Jesus Was a Human Sacrifice

In all "civilized" countries in the world, Human Sacrifice is unlawful. The reason it is unlawful is that it is murder. I have seen it argued that a law against murder is one of the Ten Commandments because it is an aspect of a universal moral that proves Gods existence. I think we can all see the irony and logical inconsistency in that.
[Revised Aug. 8, 2008 to add the "Human Sacrifice Algorithm" to the bottom of the matrix]









This article uses a Matrix to show that Jesus was a human sacrifice. While some Christians may find nothing wrong with this, I know that some do. In my early days in the church, the sight of that cadaver hanging on the cross with blood pouring down its face and a bleeding gash on the side along with the old "this is my body and blood" at the communion presented a formidable stumbling block to me. I will even go so far as to say that I had to overcome a natural revulsion to accept those aspects of Christianity. [Click on the picture of the lamb to enlarge it to see the stream of blood pouring out of the gash on the left side.]

Since I expect that some Christians will attempt to concentrate on one datum or some philosophical spin to discredit the conclusion and/or "poison the well", I opted to present the data in a matrix because it is a data analysis tool that presents data in a way that makes it easier to avoid focusing on one datum and to consider, compare and contrast all the data at a glance.

In the Hypothesis Test Matrix, a datum that is consistent with the two categories of comparison are labeled with a "C", a datum that is inconsistent is labeled with an "I", and a datum that is ambiguous is labeled with an "A". In Hypothesis tests, usually there are competing hypotheses but in this case, I couldn't think of any competing hypotheses. Therefore there is nothing that is inconsistent or ambiguous, especially since Paul and John speak of Jesus death as a sacrifice of atonement. In a real Hypothesis Matrix, the winning hypothesis is the one that is least inconsistent with the data.

Hypothesis test: "Jesus was a Human Sacrifice"

Data Jesus Human Sacrifice
Wikipedia on the "Lamb of God":
Lamb of God (Latin: Agnus Dei) is one of the titles given to Jesus in the New Testament and consequently in the Christian tradition. It refers to Jesus' role as a sacrificial lamb atoning for the sins of man in Christian theology, harkening back to ancient Jewish Temple sacrifices in which a lamb was slain during the passover (the "Paschal Lamb", Hebrew: Korban Pesach), the blood was sprinkled on the altar, and the whole of the lamb was eaten. In the original Passover in Egypt, the blood was smeared on the door posts and lintel of each household (Exodus 12:1-28).
C C
The Lamb (in early Christian Symbolism) from The Catholic Encyclopedia:
The next step in the development of this idea of associating the Cross with the lamb was depicted in a sixth-century mosaic of the Vatican Basilica which represented the lamb standing on a throne, at the foot of a Cross studded with gems. From the pierced side of this lamb, blood flowed into a chalice whence again it issued in five streams, thus recalling Christ's five wounds.
C C
Romans 5:8-11:
"8. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."
C C
Atonement from Answers.com:
"1 Amends or reparation made for an injury or wrong; expiation.
2.a. Reconciliation or an instance of reconciliation between God and humans.
b. Atonement Christianity. The reconciliation of God and humans brought about by the redemptive life and death of Jesus."
C C
John 3:16-17:
"16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. "
[this is the atonement, or reconciliation between god and man, jesus paid the price for mans sin with his life blood.]
C C
Without the atonement no one, moral or not, gets to heaven. Jesus Sacrifice was a prerequisite requirement.
C C
Jesus was killed (more or less) during the same time frame as the passover lamb was supposed to be killed. The Passover is a Jewish ceremony that contains rituals of cultural rememberence.
C C
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia on Human Sacrifice:
"Offering of the life of a human being to a god."
C C
Human Sacrifice from Wikipedia:
"Human sacrifice is the act of homicide (the killing of one or several human beings) in the context of a religious ritual (ritual killing). Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals (animal sacrifice) and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practiced in various cultures throughout history. Victims were typically ritually killed in a manner that is supposed to please or appease gods, spirits or the deceased."
C C
www.allaboutjesuschrist.org says it explicitly:
"Approximately 1,500 years later, on the 14th day of Nisan, the Passover Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, was sacrificed upon a wooden cross for the sins of all mankind. When the Day of the Lord comes, those who have covered themselves in the blood of the Lamb by accepting Christ will be kept safe while the world pays for their rebellion against God."
C C
Revelations 5:12:
Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.
C C
Humans do something to offend god,CC
Humans need to do something to propitiate, apppease, pay, remdiate, reconcile, pick the synonymous word you prefer or come up with one of your own. CC
A human sacrifice is chosenCC
A human sacrifice is performedCC
A human Sacrifice is made as part of a ritualCC
Sometimes the sacrifice victim is willingCC
The god is appeased, the "wrath" in this instance is all wrapped up and put away.CC

Considering that it is so easy to find Christian sites that support the hypothesis, it is not a good hypothesis to test with the matrix because there really are no other competing hypotheses that I know of. However, I have been challenged and seen Christians deny that Jesus was a human sacrifice while acknowledging all the premises required to support the conclusion. I expect that this article will turn into a debate with some Christians about "definition", "meaning" and "distinctions" with liberal use of "special pleading" where they argue that it is not murder or human sacrifice because the Christian God was involved, while they wrestle with the cognitive dissonance that occurs when two values come into conflict.

Further Reading:
Answers.com: Human Sacrifice
Answers.com: Ritual Killing
Answers.com: Atonement
The Catholic Encyclopedia
Wikipedia: Lamb of God
www.allaboutjesuschrist.org

170 comments:

Rich said...

Long time no Hi Lee,

I have been expecting this post. You'll have to give me a couple of days to chew on the article and run through the links. I am out of time to comment much today but maybe tomorrow. This should be interesting though:)

Evan said...

Well I had a big long comment about this and blogger ate it when you re-did the post.

The bottom line is that the Jesus we can know about is a legend. Even if there were a "historical" Jesus of Nazareth which I do not believe there was, there is simply no way to get to him from the documents we have because they are stories made to convince uneducated believers of the late 1st and 2nd Christian centuries.

Jesus can't have been raised from the dead and turned into Captain Kirk after a transporter accident in the Tholian web, beaming from spot to spot, materializing and then dematerializing and having a snack or two throughout the Levant before going up into the sky into some wormhole like the one the ancients used near Bajor.

So all that portion has to be a legend, and what else about the story looks like history? None of it. It all has theological purposes that support a given view of the way that people are 'saved' from their 'lives of sin'.

But we know that people are not in need of such salvation. We know that transporter beams didn't exist in the 1st century CE. We know that we are an unusual animal, related to other descendants of prosimians, other primates, other mammals, other vertebrates, other deuterostomes and other multicellular animals through common ancestry and we know the earth will end with the sun engulfing it.

So what benefit is it to a modern person to imagine some legendary figure was a human sacrifice?

Touchstone said...

I think the best argument that Jesus' death was not a human sacrifice is the atheist one -- there is no God, and thus no actual sacrifice, only a eschatological prophet being put to death by the Roman machine because he had become a problem.

But I assume that you contend that even if Christians are mistaken, their theological propositions are still morally inconsistent, internally conflicted. I can see how that might be argued, and you've done so, but the Achilles' here for your matrix is the equivocation Christians can rely on in distinguish Jesus from the Father as it becomes convenient, or conversely unifying them when that's helpful. The benefits of "three-in-one" mysteries in action...

When I was a Christian, I would have simply said that Jesus *was* God, and while he was also human (don't ask me how that works!), and that makes Jesus' sacrifice not the sacrifice of one by another, but the sacrifice of self.

And of course, human SELF-sacrifice is widely revered, and commonly held out in many cultures as the most sublime act of honor and love (although there are certainly foolish and evil ways to sacrifice the self, too). As the Christian discounts Jesus *distinction* from the Heavenly Father (homoousia, and all that doncha know) for apologetic advantages here, the tables get turned. If Father sacrifices son (think Abraham actually following through with Isaac) -- it's an execrable act, and widely held to be. If Father *IS* the Son, and here Christian mystery equivocates, then it's something quite different, something admirable and broadly appealing, the sacrifice of self, putatively for the benefit of others.

It *is* interesting to note that Abraham marching up the mountain to slay Isaac upon an altar is viewed as a figure of Christ's sacrifice. Typology always affords some wiggle room, but this narrative affinity identified by Christians I think does give a nod to the Christian accommodation for the idea of human sacrifice. Abraham wasn't Isaac -- no homoousia uniting those two -- and completion of the project begun by Abraham that day stands as a kind of in-your-face token of Abraham's extreme faith (which Paul admires from the text of Hebrews): I have so much faith in God that I would slay my own son on God's simple command.

Maybe those who are still Christians will offer a different critique, but I expect your point won't be convincing at all to Christians or even "fence-sitters", due to the semantic blender that is the Trinity. Jesus' sacrifice was God's *self*-sacrifice, so goes the claim, and with that all of the stench of human sacrifice gets redeemed by the transformation into 'self-sacrifice'.

Sorry if this is just the kind of "datum or philosophical point" you were trying to avoid, but I think this all hinges on who is sacrificing who with respect to Jesus' death, and that question preempts any analysis provided by your matrix.

-Touchstone

Christopher Cowan said...

"I have seen it argued that a law against murder is one of the Ten Commandments because it is an aspect of a universal moral that proves Gods existence. I think we can all see the irony and logical inconsistency in that."

Pedantic mode on.
It all depends on what one defines murder as. For sure, murder does not simply mean to kill. Moreover if human sacrifice is murder (which I consider it to be), there's nothing ironic about it all. Being inconsistent does not make it ironic.
Pedantic mode off.

JohnD said...

Rover,

Are there any truly undisputed examples of human sacrifice in the Bible? I mean examples of God requiring or being pleased by human sacrifice. Most that you reference seem very debatable. Can Christ be considered a human sacrifice since, if you believe the Bible, he was resurrected.

Innovative Defense said...

I would love to debate you on this topic. Jesus wasn't a human sacrifice. He was killed because he said he was God and would not deny that.

He was in fact God in flesh and God's son, who was sent down so that he could live a perfect life, and die as a sacrifice for the sins of all who would believe in Him.

People did not sacrifice him, God did. And he wasn't just human. He had two natures: both human and divine.

If you would like to know more or want to ask more questions, feel free to email me: quiet4no1@gmail.com

Also here is my blog: http://innovationapologetics.blogspot.com/

Evan said...

If you believe Jesus existed and you are not a docetist or a gnostic, you believe he was human.

It's indisputable that he was sacrificed by other people unless you posit that his cause of death wasn't crucifixion, which suggests that Paul didn't know what he was talking about.

He was a human, he was sacrificed, therefore he was a human sacrifice Q.E.D..

However, if he didn't exist, then he wasn't a human sacrifice.

Innovative Defense said...

Just because he was crucified, does not mean he was "sacrificed."

The people who killed him, they didn't do it to sacrifice him. They did it to murder him because they believed he was committing a heresy by not denying that he was God.

God did use Jesus as a sacrifice, but only because Jesus was God in the flesh and human at same time.

You obviously don't understand Christianity

DingoDave said...

The other day on the 'Minnesota Atheists' weekly podcast, August Birkshire was interviewing a couple of Christian broadcasters, who admitted that the concept of Jesus' crucifiction (pun intended), represented nothing more than 'God sacrificing himself, to himself, in order to save us from himself.'

Rarely will a Christian admit such a thing. Could any idea be more absurd than this?

On the other hand, if Jesus was 'fully human' as Christians also assert, then he was definitely also a human sacrifice. To assert anything else is merely dishonest sophistry.

Anonymous said...

Look its simple,
Paul and John thought he was, so who are you to say he wasn't?

self-sacrifice is still a human sacrifice.
If the principle is in place, and the victim goes to the sacrifice of his own accord, and the principle is met by the self-sacrifice of the victim, then the victim as become a human sacrifice.

God could have done it anyway he saw fit right? He chose to be human as part of the trinity. Apparently God hopped off his Jesus ride at the last minute or "my god, my god have you forsaken me" doesn't make any sense unless Jesus just decided to start reciting psalms that he thought would be appropriate, but why would he choose a psalm that would have the appearance that God was bailing on him?

God could have chosen to do it anyway he saw fit, but he did it in a way that recalls abraham. Abraham was going to do a human sacrifice.

The analogy is clearly detailed in scripture.

Anonymous said...

Sorry evan,
evidently some of my html meant to organize the pictures was causing the blog to loop. It had to be removed and fixed. I guess your comment went with it.

but really, I don't care whether jesus was real or not, it doesn't make a difference either way. The story as laid out in the bible and as interpreted historically by christians is that jesus, by his sacrifice, paid the price for our sins, which is nothing more than equivocation, nothing more than a "difference" without a distinction.

Anonymous said...

hi rover,
Can Christ be considered a human sacrifice since, if you believe the Bible, he was resurrected.
he had to die to be resurrected or am I missing something?

Innovative Defense said...

One thing you seem to fail to understand: Jesus was not just human, but God in flesh. He was both human and divine.

It was self-sacrifice, but humans did not sacrifice him. They murdered/executed him. The cross was the same thing as the electric chair or lethal injection in our times. We did not sacrifice, we murdered for their "supposed crimes or offenses."

God exists in the trinity: God the father (God), God the son (Jesus), and the holy spirit. They altogether represent the three different persons of God, but altogether create one God.

God sent God the son, because he would be perfect and because of his perfection and not rebelling against God the father, his death would be able to be a sacrifice for the sins of every person that could ever believe in Him as their savior.

It was the greatest act of love: Christ died in order that people would be able to be seen as innocent by god, even though every person will always disobey God.

If Jesus is real, it does matter. If one does not establish a relationship with him, afterlife isn't so pleasant.

Evan said...

Lee yes, if you accept a non-docetic Christology then Jesus is definitely a human sacrifice as believed by Christians.

It's really a fun clip that Dingo is talking about. You can access it here.

It's about 3/5ths of the way in and both of the Christians accept as a fact about their religion that God sacrificed himself to himself. It gets better. They both admit it's bizarre.

Anonymous said...

Hi apologist,
his death would be able to be a sacrifice for the sins of every person that could ever believe in Him as their savior.
look, you did it, you said it. You just don't want to admit that at least one third of Jesus or more if you want to say that he was "wholly" human was sacrificed for the sins of man.

* the principle was in place,
* he was prepared from the start,
* he put himself in the position to get caught
* and get killed,
* meeting the requirement,
* absolving our sins
* saving us from the wrath of god as scripture puts it.

The show is over, everyone go home, theres nothing more to see here, the world is safe for humanity.

Evan said...

It was the greatest act of love: Christ died in order that people would be able to be seen as innocent by god, even though every person will always disobey God.

Nope. Sorry. God, if he existed, obviously would have free will. So any action taken by God is a choice. God, being omnipotent, could just choose to forgive everyone of their sins without the human sacrifice.

But he demands sacrifice.

What we've got here ... is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.

God's a prison captain getting his jollies off everyone else's suffering. There's no logical reason it must be this way, therefore it is God's choice.

If you offend me, I can forgive you and nobody has to die. Really, I can do it right now. But God can't.

Odd, that.

Innovative Defense said...

Dear Evan,

God gave us free will for a reason: so that we would choose to either love him or disobey him.

He did not want us to be complete robots that loved him because he created them to. He created people for the purpose of Glorifying him, but we glorify ourselves.

God foreknew everything, since he knows all things. Everything is part of his plan, and from what the bible tells us about his nature, everything God does is good.

God did sacrifice one person's of the trinity so that we could get right with God. It wasn't as easy as just forgiving everyone, because if he would just forgive everyone, then why would sin have ever existed. God allowed for us to choose to know good and evil, and we wanted to. So with it came sin, which was part of evil.

Why would God just forgive someone who constantly disobeys him. If he forgave everyone, that wouldn't stop them from disobeying. What would the reason be for God to forgive us for something we would keep on doing. There had to be punishment for it, and a way out of it. So God created one with his son

Anonymous said...

Hi apologist,
The cross was the same thing as the electric chair or lethal injection in our times. We did not sacrifice, we murdered for their "supposed crimes or offenses."

* jesus was the scapegoat.
* He was the penal substitution.
* He was punished in our place,
* to meet the requirement of law,
* instituted by god,
* which required blood
* to be saved from gods wrath.

this is the same concept as sacrificing an animal or human to appease a god.

Look I think its a stupid concept, even more so when you consider paul hung this hat on a myth. oh, yea, adam was a myth.

thats what happens when people start stacking lies, the story becomes incoherent.

Innovative Defense said...

Jesus was the only answer. There had to be one last sacrifice so that there would not be another.

The end of story. We choose to rely on Christ or we don't. Thats all there is too it.

Having an opinion doesn't mean its true.

If it was all a myth, and the many eyewitnesses of Jesus' miracles, death and resurrection, etc... if it was all a myth, it was pretty stupid of them to be preaching about honesty and truth, if they were condoning that scripture was written to false advertise Christ. It doesn't seem logical that Jesus follower's would preach about honesty and truth, write a story about what the had seen and heard, and eventually die for their beliefs... if it was all just a made up story by them.

Sounds kinda illogical to me... that they would die for a lie they made up. Either they really saw and believed it, or were dumb enough to die for no reason.

Anonymous said...

Hi apologist,
God gave us free will for a reason: so that we would choose to either love him or disobey him.
heres the punch line to the next article that is in draft right now. Do a timeline of events in the garden and you will find that Eve did not know the difference between good and evil before she made the decision to disobey god. She couldn't possibly know it was a bad thing if she didn't know the difference between good and evil could she?

I'm pleading insanity for Adam and Eve.

Also do a "decision tree chart" for the trees of knowledge of good and evil and life, you will see that it was bad idea in the first place, unless the intent was exactly what happened, and it was all planned from the start which means that man is not culpable,

Do an elimination of dominated strategies and you will see that no reasonable person would put humans together with those two trees unless it was part of a dominant strategy, which means that humans are not at fault, because things played out as you would expect them too.

damn, i gave away the punchlines to a months worth of articles.....

Anonymous said...

Hi apologist,
Sounds kinda illogical to me... that they would die for a lie they made up. Either they really saw and believed it, or were dumb enough to die for no reason.
a characteristic of folklore, fables, myths and legends is that they are illogical. the gospels were not detailed reports (as we keep getting told), they were written after the fact and at least two of them are not written by an eyewitness.

There are plenty of people that die for ideals. Pull your head out of your bible.

DingoDave said...

Apologist wrote:

-"He created people for the purpose of Glorifying him..."

Just goes to show what an egotistical, narcissistic bastard he is.

DingoDave said...

Lee Randolf wrote:
-"hi rover,
Can Christ be considered a human sacrifice since, if you believe the Bible, he was resurrected.
he had to die to be resurrected or am I missing something?

I'm not sure that I understand the question. If he died, and was 'fully human', as Christians like to assert, then he certainly was a human sacrifice. If he was resurrected after a couple of days, then the whole sacrifice thing was nothing but a sham.

"Jesus had a really bad weekend for your sins." : )

Innovative Defense said...

Yes that is true, but God made a covenant with Adam... not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There was the existence of good and evil, only adam and eve did not have the knowledge of it.

Eve was deceived by the serpent that it was okay to eat from the tree and she and Adam did, which brought sin into the world. When adam and eve saw they were naked after eating from the tree, good and evil took over, and they felt ashamed.
___________________________________________

The gospels were written at a time when the eyewitnesses were still ALIVE. The eyewitnesses and followers of Christ new of the scriptures being written, and knew what they were writing. If they would have disagreed, they would have let them no so their would be no error for something of that importance. We know the authors of the Gospels, that is not a problem.

Brief fact: the bible has the most manuscripts of any book of antiquity (5600 for NT, and 19,000 for OT), the least amount of years between originals and copies (around 70), and the best accuracy (99.5% accuracy to originals).

The next closest is homer's the Iliad: 643 manuscripts, time between original and copies (500 years), and accuracy is 95%.

Innovative Defense said...

Dear Dingodave,

Why would it matter if the creator of this world that is perfect wanted to be glorified? He created us for that reason, what would be wrong with that. Because you dont agree? Your idea of perfection and God's idea are two different things.

Evan said...

First apologist, you don't address that I can forgive people who offend me and demand no sacrifice. They can offend me many times and I still can forgive them. Jesus HIMSELF asks people to forgive other people at least 490 times. So why couldn't he just do the same thing without the sacrifice? I see no answer to that in your reply.

Secondly you say:

If it was all a myth, and the many eyewitnesses of Jesus' miracles, death and resurrection, etc... if it was all a myth, it was pretty stupid of them to be preaching about honesty and truth, if they were condoning that scripture was written to false advertise Christ.

For you then, all claims put forward that claim the value of honesty and truth must therefore be true? Then for what reason do you reject Islam? Or Buddhism? Or Mormonism?

Does the fact that Muslims value honesty and truth make you believe that Mohamed rode a winged al-Burak up to heaven?

Does the fact the Buddhists value honesty and truth make you believe that when Buddha was spawned all the ten thousand worlds shook?

Does the fact that Mormons value honesty and truth make you believe in Joseph Smith's golden plates?

I'll go far and suggest that these things do NOT make you believe them. So ... your argument is incoherent.

Evan said...

Apologist, are you saying that your idea of perfection and God's are the same?

Do you know the mind of God? If not, then both you and Dingo are guessing. If so ... you are the most arrogant person I've ever spoken with.

Either might be true I guess.

Innovative Defense said...

First of all, Buddhism wasn't an intended religion, but a way of life.

Secondly, the Islam God is not the same as the Christian and Muhammed advocates lying, as he did it himself. Only made prophecies that he could fulfill within the time he was alive.

Thirdly, Joseph Smith of mormonism gave false prophecies, which I could list for you. He also was an ex-prisoner and more. Not a credible source of truth if you ask me.

Sacrifice of Jesus was needed because God could not just forgive people so they could go on sinning. He had to forgive them and declare them innocent after someone had taken their sins from them.

DingoDave said...

Apologist wrote:

-"The gospels were written at a time when the eyewitnesses were still ALIVE. The eyewitnesses and followers of Christ new of the scriptures being written, and knew what they were writing. If they would have disagreed, they would have let them no (know) so their would be no error for something of that importance. We know the authors of the Gospels, that is not a problem."

