convince the rib woman to eat the forbidden fruit that he created.

Once the rib woman ate the forbidden fruit that he put there (given he was all-knowing, he knew that she would eat it), then cast the rib woman and man out from paradise for doing his plan. After that sister and brother bred like filthy animals and made the human race, who decided to start sacrificing animals for his pleasure. God was tired of animals that he created being sacrificed, so he created a cosmic jewish zombie version of himself to allow himself to be sacrificed for himself to allow the humans to be free of sin that he created in the first place.

Once the cosmic jewish zombie was sacrificed for himself to stop the humans from being guilty of something he created, he then forgave the humans as long as they believed in the cosmic jewish self-resurrecting zombie. Otherwise they will be doomed to hell where they will burn, choke, and cry - forever. Oh - and he loves you.