How do you know that any eyewitnesses were still alive when the gospels were written? We don't know exactly when the gospels were written, or who wrote them. None of them are signed, and the names which were attributed to them were done so by Catholic theologians decades, if not centuries after they were written. They are essentially anonymous documents of uncertain vintage.
Most people in ancient Judea didn't believe the stories contained in the gospels, because the vast majority of them remained Jewish, and did not convert to Christianity.
If the Jesus legends had been so convincing, then why didn't more Jews convert to Christianity?
Christianity took hold in the pagen Roman world, but was a dismal failure in ancient Jerusalem, and Palestine generally.

-"Secondly, the Islam God is not the same as the Christian and Muhammed advocates lying, as he did it himself."

1Kgs.22
[19] And Micaiah said, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left;
[20] and the LORD said, `Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' And one said one thing, and another said another.
[21] Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, `I will entice him.'
[22] And the LORD said to him, `By what means?' And he said, `I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' And he said, `You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go forth and do so.'
[23] Now therefore behold, the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the LORD has spoken evil concerning you."

1Kgs.13
[18] And he said to him, "I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, `Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.'" But he lied to him.

-"Sacrifice of Jesus was needed because God could not just forgive people so they could go on sinning. He had to forgive them and declare them innocent after someone had taken their sins from them."

Here is yet another Christian apologist telling us what his supposedly omnipotent god can and cannot do. Do they even believe their own bullshit?
Is Apologist suggesting that his omnipotent god cannot simply forgive, like we do, without having to resort to bloodshed and human sacrifice. Please!

DingoDave said...

Apologist asked:
-"Why would it matter if the creator of this world that is perfect wanted to be glorified? He created us for that reason, what would be wrong with that. Because you dont agree? Your idea of perfection and God's idea are two different things."

It matters, because the desire for adulation is a very HUMAN trait. The attitude of god of the Bible is virtually indistinguishable from that of any ancient king or sultan.

Christians and Jews, even today, refer to him as KING, and LORD, and address him in prayer, just as any ancient supplicant would have addressed his emperor; even though most of them live in secular democracies. Isn't that be proof enough that he is nothing more than a man-made construct; an image of an earthly despot who has been projected into some imaginary heavenly realm?

I don't believe in the existence of perfection. We haven't been able to detect it anywhere in the natural universe, so I'm betting that it doesn't exist in reality.
I believe that perfection exists only in people's imaginations, along with their gods.

Innovative Defense said...

Dear dingodave,

For the gospels:

http://www.carm.org/evidence/gospels_written.htm

http://www.carm.org/evidence/written_after.htm

Those should be helpful to you.

Other than that, you fail to understand why sin is such a big deal. God being omnipotent does not mean he can do the illogical, meaning he can't do things against his nature: God cannot sin, or make a square circle, or make a rock bigger than himself. All those are against his nature and illogical.

Yes muhammed lied...ill cite it for you tomorrow.

I'm off to bed.

Grace,
Jeremy

sconnor said...

Jeremy, The Apologist


Illogical?

Are you kidding me? What can be more illogical and convoluted, than the story of Jesus, being sacrificed, to absolve our sins?

logically, you can't sacrifice anything, let alone Jesus, to somehow, magically, absolve our sins.

When a virgin was sacrificed, to appease the gods, so as to bring a good harvest or stop the volcano from a erupting, logically, we know these acts, do not magically, do anything.

There is no logic, that says, if you sacrifice a living creature, then magically, it will alter an outcome.

Logically, in the bible, god declares human sacrifice abhorrent.
Illogically, god sets forth a plan, for restoration, that uses his son as a human sacrifice.

Now this is where -- in christian terms -- it gets very convoluted.

Christians will say It is not "technically" a human sacrifice. They will garble up the story, to salvage their god, by invoking the "trinity". Ah, the webs they weave.

Christians say, Jesus wasn't technically a human. Is this statement, logical?

If god died on the cross, then god is not all-powerful. And logically, who was Jesus talking to when he asks, "My god my god why hast thou forsaken me"? Himself? Schizoid.

So, logically, in order to die, you have to be mortal. At the, exact, time Jesus succumbed to death, he would have to be human. If he was human and he was sacrificed, then logically, it was a human sacrifice.

Therefore, logically this contradicts god's abhorrence to human sacrifice.

Logically speaking, if god could use Jesus as a goat sacrifice to magically, absolve sins, then god could have waved his hand and magically declared everyone is saved, without bringing his son into existence, allowing him to be beaten, whipped and tortured on a cross.

Another convoluted way christians, try to, salvage god's reputation is the grenade analogy. It goes something like this: Wouldn't it be courageous and a show of love, for a soldier to throw himself on a grenade to save the rest of the platoon? Yep, but the analogy fails, because if the analogy were to be accurate, the supposed loving father, either, threw his son on the grenade or put his son in harms way, sacrificing his son to save the platoon -- a reprehensible action, that would brand the father a coward and if the platoon didn't get a hold of him first, the father would be sent to the brig and prosecuted, severely.

Of course, christians try to weasel there way out of this one, by invoking the Trinity, as well. What can be more illogical than three separate entities, all in one???

Christians will declare that god sacrificed himself, but he was fully human as well. How logical is this?

So, in essence, god sent god down to earth, because god loved god's earthly children, so much, that god had to sacrifice god, to god, to allow god, to change the "sin-rule", god installed, in the first place. ????Crystal clear????

Christian logic, the very definition of oxymoron.

I await your thoroughly, twisted, confusing and equivocal, rationalizations.

--S.

DingoDave said...

What SConner just said! : D

Anonymous said...

yea, what sconner just said too,
but the truth is, in the big picture, god could have made us the way he wanted us to turn out if there was a need to make us, but what does a perfect being need with us anyway? If it needs something then its missing something, and it cannot be perfect. If it just wanted us, it could have made us the way it wanted us. Instead it built in suffering and the requirement to believe in it on specious evidence that wouldn't fly anywhere else in life or else we burn for eternity.

This whole scenario that we live in excludes the possibility of the christian god on principles and logical grounds.

Rotten Arsenal said...

Jeremy the Apologist:

"God foreknew everything, since he knows all things. Everything is part of his plan, and from what the bible tells us about his nature, everything God does is good."

So then every person that God "creates" that does evil, sins, turns their back on God, or, like myself, lacks any ability to believe in His nonsense, is part of God's plan? And he knows these people will go against him before hand? And yet he still punishes them? What a jerk. That doesn't sound "good" at all.

Going back to the whole sacrifice thing, I've never understood several things:

1) Why is this sacrifice such a big deal when Jesus just comes back to life anyway and is planning a reunion tour sometime in the future? Death loses it's meaning if you don't stay dead. Sure there's the whole idea that our spirits never die, but Jesus supposedly came back to life in the physical world. Of course, if this is the case, can God really die anyway? Is it really a sacrifice if you know that ultimately you aren't going to lose anything? If I let somebody borrow my car for three days and then I get it back, that's not much of a sacrifice really.

2) If Jesus (and God) knew that Jesus had to "die" to save us and Jesus allowed it to happen even though he could save himself, then he willingly allowed himself to die. And, since he willingly went along and even set up some of the events that led to his "death", doesn't that mean that in some ways, Jesus committed suicide, which is murdering oneself?

3) What's the big deal about Jesus being "God's only son"? Isn't he God? Can't he make more sons? Or split himself off into more offspring or however the hell that idiotic "Trinity" nonsense works? Was Mrs. God barren or did she just have her tubes tied? God couldn't find anymore virgins to knock up? It makes no sense. Either God CAN create more "sons" or he can't. If he can, then why is Jesus special for being God's "only" son and how do we know there aren't more sons out there?

sconnor said...

Quick add on.

To top it all off, apparently, we must telepathically, pledge our allegiance to the invisible, Jesus and must abide by a myriad of unequivocal, varying criteria, in order to obtain god's grace, so we can reside with him and worship him, in the bliss of heaven, for an eternity. What could be more logical than that?

It should go more like this now:

So, in essence, god sent god down to earth, because god loved god's earthly children, so much, that god had to sacrifice god, to god, to allow god, to change the "sin-rule", god installed, in the first place and you must telepathically assure god of your allegiance to god, so god can bestow grace upon you, allowing you to enter heaven.

--S.

Evan said...

Sconnor that's awesome. I just realized something. God is worse than a high-school gym coach.

At least the gym coach gives you a sign-up sheet that you can put your name on if you want to participate. God doesn't even have the courtesy to do that. You just have to wish the best you can and hope that God takes notice of you. It's really child-like thinking, and of course, the Gospels are happy to admit this fact.

Innovative Defense said...

God is all powerful, but God also took human form: in the form of Jesus Christ. God put himself on our level to know what it was like, but in his still perfect nature, did not rebel or sin. God raised Jesus up after his death as the savior of all who would come to know Him.

The trinity is biblical, but that may take too much explaining to do since you guys don't understand scripture, and the bible says that a non-believer cannot grasp the concepts as easily.

Before you act like God was immoral in having his son die, you have to remember God the Father, God the son (Jesus) and the holy spirit are altogether one God. If God sacrificed his son, it was part of God that was sacrificed in human form.

Talking theology isn't going to get me anywhere with you guys, you don't know what Christian Theology teaches, only what you have heard: most likely from atheists alike or non-believers sites and books. If you want to know theology, then talk to someone that specializes in that field.

Check out my page for more reference points on the right side to questions you guys have about God and Jesus.

Innovative Defense said...

Dear Evan,

God made us perfect in the beginning. Adam and Eve were not content with that, and ate from the tree.

This caused sin to enter the world, and sin controls us to this day. When we were made to be happy and joyful in glorifying God like we were made to, now we don't. We dishonor him.

So God is just supposed to let us all into heaven when we don't deserve it. Lets say we live with our parents and we completely disobeyed them all the time, would they punish us? I believe so. They wouldn't let us get away with it. It would be unfair to them.

Same goes with God. If you want his favor, try accepting the free gift he gave us: the forgiveness of our rebellion of against Him, through Jesus Christ.

Jesus died so that we could live.

Rotten Arsenal said...

sconnor:

So, in essence, god sent god down to earth, because god loved god's earthly children, so much, that god had to sacrifice god, to god, to allow god, to change the "sin-rule", god installed, in the first place and you must telepathically assure god of your allegiance to god, so god can bestow grace upon you, allowing you to enter heaven.

Brilliant!
Sconner, can I reprint this elsewhere (citing you, of course)?

Evan said...

Apologist,

You are simply mistaken, provably so.

You say:

God made us perfect in the beginning. Adam and Eve were not content with that, and ate from the tree.

There is simply no evidence for this. Please see this, this, and this.

You are like someone who is arguing that Superman exists and is from the planet Krypton because you read it in a comic book. You need real facts to back up your groundless assertions, facts that derive from something other than a mythic story with roots in previous ancient Near Eastern mythology.

Innovative Defense said...

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were without sin in a perfect world. A Covenant was made between Adam and God: not to eat from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

You can not assume something is a myth because your opinion states so. Genesis is the most important book of the bible: explains how sin came into the world, what sin did to us, and why we needed Jesus to come and save us from sin.

You can believe its a myth, that is up to you. I am making assertions based on facts in the bible and facts that surround and encompass the bible.

Innovative Defense said...

Let me ask you some questions:

Why are non-believers so determined to so call "debunk Christianity," if to you guys it doesn't actually matter in the end?

Christians are just another group of people to you, correct. Our God doesn't tell us to make terrorist attacks, but promotes the teachings of honesty, truth, loving ones neighbor and enemy.

What do you have against Christians except that you don't believe what they believe?

It seems even a non-believer must have a group on non-believers so they have people to back up their doubt in the existence of a greater being than themselves.

Can you answer those questions?

Rotten Arsenal said...

Apologist, you make it sound like it's only recently that we have taken to "dishonoring" god. From what I've read in that book of yours, it sounds like humans were dishonoring god from day one. Then he'd get mad and start destroying things.
If we were "made to be happy and joyful in glorifying God", it sounds like god had a faulty set of blueprints since the creation failed to act as planned from the start.
God sounds alot like Microsoft's operating systems.

Evan said...

You can not assume something is a myth because your opinion states so. Genesis is the most important book of the bible: explains how sin came into the world, what sin did to us, and why we needed Jesus to come and save us from sin.

I can too.

You offer no evidence to support the idea that the myth of Genesis is more accurate than Hesiod's Theogony or Virgil's Aeneid. So you are subjectively choosing one ancient myth which for reasons of a personal nature you choose to accept as history in spite of provable facts that show it cannot be true.

I can therefore dismiss your myth as a myth until you can adduce evidence that would compel someone to believe you are correct.

However, you are not correct, provably so.

Arguing with you is like arguing with someone who thinks the Fantastic Four are real because they are written about in books and there are movies about them.

They are not real. Adam and Eve were not real. They belong in the same category as Superman and the Fantastic Four.

You can gainsay all you want. We provide evidence to back our claims. All you offer is a book written by primitive people.

Innovative Defense said...

The evidence I would give you would not be seen as evidence since your presuppositions don't allow you to see past your bias.

Evidence won't prove a thing if your presuppositions are still held.

I'm done debating a subject for today. If you guys want evidence, look at my blog. thanks

BTW... a topic to dwell on..actually I'll post it on my blog later.

Rotten Arsenal said...

You know, Apologist, much of what you've said here is contradictory and illogical, but that's what happens when you use only one source to define your belief system, especially when that one source lacks outside sources to verify the more supernatural claims.

But I take offense at this particular statement:
Talking theology isn't going to get me anywhere with you guys, you don't know what Christian Theology teaches, only what you have heard: most likely from atheists alike or non-believers sites and books. If you want to know theology, then talk to someone that specializes in that field.

That is just a stupid comment. Do you really think that only Christians can know Christian Theology? That's what it sounds like.
Some of the people here were ministers, many others were raised in the church. My mother was an ordained minister, my parents met in seminary, I have a cousin who is ordained, and pretty much every member of my family is very active in the church, most of them are Southern Baptist. My godfather was a well-known former Baptist and then Episcopal preist. I was forced to go to church for most of my first 18 years of existence. I've read the Bible and when I was a kid, I could regularly kick anyone's ass at Bible based trivia.
Don't presume to think we don't know your Theology... most of us understand it very well. in fact understanding your theology is a big contributing factor to why we no longer believe.
You show a fantastic ability to regurgitate illogical dogma told to you by your religious bretheren, but you clearly don't understand what you are saying.
Congrats! You play the role of the non-questioning sheep very well. God/Jesus/Holy Spirit thing must be very proud of your ignorance and blind devotion. If there was a god, I'd wonder why in the world he gave us brains with which to reason at all since clearly what he wants are for humans to act the same way we expect dogs to behave.
What's the point of giving humans free will if he's just going to smack us if we use it?
At any rate, don't presume that we're ignorant of your grand theology. We're not. We just don't buy into the celebration of mental ignorance and the glorification of spiritual terrorism.

Innovative Defense said...

You could all very well know Christian theology then.

But your comments would make me believe otherwise.

I have seen nothing that would make me tell that any of you had a background in the Christian community. The topics you have raised are not what the bible teaches.

To all of you who are ex-ministers and ex-pastors or ex-christians: you either never learned what the bible teaches, never really believed it, you had a bad experience.... or whatever your reason is: none of the topics you raise are logical or reasonable. They sound like preschool type questions that are intended just to irritate Christians.

If all of you guys don't believe in God, what is the need for defending your position. There is no afterlife according to you.

I defend mine because I believe there is more to this world than random chance and eternal nothing after death.

If you guys truly knew Christian theology, most of your posts wouldn't be posted. I am no longer wasting time at this site.

Evan said...

Sorry to see you go apologist. I wish you'd been able to defend your beliefs with some evidence. That's all we really want here at DC.

Thanks for trying though.

sconnor said...

Jeremy, The Apologist

When examining, the Adam and Eve story, in context, more closely, you'll find:

1. There you will find no mention of sin, let alone original sin or the first sin.
2. The serpent is never referred to as satan.
3. Satan plays no part in the garden, nor in Genesis, nor in the Pentateuch.
4. There is however a snake that god created, albeit it a talking snake, that was created as a "sneaky" snake. Depending on your translation the snake could be, sneaky or devious, but the actual Hebrew word, "aruwm", means "mentally acute", "shrewd", or "sharp-witted" -- not deceptive.
5. Nowhere in Genesis does it say the snake tempted anyone.
6. In fact, in the details of the story, the snake is not deceptive he is acutely perceptive.
7. With this perception, he tells it like it is -- the truth.
8. He tells Eve, she will not die the day she eats of the fruit and that she will gain a moral knowledge. Low and behold she didn't die and now she knows right from wrong -- What a wise and truthful, talking, snake.
9. God lied and said, the day you eat of the tree of knowledge you will surely die. The snake said no you won't.
10. Nowhere does God tell Adam and Eve, what will happen to them, nor that by disobeying him, evil or sin would take a foothold on our planet, causing humanity to suffer in cruel and inhumane ways.
11. God does not tell them it was unacceptable -- he does not tell them why they can not eat from the tree of knowledge, he just tells them not to, but then lies and says they will surely die the day they eat of it.
12. I know what you are thinking, so I'll head you off at the pass. To save God's reputation of not being a deceiver, you will surely say, What God really meant, was they would lose their immortality. Nowhere, in the context of the story, is it ever implied, that God bestowed immortality on Adam and Eve nor that immortality would be their destiny. For you to imply such a thing, you would be embellishing the context of the story and assigning layers of interpretation. So, God, after attempting to keep his children from gaining knowledge of good and evil, now wants to keep immortality for himself and whoever he is referring to, with, "us", as the last step of protecting his divinity from Adam and Eve, and humanity.
13. Whatever you call it, "punishment" or "discipline" the consequences were neither compassionate, loving, fair, nor anything resembling constructive instruction. In fact God's action were more akin to an abusive, raging, father, who went nuts, punishing everything around him, including the snake and all snakes after that; he bestowed hatred between Adam and Eve and all their decedents, He multiplied the pain of birth, thus securing the plight for all women, and then, in a fit of misogyny and sexism, he further cursed Eve, "that although, I make you hate your husband and childbirth will be excruciating, you will lust for him and he will rule over you." And then, God, with all divine obtuseness, curses the ground so that Adam and all males would suffer with endless hard labor, just to eat. God never says, sin entered the world, infecting all of humanity, because of the actions of the innocent duo.
14. When delving into the story even further one can understand that Adam and Eve were innocents in the story and because they had not eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge they would not have known of good and evil; right from wrong. They didn't posses a moral conscience at the moment they disobeyed God and to imply they sinned and because of their choice, they allowed evil to take a foothold on our planet, causing all human-kind to suffer, is stretching and manipulating the authors original intent of the story. Again, nowhere is "sin" mentioned in the story and to extrapolate what these two ancient, innocent, people -- who without the knowledge of good and evil -- could possibly understand, that what they were doing by disobeying god, was wrong, could actually be considered a sin. It's like an innocent child, little Johnny, who, while looking at the dazzling Christmas package and with the insistence of his "cunning", older brother, can't restrain himself and opens it, even after his mom told him not to open it, after she had left the room. Now the mom comes back and curses little Johnny and declares, he will encounter pain, every time he breathes and at school he will sweat and toil and schoolwork will be extremely difficult, for the rest of his life and not only that, lil' Johnny, just unleashed evil and sin and from now on all his relatives will suffer for what he did, they will suffer in unimaginable ways, children will be burned to death, children will suffer for years with incurable diseases, His relatives will suffer horrible disasters and will be maimed, There will be blindness and deafness, brain tumors and leukemia, natural disasters, rape, murder and mayhem. Sounds logical?
What a just and merciful all-loving God; only on closer inspection your God is a jealous megalomaniac, who unjustly punishes a naive couple, because they made an uneducated, unknowing, child-like choice, supposedly, allowing evil into this world, thereby, cursing the rest of God's earthly children to suffer horribly. And what is even more astonishing, you condone, these egregious actions and love him for it.

You seemed to have made assumptions based on recollection and declarations that do not come from the context of the story of Adam and Eve and you have layered shit-loads of interpretation to suit your needs.

--S.

sconnor said...

Rotten Arsenal,

Sconner, can I reprint this elsewhere (citing you, of course)?

By all means, have at it.

--S.

JohnD said...

Lee,

You have convinced me that yes technically it is a human sacrifce, but rather then being insane why shouldn't we see it as beautiful. God himself dying for man. God who was opposed to the human sacrifice system of the pagan religions showing us that only God could pay for sin; man could not. Perhaps by doing this he was giving us a commentary on the futility of human sacrifice?

Evan said...

Perhaps by doing this he was giving us a commentary on the futility of human sacrifice?

Yes, nothing says, "Human sacrifice is futile!" like a good human sacrifice.

Do you read what you write?

JohnD said...

Evan,

perhaps you could think before you comment? Give it a try.

JohnD said...

Evan,

Perhaps I should be more patient with you. Man tried to please God by offerring up sacrifices that He did not desire. They thought they could appease God by sacrificing a virgin - something pure. God, by giving himself, as the sacrifice, may have been saying that your efforts at appeasing me fall far short of what is required. yes, I require something pure, but no man (that includes women to Evan in this context)can be pure enough or of such value as to pay for the sins of the whole world. God was demonstrating that only He could do such a thing. Next time I will keep you in mind before posting. Can we draw pictures on here?

Evan said...

No Rover. I assume you are not a docetist, right? I assume you believe Jesus was fully human in common with trinitarians, yes? So you're still saying that God became a man who then became a human sacrifice to show that human sacrifice was bad.

I think you need to really think about what you believe.

Do you have some test that you can point to that shows the Jesus was purer than say, Moses? Or purer than say, an infant who died without ever acting on anything? Infants die all the time without sin, the Canaanites even sacrificed them to their Gods, wasn't that enough for God?

For that matter, who made the rule that any sacrifice at all was necessary?

Again, why can't God just do like Jesus said to do and keep forgiving people without demanding they sacrifice humans who used to be God and will be God again to him?

Unknown said...

Apologist wrote: If you guys truly knew Christian theology, most of your posts wouldn't be posted. I am no longer wasting time at this site.

Knowing Christian theology and believing Christian theology are two very different things.

For example, how much Islamic theology do you know? How much of it do you believe? I'm guessing the same can be said for Mormonism, Buddhism, etc.

JohnD said...

evan,

thank you for assuming a more civil tone.
In all honesty I don't know why he requires a sacrifice. It is a question that Christians cannot answer. We can quote scripture, but we can't get to a real answer.
As for the rest of your questions you have to allow that some of us do see the Bible as inspired and as such is accurrate. Therefore we are told that Jesus was pure; the sinless lamb. As for the God/Man dicotomy who can pretend to understand that?

Unknown said...

Rover,

There are several significant problems with your "explanation."

Man tried to please God by offerring up sacrifices that He did not desire.

While I think you've unintentionally left the type of sacrifice ambiguous, the Bible makes it clear that God did find animal sacrifices pleasing. In setting up such a precedent, one could assume that human sacrifices would have more meaning than animals. The fact that God asked for such a sacrifice shows it's importance. It doesn't take a omniscient being to see how people could come to this conclusion, even in erroneously.

God, by giving himself, as the sacrifice, may have been saying that your efforts at appeasing me fall far short of what is required.

Why does God need to be appeased? What could a sacrifice give God that he already doesn't have? These are all human properties that would have no meaning to an all powerful, all knowing being. The whole idea of "appeasing Gods" is a superstitious concept created when we had no idea of how the world worked.

[Y]es, I require something pure, but no man (that includes women to Evan in this context)can be pure enough or of such value as to pay for the sins of the whole world.

The whole world? If Jesus' death only paid for sins of the population of the world at his crucifixion we would be out of luck, as the estimated world population was somewhere between 170 - 400 million. Given that our current population is currently over 32 times larger, how do we know that we're covered? What happens when our population grows to 47 times larger in 2050? Clearly, the meaning of the term "whole world" has changed dramatically since that time. How can Jesus pay for sins that had yet to occur by people who had yet to be born?

And if God can pay for our sins, why didn't he do so right from the start? If we will not sin in heaven, why didn't God put an end to sin when Jesus died?

God was demonstrating that only He could do such a thing.

What you haven't demonstrated is why God couldn't have simply forgiven us without requiring a human sacrifice. Saying that It's "not in the script", doesn't make it any more plausible.

Evan said...

In all honesty I don't know why he requires a sacrifice.

Great. Some people who are Christians on this board would say that because you don't understand that you are not a true Christian. Just giving you a heads up on that. They think you have to understand the depths of Christian theology before you can be qualified as a Christian. I believed until I was about 24, then I doubted til I was about 30. But I was like you. I never understood it. They say it's because I was never really a Christian.

It is a question that Christians cannot answer.

Toddle on over to Triablogue. I'm sure they can give you something.

We can quote scripture, but we can't get to a real answer.

That's certainly been my experience when reading Triablogue :)

As for the rest of your questions you have to allow that some of us do see the Bible as inspired and as such is accurrate.(sic)

Yes, and that is why we try to show you on this blog that it is neither. We have many posts up, especially the series Lee is doing on Genesis that puncture that idea fully. Check them all out. They are fantastic.

Therefore we are told that Jesus was pure; the sinless lamb. As for the God/Man dicotomy who can pretend to understand that?

Once again, I suggest that the dudes over at Triablogue pretend to understand it every day. They make no sense to me, but see if they can help you out. The Bible says many things that can't be true. Here's one you can sink your teeth into. It comes from the book of Joshua:

12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
"O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."

13 So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar.
The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the LORD listened to a man. Surely the LORD was fighting for Israel!


Really. This was inspired by God and is accurate?

How'd that work?

Anonymous said...

Hi Evan, Dingo, Sconner, Rotten, and anyone else I might be missing,

Thanks for your contributions, you all are doing a great job!

MH said...

Oh, I love those verses.

As I told the christian over at the Angry Astronomer, Ide be impressed if the bible had Joshua command the _Earth_ to stand still, and the Sun and the Moon stopped.

But no, the bible makes the same mistake people at the time did, the earth was fixed in the center, and the sun, moon and stars revolved around it.

DingoDave said...

Just in case Apologist decides to drop by for another peek.

Apologist wrote:

-"his death would be able to be a sacrifice for the sins of every person that could ever believe in Him as their savior."

If his sacrifice was supposed to have been so perfect, then why do people have to believe in him at all in order to be saved? Shouldn't it work for all people, for all time?

-"Jesus was the only answer. There had to be one last sacrifice so that there would not be another."

There HAD to be? Why?

-"Sounds kinda illogical to me... that they would die for a lie they made up. Either they really saw and believed it, or were dumb enough to die for no reason."

Who told you that any eyewitnesses to these alleged events died for them? Apart from Catholic legend and propoganda that is?

-"Yes that is true, but God made a covenant with Adam... not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

Wrong! A covenant is a mutual agreement between two parties. What Yahweh gave was a command.

-"Eve was deceived by the serpent that it was okay to eat from the tree and she and Adam did, which brought sin into the world."

If the snake was the devil, as Christians like to assert, then sin was already in the world. It's just that Adam and Eve weren't aware of it.

-"For the gospels:
http://www.carm.org/evidence/gospels_written.htm
http://www.carm.org/evidence/written_after.htm
Those should be helpful to you.

No thanks. I've already read all that stuff before, and I don't find it the least bit convincing. Those articles are just typical apologetics claptrap, most of which has been convincingly refuted by the best modern Biblical scholarship. But thanks anyway.

-"Other than that, you fail to understand why sin is such a big deal. God being omnipotent does not mean he can do the illogical, meaning he can't do things against his nature"

Are you saying that forgiving trangressions, without inflicting bloodshed and violence in order to do so, is against his nature. Some psycho god you've got there Apologist.

-"God is all powerful, but God also took human form: in the form of Jesus Christ. God put himself on our level to know what it was like..."

Are you suggesting that there were some things your god didn't know before he mysteriously incarnated himself? So much for the doctrine of omniscience.
You are sounding more and more like a heretic as time goes by.

-"The trinity is biblical, but that may take too much explaining to do since you guys don't understand scripture, and the bible says that a non-believer cannot grasp the concepts as easily."

Ha Ha, that's rich. Do you claim to be able to understand the doctrine of the trinity? If so, then you're smarter than any other theologian who has ever lived.
The bible doesn't contain the doctrine of the trinity by the way. The concept was invented by Catholic bishops in order to combat heresy. The single verse in the Bible which explicitly teaches the doctrine, has been proven to be a later forgery, and not part of the original gospel. Look up the term Johannine Comma.

(1 John 5:7-8)
"For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth], the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

These extra words are generally absent from the Greek manuscripts. In fact, they only appear in the text of four late medieval manuscripts. They seem to have originated as a marginal note added to certain Latin manuscripts during the middle ages, which was eventually incorporated into the text of most of the later Vulgate manuscripts." - http://www.bible-researcher.com/comma.html

-"Talking theology isn't going to get me anywhere with you guys, you don't know what Christian Theology teaches, only what you have heard: most likely from atheists alike or non-believers sites and books. If you want to know theology, then talk to someone that specializes in that field."

You are one presumptuous and arrogant son of a bitch Apologist. How would you know what we may or may not have heard or studied? Do you realise that many of the people posting on this blog are ex-ministers and ex-apologists?

-"So God is just supposed to let us all into heaven when we don't deserve it."

Are you saying that only Christians DO deserve it, you self-righteous git?

-"Lets say we live with our parents and we completely disobeyed them all the time, would they punish us? I believe so. They wouldn't let us get away with it. It would be unfair to them."

I certainly wouldn't expect them to lock me up in their basement and torture me for the rest of my life.

-"You can not assume something is a myth because your opinion states so. Genesis is the most important book of the bible: explains how sin came into the world, what sin did to us, and why we needed Jesus to come and save us from sin."

Sin didn't do anything to us, God's CURSE did. He could have just forgiven them and started over, but instead he chose to CURSE them, and all their descendants after them (according to your mythology). Blaming Adam, Eve, and all the rest of humanity, for God's willful and intentional CURSING of us, is just blaming the victim. And he didn't just curse all the people. He also cursed the very ground itself, along with every other living thing on earth. What an evil, vindictive bastard!

-"You can believe its a myth, that is up to you. I am making assertions based on facts in the bible and facts that surround and encompass the bible."

You mean FACTS like Adam and Eve, and a talking snake? : D
You are making assertions, based on ASSERTIONS in the Bible, not facts my friend.

-"Our God doesn't tell us to make terrorist attacks, but promotes the teachings of honesty, truth, loving ones neighbor and enemy."

Only very recently, historically speaking, and only because we won't allow you to persecute non-believers any more. You appear to have a very short memory Apologist.

-"What do you have against Christians except that you don't believe what they believe?"

It's not so much Christians which we have a problem with (except when they try to inflict their superstitions on the rest of us through legislation and social predjudice), as much as Christianity itself. Why is it that you Christians find it so difficult to differentiate between ideas, and people?

-"It seems even a non-believer must have a group on non-believers so they have people to back up their doubt in the existence of a greater being than themselves."

Is that why Christians go to church, and Bible study, and church social functions, up to several times a week? Do they do that in order to have a group of believers to help them back up THEIR doubt?

-"The evidence I would give you would not be seen as evidence since your presuppositions don't allow you to see past your bias."

We HAVE seen past our biases Apologist. Most of us used to be Christians, who finally saw the light and became atheists. We changed our minds due to the preponderance of evidence. How is that being biased? I would have thought exactly the opposite. Is there any evidence that you can think of which might cause YOU to change your mind? If not, then it would appear that it is YOU who are the biased one, not us.

-"You could all very well know Christian theology then. But your comments would make me believe otherwise."

Has it ever occurred to you that we might understand it perfectly well, but simply consider it to be a crock of shit? Or are you completely unable to comprehend such a concept?

-"If you guys truly knew Christian theology, most of your posts wouldn't be posted. I am no longer wasting time at this site."

Now isn't that just typical? Yet another Christian apologist who is not genuinely interested in trying to understand alternative points of view, but who merely wishes to prostletise and convert, and when when that doesn't work, throws a hissy fit and runs away.

Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out Apologist.

Anonymous said...

apologist,
Brief fact: the bible has the most manuscripts of any book of antiquity (5600 for NT, and 19,000 for OT), the least amount of years between originals and copies (around 70), and the best accuracy (99.5% accuracy to originals).
those are the ones that survived. Heretics are decided by the Winner. Heretics did not start out to be heretics, they were labeled heretics by someone else, and then persecuted.

so you've got a bunch of books that are similar, could it be that they were selected because they were similar and any that weren't were destroyed? why, yes we know that kind of thing happened.

Your fact is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Accuracy between them doesn't guarantee their truth. They could be completely accurate copies of scripture that would have been considered heretical if the right person had taken offense at them at the right time.

If fact, some of the books in the bible were considered heretical by someone at some time.

Anonymous said...

Hi all,
there's so much here, i've decided that i"m just going to field the comments that regard human sacrifice or I'm never going to finish my next genesis article!

Anonymous said...

Hi Rotten,
And, since he willingly went along and even set up some of the events that led to his "death", doesn't that mean that in some ways, Jesus committed suicide,

I hadn't thought of that, good point.

Anonymous said...

apologist,
don't know if you're still out there, but when you say
God made us perfect in the beginning. Adam and Eve were not content with that, and ate from the tree.

This caused sin to enter the world, and sin controls us to this day. When we were made to be happy and joyful in glorifying God like we were made to, now we don't. We dishonor him.


I want to say, turn off your emotional reasoning circuitry for a couple of minutes and look at the story objectively.

you have all the tools to figure this out for yourself.

D1: "God knows everything that will happen, is happening and has happened"
D2: "God has a plan"

apply it to the garden story.
At T1 (first time measurement) "when god made humans" [insert D1 here].

result:
When God made humans, "God knows everything that will happen, is happening and has happened" therefore he should not have been surprised in fact [insert D2 here].

result:
When god made humans "God knows everything that will happen, is happening and has happened" therefore he should not have been surprised in fact "God has plan".

To say that humans had any decision making role in this process is sheer arrogance to the point of stupidity.

it is blaming the victim. in your mind you are the sinner, but in reality, if you believe the story, you are the victim just as much as Eve was when she got "deceived" before she knew the difference between good and evil or who she could trust.

you want to stubbornly hold onto the old adam disobeyed god principle? fine,
God ignored his third option. Remediation.

decision tree:
* god and adam had an agreement
* consequences of violating that agreement:
-- death
-- forgiveness
-- the missing option, remediation and instruction and a second chance after gaining this instance of life experience.

god Chose death. Which would you have chosen, now remember, turn off that emotional circuitry for a minute........

I would bet that in a different context you would choose the missing option, but in this context, I'm sure you'll stubbornly defend option one.

In real life mistakes are expected, a small number of mistakes are tolerated necessarily, but in folklore they are used to drive the drama and the conflict in a story to make a point.

The point was that humans make stupid mistakes and are self-centered, you don't need a god to tell you this, you can see if for yourself. And if you can't see it for yourself, there's plenty of other fables that say the same thing. Go pick a book of folklore or mythology from the library.

and do I even need to mention that A SNAKE OUTSMARTED A HUMAN? that just screams FOLKLORE.

Anonymous said...

well, that was RELATED to human sacrifice....
it was the point of the sacrifice ......

BahramtheRed said...

"DingoDave said":

What else is there to say. He hit almost every point I has, and I sepnt two days finding (well and thinking on to make the most sense on) all the points aplogist had left around to use.

My hat off to you dingo, you used all my points while I was at work. :(

Ty said...

Sconnor,

That was absolutely brilliant analysis of the Adam and Eve story. It is amazing how deep or biases run and often prevent us from recognizing the truth right in front of us.

Thanks!

Trou said...

"Brief fact: the bible has the most manuscripts of any book of antiquity (5600 for NT, and 19,000 for OT), the least amount of years between originals and copies (around 70), and the best accuracy (99.5% accuracy to originals)."

Brief comment: it has been asserted by Bart Ehrman that there are no two manuscripts of any length that are identical. That is amazing to me that, of all the thousands of copies of scripture, there are discrepancies between all of them.

Another brief comment: There is not one original text in existence. All autographs are lost to us, so to guess what they truly say is an exercise in massive speculation. I know Bart said it but likely Hector Avalos has also written about this if I recall.

Nice try though. It seems like we atheists know enough to not take your false statements as the truth.

sconnor said...

Ty,

Thank you.

It's been an obsessive task, to go back to the original material and erase layers of interpretation and supposition, allowing me to read it completely, in context. You may have noticed, I didn't even mention the obvious assumption, that the fruit, in the story, was an apple. Just these minute discrepancies should be red flags and everyone who wraps themselves in the religion of Christianity, should read it for themselves and should not rely on, someone thinking for them.

--S.

Anonymous said...

Hi sconnor,
my apologies,
Ty drew my attention to your analysis, and I like it a lot.

The comments came to many and too fast for me to thoroughly read through them all and keep up with them.

I am going to dissect the story of the garden as thoroughly as I can, bringing out a lot of what you've said, because it is the key premise paul uses to explain away Jesus surprising crucifixion and is "the cornerstone" for christianity.

But its going to take me a while.

I thoroughly appreciate your contributions. I hope you stick around awhile.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

First of all why did you guys do that to Apologist? That wasn't nice. At least treat him as you do me...try to kill him slowly.(LOL)

Apologist~ "I would love to debate you on this topic. Jesus wasn't a human sacrifice. He was killed because he said he was God and would not deny that.

He was in fact God in flesh and God's son, who was sent down so that he could live a perfect life, and die as a sacrifice for the sins of all who would believe in Him."

[I'll go you one better my friend, I say he certainly wasn't a human sacrifice, he wasn't murdered, he wasn't killed, neither did he commit suicide...In the end HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE when "it" was finished...in other words HIS death was in HIS power and under HIS control.

As you said my brother, this article in no way accounts for HIS 100% devine nature, but I believe that's aside from the point of what they are trying to prove]

So far as why blood?...

# 1 Abram was familiar with Blood covenants from Mesopotamia as being the highest order of covenants....Do some research as I did to confirm this.

#2- The Life that God breathed into man was in the blood of man. The shedding of blood of animals was a representation of the LIFE through death creating spiritual LIFE. Lev. 17:11~ "11For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul."

#3- Obedience and faith was always the ways to union with God and blood sacrifices apart from a repentant heart were never acceptable with God.

1 Sam. 15:22-23 &

Isa. 1:11-20~ "11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
16Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it."

In short blood was required because of the universal understanding in every culture that without it naturally we do not have life...where there is no blood we cannot have remission of sins because that remission indicates spiritual life]

Dingo~ "Is Apologist suggesting that his omnipotent god cannot simply forgive, like we do, without having to resort to bloodshed and human sacrifice."

[Good comment my friend, God can forgive as he demonstrated through scripture on the basis of belief, (Rom. 4:3, Gal. 3:6, Jas. 2:23) I think I addressed the rest of that above but we can go a little further if you like.]


Light & Shadow ~ "And if God can pay for our sins, why didn't he do so right from the start?"

[HE did, Rev. 13:8 ~ " 8And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.",

1 Pet. 1:19-21~ " 9But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.",

Heb. 9:24-28 ~ "26For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: 28So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

The sacrifice of Jesus was not an afterthought it was a way that was made from the beginning.

The first physical death was the death of an animal to cover the nakedness (shame) of mankind (Gen. 3:21)...God did that himself, just as he did with Abram (Gen. 15:17-18)...even more befitting that he lay down HIS life in HIS time at HIS desire to complete HIS covenant. Why? because WE could not do it or perform it ourselves, and SIN is the only chasm between God and man.

Was he a human sacrifice? No, not really...He was a "propitiation" for our sins not an "appeasement" to God. God needed no appeasement, the atonement was for us to relieve ourselves of the burden and penalty of sin...These are technical words and their meaning do apply, they can't be merely glossed over or lumped together to assume the same meaning.

You guys are incredulous.

I'll hit some of the other problematic statements I've read here some other time.

Thanks fellas...Peace.

sconnor said...

Lee,

Thanks, good luck on your endeavors and your dissection of the A&E story.

--S.

DingoDave said...

Harvey Burnett wrote:

-"First of all why did you guys do that to Apologist? That wasn't nice. At least treat him as you do me...try to kill him slowly.(LOL)"

Harvey, that was one of the funniest things that I have read in a long time. I'm still chuckling. : D

Just when I thought you were a lost cause, you go and redeem yourself.

Damn you!

Shygetz said...

I have seen nothing that would make me tell that any of you had a background in the Christian community. The topics you have raised are not what the bible teaches.

I love people who like to pretend that the Bible teaches one consistent thing, as opposed to being the religious writings of dozens of different people, each with different viewpoints.

If all of you guys don't believe in God, what is the need for defending your position. There is no afterlife according to you. I defend mine because I believe there is more to this world than random chance and eternal nothing after death.

So let me get this straight...you defend yours because you think it's true, but you wonder why we defend ours? In addition to it being true, it's because religious zealots make life in this world worse, so I try to mute their influence.

If you guys truly knew Christian theology, most of your posts wouldn't be posted.

Again, hilarious that you think there is one "Christian theology" to know.

I am no longer wasting time at this site.

If there IS an afterlife and it IS so important, why do you give up so easily? Luke 9:62: No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

Anonymous said...

Hi Harvey,
Thanks for illustrating my point.
I said
"However, I have been challenged and seen Christians deny that Jesus was a human sacrifice while acknowledging all the premises required to support the conclusion. I expect that this article will turn into a debate with some Christians about "definition", "meaning" and "distinctions" with liberal use of "special pleading" where they argue that it is not murder or human sacrifice because the Christian God was involved, while they wrestle with the cognitive dissonance that occurs when two values come into conflict."

and then you said
Was he a human sacrifice? No, not really...He was a "propitiation" for our sins not an "appeasement" to God."

and then at answers.com the dictionary says
"propitiate (prō-pĭsh'ē-āt')
tr.v., -at·ed, -at·ing, -ates.
To conciliate (an offended power); appease: propitiate the gods with a sacrifice."


So propitiate and appease are synonyms.

and just to be sure, the thesaurus at answers.com says
"Thesaurus: propitiate
verb
To ease the anger or agitation of: appease, assuage, calm (down), conciliate, dulcify, gentle, mollify, pacify, placate, soften, soothe, sweeten. Idioms: pour oil on troubled water. See calm/agitation."


maybe answers.com is anti-christian?
that would explain why they support me better than you.

Scott said...

Harvey wrote:
The sacrifice of Jesus was not an afterthought it was a way that was made from the beginning.

To clarify, you're saying God planned to forgive our sins at some point in the future. The Bible indicates this occurred around 4000 years after Adam & Eve sinned.

I'm asking why God waited 4000 years to send Jesus? Why not just "plan" to forgive Adam and Eve on the spot?

Scott said...

Regarding the quote If you guys truly knew Christian theology, most of your posts wouldn't be post

The Bible makes claims of fact regarding what supposedly occurred, then draws specific conclusions about these claims.

First, when I read these claims, I find it highly unlikely that they are actually factual.

Second, even if they were factual, I come to different conclusions regarding their implications.

For example, if God is infinite, then why isn't God infinitely tolerant? Saying it's simply "not in the script" isn't a good enough answer for me.

If God is infinitely powerful, then why did God have human beings kill other human beings for their misdeeds on his behalf? As we've seen in war, the act of taking a persons life can be very traumatic and have very adverse effects. Conditioning people to kill other people when God could do it himself doesn't seem to make sense. If you claim showing God's "glory" or might was the intent, having people visibly killed by some mysterious force or even a personal appearance by God would be even more effective than acts performed by human beings.

(However, if God did not exist, it would be rather difficult for him to do his own dirty work)

In addition, it's clear that people can and do misinterpret God's laws. As such, humans might kill the wrong person. Surely God, who is omniscient, wouldn't kill the wrong person by mistake. So, it appears that God simply doesn't care if the wrong person was killed now and then.

Again, it's not that I don't understand what the Bible claims to have occurred and the significance it draws from their occurrence, I simply don't think they are factual, nor do a draw the same conclusions if we assume, for the sake of argument, that they were factual.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Thanks Dingo, I was laughin too.

One thing I know from posting here for awhile is that none of you (faithful) can be known for not knowing what Christianity teaches (maybe misunderstanding it...LOL) but you guys are quite knowledgeable in many areas even if we have had passionate and decisive disagreements.

I think that we as Christians should be encouraged to come out of the comfort zones of arguments and explore things in an even more extensive manner.

Lee, I agree with you that this area is one that offers various levels of interpretations from Christians.

I will also give you that definition of "propitiation" is true and maybe I can better explain what I am saying instead of being so cavalieer about it.

Scriptures support Jesus as a "propitiation" for sin.

1 John 2:1-2 ~"1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

1 John 4:10~ "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Rom. 3:25 ~ "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;"

Jesus was a propitiation in that sin had to be compensated for because it was against the natural order of things God created.

Again, we're dealing with issues of foreknowledge and in my (humble opinion) God provided a "failsafe" or a way out from the beginning even though it wasn't revealed until it was time for that revelation (a point that Scott call me out on) until thousands of years later.

I believe based on my previous post that position is demonstrable biblically.

I know your aim is to try to draw an analogy for folklore or romanticized literature. I think one of the greatest differences is that SIN was not a problem with pagan gods and that pagan gods were never "satisfied" with whatever sacrifices they received, and those "sacrifices" were not performed by the deity as the God of the bible demonstrates.

Secondly, there was no concept (at least that I've found) that dealt with what the bible describes as sin. There may be concepts of good and bad but these don't usually offer eternal consequences or an eternal remedy.

Finally, SIN doesn't seem to be an issue in the pagan world-view, only the satisfaction of the gods to which sacrifices are made.

For the Christian the "sacrifice" and "propitiation" of Jesus addresses a singular issue, and that was SIN. So if we say that God was "appeased" it was because SIN had been paid for, not because he had a bloodlust.

Dingo, don't start 'cause I can already see those fingers movin'(LOL)...think about this and tell me what's wrong with it...You know I don't run away so have at it(LOL)

Thanks

DingoDave said...

BahramtheRed said...
"My hat off to you dingo, you used all my points while I was at work.
:( "

Sorry about that Bahramb. If only I'd known, then I would have saved a couple for you. : )

Anonymous said...

Hi Harvey,
you left one out that I think is important.
romans 5:9
"9. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Scriptures support Jesus as a "propitiation" for sin.
Since you are doing exactly what I predicted you'd do, I don't see much point in continuing with you.

You are claiming a difference without a distinction. What is different about what you are saying and a human sacrifice?

Harvey, we are in agreement, its just that you are stubbornly denying that providing a human sacrifice to propitiate a god is what Jesus did. Just like all the other pagan religions throughout history and today. yes it still goes on today believe it or not.

to say that "they weren't propitiating for sin" is irrelevant. They are all trying to reconcile their relationship with their god.

here is the algorithm for human sacrifice. In fact I'll add this to the matrix
* Humans do something to offend god,
* Humans need to do something to propitiate, apppease, pay, remdiate, reconcile, pick the synonymous word you prefer or come up with one of your own.
* A human sacrifice is chosen
* A human sacrifice is performed
* A human Sacrifice is made as part of a ritual
* Sometimes the sacrifice victim is willing
* The god is appeased, the "wrath" in this instance is all wrapped up and put away.

Its like a "chase seen" in a movie. The key elements are there across movies, but the details are different. they are all still "chase scenes".

And another thing.
what is the definition of sin? Where does it begin and end? When biological factors play a role, how much of the "sin" is the person accountable for? Why are manifiestations of sin different across denominations? Why have classifications of manifestations of sin changed throughout history?

Sin is the problem of the heap harvey, it is in the eye of the beholder.

sconnor said...

Harvey,

He was in fact God in flesh and God's son, who was sent down so that he could live a perfect life, and die as a sacrifice for the sins of all who would believe in Him."

Facts? Just because you say "in fact" doesn't make it any more credible.

The trinity or the triune concept of Jesus isn't taught in the Bible -- the very word Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible. For that, you have to venture outside your holy scriptures and dive headlong into indoctrination -- when in 325AD, the Council of Nicaea just made it up. Furthermore, Jesus never claims to be God. The verses, you undoubtedly, will quote, to rationalize your dogmatic position, are far and few in between and come mostly from the peculiar and distinctive John. These verses are almost always quoted out of context and layers of interpretation are piled upon them, without really examining the real, simplified explanation. When Jesus says, "I and the Father are one", contextually, he means that they are on the same page -- that they are of one mind, trying to accomplish the same goals, not in any metaphysical sense, where they are two beings, magically, bonded together. Likewise, when Jesus says, "If you have seen me you have seen my Father", the simple more accurate explanation is, he letting everyone know that his actions are in accord with God's will and is not declaring he, himself, was God.

Jesus even goes out of his way to say he isn't God.

Matthew 19:17 and Mark 10:18
And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good ? No one is good except God alone."

John 14:28 "...I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."

Matthew 24:36 "But of that day and hour no one knows , not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."

John 20:17 ...I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.


If anything, Jesus is a full blown schizophrenic. Or the simple explanation is, Jesus and god are imaginary and the NT was written and embellished by several, different authors, who couldn't get their stories straight.

--S.

Rich said...

Hi lee,

After having some time to go through much of this, including comments, I may be included in the "doesn't cause a prolem" group. The only thing missing here is the part of the atonement that took place in the Garden of Gethsemane. It looks like that is an upcoming post so maybe I'll hold off until then.
As far as this post, and I hope this isn't viewed as trying to dodge anything or "poison the well", it would seem that a qualifier for this to be under human sacrifice would be its ability to remove sin. Am I wrong? With that in mind, what is the need for anything else beyond the atonement if that is the case? baptism, repentance, keeping commandments, ect... all seem to be part of the atonement being useful to us. Meaning if we don't repent of our sins, for instance, the atonment does nothing for us. Since a major part of the apostles ministry was about babtising for the remission of sins, I would say that without baptism, there is no remission of sin. Except for those not accountable, which is another topic, but in need of mention here.

This may not make Christs' death jump out of the human sacrifice catagory, I'm not sure that it matters to me whether it does or not. Something about putting it being considered a human sacrifice, equivallent to say the aztecs, doesn't sit right with me. I can't really put my finger on it yet.
I am most likely too late for anything much from this post but thats' the breaks:(

Rich said...

Hey sconner,
At some point in all my reading, and don't ask me where because it might take another day to remember where, I saw the the english word atonement was also made up somewhere around the 1600s I think. I want to say it was in wikipedia under sacrifice, but I could be wrong yet agian.

If anything, Jesus is a full blown schizophrenic. Or the simple explanation is, Jesus and god are imaginary and the NT was written and embellished by several, different authors, who couldn't get their stories straight.

Or a third option if they are real, is that they are 2 seperate people/beings/whatever entirely. Which I think better explains the Father and Son better.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Lee~ "What is different about what you are saying and a human sacrifice?"

Lee~ Rich said, "Meaning if we don't repent of our sins, for instance, the atonment does nothing for us."

That's one of the keys here for me. It seems that in pagan religion any sacrifices were for the deity only and any benifocense(sp)was placed upon them no matter what they believed.

Secondly, the pagan sacrifice was for the deity and not in favor of the people as I stated earlier.

These are differences that are in stark contrast and that do not mimmick pagan sacrifice.

I won't deal with the trinitarian lie espoused by Sconnor, it's totally off topic, adds no dimension to this conversation and will take another thread.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hi Rich,
As far as this post, and I hope this isn't viewed as trying to dodge anything or "poison the well", it would seem that a qualifier for this to be under human sacrifice would be its ability to remove sin.

I showed you how to do a hypothesis matrix.
list the data on the left, make a column called "god can do anything" and another called "pagan" and see which one is least inconsistent.

here is a key point. Pagan gods were not all powerful and demanded human sacrifices. They did not have it in them to "just forgive". If god is better than them, I expect that he would have it in him to forgive without using the pagan method of demanding a human death as atonement, propitiation or whatever.

Since he doesn't, he's no better than a pagan God and you all have no right or warrant to say otherwise.

with reference to "gethsemane", I'm not planning on doing any more "serious bible study" after this. I am only using these articles to build my data set for my refutation of Romans 5. Once I refute romans 5, the rest is irrelevant to the conclusion.

Anonymous said...

Hi Harvey,
I responded to rich before I read yours.
I recommend you do a hypothesis matrix as well.

Why would god use the same methods as the pagans? Isn't he supposed to be trying to set himself apart? Isn't that completely counter productive to go back and make the cornerstone of christianity using Pagan methods?

Face it, Paul was wrong. Jesus death was a shock and surprise and they had to put a spin on it for damage control and they hastily borrowed a method from the pagans without thinking it through. Paul did the same thing when he linked Jesus with Adam.

Okay, sin is what sets jesus sacrifice apart from your run-of-the-mill virgin, but the fact remains paul said his death saved us from gods wrath.

It doesn't get anymore clear than that. The method of your salvation was a human sacrifice.

deny this.
A HUMAN HAD TO DIE, HUMAN BLOOD HAD TO BE SPILLED TO AVERT GODS WRATH.

Rich said...

Hi Lee,

A HUMAN HAD TO DIE, HUMAN BLOOD HAD TO BE SPILLED TO AVERT GODS WRATH.

the atonement, as I have stated before, began in gethsemane and ended at the resurrection,so far as our salvation is concerned. What did all this accomplish? First, in Gethsemane sin was "paid" for by Christ. This was such a tremedous amount of suffering that it caused Christ to bleed from every pour. He did not die at this point. Later hung on the cross and once again suffered the agony associated with sin. So for the purpose specifically for atoning for our sins, he most likely didn't need to die, he also didn't need to spill blood but that was a result of the atoning sacrifice for sin. So why the need to die? We have need of being resurrected also and for this Christ was the first. We are to follow later. Christ needed to die so that he could be ressurected.
I will give a go at the matrix you suggested. It will take some time.

Jaceppe said...

lee randolph said:

If god is better than them, I expect that he would have it in him to forgive without using the pagan method of demanding a human death as atonement, propitiation or whatever.


This comment does not recognize that God is also just. Since God is just, justice must also be served. Ro 3:21-31

Also, there seems to be quite a bit of fervor over this topic of Jesus Christ being a "human sacrifice"... Well, for the sake simply asking a follow-on question, let's say you succeed in proving that point... Well, I then ask you So What?. What then do you think you have proved against the God of Scripture?

Anonymous said...

Hi jaceppe,
human sacrifices are illegal. They are unjust. And they were pagan before pagan became uncool.

If you accept that your God demanded a human sacrifice and you are alright with that, more power to you, but now you've lost one thing that distinguishes him from all the other gods that have been kicked to the curb.

The whole point is what distinguishes your god from anyone else's? What bit of evidence for existence do you have that that others don't? Nothing that I can see.

Anonymous said...

Rich, what does god need with a human sacrifice? What does god need with anything? He needs this horrific display to make a point?

This is a human construct. Having to display a bloody cadaver on a cross to remind us of love and forgiveness is insane. All rational people should be offended and repulsed at the sight. I was when I was kid but I compromised my morals to become a christian and I'm embarrassed about it now.

Jaceppe said...

Hi Lee,

Thanks for you response...
You said:
human sacrifices are illegal. They are unjust. And they were pagan before pagan became uncool.

If you accept that your God demanded a human sacrifice and you are alright with that, more power to you, but now you've lost one thing that distinguishes him from all the other gods that have been kicked to the curb.

The whole point is what distinguishes your god from anyone else's? What bit of evidence for existence do you have that that others don't? Nothing that I can see.


Not so... you are making the implicit and unfounded assumption that what we see in pagan cultures involving human sacrifice are proper reflections of what is required... And just how did you discover this piece of information? Your Hypothesis Matrix, which is well-done I might add, offers no content comparison. You do not consider Christ's Divinity nor other attributes of God's character (e.g. justice). Has it occurred to you that what we see in pagan culture is a perversion of the true requirements of atonement? In other words, pagan cultures are copying God and not the other way around?

Also, can you provide even 1 verse of Scripture which states any prohibitions upon God offering a sacrifice?

Are you offended by the Cross of Jesus Christ?

Jaceppe said...

Lee,

When I was looking back again at your Hypothesis Matrix I noticed you had several scriptural passages. Very good... Scripture talks about this alot. But, you seemed not to talk about the fact that it was through God's Love that this sacrifice was made. Also, you don't reconcile your comparison with Christ's claims to Divinity (Son of God). In essence, it is God alone in this act. We are not offering Christ to God to atone for sins, Godis. This does not have any parallel in your comparison that I can see.

Also, you rightly suggest that God's attribute of forgiveness is more perfect than yours (or mine for that matter)... you say

If god is better than them, I expect that he would have it in him to forgive without using...

Several other posters echoed a similar idea; meaning that they believe if God's attribute of forgiveness is "higher" than theirs why can't He simply forgive as they do? Well, it is a very good point that His sense of forgiveness is more perfect than ours and this is exactly what is extened to us by Him in the Cross. But, also, we have a sense of justice as well. And it is consistent to also believe that His attribute of justice is more perfect than ours. And again, we see this presented to us in the Cross... i.e. God's justice is being borne out.

If God's attribute of justice is more perfect than ours how do you or I know which of our sins require being dealt with and which ones do not? Would not all of them require justice to be served?

Evan said...

... meaning that they believe if God's attribute of forgiveness is "higher" than theirs why can't He simply forgive as they do? Well, it is a very good point that His sense of forgiveness is more perfect than ours and this is exactly what is extened (sic) to us by Him in the Cross. But, also, we have a sense of justice as well. And it is consistent to also believe that His attribute of justice is more perfect than ours. And again, we see this presented to us in the Cross... i.e. God's justice is being borne out.

How do you know this? Really. I would like to know what data you use to derive this knowledge. I can pull stuff out of the blue too. Let's see if this is plausible to you:

God also has a sense of style. The beauty of Jesus hanging on the cross with his spear-piercing and his wounds in his hands and feet (ones he was so proud of he had Thomas finger them) was so profound and wonderful that to forego it would be to deprive mankind of the joy of the image of the crucified Christ.

Imagine if you will Jesus' loincloth made of light ramie linen with small spattermarks of blood glistening and darkening on the rough-hewn wood of the cross in the pale afternoon glow of a Judean hill as the amber and crimson hues glint off the armor of the Roman soldiers and the clouds float lazily across the sky like small balloons, filled with God's mercy and style.

God's sense of fashion and his sense of mercy are then both reified in the unity of Jesus, fully divine and fully, beautifully, human and fully (but not totally) dead.


Is there more to back up your pretty story than there is mine?

If God's attribute of justice is more perfect than ours how do you or I know which of our sins require being dealt with and which ones do not? Would not all of them require justice to be served?

If God's able to do anything, he's able to do anything. He can forgive anything he chooses to with or without the human sacrifice. If he's not able to do anything, then he's not. Pick one.

Anonymous said...

Hi jaceppe,
i'll respond to your comments more in a little while but for now here is some perspective.

Its a bloody human cadaver on a stick. wake up.
If I did that to a dog, and showed it to you I'll bet you'd be disgusted.

Anonymous said...

Jaceppe, all,
another quick thought,
I said this once and don't think anyones commented on it.

Since god went to such great lengths to distance himself from the pagan gods, it is very inconsistent of him to use a pagan method to create the cornerstone of his church. I'd go so far as to say, not likely to be behavior of an all-knowing, all-powerful etc God.

More likely to be damage control after a surprising crucifixion of their messiah.

you want to say that god is logically inconsistent? fine, he's incoherent, just like the plethora of theology that christians can't agree on.

Anonymous said...

Rich,
who was there to witness that great performance in Gethsemane? Last I heard they all were sleeping. That was likely to be a literary device.

Sure he could have woke them up and told them, but thats pretty anti-climactic isn't it? Why not just do it when they are awake?

You're all really reaching on this one.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Evan and Lee,

I understand your points regarding this but I think as others that you minimize 1- The complete package concept that Rich refers to, being that the shedding of the blood of Jesus was only good because he was A-Sinless, B-deity, C-completely humble and submissive to the will of God, d- a complete process from the garden to the resurrection.

As I thought this through I understand why deity, in this sense is vitally important, because at that point we see "God reconciling the world to himself" and not man providing anything that simply makes God happy as with paganism.

This is undervalued in the materiastic world view but is exactly the difference between the God of the bible and pagan gods. As I stated before pagan gods took no initiative in delivering man and certainly did not give man anything in return, they only received and that's not at all what we have in the God of the bible.

Further I found this additional information that solidifies my thoughts on the issue:

The essential difference between heathen views of sacrifice and the scriptural doctrine of the Old Testament is not to be found in its denial of any of these views. In fact, it brings out clearly and distinctly the ideas which in heathenism were uncertain, vague, and perverted. But the essential points of distinction are two. First, that whereas the heathen conceived of their gods as alienated in jealousy or anger, to be sought after and to be appeased by the unaided action of man, Scripture represents God himself as approaching man, as pointing out and sanctioning the way by which the broken covenant should be restored. The second mark of distinction is closely connected with this, inasmuch as it shows sacrifice to be a scheme proceeding from God, and, in his foreknowledge, connected with the one central fact of all human history. - William Smith; revised and edited by F.N. and M.A. Peloubet, Smith’s Bible dictionary, electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997.

In addition, your view human sacrifice as it pertains to a moral act is looked back upon through 21st Century eyes and overlooks the fact that these sort of arrangements were underscored as highly valued to the people of antiquity.

The God of the bible addresses the 21st Century mindset by making Jesus "once and for all" the only acceptable sacrifice or propitiation for sin.

Finally, you also question why God could not merely exercise his ability to "forgive" without blood. I believe the answer rests in the fact that Man had to know how egrigious sin actually was and is to God. Without the cross (which is a awesome, brutal and bloody sight) we that are forgiven would never know the real penalty, or price of redemption. Sin was not something to just be cavalieer about.

Now, I know you don't believe in sin, but that does not make it any less devastating. The biblical narrative displays that sin is the arch pinnacle of the problem between God and man and that BEGINS with unbelief.

The nature of sin was downplayed both by the serpent in the garden and every nonbeliever since. Sin is unimportant and not real to them that don't believe, but sin is the ONLY reason Jesus came...to eradicate it's power.

It's my contention, sacrifice or not, that we (humanity) had to see the price that was ultimately paid to eradicate and relieve us of that burden. Will all of that in mind there is no way that the system parallels the pagan idea of sacrifice, as the meaning and ultimate ends associated with paganism sacrifices is vastly different.

Natural analogy, The Boston Celtics and my son's grade school basketball team. To say that they both play basketballis accurate, but to say that they both PLAY basketball is two different things. The difference between what the God of the bible offers and the paganistic system of sacrifice is yet vastly greater than even that analogy.

Harry's toucing on this in his thread too, I'll add more there. Thanks.

Jaceppe said...

Evan:

Thanks for your post... you said:

How do you know this? Really. I would like to know what data you use to derive this knowledge. I can pull stuff out of the blue too. Let's see if this is plausible to you:

Then you moved into an interesting description of God's style et.al....

Well in response to your question above I know the Cross represents God's love from Scripture; John 3:16-17 and I know it represents God's justice also from Scripture; Rom 3:24-26.

I don't know if your looking for a serious answer to your rather creative story so I'll pass for now...

However, you do state further on in your post the following:

If God's able to do anything, he's able to do anything. He can forgive anything he chooses to with or without the human sacrifice. If he's not able to do anything, then he's not. Pick one.

You are speaking inconsistently here. You are highlighting one attribute of God (i.e. forgiveness) and disregarding another attribute of God (i.e. justice). Scripture says that He is both forgiving and just... if you simply pick the one you want and ignore the one you don't want then you will have a difficult time reconciling what is happening in the Cross. Like I said above, it deals with both.

Evan said...

Jaceppe, thanks for your evidence. Mine is prettier, but at least I know what you're looking at.

So I went over and re-read Romans 3. I find it a bit amusing that you would quote that to me on a thread where you are trying to argue that Jesus was not a human sacrifice. To save people the time looking it up I'll give you a bit of the text here:

God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Now it's not at all clear here that Paul believed that Jesus was God.

There's no evidence of that trinitarian belief through Romans.

All we see is that God sacrificed Jesus Christ. Paul does say that Jesus Christ was God's son but he does not say that Jesus Christ was God. To say that someone was a "son of God" is not to say that they are God in the Bible however, since the Nephilim were also products of the sons of God and they are not considered to be equal to Yahweh.

Later Paul says in Romans 5:

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

I can't say it any more clearly than Paul does here. Jesus was a human sacrifice.

To make it more clear that Paul clearly does not describe any divine aspect of Jesus but views his death as that of a human, later in chapter 5 he says:

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.


So I appreciate you giving me some evidence, I just think this evidence makes the case that Jesus was most definitely a human sacrifice in the mind of Paul.

The real good news is that the whole story is a legend.

Jaceppe said...

Lee

Very good... you said:

Its a bloody human cadaver on a stick. wake up.
If I did that to a dog, and showed it to you I'll bet you'd be disgusted.


That wouldn't be a pretty site I agree. But consider that Scripture states that Christ became a curse for us (Gal 3:13) and sin for us (II Cor 5:21). Isaiah 53 also speaks alot to the suffering Messiah... the language of rejection, sorrow, being smitten, etc. definitely lines up with what we see in the Cross. Is it any surprise that we see something in the Cross that causes us to hide our faces (Is 53:3). Yes, the Cross is offensive but it is the power of God and wisdom of God (I Cor 1:18-25)...

...however, why you would choose to bust up on the dog I don't have any insight into...

Jaceppe said...

Evan,

you said this...

So I went over and re-read Romans 3. I find it a bit amusing that you would quote that to me on a thread where you are trying to argue that Jesus was not a human sacrifice.

You didn't read my post very well , did you?

Evan said...

I sure think I did. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you. Let me know where I am misreading you.

I think Romans makes the case quite persuasively that Jesus was a human sacrifice and the texts I quoted bear that out.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jaceppe,
heres the rest of my response to you.
Your Hypothesis Matrix, which is well-done I might add, offers no content comparison. You do not consider Christ's Divinity nor other attributes of God's character (e.g. justice). Has it occurred to you that what we see in pagan culture is a perversion of the true requirements of atonement? In other words, pagan cultures are copying God and not the other way around?
thanks for the compliment. If you want to add the hypothesis column that "Jesus was not a Human Sacrifice" then and then plug your data in there be my guest, but doing in my head I come up with your new hypothesis only adding extra "value" to the sacrifice and not making a bit of difference in the fact that it was a human sacrifice.

It was human sacrifice with "Value added".

Are you seriously saying the Pagan cultures copied Jesus sacrifice before it ever happened? Don't be rediculous. I don't need to tell you how time works.

It appears that prehistoric humans had rituals, human sacrifice and ate the brains of the victims. Don't tell me they were emulating Jesus sacrifice.

I comes to this, if you believe that Jesus purpose was to die on the cross for our sins, that he was the embodiment of the trinity meaning that he was human as well as god and the holy spirit, then that puts a human who was prepared from birth to hang on the cross till he dies to save us from the wrath of god. Now you can put whatever icing on that wafer that you want before you put it in your mouth.

But, you seemed not to talk about the fact that it was through God's Love that this sacrifice was made. Also, you don't reconcile your comparison with Christ's claims to Divinity (Son of God). In essence, it is God alone in this act. We are not offering Christ to God to atone for sins, Godis. This does not have any parallel in your comparison that I can see.
So it is not true that a human jesus died on the cross to save us from the wrath of god? God did this to save us from a principle that he made himself and would be compelled to punish us for adam and eve breaking it?

And it is consistent to also believe that His attribute of justice is more perfect than ours. And again, we see this presented to us in the Cross... i.e. God's justice is being borne out.
Justice? you have crazy idea of justice.
go back and look at Gen. 3. notice that adam and eve had no experience with anyone they shouldn't trust, the snake was more clear that god was about the result of the tree of G&E, and God did not even consider a tried and true and wholly appropriate principle of a stern rebuke and a second chance. Instead he chose to do things the hard way.

I haven't done it yet but I will, if you do a dominated strategy matrix I am sure that the dominant strategy would be the rebuke, and that this convoluted sin, virgin birth, human sacrifice would have been avoidable. Since god chose a dominated strategy, it must have been what he wanted to happen all along or it is just a myth done by people that intended it to have different meaning.

Anonymous said...

Hi Harvey,
as I told jaceppe, in different words, that your distinction doesn't make a difference.

Natural Analogy, Put whatever makeup you want on that pig, but its still a pig.

and neither of you have covered Gods inconsistency with distinguishing himself from pagan gods all through the old testament, to turn around and build his church on a Pagan Ritual of Human Sacrifice. I suspect you've done catholic bashing bible study talking about how much they pandered to the pagans.

the Jewish culture was assimilated by some pagans and the result was christianity. Don't read that ALL PAGANS because you know as much as I do what history says the pagans said about christianity.

its simple,
* jesus born for the sacrifice
* jesus retains his humanity
* jesus allows himself to be captured and killed
* Humans are saved from gods wrath because Jesus blood was spilled and his life taken.

Now, dress that up anyway you want to, you still don't change the fundamental details which define a human sacrifice.

Rich said...

This is meant to explore the differences and similarities between the atonement of Christ and the Pagan ritual of Human sacrifice.
I will use a similar format as Lee by using C for consistent and I for not consistent in comparing the two. Since I'm not familiar with either the matrix format or exactly how to make it look as good as Lee in the comments section of a blog, I will most likely add the words "Atonement C/I" and "Pagan C/I" to try to stick as closely as I can to the matrix format. Sorry in advance if this is confusing.

1. Reasons for sacrifice:
Human sacrifice was performed for various reasons in various societies. Bring good fortune, pacify Gods, winning Gods favour, dedication of buildings, good crop yield, and several others. Celts would stab the victim and divine the future based on his spasms. Killing servants of kings so they could continue their service in the afterlife was also performed.
Atonement= I
Pagan= C

2. Reasons for the Atonement:
Humans will commit sin and be in a fallen state and unable to return to the presence of God in the afterlife. The atonement was performed by Christ to appease justice so that humans can choose to repent of their sins and be forgiven of those for the purpose of returning to the presence of God. By choosing to repent, the penalty for sin has already been pacified by Christ so there is no need for justice, the person is forgiven and returned to a pure state that can reside with God.
Atonement= C
Pagan= I

3. Pure and sinless:
To be able to atone for our sins, the one that performend the atoning sacrifice had to be free of sin, free from the demands of justice. by contrast to be a human sacrifice, sinless and purity were not a requirment. While virgins were used, they were not necessarily sinless, and not even necessarily pure secxually. So sinless and purity were not requirments of Pagans.
Atonement= C
Pagan= I

4. Willingness to give up life:
Christ willingly gave his life as part of the atoning sacrifice. While some victims of pagan rituals were willing, it was not a requirement. Certainly servants gave their life willingly to continue to serve their master in the afterlife. No signs of struggle for those servants we know of have been found. I will though give both a C here because it does actually appear that it could be more common to pagan sacrifices then we may know.
Atonement= C
Pagan= C

5. Death part of a religious ritual:
This is a tough one because it has such a broad reach on death, from actual religious rituals to capitol punishment. For the ritual side the sacrifice was performed by some sort of priest as part of a ceremony. This is not consistant with the atonement because it would fit as a capitol punishment. However capitol punishment can, and does, qualify as ritual killing. The actual crucifixion of Christ was not performed as a prt of a religious ritual, but that is not necessary to be called human sacrifice. So
Atonement=C
Pagan=C

Conclusions:
The Pagan ritual of human sacrifice has some consistancies with Christ, but not enough for be to consider them the same. The biggest thing that I can see is that the entire atoning sacrifice is not considered when talking about the crucidixion. I have already talked about this earlier in stating that it sarted Gethsemane and ended with the resurrection.The atonement also went further that just dealing with sin. It also made it possible for all to be ressurected. Also the Atonement takes away the effects of the fall for all humanity but leaves our agency in tact and the responsibility of sin on the individual to deal with. The sin is only forgiven by the person who commited it repenting of the sin, and the atonement fullfilling the demands of justice for that sin so that it can be forgiven. Unrepented sins are not covered by the atonement. This is not something sought by the pagan sacrifice.

Jaceppe said...

All,

I just spent 2 hours putting together a post in response to Evan and Lee only to have Microsoft Word mangle it during the spell check... ouch!!! save every 5 minutes... save every 5 minutes!!!.. Oh well, suffice it so say that I agree with Rich's conclusion. There are some similarities but the essential substance of the differences makes the Cross categorically different than pagan ritual.. I had some things to say regarding Christ's Divinity, that God alone is taking on the payment of the penalty... (i.e. He is not like vindictive pagan dieties that demand hapless vicims)... that the Jews & Romans were not "proper" participants in the sacrifice... (i.e. they were crucifying Christ but sure weren't doing it as an offering to any diety)... and other stuff... If I get around to it I'll try to put it back together... but not tonight... Oh well...

Peace in Christ

DingoDave said...

Apologist wrote:
-"Man tried to please God by offerring up sacrifices that He did not desire.

What are you talking about? Yahweh continually demanded sacrifices, throughout almost the entire Bible. Where do you get this rubbish from Apologist?

-"They thought they could appease God by sacrificing a virgin - something pure. God, by giving himself, as the sacrifice, may have been saying that your efforts at appeasing me fall far short of what is required. yes, I require something pure, but no man (that includes women to Evan in this context)can be pure enough or of such value as to pay for the sins of the whole world."

I thought Jesus was supposed to have been both a human and a virgin. And now we're back to God sacrificing himself, to himself, to save us From himself.
Barking mad!

And according to Christian theology, Jesus' sacrifice DOESN'T pay for the sins of the whole world, but only the sins of those who are members of the Christian cult.

Harvey Burnett wrote:
-"Christ willingly gave his life as part of the atoning sacrifice.

Mark.14
[34] And he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch."
[35] And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
[36] And he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what thou wilt."
[39] And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words.

Matt.26
[38] Then he said to them, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me."
[39] And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."
[42] Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done."
[44] So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words.

Luke.22
[42] "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done."
[43] (Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
[44] And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.)

Note: Several important Greek manuscripts, along with diverse and widespread versional witnesses lack 22:43-44. In addition, the verses are placed after Matt 26:39 by Ë13. Floating texts typically suggest spuriousness. Because of the serious doubts as to these verses’ authenticity, they have been put in brackets.

It doesn't sound to me like Jesus was all that WILLING to die. According to these texts, he begged God to be spared, but in the end simply resigned himself to the unchangeble destiny which his ' loving father' had mapped out for him.

According to these texts, God had made up his mind that Jesus was destined to die, and there wasn't a damned thing Jesus could do about it.

Anonymous said...

Hi Rich,
The Pagan ritual of human sacrifice has some consistancies with Christ, but not enough for be to consider them the same.
Gotcha. The human sacrifice demanded by God is more important than the Human Sacrifice to pagan Gods. It was a "Value Added Human Sacrifice"

At its core, its still a human sacrifice. And why does god work so hard to distinguish himself from pagan gods throughout the old testament yet start his church with a characteristically pagan however more important human sacrifice?

Rich said...

Hi Lee,

I wasn't really opposed to Christ being a human sacrifice, like I said some time ago, I am most likely in the "it doesn't matter to me" category. So I tried, probably not succeeded, in doing as suggest to compare pagan and Christ. So the gotcha could be that you find a Christian that sees that atonement is a value added sacrifice. In fact that was how the offerings made by Cain and Abel differed. In fact there are most likely more examples in the bible of similar things.

At its core, its still a human sacrifice. And why does god work so hard to distinguish himself from pagan gods throughout the old testament yet start his church with a characteristically pagan however more important human sacrifice?
So God only required 1 human sacrifice to suffice for the fulfillment of justice with regards to sin. This is the core element to the plan of salvation. Without the atonement none are saved, neither good nor bad, believer or nonbeliever, none. This is stated to have been set in motion since before the foundation of the world. The plan was laid out for us to accept or decline. I'm sure there are other ways to take care of sin, in fact dingo shows us that Christ even said as much in his prayers in the garden. So if you are trying to drag out of a believer that there are other ways or even one other way besides the atonement to remove sin, then let me be the first to say you are right. That doesn't change the necessity of the atonement or the importance of that sacrifice to the entire human race, not just Christians. The atonement removed the effects of the fall from every single person, not a select few. That being that we were forever unable to be in the presence of God without help. That is the death spoken of over and over again, spiritual death. It made possible that every single person will be resurrected and live forever. The quality of your personal afterlife will depend you and you alone.
So yes Lee, Evan, Dingo, all, Jesus was a Human sacrifice and thankfully so because without him we would all be lost forever with no chance of redemption. The part of him that was God made his success possible. Again there are 2, count them 2, people here, God the father and his son Jesus, literally son just like you are the father to your own kids. That is not a common Christian belief but it is the one that fits the best with scripture.
Pagans sought to mimic God not the other way around. God did not set up his church after Christ, it was already up and running since Adam and Eve. His church evolves with time and changes as needed, under his direction through prophets. Pagans were doing the same thing we do, try to figure out what God wants us to do to please him, and to reconcile themselves with their Gods. As Harvey stated, God already had that worked out for us.

Jaceppe said...

Lee:

You said this in response to Rich...

Gotcha. The human sacrifice demanded by God is more important than the Human Sacrifice to pagan Gods. It was a "Value Added Human Sacrifice"

I'm still not clear on something... I've been following this thread; thinking about the whole "human sacrifice" thing but, I'm still unsure of your real accusations... At the very beginning of this whole thread you stated...

In all "civilized" countries in the world, Human Sacrifice is unlawful. The reason it is unlawful is that it is murder. I have seen it argued that a law against murder is one of the Ten Commandments because it is an aspect of a universal moral that proves Gods existence. I think we can all see the irony and logical inconsistency in that.

I asked you "so what" in an earlier post... and you said...

human sacrifices are illegal. They are unjust. And they were pagan before pagan became uncool.

Well, my post where I tried to lay out some differences got mangled by Microsoft Word, so for now I'll just try the question a different way...

Just what is it that you think you have proved about the Christian Faith and the Christian God?

Evan said...

I am happy to see that the apologists agree that Jesus was a human sacrifice.

So this throws us back on the horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. If you accept divine command, then yes, God can do whatever he wants and him being a bloodthirsty, vengeful God who would rather fulfill his notion of justice by a human sacrifice than show mercy on the creatures he "created" and we just all have to accept it.

Personally I think divine command makes human beings into the slaves of a despot. Some people like that position though.

The other response is much more challenging to accept if you accept that Jesus was a human sacrifice, but the other response is to say that God's nature embodies that which is good.

But we know that human sacrifice is not good. We know it deeply and thoroughly in this culture. Nobody does it for any reason and if they do it they get put in jail for the rest of their lives.

Andrea Yates sacrificed her kids by drowning them. She's crazy-religious but she was tried in court and convicted of murder.

That's because murder is one of the things that we now agree is morally repugnant.

So either God just does what he wants and that makes it good (i.e. you are a slave to a despot), or God can only do good things and therefore human sacrifice is at least at times, good.

That help?

Jaceppe said...

Evan,

You said...

I am happy to see that the apologists agree that Jesus was a human sacrifice.

Was that in response to my question to Lee? Well, to be clear I have not consented that the human sacrifice parallel has been adequately made in this thread and I will post some differences in a bit... but, first...

You said

If you accept divine command, then yes, God can do whatever he wants and him being a bloodthirsty, vengeful God who would rather fulfill his notion of justice by a human sacrifice than show mercy on the creatures he "created" and we just all have to accept it.

So, I want to ask you, Evan, do you think the Christian God is a murderer?

Evan said...

So, I want to ask you, Evan, do you think the Christian God is a murderer?

Nope. I think he doesn't exist. It answers all the problems.

Jaceppe said...

Evan,

You said..

Nope. I think he doesn't exist. It answers all the problems.

By no means.... it opens up a whole pandora's box of new ones... but those would be topics for other threads...

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Evan- "But we know that human sacrifice is not good. We know it deeply and thoroughly in this culture."

[If I push you or another person out of the way of a moving train, KNOWING full well that the very act will cost me my life, is that NOT good?

If the soldier in Iraq dives on a grenade and saves his fellow soldiers and looses his life in the process, is that NOT good?

In the world of Ayn Rand maybe not, but in the world of the sane and rational you can't tell me that any human, with full control, clear mental faculties, and knowledge of the very act, does not do a good thing and a thing REWARDED in every aspect of human society by sacrificing their life for another. It's even more noteable when a person is a complete stranger for whom a life is given.

We need not mention the dear firemen and police in NYC on 9/11. THAT WAS GOOD. A HORRIBLE event, but they sacrificed to save others.

In EVERY OTHER aspect of life self sacrifice is commended and given high regard. But YOU (representative of the atheist crowd) hold it AGAINST God when he demonstrates the same level of self sacrifice by offering HIMSELF as a ransom for all humanity to save US from the train wreck and penalty of SIN AND SHAME...As I said before the scripture states that nobody took HIS life, he laid it down and died when "it" was finished and the mission to save humanity was finished.

May I submit that your assessment of barbarism on the behalf of God is TOTALLY inconsistent with what is valued and held as GOOD for society and humanity in general. It was God who entered into an agreement with man fully aware of the cost involved.

I believe that your position is skewed by an antisupernatural bias which causes you to view selflessness on the behalf of God in a negative way. I am confident that you do not look upon the selfless acts of any other individual in the same way that you look upon the acts of the historic and real Jesus as described within the pages of the bible.]

Evan~ "Nope. I think he doesn't exist. It answers all the problems."

[If you think that Evan then there is no problem, and the story of a God who sacrifices himself to SAVE others should be lauded and held in high esteem by every atheist and everyone else, but obviously there is a problem because that's not what you stated and certainly not what you think....So an answer to the question is in order, Do you think the God of the bible is a murderer?]

Thanks.

PS. I need somebody to give me the codes for links and highlighting in the comments section please. Thanks again.

Jaceppe said...

All,

I want to post 4 areas that believe have not been address in the Christian to pagan sacrifice comparison... I wanted to have these more developed (and I will), but for now I'll just get them out there to keep the juices flowing...

1) No where does the Judaeo-Christian God demand human sacrifice from His worshipers nor is there any historical ritual practice of human sacrifice anywhere within the Jewish O.T. sacrificial system. Search the scriptures on this, but I believe you will look in vain for support stating that God demands this of His worshipers.

2) The Romans & Jews crucifying Jesus are not conciously participating in any manner in a human sacrifice. They do not want Jesus to be a sacrifice, they have not chosen Him as a sacrifice, they are not even thinking about sacrifice. All they are doing (as Scripture records for us) is eliminating someone they deem to be a rabble-rouser (albeit, clearly in one of the most brutal manners ever conceived in the wicked heart of man). Rather, the Biblical perspective recorded for us is that they are sinning against the Lord of Glory in this act.

3) You have not even dealt with the Divinity of Christ in your comparison to pagan human sacrifice.

4) God alone is acting in the Cross in its redemptive, atoning aspects by His own violition and on behalf of benefactors totally unaware of the benefits they will receive through this atoning work.

I think these 4 areas are singularly unique and have no parallels to the pagan rituals Christianity is being compared to. As such, I believe the comparison breaks down on these 4 points to the degree where the Cross is categorically different than pagan ritual.

I am continue to develop these thoughts for further posts...

sconnor said...

[If I push you or another person out of the way of a moving train, KNOWING full well that the very act will cost me my life, is that NOT good?

If the soldier in Iraq dives on a grenade and saves his fellow soldiers and looses his life in the process, is that NOT good?


Inaccurate analogies.

The more accurate analogy would be, bringing a test tube-baby -- a child -- into existence, letting it become an adult, for the sole purpose of suffering, being tortured and dying for a magical cause, that we can not see the effects of, while being assured it worked, without any credible evidence or can't explain, exactly -- without equivocating -- how the mechanics of, the magical, sacrifice works.

What are the magical, mechanics of a human sacrifice, altering the laws of nature, like a sacrifice to calm the raging volcano, the sacrifice to bring about the much needed rain to quench the drought or the sacrifice of a goat or a human to magically, remove sin?

--S.

Jaceppe said...

sconner,

You said,

Inaccurate analogies.
The more accurate analogy would be, bringing a test tube-baby -- a child -- into existence, letting it become an adult, for the sole purpose of suffering, being tortured and dying for a magical cause, that we can not see the effects of, while being assured it worked, without any credible evidence or can't explain, exactly -- without equivocating -- how the mechanics of, the magical, sacrifice works.


No so,... yours is the innacurate analogy... you do not reconcile your analogy with the Scriptural testimony regarding Christ's Divinity and His oneness with the Father (which would include both essence and purpose), nor His willingness to take up His role in Atonement. Your analogy is about a created test-tube baby brought into the world through no choice of its own, being subjected to torture by an evil parent through no choice of its on (and shall I add the unspoken implication that the parent apparently derived pleasure from such an act)...

Very weak indeed...

sconnor said...

I don't recognize the bible as an authority, on anything. And the scientists brought him up, (no parents) programming him, to do the right thing, allowing him to believe he was doing it, on his own accord. Thanks for that, now it's more accurate.

--S.

DingoDave said...

Lee Randolf wrote:
-"Face it, Paul was wrong. Jesus death was a shock and surprise and they had to put a spin on it for damage control and they hastily borrowed a method from the pagans without thinking it through. Paul did the same thing when he linked Jesus with Adam."

I think that you're spot on correct with this explanation of events Lee.

"The whole link from the Fall through to the Crucifixion was just the rationalizing by Jesus’ followers at the time to explain his tragic death. They saw him as their Messiah, but when he disappointed them by dying before re-establishing the Kingdom of Israel they had to find a way of explaining it all.
The exact same thing happened in 1676 when Sabbetai Zevi was acknowledged as the Messiah by a very wide audience of Jews. When he disappointed them by converting to Islam, their only way out was either to reject him as Messiah, or to explain it away by claiming that it was necessary to experience the “ultimate evil” before they could be free, and therefore they also had to convert to Islam. The majority of his followers then rejected him, but many did convert to Islam waiting for his “next move”, which of course never came.
When Jesus died, his followers rationalized it away by arguing that it was necessary for him to die for their salvation, and we are still waiting for the “second coming” which was promised to occur within the lifetimes of his followers. Sacrifice of the first born son was just a popular belief at the time..."
http://exchristian.net/testimonies/2005/05/my-loss-of-faith-in-christianity.php

-"Since god went to such great lengths to distance himself from the pagan gods, it is very inconsistent of him to use a pagan method to create the cornerstone of his church. I'd go so far as to say, not likely to be behavior of an all-knowing, all-powerful etc God. More likely to be damage control after a surprising crucifixion of their messiah. "

That's the vey reason why Christianity largely failed to take hold ancient palestine, but succeeded in the pagan Roman world.

Harvey Burnett wrote:
-" As I stated before pagan gods took no initiative in delivering man and certainly did not give man anything in return, they only received and that's not at all what we have in the God of the bible."

Rubbish. The pagan mystery cults, just like Christianity, promised their members a blessed immortality through the sacrificial deaths and resurrections of their god-men.

-"The God of the bible addresses the 21st Century mindset by making Jesus "once and for all" the only acceptable sacrifice or propitiation for sin."

And how does this differ from the pagan saviour cults which were so popular in the Roman empire at the time?

Lee wrote:
-"Its a bloody human cadaver on a stick. wake up. If I did that to a dog, and showed it to you I'll bet you'd be disgusted."

Did you hear about the insomniac, agnostic, dyslexic?
He used to lie awake every night wondering whether there really was a Dog. : )

Rich wrote:
-" The atonement removed the effects of the fall from every single person, not a select few. That being that we were forever unable to be in the presence of God without help. That is the death spoken of over and over again, spiritual death. It made possible that every single person will be resurrected and live forever. The quality of your personal afterlife will depend you and you alone."

According to the Bible, we all live forever, so where is this spiritual death of which you speak?
Now, as far as the quality of our personal afterlife is concerned. What if I was to tell my wife that if she ever left me, that I would track her down, pour gasoline all over her, and set her on fire, and that those consequences depended on her and her alone?
If I was to say something like that, would you consider me to be a psychopathic maniac, or would you consider it to be 'justice'?

-"So yes Lee, Evan, Dingo, all, Jesus was a Human sacrifice and thankfully so because without him we would all be lost forever with no chance of redemption."

There you go again, putting limits on your supposedly omnipotent god. How do you claim to know such things about your god? It sounds like blasphemy to me.

-"God the father and his son Jesus, literally son just like you are the father to your own kids. That is not a common Christian belief but it is the one that fits the best with scripture."

Rubbish. The only way the Biblical 'sinless divine son' paradigm will work, is if you think like most ancient people did, that the mother contributed nothing to her offspring apart from providing an environment within which the foetus could grow. The woman was viewed as something like a field, into which the man's 'seed' was planted, and in which the child grew.
The ancients knew nothing about heredity, or menelian genetics and inheritance. Why do you think it is that infertility was always blamed on the women in the Bible? The woman was always described as being 'barren', just like a barren field in which no seeds will grow. The blame was never placed on the man's infertility, or the unviability of the man's 'seed'.

That my friend is how Jesus was originally viewed to be perfect and sinless. In Jesus' case, it was thought to have been God's 'seed' which had been 'implanted' within the virgin Mary's womb. Hence he was thought not to have been contaminated with inherited sin, as he would have been if he had been the product of a human father's 'seed'.

Mary was viewed as being merely an incubator, or host, for the foetal Jesus, just like we humans act as hosts for our inestinal parasites.

Have you seen the movie 'Alien', where the larval aliens infect their human hosts with a tiny critter, which grows inside them, and then eventually bursts out through their gut wall?
Well, think of the baby Jesus in those terms and you'll be fairly close to how the Bible authors viewed him as being.

Harvey Burnett wrote:
-"If the soldier in Iraq dives on a grenade and saves his fellow soldiers and looses his life in the process, is that NOT good?"

Bad analogy Harvey.
A more accurate anaolgy would be that the soldier's father intentionally started the war in the first place, knowing that sooner or he would eventually kill his son, and when the time came, he threw his son onto the grenade against his son's wishes. Now that's more like it. WHAT A GUY!

-"We need not mention the dear firemen and police in NYC on 9/11. THAT WAS GOOD. A HORRIBLE event, but they sacrificed to save others."

In this instance, the firemen and policemen didn't intentionally set up the catastrophe in the first place, like God is supposed to have done according to the Bible.

Jacceppe wrote:
-"No where does the Judaeo-Christian God demand human sacrifice from His worshipers nor is there any historical ritual practice of human sacrifice anywhere within the Jewish O.T. sacrificial system. Search the scriptures on this, but I believe you will look in vain for support stating that God demands this of His worshipers."

Take a look at the article and discussion thread on this blog entitled, 'The Detestable Practice of Divinely Sanctioned Child Sacrifice in the Bible' dated May 15, 2008.
You can find it here;
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/05/detestable-practice-of-divinely.html

-"The Romans & Jews crucifying Jesus are not conciously participating in any manner in a human sacrifice. They do not want Jesus to be a sacrifice, they have not chosen Him as a sacrifice, they are not even thinking about sacrifice...Rather, the Biblical perspective recorded for us is that they are sinning against the Lord of Glory in this act."

If it was all part of the divine plan, which was put into place before the foundation of the world (as Christians like to assert), then why was it a sin, anymore than Judas' supposed betrayal of Jesus was? It would seem that they were merely pawns in god's psychotic little chess game, or unwitting actors in God's sick and demented little theatrical production.
You Christians sure do like to have things both ways don't you? Talk about having your cake and eating it too!

-"You have not even dealt with the Divinity of Christ in your comparison to pagan human sacrifice."

Now we're back onto the old 'God sacrificing himself, to himself, in order to save us from himself', canard again. Sheesh!

Anonymous said...

HI Rich,

Pagans sought to mimic God not the other way around.
how do you figure since paganism was the default relitgion starting from as early as 40,000BC and certainly from 25,000BC?
there is no idea, not one, that they had any kind of belief in the type of god displayed in the bible. This should not be the case if there really was an adam and an eve right?

So if you are trying to drag out of a believer that there are other ways or even one other way besides the atonement to remove sin, then let me be the first to say you are right. That doesn't change the necessity of the atonement or the importance of that sacrifice to the entire human race, not just Christians. The atonement removed the effects of the fall from every single person, not a select few.
what make you so sure the fall actually happened? What else supports the story in the bible about the Fall? Human physiology and biology (the way we are made) account for our misdeeds quite well. Did God change the recipe for mankind after they ate the fruit? If so how is that they ate the fruit before they had knowledge of good and evil? They evidently didn't see anything wrong with it, why would they, didn't have the capability yet.

So yes Lee, Evan, Dingo, all, Jesus was a Human sacrifice and thankfully so because without him we would all be lost forever with no chance of redemption.
thanks for being honest rich but.......
god could have chosen the option of a rebuke and remediation and a second chance. It was the dominant strategy, he chose a dominated strategy, which means he had some other agenda rather than making happy, loving companions.

christianity doesn't pass the checksum, it doesn't add up, it is internally inconsistent.

as I've stated before, you all should be worried that since it is more noble to be righteous without the expectation of reward that God is playing a strategy to see who will be so righteous in principle to reject a patently absurd and counterintuitive idea of a display of love and forgiveness through a human sacrifice.

If god wants to sort out the wheat from the chaff, that is one efficient way.

Jaceppe said...

sconner,

Thanks for the analogy mods; but it hasn't helped your case.

You said:

I don't recognize the bible as an authority, on anything.

Interesting comment, but hardly of any relevance to making a good analogy. You can believe the Bible is total hogwash if you wish but that is of no consequence because to make a good analogy one needs to look at the salient facts...

Such as the fact that Scripture says that Jesus Christ (the Son of God) is not a created being and He gives Himself freely and of His own (unprogrammed) choosing. Your analogy has a created and programmed human... it does not compare ...

Harvey's analogy is much superior.

Blessings in Christ

Anonymous said...

Hi Jaceppe,
Just what is it that you think you have proved about the Christian Faith and the Christian God?
That it is as invalid as pagan religions.

as I told rich, for about the umpteenth time,
as I've stated before, you all should be worried that since it is more noble to be righteous without the expectation of reward that God is playing a strategy to see who will be so righteous in principle to reject a patently absurd and counterintuitive idea of a display of love and forgiveness through a human sacrifice.

If god wants to sort out the wheat from the chaff, that is one efficient way.

Anonymous said...

Hi Harvey,
first of all I want to say thanks for your participation in this thread, and second, I want to say that I'll work on a "comment how-to" and post it within the next couple of days. in fact I started working on it now.

Anonymous said...

Harvey, all,
Examples of bold, italics and links in the comments.  I'll put this in the FAQ soon.

<b>this is how you make a phrase bold</b>
<i>this is how you make a phrase
italicised
</i>
<b><i>this is how you make something bold
and italicised
</b></i>
<a href="http://www.cnn.com">this is a link to cnn. </a>

in this example, the link doesn't work because the of the formatting needed to show it to you. When you use the example it will work.

I encourage you all to practice it in some other blogger blogs that don't moderate comments because you can see the effect immediately and you can delete them right away.

Anonymous said...

Hi Harvey,
first off,
you are appealing to emotion and ignoring a couple of qualifiers.
If I push you or another person out of the way of a moving train, KNOWING full well that the very act will cost me my life, is that NOT good?
if no one else has pointed it out to you, you shouldn't use these analogies anymore because they are fallacious for the following reasons.
They presume there is no other option,
and they presume that the actor is not all powerful.
If it god were the actor, there would be more options because he's supposed to be all powerful.

another thing is that in almost every circumstance I can think of, killing myself (or someone giving their life) to save someone else should be a last resort and is probably not the optimal strategy in any case. Watch some movies and think it through.

as brave as the firefighters were, Its hard to say if going in to save those people with FULL KNOWLEDGE that the towers were going to fall and lose all those heroes was the optimal strategy. My guess is it would not have been the optimal strategy.

sconnor said...

Jaceppe,

...Such as the fact that Scripture says that Jesus Christ (the Son of God) is not a created being and He gives Himself freely and of His own (unprogrammed) choosing. Your analogy has a created and programmed human... it does not compare ...

And yet, Jesus was born of a virgin and became fully, human, too -- this constitutes being created. And in my analogy, my subject, does give freely and of his own choosing, he simply based it on the information he was given. What information did Jesus base his decision on? What
information do we use to make, our, free choices?

Harvey's analogy is much superior.

Harvey's analogy doesn't give the proper time line nor does it rely on religious hocus-pocus. You are going to have to put that into the analogy to even come close.

BTW, the same arguments you leveled at me can be leveled at Harry's, obliterating his analogies.

Harvey's analogies, do not reconcile with the Scriptural testimony regarding Christ's Divinity and His oneness with the Father, nor the fact that Scripture says that Jesus Christ (the Son of God) is not a created being

to make a good analogy one needs to look at the salient facts.


--S.

Anonymous said...

Hi all,
one thing
if all other human sacrifices are bad,
and if this one is good,
then the distinctions need to be able to be verified or it is an exception to the principle on specious grounds and it becomes a case of special pleading.

is there somewhere else besides the bible where we can verify the claims of Paul?

If not, then pauls claim depends on
* existence of the CHRISTIAN god
* jesus was god
* his intent was to reconcile adams transgression
* adam was a real person
* adam and eve were actually culpable.

Where else can any of this be verified?

I'm going to show you step by step how this falls apart.
stay tuned for the next few months.

Jaceppe said...

All,

Alot of posts recently and an article which dingodave recommended I read (thanks dingodave)... It'll take me a while to read through all this and respond, but I'll be back as soon as I can..

Thanks...

Blessings in Christ

Anonymous said...

Hi Jaceppe,
You can believe the Bible is total hogwash if you wish but that is of no consequence because to make a good analogy one needs to look at the salient facts...

Such as the fact that Scripture says that Jesus Christ (the Son of God) is not a created being and He gives Himself freely and of His own (unprogrammed) choosing.


Since you are using the bible as authoritative and as premise for your argument, it is relevant. If he doesn't accept your premise, then he won't ever accept your argument. You have to find something else besides the bible to validate your claim to Jesus characteristics.

and besides that, what was jesus purpose if he wasn't to be the lamb of god, intended to absolve mens sins as a sacrifice?

I think you need to check with your preacher on that.

Anonymous said...

Hi all,
I'm going to drop out now and go concentrate on my next article. I will probably respond to any NEW data or arguments. My goal was just to establish that Jesus was a Human Sacrifice, and I've got a couple of christians to concede that.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Thanks Lee for the help, I'll attempt to use that format when posting

Lee said: "They presume there is no other option, and they presume that the actor is not all powerful."

[I think the rationale is flawed in this statement. The deliverance of God was not based on how many other options were available for man's deliverance, it was based on the options that God declared he was restricting himself to from the beginning. He had a plan, worked within that plan and the plan was successful.

So, solving sin any other way would not let man know how egregious sin was. So the key is not contained in what he could not do, but the key was contained in what he choose to do. Choice seethes through the wholes story of God's redemption of man. That theme is not present in Pagan gods or worship.]


(Concerning God's initiative)Dingo~ "Rubbish. The pagan mystery cults, just like Christianity, promised their members a blessed immortality through the sacrificial deaths and resurrections of their god-men."

[I believe I understand what you're getting at here my friend only that pagan Gods (at least those that I am familiar with and have studied) offered no Slavic death and no resurrection other than "seasonal" or crop related appearances.

If you could name a couple that you think fit and analogy of the thread then maybe we could look a little closer at those but on first brush I can't see it.

Secondly, NONE of them (pagan gods)took initiative (ie: took it upon themselves) to save humanity. I believe that's factual without exception. Again I would like to know if any of them did take upon themselves sin and it's penalty to redeem their subjects.]


[Concerning the analogies which in this case I believe are some of the most accurate representation of what Jesus did, Dingo says...]

"Bad analogy Harvey.
A more accurate analogy would be that the soldier's father intentionally started the war in the first place, knowing that sooner or he would eventually kill his son, and when the time came, he threw his son onto the grenade against his son's wishes. Now that's more like it. WHAT A GUY!"

[First, it doesn't matter who started the war and let's just assume for a minute that (in your analogy) God started it...We still have Jesus who "comes to finish the work of the Father" (Jn. 4:34) Declares that NOONE takes his life, he lays it down and declares that he has power to take it up again. (Jn. 10:18)

Jesus does this with precognition and willingly. Even though you quote 3 scriptures regarding the same event in the Garden where Jesus in spite of his human reluctance to enter into suffering humbles himself and says, "thy will be done" (Lk.22:42, Mt.26:40,Mk.14:36)

So your altered analogy does not fit the literary data left regarding the events. Mine meets the narrative at all points with the exception of addressing his divinity.]


(Regarding the Firemen and Policemen of 9/11) Dingo- "In this instance, the firemen and policemen didn't intentionally set up the catastrophe in the first place, like God is supposed to have done according to the Bible."

[Once again, this is a false dichotomy. Man set up the events with the choice of sin (willing disobedience to the instruction of God) God simply made provision through his foreknowledge.

In addition, and more specifically to the point of this thread, each fireman and policeman everyday realizes that each call could be their last. I'll concede that they didn't go with the express purpose of dying as we see that Jesus did, BUT they went with the understanding that they could die, and that that call could be their last.

So even if we grant, for arguments sake, that God started the whole problem, we STILL see a deeper relationship in Jesus. He goes with the express purpose of dying because he knows that without it man is hopelessly lost and that the TRAIN OF SIN will continue to destroy him.

Heb. 10:7-10~ "7Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 8Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Restatement of Ps. 40:7-10)

Jesus GIVES his life to save others with precognition and voluntarily, and does it ONE TIME indicating that there is no other method among men that offers so great of a dynamic toward salvation.

That my friend seals the deal. NO other pagan God, voluntarily, with precognition places himself into the hands of humans, dies when he's ready and demonstrates his authority by taking himself back up again.

Therefore, there can be no parallel drawn that the God of the bible either borrows from or mimics pagan ritualistic sacrifice because such parallels do not hold up when they are drawn out and examined in light of what scripture teaches about what was actually preformed in and by Jesus.

Was Jesus a human sacrifice? NO. Not if by that you mean an ordinary person killed at the bequest of a mob of people to appease a god.

Did Jesus sacrifice himself and his humanity to save humanity? Yes.

He gave his life voluntarily, with precognition, forethought and with humility to the will of the father in order to SAVE everyone that would believe and trust from the humanly unstoppable destruction of sin.]


Rich and Jaceppe, you've argued well and done a service to our Lord, here in this thread. argued well and done a service to our Lord, in this thread.

sconnor said...

The deliverance of God was not based on how many other options were available for man's deliverance, it was based on the options that God declared he was restricting himself to from the beginning.

Gog being god could have had an infinite amount of plans all being successful and all not requiring his son to be humiliated, brutally tortured, speared and crucified.

He had a plan, worked within that plan and the plan was successful.

The plan was successful? Prove it.

So, solving sin any other way would not let man know how egregious sin was.

Again, god being god, could have solved the supposed egregious, sin problem in an infinite amount of ways. You are adhering restrictions on your god -- limiting his power.

Did Jesus sacrifice himself and his humanity to save humanity? Yes.

How exactly did the magic of the sacrifice save humanity -- what are the mechanics of it? We can't perceive any of it's effects. Also, prove that these supposes magical mechanics saved humanity, without the bible.

And I have to wonder, if god so loved the world, why would he initiate a plan, that would be so monumentally flawed, it would only save a minuscule, portion of humanity, comparitively.

His message, through the bible, in the last 19 centuries, have only been received by a handful of people, comparatively. At this point in time, only, thirty percent of the world, are bible-believing christians. The other 70% of the world are other religions and the non-religious, who don't believe in god's message of salvation. Furthermore, in your particular, christian branch, you have other idiosyncratic, criterias, to be saved, such as baptism, among others. There are 34,000 separate christian groups, in the world, who all have there own list of criteria, on how to be saved. Some say you have to be baptized as a baby, some say you have to be baptized as an adult, some say you don't have to be baptized at all. Others say you have to do good works, while others say you don't. Some say you have to belong to their particular church, in order to be saved. Other churches teach all are saved, no matter what your beliefs are. Some say if you are good you are saved. Some say you must telepathically, pledge your allegiance to Christ, telling him, with your mind, that you believe in him. Most, who call themselves christians, are complacent and don't adhere to all the churche's, covoluted, teachings. This severely, limits who will be saved, and one, only, has to come to this understanding, to conclude, your god is morbidly negligent and his plan for salvation is wholly, inadequate and tragically flawed -- the number of lost souls, alone, is absolutely staggering --not a success, by any measure.

--S.

sconnor said...

...In fact, your god's plan hinges on, the very fallible, sinners of humanity, who couldn't save themselves to begin with.

--S.

DingoDave said...

Harvey Burnett wrote:

-"Jesus does this with precognition and willingly. Even though you quote 3 scriptures regarding the same event in the Garden where Jesus in spite of his human reluctance to enter into suffering humbles himself and says, "thy will be done" (Lk.22:42, Mt.26:40,Mk.14:36)"

Please note what you yourself wrote Harvey. "Thy will be done". It was not Jesus' will that he should suffer and die, it was Yahweh's will.
Jesus was not a willing sacrifice, but rather an unwilling one who supposedly submitted his own will to that of his father's.
Besides which, are you sugeesting that Jesus was in any position to change God's immutable plan of salvation which was supposedly put in place before the foundation of the world?

In addition, Jesus and his followers were supposedly in hiding when the priests and the temple guards came to arrest him.
At his arrest there was an armed struggle, which involved sword-play and the amputation of at least one body part.
It was only when Jesus realised that the situation was hopeless and that he and his followers had no chance of winning the fight that he surrendered himself, more than likely to spare the lives of his armed followers, all of whom promptly ran away in order to save themselves from suffering the same fate that he did.
And another thing. If he was such a willing sacrifice, then why was it necessary for him to be betrayed in order to be captured? If he was not in hiding, then what was the point of the betrayal? Surely he could have just walked into the temple and surrendered himself to the high priest of his own free will, without all the subterfuge, skulduggery and violence.

In summary, the story of Jesus arrest and crucifixion as told in the gospels simply doesn't add up. I smell a rat. If it ever happened at all, then there was almost certainly more to it than is recorded in the gospel accounts. I personally believe that Jesus never intended to be crucified at all, but rather was simply another failed self-professed messiah figure and seditionist, who met exactly the same fate as so many others did at the hands of the Roman imperial government.

-"[I believe I understand what you're getting at here my friend only that pagan Gods (at least those that I am familiar with and have studied) offered no Slavic [salvic] death and no resurrection other than "seasonal" or crop related appearances."

Then you need to study more Harvey.

-"Secondly, NONE of them (pagan gods)took initiative (ie: took it upon themselves) to save humanity. I believe that's factual without exception. Again I would like to know if any of them did take upon themselves sin and it's penalty to redeem their subjects.]"

Please read the following.

"There is not a conception associated with Christ that is not common to some or all of the Savior cults of antiquity. The title Savior was given in Judaism to Yahweh; among the Greeks to Zeus, Heilos, Artemis, Dionysus, Hercales, the Dioscurui, Ceybele and Aesculapius. It is the essential conception of Osiris. So, too, Osiris taketh away sin, is the judge of the dead and of the last judgment. Dionysus, the Lord of the UnderWorld and primarily a god of feasting ('the Son of Man commeth eating and drinking'), comes to be conceived as the Soul of the World and the inspirer of chastity and self purification. [J. M. Robertson may be referring to Attis here.] From the Mysteries of Dionysus and Isis comes the proclamation of the easy 'yoke'. Christ not only works the Dionysiac miracle, but calls himself the 'true vine."

"Like Christ, and like Adonis and Attis, Osiris and Dionysus also suffer and die and rise again. To become one with them is the mystical passion of their worshippers. They are all alike in that their mysteries give immortality. From Mithraism Christ takes the symbolic keys of heaven and hell and assumes the function of the virgin-born Saoshyant, the destroyer of the Evil One. Like Mithra, Merodach, and the Egyptian Khousu, he is the Mediator; like Khousu, Horus and Merodach, he is one of a trinity, like Horus he is grouped with a Divine Mother; like Khousu he is joined to the Logos; and like Merodach he is associated with the Holy Spirit, one of whose symbols is fire."

"In fundamentals, therefore, Christism is but paganism reshaped. It is only the economic and doctrinal evolution of the system--the first determined by Jewish practice and Roman environment, the second by Greek thought--that constitutes new phenomena in religious history."

No religion develops in a vacuum. All religions are influenced not only by their predecessors but by the contemporaries of the time also. Such is the nature of Christianity yesterday and today.

"The Christian myth grew by absorbing details from pagan cults. The birth story is similar to many nativity myths in the pagan world. The Christ had to have a Virgin for a mother. Like the image of the child-god in the cult of Dionysus, he was pictured in swaddling clothes in a basket manger. He was born in a stable like Horus--the stable temple of the Virgin Goddess, Isis, Queen of Heaven. Again , like Dionysus, he turned water into wine, like Aesculapius, he raised men from the dead and gave sight to the blind; and like Attis and Adonis, he is mourned and rejoiced over by women. His resurrection took place, like that of Mithra, from a rock tomb."
- 'Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology' by John M. Robertson
http://www.holysmoke.org/hs02/mithra8.htm

"R. Price is correct in writing that it is difficult for Christian apologists “to see extensive and basic similarities between [the mysteries] and the Christian religion. But somehow Christian scholars have managed not to see it, and this, one must suspect, for dogmatic reasons. Those without such a Maginot Line mentality have less trouble.”
Price writes that, “The Greco-Roman world was up to its hips in mystery gods.” We would add that it also was up to its hips in other gods who also were associated with violent death and helping humankind. Hercules was one of the most universally worshiped gods in the Greco-Roman world and was said to have been initiated into the Mysteries of Eleusis. He was punished by Zeus for freeing Prometheus, who had saved humans by providing them with fire. Hercules, after much physical and psychological suffering, climbed onto his burning funeral pyre on Mount Oetna, and was raised to the heavens on a cloud, becoming one of the immortals. Asclepius, the god of healing, raised so many people from the dead that Zeus killed him, after which he was divinized."

"Paul founded or joined a syncretistic mystery cult. He fused this mystery cult with Gnosticism and Stoic-Cynicism, and added a Jewish veneer.
Many Christian writers reject equating Paul’s religion with they mysteries and Gnosticism. R. Price rightly asks, “how close does a parallel have to be to count as a parallel? Does the divine mother have to be named Mary? Does the divine child have to be named Jesus?” Does the dying and rising god have to mirror Christ in every respect? Must members of every mystery cult believe that she or he will be physically resurrected in a manner identical to that of the early Christian church? We need not assert that Paulinism was a mirror image of a pagan mystery, as did F. Cumont, Richard Reitzenstein, and R. Bultmann in the early 20th century. Paul’s religion was a kaleidoscope, reflecting many syncretistic elements of the Greco-Roman world; it was not an identical copy of any particular pagan religious phenomenon. The Pauline church played a creative role in the development of its own myth."

"R. Price asks whether when members of the mystery cults were mystically united with the god, was “it possible for them to participate in the god’s death and resurrection in some way and so gain an immortality like his? Sure it was. And the Mystery Religions were born.” And so was Paulinism.
Paul was a pagan. He was not a Jew and he was not a Christian in that he did not know of, or follow, the Marcan Jesus. His cult was not based on the life and teachings of an “historical” Jesus."
http://www.christianorigins.com/paganchrist.html

And from a Christian website;

WHAT WERE THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS?

Other than Judaism and Christianity, the mystery religions were the most influential religions in the early centuries after Christ. The reason these cults were called "mystery religions" is that they involved secret ceremonies known only to those initiated into the cult. The major benefit of these practices was thought to be some kind of salvation.

(1) Central to each mystery was its use of an annual vegetation cycle in which life is renewed each spring and dies each fall. Followers of the mystery cults found deep symbolic significance in the natural processes of growth, death, decay, and rebirth.

(2) As noted above, each cult made important use of secret ceremonies or mysteries, often in connection with an initiation rite. Each mystery religion also passed on a "secret" to the initiate that included information about the life of the cult's god or goddess and how humans might achieve unity with that deity. This "knowledge" was always a secret or esoteric knowledge, unattainable by any outside the circle of the cult.

(3) Each mystery also centered around a myth in which the deity either returned to life after death or else triumphed over his enemies. Implicit in the myth was the theme of redemption from everything earthly and temporal. The secret meaning of the cult and its accompanying myth was expressed in a "sacramental drama" that appealed largely to the feelings and emotions of the initiates. This religious ecstasy was supposed to lead them to think they were experiencing the beginning of a new life.

(4) The mysteries had little or no use for doctrine and correct belief. They were primarily concerned with the emotional life of their followers. The cults used many different means to affect the emotions and imaginations of initiates and hence bring about "union with the god": processions, fasting, a play, acts of purification, blazing lights, and esoteric liturgies.
This lack of any emphasis on correct belief marked an important difference between the mysteries and Christianity. The Christian faith was exclusivistic in the sense that it recognized only one legitimate path to God and salvation, Jesus Christ. The mysteries were inclusivistic in the sense that nothing prevented a believer in one cult from following other mysteries.

(5) The immediate goal of the initiates was a mystical experience that led them to feel they had achieved union with their god. Beyond this quest for mystical union were two more ultimate goals: some kind of redemption or salvation, and immortality.

From the 'Christian Research Journal', Winter 1994, page 8.
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0169a.html

Quotations.

"The devil, whose business is to pervert the truth, mimics the exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments...Thus he celebrates the oblation of bread, and brings in the symbol of the resurrection. Let us therefore acknowledge the craftiness of the devil, who copies certain things of those that be Divine." - Tertullian, late 2nd century CE, commenting on the many similarities between Mithraism and Christianity.

"...are our..[beliefs] to be accounted myths and theirs [the Christians'] believed? What reasons do the Christians give for the distinctiveness of their beliefs? In truth, there is nothing at all unusual about what the Christians believe..." - Celsus, late 2nd century CE, commenting on the similarities between the beliefs of Christians and followers of other religions.

"He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation." An inscription to Mithras which parallels John 6:53-54.

"Jesus is a mythical figure in the tradition of pagan mythology and almost nothing in all of ancient literature would lead one to believe otherwise. Anyone wanting to believe Jesus lived and walked as a real live human being must do so despite the evidence, not because of it." - C. Dennis McKinsey

"There is not a conception associated with Christ that is not common to some or all of the Savior cults of antiquity." - J.M. Robertson
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa.htm

-"That my friend seals the deal. NO other pagan God, voluntarily, with precognition places himself into the hands of humans, dies when he's ready and demonstrates his authority by taking himself back up again."

According to other passages in the Bible, it was God the father who raised Jesus from the dead, not Jesus himself.
In fact some of these passages are thought to be far earlier than the gospels, and so are probably much closer to the original Christian belief than the gospel stories are.

Acts.13
[30] But God raised him from the dead;
[34] And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he spoke in this way, `I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.'

Rom.10
[9] because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Gal.1
[1] Paul an apostle -- not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

Eph.1
[16] I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
[17] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
[20] which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,

Col.2
[12] and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

1Pet.1
[21] Through him you have confidence in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

So, I'm afraid that the deal is far from sealed Harvey, except in your own mind.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dingo,
before I forget to mention it, I like your angle that the scriptures show that Jesus wasn't willing.

I think it adds a valuable dimension that complements my angle which was to show that God is logically inconsistent by building his church on a pagan ritual and posing another hypothesis to explain it which was that it was "Damage Control" from Paul the spin doctor. But this article was not meant to defend the hypothesis, only to present the evidence and get some christians to accept it at face value, which a couple did after some prodding.

the defense of the hypothesis comes later.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Dingo~ I won't belabor the point because I think I've given an adequate argument against the assertion of the article that Jesus was a human sacrifice. Frankly, I believe that's been refuted and has now has graduated to the review of the mystery cults and pagan religious parallels which is another thread entirely.

One note however, you use The Christian Research Journal in support of your position but the article IN NO WAY supports your any mystery parallel assertions. In fact, I'll quote other parts of the article (because I've been familiar with this material for quite some time) Look at this:

RECONSTRUCTING THE MYSTERIES

“It is not until we come to the third century A.D. that we find sufficient source material (i.e., information about the mystery religions from the writings of the time) to permit a relatively complete reconstruction of their content. Far too many writers use this late source material (after A.D. 200) to form reconstructions of the third-century mystery experience and then uncritically reason back to what they think must have been the earlier nature of the cults. This practice is exceptionally bad scholarship and should not be allowed to stand without challenge. Information about a cult that comes several hundred years after the close of the New Testament canon must not be read back into what is presumed to be the status of the cult during the first century A.D. The crucial question is not what possible influence the mysteries may have had on segments of Christendom after A.D. 400, but what effect the emerging mysteries may have had on the New Testament in the first century”.


Your sources John Robertson and Mr. Price seem to specialize in the Dependency Fallacy and the Chronological Fallacy. Let me go further. You point out Mithraism as a strong influence on Christianity. Although that doesn't hold water to any evidence, the article specifically says this:

"The major reason why no Mithraic influence on first-century Christianity is possible is the timing: its all wrong! The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament.

Moreover, no monuments for the cult can be dated earlier than A.D. 90-100, and even this dating requires us to make some exceedingly generous assumptions. Chronological difficulties, then, make the possibility of a Mithraic influence on early Christianity extremely improbable. Certainly, there remains no credible evidence for such an influence."


And

Of all the mystery cults, only Mithraism had anything that resembled the Lords Supper. A piece of bread and a cup of water were placed before initiates while the priest of Mithra spoke some ceremonial words. But the late introduction of this ritual precludes its having any influence upon first-century Christianity.

Claims that the Lords Supper was derived from pagan sacred meals are grounded in exaggerations and oversimplifications. The supposed parallels and analogies break down completely.~ See Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 24.


But I especially like this part, because it further cements the arguments that Christians have set forth in this post against the spurrious claims of borrowing and pagan sacrifice etc. Again, I would like you or any of your atheist friends to produce EVIDENCE against this (or at least set forth a factual argument)

The Death of the Mystery Gods and the Death of Jesus

The best way to evaluate the alleged dependence of early Christian beliefs about Christs death and resurrection on the pagan myths of a dying and rising savior-god is to examine carefully the supposed parallels. The death of Jesus differs from the deaths of the pagan gods in at least six ways:


(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity. ~ Martin Hengel, The Son of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976),26.

(2)Only Jesus died for sin. As Gnter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.). ~ Wagner, 284.

(3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature.

(4) Jesus death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, nonhistorical stories of the pagan cults. W. K. C. Guthrie, Ortheus and Greek Religion, 2d ed. (London: Methuen, 1952), 268.

(5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries.

(6) And finally, Jesus death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testaments mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods. ~ A. D. Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and Its Hellenistic Background, in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation, ed. A. E. J. Rawlinson (London: Longmans, Green, 1928),106.

There is MUCH more information in the article and other resources from bona-fide scholars who find NO PARALLEL especially as it pertains to points argued in the article. It just doesn’t pan out. Here’s the complete article by the way this is a link to The Christian Research Journal.

Dingo~ “According to other passages in the Bible, it was God the father who raised Jesus from the dead, not Jesus himself. In fact some of these passages are thought to be far earlier than the gospels, and so are probably much closer to the original Christian belief than the gospel stories are.”

Well Sherlock (LOL) I believe that is correct. If God raised Jesus from the dead and Jesus is God (same nature and same essence) it stands to reason that He raised himself. Isn’t that right? But get this, it gets more complicated than you outlined it says this:

Rom. 8:11 ~ “11But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

Then Jesus says previously

John 2:19 ~ “19Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

John 10:17-18 ~ “17Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father."

Now if the Father raised Jesus from the dead as you so aptly note, and the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead as pointed out in scripture, and Jesus raised Himself from the dead...what were you saying about the Trinity not being a biblical doctrine? Anyway, it’s quite clear that if God did it and Jesus declared that he also did it and it is further declared that the Spirit did it…it then becomes synonymous that God did it.

Anyway, I’m moving on, there’s nothing to see here...(LOL)!

sconnor said...

Awww, I was looking forward to you equivocating on my last two posts.

But instead you did THIS

--S.

Jaceppe said...

Lee,

Thanks for posting this thread. Evan, sconner, dingodave, et.al., thanks for offering your well-spoken and intriguing comments on the topic. Harvey, Rich, apologist, et.al., thanks for your posts as well and for defending the Glory of our Lord. I still remain unconvinced that the parallel Lee has attempted has withstood scrutiny. Through this thread my faith has been greatly enriched and my Awe and Love for Christ has become even deeper... for that alone I am deeply grateful.

I still have more to think about as my attention to this has been spotty the last couple of days and I have not been able to thoroughly review that latter posts. Plus, I still have dingodave's article reference on O.T. child sacrifice to throughly review...

Thanks again... Great discussions...

Blessings in our Glorious Lord, our only Sovereign, and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ

sconnor said...

Jaceppe,

What, no comment on how you synonymously, refuted Harvey's arguments, when you refuted mine? Curious, how you praise Harvey's analogies and yet they don't stand up to the scrutiny of your arguments, either. Is someone delusionaly partial?

And what of my last argument that illustrates how tragically inadequate god's plan is, to save his earthly children, you know, the ones he loved so much, that he sent his only son, to save them?

And what about the plan to save the sinners who couldn't possibly save themselves -- in the end they must go through Jesus, they must accept Jesus, into their lives, to be saved and yet the rest of the world, the other 70% of the world, are other religions or the non-religious, who are not bible- believin' christians? Seems to me, there's a chink in the armor. Didn't god consider these people, when he put his feeble, plan into action? Looks like Jesus' sacrifice was futile , for it hinges completely on us -- the fallible human sinners who couldn't save themselves, in the first place.

What's with all the praising? Your god is a miserable failure and is wholly responsible and miserably negligent, for instituting a plan for salvation, that is incapable of saving everyone and hinges on the very ones who couldn't save themselves, in the first place. Again, the number of lost souls is monumentally, mind-blowing.

--S.

Jaceppe said...

sconner,

You said this...
What, no comment on how you synonymously, refuted Harvey's arguments, when you refuted mine? Curious, how you praise Harvey's analogies and yet they don't stand up to the scrutiny of your arguments, either. Is someone delusionaly partial?

Very good sconner, his analogies do not specifically address the items of Christ's oneness with the Father and being uncreated.

Good catch... ...Point for you...
however, he says this...

In EVERY OTHER aspect of life self sacrifice is commended and given high regard. But YOU (representative of the atheist crowd) hold it AGAINST God when he demonstrates the same level of self sacrifice by offering HIMSELF as a ransom for all humanity to save US from the train wreck and penalty of SIN AND SHAME...As I said before the scripture states that nobody took HIS life, he laid it down and died when "it" was finished and the mission to save humanity was finished.


And his analogy refers to giving of oneself willingly... ideas which Jesus reiterates several times... (e.g. Good shepard; I lay down my life and no one takes it from me; no greater love... etc). So Harvey specifically states in his text the Scriptural concepts of Christ's Divinity and oneness with the Father and his analogies talk about a willing gift of one's life (i.e. the analogous giving of life of the Christ who whose identity he establishes).

Whereas your analogy (the test-tube baby) is contradictory to the biblical record on some important points...

Game for me...

Rich said...

Hi Sconner,
...In fact, your god's plan hinges on, the very fallible, sinners of humanity, who couldn't save themselves to begin with.

You're pretty closs here except it should be more like God's plan hinges on the atonement to accomplish for the fallible humans what they couldn't do for themselves.

Your god is a miserable failure and is wholly responsible and miserably negligent, for instituting a plan for salvation, that is incapable of saving everyone and hinges on the very ones who couldn't save themselves, in the first place.

We are in agreement that we can't save ourselves. So here's a little different look at the effects the atonment provided us. First it erased the effects of the fall for everyone. Second it made resurrection possible for all. Now the Third is up to us fallible humans. If we choose to follow Christ and repent of sin and chhose to do good because we want to, then we can return to God and live forever in his presence. So if this is what you mean by By God's plan being failure, that's where I disagree. We are the ones who fail if we don't repent and choose right. If we so choose and follow Christ, repent, ect..., we will be forgiven of our sin.
Take the atonement out of the picture now. We can still choose to do right/wrong, good/bad, or what ever suits you to call it, the difference is we can never be forgiven of our sins. The atonement gives us the opprtunity to have our free will in tact so that we choose our destiny over having one forced upon us. Everything necessary for our salvation has already been done. The only thing stopping you from obtaining it is accepting Christ's atoning sacrifice, repenting, and continuing to live a good life because you want to. Notice I said continue living, because I am not assuming or saying that you are not already doing that or because of unbelief are incapable of doing it. I noticed that Lee went back to the Free will debate before I got around to this, but the atonement and free will are forever linked.

Hi Dingo,
before I forget to mention it, I like your angle that the scriptures show that Jesus wasn't willing.


Dingo and Lee,
While this is an interesing thought, I have to echo what has been said already. While it is true that Christ asked to not go through with the atonement, he did willingly subject himself to following through with it, not my will but thy will. Which furthers my charge that they are to separate people. He didn't say not my but my will, doesn't make sense to appeal to yourself to not put yourself through suffering.

Thanks for posting this Lee, it has been a very thought provoking topic, which continues to keep my noodle baking even now.:)
Thanks for the kind words Harvey and Jaceppe and back at ya with two thumbs up.

sconnor said...

Jaceppe,

Wrong, my subject lays his life down willingly -- no points for you.

Furthermore one has to ponder why did you praise Harvey's bad analogies? Delusionaly biased?

Nor do you address the colossal ineptitude of god's plan, that ultimately hinges on sinful humanity, who couldn't help themselves in the first place.

Your avoidance of this massive problem in god's plan speaks volumes.

Jaceppe said, Game for me...

Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha -- Cocky with no substance. a bit too early for a victory dance.

--S.

sconnor said...

Rich,

You're pretty closs here except it should be more like God's plan hinges on the atonement to accomplish for the fallible humans what they couldn't do for themselves.

No, god's plan doesn't take into account that other religions and the non-religious, must believe in Jesus to get the ultimate jackpot. Why didn't god consider his other earthly children, the other 70% of the world -- at this moment in time -- who are other religions and the non-religious, who are not bible believing christians?

First it erased the effects of the fall for everyone.

Can't see these effects. Prove it.

Third is up to us fallible humans. If we choose to follow Christ and repent of sin and chhose to do good because we want to, then we can return to God and live forever in his presence. So if this is what you mean by By God's plan being failure, that's where I disagree. We are the ones who fail if we don't repent and choose right.

Right god's plan ultimately fails, because, evidently, he did not take into consideration the other 70% of the world who are other religions and the non-religious -- at this specific, point in time. Furthermore when you examine other christian doctrines not all of them are equal. Some churches preach, "all are saved, no matter, if you accept christ or not". Some preach other doctrines to achieve salvation -- all have varying ideas on salvation. This further limits who is supposedly saved -- another chink in the armor. Lastly, how do you expect that fallible sinful humans can repent and choose right, if they are of other religions or the evidence before them sounds unreasonable and illogical? If god did not take this in to account then it's god's fault. Again, the amount of lost souls -- throughout history -- is staggering and that is because of god's highly inadequate, piss-poor plan.

You completely avoid the fact that -- throughout time -- people were raised in other religions, billions and billions of souls supposedly would have been lost because of god's incompetent plan. Nor does the plan address the non-religious, who are damned for eternity because they've been brought up to critically think and reason. Again, the plan is critically flawed, all those people, all the lost souls, because it was impossible for them to choose Jesus.

Try again.

--S.

Rich said...

Why didn't god consider his other earthly children, the other 70% of the world -- at this moment in time -- who are other religions and the non-religious, who are not bible believing christians?

If it is that God didn't really consider these people you speak of I would concur. However, this isn't the case. Every single person will have the opportunity to hear the gospel so they can accept or reject it. If not while they are on the earth then they will after they have died. When Christ died he visited the spirits who were in a prison. John 5:25, 1Peter 3:19, 1Peter 4:6 all mention teaching those that are dead. If those that are dead, many of whom would consist of those you mention I didn't take into acount or ignored, have no chance of salvation why teach them, or let them hear the gospel? So I beg to differ that those who are the other 70% of the world aren't considered. Those that are here right now are being sought after by missionaries teaching the gospel so there are many who get the chance right now to hear the plan. So now I have accounted for the other 70% who are alive now, misionaries, and those that died, or will die, without hearing of Christ. that is the only way that the plan can be thorough and fair, is that every single person hears of Christ and can decide for themselves whether to accept or reject him.

sconnor said...

Rich,

Doesn't matter if people have heard about Christ or not. They have been brought up and or indoctrinated in other religions. They are incapable in believing in the gospel. The same goes for the non-religious, they may have heard of Christ but they have been brought up to critically think for themselves, making it impossible to believe in the doctrine of salvation, as well. Didn't god consider this? Are you saying, that only the people who have never heard of Christ get a chance to earn salvation, after they die, while the people who have heard of Christ, but are other religions and the non-religious, who are incapable of believing in Christ or god will not have a chance to earn salvation, after they die? That still is a tragic flaw where billions and billions of souls are lost. Furthermore that 70% is, at this particular, time in history. As we go back in time, that number grows, exponentially -- The lost souls is staggering unless of course they too get a chance to earn salvation, posthumously.

Point blank question, the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust -- their virtual hell on earth -- knew of Jesus , but did not believe in him, with your logic, did they get a chance to earn salvation, when they died? Or did they parish, at no fault of their own?

Is god that insecure that he won't let his earthly children into heaven because the were incapable of believing in him?

--S.

DingoDave said...

Dear Harvey,

The only reason I referenced the article from The Christian Research Journal was to refute you claim that the pagan mystery religions did not promise to confer salvation and immortality on their followers. I notice that you didn't acknowlege this in your reply. The rest of the article was composed of typical apologetics claptrap, which simply attempts to deny the obvious fact of similarities between the pre-existant mystery religions and Christianity which manifestly DID borrow most of it's concepts from them, and which I will demonstrate in a follow up post.

You wrote:

-“It is not until we come to the third century A.D. that we find sufficient source material (i.e., information about the mystery religions from the writings of the time) to permit a relatively complete reconstruction of their content. Far too many writers use this late source material (after A.D. 200) to form reconstructions of the third-century mystery experience and then uncritically reason back to what they think must have been the earlier nature of the cults."

How many New Testament manuscripts do we have which pre-date the third century Harvey? The earliest fragmentory Christian manuscripts which we have are ALL dated to around the beginning of the third century or later, with the single exception of a postage stamp sized fragment of papyrus which is thought to be part the Gospel of John, and which is thought to date from around c125-150 AD.

The earliest complete manuscripts we have are 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 3 John, which date to around 350 AD. The first nearly complete New Testament documents we have are the 'Codex Vaticanus' which dates to somewhere around the early to mid fourth century, the 'Codex Sinaiticus' which dates to around the mid fourth century, and the 'Codex Alexandrinus' which dates to around the mid fifth century. None of which are complete, and all of which contain scriptures such as The Epistle of Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle to Marcellinus, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, along with the deuterocanonical books 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 15i, The 14 Odes, The Psalms of Solomon, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Song of Songs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Esther, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, and The Epistle of Jeremiah, All of which were subsequently deemed spurious, and have since been relegated to the apocrypha, or have been discarded completely by the modern church.
What a confusing mess.

And this is what you call the infallible word of God, from which you deduce your plan of salvation, the doctrine of the trinity, and all the other incredible Christian dogmas such as the hyperstatic union of God and man within the person of Jesus?
Give me a break!

Here is a list of the earliest New Testament fragments we have. The list includes Book, Earliest Manuscript, Date, Condition.

Matthew P64, P67, P104 c. 200 Fragments
Mark P4 c. 250 Large Fragments
Luke P4, P75 c. 200 Fragment
John P52 c. 125-160 Fragment
Acts P38 3rd cent. Fragment
Romans P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
1 Corinthians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
2 Corinthians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
Galatians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
Ephesians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
Philippians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
Colossians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
1 Thessalonians P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
2 Thessalonians P92 3rd/4th cent. Fragment
1 Timothy א c. 350 Complete
2 Timothy א c. 350 Complete
Titus P32 c. 200 Fragment
Philemon P87 3rd cent. Fragment
Hebrews P46 c. 175-225 Fragments
James P23, P20 3rd cent. Fragment
1 Peter P72 3rd/4th cent. Fragments
2 Peter P72 3rd/4th cent. Fragments
1 John P9 3rd cent. Fragment
2 John 0232 3rd/4th cent. Fragment
3 John א c. 350 Complete
Jude P72 3rd/4th cent. Fragments
Revelation P98 , P115 c. 275 Fragment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

Therefore how can we know what the earliest Christians believed, or from where they drew their inspiration, based on such late and fragmentory documentation?

-" Information about a cult that comes several hundred years after the close of the New Testament canon must not be read back into what is presumed to be the status of the cult during the first century A.D. The crucial question is not what possible influence the mysteries may have had on segments of Christendom after A.D. 400, but what effect the emerging mysteries may have had on the New Testament in the first century”.

Information about the cult didn't come several hundred years after the closing of the New Testament canon. Mithraism was banned along with all other pagan religions by the emperor Theodosius I in 394, after having been the official state endorsed religion of the Roman empire.

-"The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, much too late for it to have influenced anything that appears in the New Testament."

Mithraism reached the height of it's popularity in the third and fourth centuries, and by the year 200, it had spread widely through the army, and also among traders and slaves, and had reached as far afield as Great Britain by that time. Even the Emperor Constantine retained his ties with Mithraism. He declared himself a Christian but still retained the title "Pontifus Maximus" the high priest. On his coins were inscribed the words "Sol Invicto comiti" which means "commited to the invincible Sun". This new blend of the two faiths, he officially proclaimed as Christianity.

-"The death of Jesus differs from the deaths of the pagan gods in at least six ways"

-"(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity."

We have only the early Christians word for it that Jesus died for anyone else. His death, as I mentioned in a previous post, was probably completely unintentional. It was the early Christians who put this 'spin' on his death.

-"(2) Only Jesus died for sin. As Gunter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.)."

Once again, this is more than likely just the early Christian's 'spin' on events. We have only the early Christian's word for it that Jesus' death was anything but unintentional.

-"(3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature."

Yeah, so what? Are you suggesting that the early Christians were incapable of any original thoughts? Blending existing ideas with new ones is the very definition of the term 'religious syncretism'.

-"(4) Jesus death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, nonhistorical stories of the pagan cults."

A belief doesn't constitute a fact. And so what if the death of Jesus was an historical fact. It's not the historical fact which is at issue here, it's whether the earliest Christians viewed Jesus' death as constituting a human sacrifice which absolved it's followers from their sins, and at the same time promised them a blessed immortality.

-"(5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries."

As I have argued in a previous post, Jesus' death was not voluntary. He was arrested while hiding out in the garden of Gethsemene with a group of armed followers (after his whereabouts had been betrayed by Judas Iscariot), then dragged off, tried, and promptly executed.
That doesn't sound very 'voluntary' to me. You might as well say that Saddam Hussein's death was 'voluntary' if you're going to argue from those premises.

-"(6) And finally, Jesus death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testaments mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods."

Exactly the same can be said for Jesus' cult followers. Do you believe that Jesus' followers experienced a mood of exultation following his crucifixion? Of course not.
The exultation only came after they had convinced themselves that he had been resurrected, and had been bestowed with honor and glory by his father Yahweh somewhere up in the heavenly realms.

The followers of the mystery religions likewise annually mourned the death of their gods, and afterwards celebrated their god's triumphant resurrection, just as Christians do to this very day. They participated in festivals, holidays, pageants and grand processions through the streets (which normally ended up at their temples). They carried images of their gods in truimphal exultation, joyously celebrating their god's resurrection and triumph over death, just the same as millions of Christians do even today.

Just watch any modern catholic religious procession or festival, and you'll have a good idea of how the followers of the mystery religions celebrated their religious festivals.

Here is a brief description of the celebrations of the the 'Eleusinian Mysteries', which was held annually in honor of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone.

"They were instituted in the city of Eleusis, some twenty-two kilometers west of Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period, and continued for almost two thousand years. Large crowds of worshippers from all over Greece (and later, from throughout the Roman empire) would gather to make the holy pilgrimage between the two cities and participate in the secret rites, generally regarded as the high point of Greek religion." - Edward A. Beach, "The Eleusinian Mysteries."

"The myths and rites of Eleusis have their counterpart in the religions of certain tropical cultures whose structure is agricultural and matriarchal. At Eleusis, as in the Orphic-Dionysiac ceremonies, as in the Greco-Oriental mysteries of the Hellenistic period, the mystes submits himself to initiation in order to transcend the human condition and to obtain a higher, superhuman mode of being. The initiatory rites reactualize an origin myth, which relates the adventures, death, and resurrection of a divinity."

"The ceremonies involved "ritual washing in the sacred rivers...enlivened by much joking and laughter. This was followed by several days of sacrifices at minor sanctuaries."
- David Maybury-Lewis, Millennium

"The great processions gathered on the Acropolis, and made their way on foot to the sacred temples in Eleusis." - Geoffrey Hodson, "The Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"

"The Iacchos procession occurred on Boedromion. Initiates robed in white and bearing torches "marched along the sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis, singing, dancing, and carrying the 'sacred things' [hiera] of the goddesses back to the Telesterion (great hall of initation) in Eleusis." - The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, Marvin W. Meyer, Editor

"Along with the sacred cult objects, the initiates bore "a statue of the boy-god Iacchos. The latter deity, who personified the shouts of exultation that the participants would periodically emit, was identified at least as far back as the days of Sophocles with Dionysos (cf. Antigone, vv. 1115 ff.). - Edward A. Beach, "The Eleusinian Mysteries"

"CHORUS
"Forward, now to the goddess's sacred circle-dance to the grove that's in blossom and play on the way for we belong to the company of the elect, and I shall go where the girls go and I shall go with the women who keep the nightlong rite of the goddess and carry their sacred torch.
Let us go where the roses grow and fields are in flower, in the way that is ours alone, playing our blessed play which the prosperous Fates today ordain for our playing.
On us alone the sun shines here and the happy daylight, for we are Initiates, we treat honorably all strangers who are here and our own people." - Aristophanes, The Frogs

"...The initiates gathered in a great hall, consumed a sacred drink, and witnessed the re-enactment of a sacred drama concerning the goddess Demeter, her daughter Persephone, and Hades, the god of the underworld. The festival drew on ideas of fertility in agriculture - what is 'underground is the source of 'wealth; the grain is cut and dies but yields seed and grows again - to symbolize the journey of the soul. In this way, the promise was fulfilled that the initiate souls find that death 'is not only not an evil, but a good thing'.
- David Maybury - Lewis, Millennium

"As the festival wound down, the participants would dedicate special services in honor of the dead. Ritual libations would be poured on the ground, the consecrated liquid flowing in the eastward and westward directions. The initiates (probably exhausted at this point) would then return to Athens singly or in small groups. There does not appear to have been any organized procession. This was a time for reflection and meditation." - Edward A. Beach, "The Eleusinian Mysteries"
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/eleusis.html

-"Now if the Father raised Jesus from the dead as you so aptly note, and the Spirit raised Jesus from the dead as pointed out in scripture, and Jesus raised Himself from the dead...what were you saying about the Trinity not being a biblical doctrine? Anyway, it’s quite clear that if God did it and Jesus declared that he also did it and it is further declared that the Spirit did it…it then becomes synonymous that God did it."

You are anachronistically reading back into the texts, what councils of later Catholic bishops eventually came to describe as the doctrine of the trinity.
The conflicting gospel acounts were the result of different authors, writing at different times, putting their own theological spin on the nature of the events surrounding the gospel Jesus.

The doctrine of the trinity was the Catholic church's attempt to harmonise all of these conflicting passages. The end result was the confusing and nonsensical concept which we now call the doctrine of the trinity. This doctrine does not appear in the pages of the Bible, but is a later invention arising out of the Arian/Athinasian controversy, and wasn't proclaimed as a binding Christian doctrine until after the council of Nicea in 350 AD.

The doctrine of the trinity was merely the early church's attempt to combat heresy, and to unite the warring factions of the various Christian sub-cults under the single banner of the Roman Catholic Church. The doctrine of the trinity didn't make sense then, and it still doesn't today. If you weren't so blinded by your unswerving allegience to the doctrines of those ancient Catholic bishops who concocted this ridiculous formula, then you would be able to recognise this for yourself.

Incidentally the doctine of the trinity was only voted in by a tiny majority of the bishops who attended the council of Nicea. I belive that the vote to adopt this dogma only passed muster by a majority of a little over 50%. In other words, nearly 50% of the bishops attending the council of Nicea were opposed to it. A very slim majority indeed, considering that the fate of our eternal souls seemingly rests upon our personal adoption of such a ridiculous creed.

-"Anyway, I’m moving on, there’s nothing to see here...(LOL)!

There IS something to see her folks. It's just that Harvey has closed his eyes, stuck his fingers in his ears, and is loudly and confidently shouting LA LA LA, I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING!

DingoDave said...

As a follow up to my previous post, I would like to re-produce in full, an article which I recently discovered on the internet. In my opinion it is one of the best and most comprehensive articles that I have found so far for illustrating the parallels between the pagan 'Mystery Religions' and early 'Christianity'. The reason I prefer to refer readers to online articles, is that the information is acessible to all, and does not require the reader to go out and spend substantial amounts of time and money in order to access this kind of information.

The article is entitled 'Justin Martyr & The Mystery of the Pagan Jesus' and can be found here;
http://shemaantimissionary.tripod.com/id11.html

Please read the following article carefully and thoughtfully, and consider what it says. It concerns the excuses of the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr, as to why the doctrines of the pagan mystery religions largely pre-dated the doctrines of early Christianity, and why the doctrines of Christianity largely mimicked the doctrines of the earlier pagan mystery religions.

"Justin Martyr was born around 100 CE, and was a prominent apologist and figure in early Christianity. So much so that he is viewed as being one of the "Church Fathers" - (figures in Orthodox Christianity) who contributed to the key doctrines, beliefs, and history of the Christian faith. The following quotes are taken from Justin Martyr's First Apology. In these, Justin Martyr cites links between Greco-Roman paganism and early Christianity.
Here Justin Martyr states that the judgment of Rhadamanthus and Minos, as stated by Plato, would in fact happen by Jesus. In addition, he states that it would happen for the same time period that Plato named.

Ch. 8
"Plato, in like manner, used to say that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked who came before them; and we say that the same thing will be done, but at the hand of Christ, and upon the wicked in the same bodies united again to their spirits which are now to undergo everlasting punishment; and not only, as Plato said, for a period of a thousand years. In chapter 18, titled "Proof of Immortality and the Resurrection", Justin Martyr simply cites the beliefs of pagans as evidence that an immortal soul and the resurrection of Jesus was possible and did in fact happen."

Ch. 18
"For let even necromancy, and the divinations you practice by immaculate children, and the evoking of departed human souls, and those who are called among the magi, Dream-senders and Assistant-spirits (Familiars), and all that is done by those who are skilled in such matters--let these persuade you that even after death souls are in a state of sensation; and those who are seized and cast about by the spirits of the dead, whom all call daemoniacs or madmen; and what you repute as oracles, both of Amphilochus, Dodana, Pytho, and as many other such as exist; and the opinions of your authors, Empedocles and Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates, and the pit of Homer, and the descent of Ulysses to inspect these things, and all that has been uttered of a like kind. Such favor as you grant to these, grant also to us, who not less but more firmly than they believe in God; since we expect to receive again our own bodies, though they be dead and cast into the earth, for we maintain that with God nothing is impossible.
Justin Martyr compares the beliefs and teachings of Christianity with the poets (those who created the Greek myths), the philosophers, Plato, the Stoics, Meander, and other similar writers."

Ch. 20
"If, therefore, on some points we teach the same things as the poets and philosophers whom you honor, and on other points are fuller and more divine in our teaching, and if we alone afford proof of what we assert, why are we unjustly hated more than all others? For while we say that all things have been produced and arranged into a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of Plato; and while we say that there will be a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doctrine of the Stoics: and while we affirm that the souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensation even after death, are punished, and that those of the good being delivered from punishment spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say the same things as the poets and philosophers; and while we maintain that men ought not to worship the works of their hands, we say the very things which have been said by the comic poet Meander, and other similar writers, for they have declared that the workman is greater than the work."

This one is rather self-explanatory. Justin Martyr simply states that the virgin birth of Jesus, without sexual union, as well as his crucifixion, death, and resurrection were nothing different from the mythology surrounding Jupiter (In Greece, Zeus).

Ch. 21
"And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter."

Similar to above, Justin Martyr compares the birth of Jesus and his status as the "Word of God' to that of Mercury, who was also born in a similar way and who was also the "Word of God." He goes on to compare the crucifixion with the lives of the sons of Jupiter, which were on par according to him. Finally concluding by comparing the birth of Jesus with Perseus, and his miracles with that of Aesculapius.

Ch. 22
"And if we assert that the Word of God was born of God in a peculiar manner, different from ordinary generation, let this, as said above, be no extraordinary thing to you, who say that Mercury is the angelic word of God. But if any one objects that He was crucified, in this also He is on a par with those reputed sons of Jupiter of yours, who suffered as we have now enumerated. And if we even affirm that He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you accept of Perseus. And in that we say that He made whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Aesculapius."

Again, this one is very self explanatory. Justin Martyr simply states that Christian beliefs are similar to Greco-Roman mythology.

Ch 24.
"In the first place [we furnish proof], because, though we say things similar to what the Greeks say, we only are hated on account of the name of Christ, and though we do no wrong, are put to death as sinners."

Now, you might ask yourself, "Why would a notable apologist for the early Christian church admit to all of the similarities and influences between Christianity and Greco-Roman paganism?" Probably because the influences were too strong to cover up or hide.
But alas, like a good apologist Justin Martyr had an excuse. It was what is referred to as "diabolical mimicry" - the notion that the devil or devils knew ahead of time that Jesus was coming, thus setting up pagan religions to thwart the faithful.

Diabolical Mimicry

"For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, [wicked demons] put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets.
The devils... said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. (Referring to Jesus turning water to wine as Dionysus, or Bacchus, did 600 years earlier.)
[The devils] gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus. (Reference to Jesus riding into town on an ass.)
And when [the devils] heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. (Reference to Perseus being born of a virgin before Jesus.)
And when, again, [the devils] learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Aesculapius. (Reference to virtually all of the miracles of Jesus being copies of Aesculapius.)"

Mimicry of Baptism.

"And the devils, indeed, having heard this washing [baptism] published by the prophet, instigated those who enter their temples, and are about to approach them with libations and burnt-offerings, also to sprinkle themselves."

Mimicry of Eucharist

"Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood;" and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn."

Bear in mind that these pagan religions almost certainly all came first. Justin Martyr is not claiming that they copied Christianity after Jesus came, but that "wicked devils" knew ahead of time of Jesus' coming, and thus set up pre-copies of Christianity.
He makes reference to virtually every rite and doctrine found within Christianity - baptism, Eucharist, virgin birth, crucifixion, water into wine, resurrection.
So, the choice is yours. Is this a clear link between Greco-Roman pagan religion and Christianity; one that documents the influence of the latter on the former - or did DEVILS makes the whole thing up? Let the rational mind decide."

http://shemaantimissionary.tripod.com/id11.html

So, which came first Harvey, the chicken or the egg? Here you have an early Christian apologist admitting that the pagan mystery cults existed before Christianity, and the best excuse that he could come up with to explain this fact was that the Devil had mimicked the Christian doctrines IN ADVANCE, in order to throw Christians off the track. This is simply pathetic.

But hey, if you can bring yourself to believe this, then I guess you'd believe just about anything.

District Supt. Harvey Burnett said...

Dingo~ So, which came first Harvey, the chicken or the egg? Here you have an early Christian apologist admitting that the pagan mystery cults existed before Christianity, and the best excuse that he could come up with to explain this fact was that the Devil had mimicked the Christian doctrines IN ADVANCE, in order to throw Christians off the track. This is simply pathetic."

[Dingo my friend, that's the pont you totally miss. Some of the mystery cults preceed Christianity. That's not the question. But not until 3rd and 4th century do we see them REVISED to mimmic Christianity.

I don't have time to go into each detail and as I said this isn't the thread but as atheist do, when they loose and argument ANY argument willl do to save face...

Paganism suffered an exodus of adherants primarily due to the growth of Christianity. Many of the stories you expouse that you see parallels in were later developments to draw adherants back.

The proof is the literary record which is abundant regarding this. Unlike my brave opponent Dingo, I've got facts to back up my assertions NOT simply what some atheist asserts and wants me to believe. Since this isn't the thread, study this for yourself for there is a wealth of material in support.]


Later, I'm going to Harry's other thread and Evan just opend a new fallacious argument that doesn't hold water either.

Thanks.

DingoDave said...

Harvey Burnett wrote:

-"Dingo my friend, that's the pont (point) you totally miss. Some of the mystery cults preceed Christianity. That's not the question. But not until 3rd and 4th century do we see them REVISED to mimmic Christianity."

On the contrary Harvey. It is not until the third century that we see Christianity revised in order to mimic the mystery religions. The whole point is that the doctrines of the mystery religions were already in place long before Christianity came on the scene, just as Justin Martyr plainly admitted. Ignore the evidence of one of your own prominent Christian apologists if you wish, but that in no way changes the evidence which we have at our disposal. The Christian church incorporated so many pagan traditions into it's own celebrations and festivals, that it is almost laughable that you would make such an argument.

Here are a few examples of pagan incorporations into early Christianity.

"The date of Christmas was purposely fixed on December 25 to push into the background the great festival of the sun god (Sol Invictus), and Epiphany on January 6 ("Orthodox Christmas") to supplant an Egyptian festival of the same day. The Easter ceremonies rivalled the pagan spring festivals. The religious art of the Christians continued the pagan art of the preceding generations. The Christian representations of the Madonna and child are clearly the continuation of the representations of Isis and her son suckling her breast. The statue of the Good Shepherd carrying his lost sheep and the pastoral themes on Christian sarcophagi were also taken over from pagan craftsmanship."
'Pagan Elements in Christianity' - http://oaks.nvg.org/ap3.html

In addition, are you also suggesting that the teachings of Plato, Menander, Aristophanes, and the Stoics came AFTER Christianity? : O

So, I'm afraid that like most Christian apologists, you are attempting put the cart before the horse. You have got the caboose towing the locomotive. You are walking backwards, while claiming that you can see in front of you.

Besides which, Justin Martyr was NOT claiming that the pagan mystery religions were mimicking Christianity, but exactly the opposite.

Once again, the words of Justin Martyr from the article I cited.

Diabolical Mimicry

"For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, [wicked demons] put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets.
The devils... said that Bacchus was the son of Jupiter, and gave out that he was the discoverer of the vine, and they number wine among his mysteries; and they taught that, having been torn in pieces, he ascended into heaven. (Referring to Jesus turning water to wine as Dionysus, or Bacchus, did 600 years earlier.)
[The devils] gave out that Bellerophon, a man born of man, himself ascended to heaven on his horse Pegasus. (Reference to Jesus riding into town on an ass.)
And when [the devils] heard it said by the other prophet Isaiah, that He should be born of a virgin, and by His own means ascend into heaven, they pretended that Perseus was spoken of. (Reference to Perseus being born of a virgin before Jesus.)
And when, again, [the devils] learned that it had been foretold that He should heal every sickness, and raise the dead, they produced Aesculapius. (Reference to virtually all of the miracles of Jesus being copies of Aesculapius.)"

Justin Martyr is not claiming that they copied Christianity after Jesus came, but that "wicked devils" knew AHEAD OF TIME of Jesus' coming, and thus set up pre-copies of Christianity. He makes reference to virtually every rite and doctrine found within Christianity - baptism, Eucharist, virgin birth, crucifixion, water into wine, resurrection.
So, the choice is yours. Is this a clear link between Greco-Roman pagan religion and Christianity; one that documents the influence of the latter on the former - or did DEVILS makes the whole thing up? Let the rational mind decide.

DingoDave said...

Jacceppe wrote:

-"But YOU (representative of the atheist crowd) hold it AGAINST God when he demonstrates the same level of self sacrifice by offering HIMSELF as a ransom for all humanity to save US from the train wreck and penalty of SIN AND SHAME...As I said before the scripture states that nobody took HIS life, he laid it down and died when "it" was finished and the mission to save humanity was finished."

According to Christian dogma, Yahweh self-immolated himself to save us from HIMSELF, and the CURSE which he himself chose to place on all of humanity.
And it's ridiculous to assert that Jesus took his own life.
As I argued in a previous post, it was the Roman government who took his life, just the same as they did to dozens of other self-styled apocolyptic prophets of the day.
The act of taking one's own life is called suicide. So unless you wish to assert that Jesus comitted a form of divine suicide, then he most definately did not take his own life.

On the contrary, it was taken from him by others.

He was arrested whilst in hiding, and was dragged off by the Jewish authorities to stand trial. He was tried by both the Jewish religious leaders, and by the Roman imperial government, and was swiftly executed. The gospel writers attempted to put a favorable spin on the circumstances surrounding his arrest and execution, but enough clues remain to see through their weak rationalisations and 'spin doctoring'.

The only thing which is a 'train wreck' is this ridiculous 'plan of salvation' which Christians keep banging on about.

Jaceppe said...

dingodave wrote:

Jacceppe wrote:
-"But YOU (representative of the atheist crowd) hold it AGAINST God when he demonstrates the same level of self sacrifice by offering HIMSELF as a ransom for all humanity to save US from the train wreck and penalty of SIN AND SHAME...As I said before the scripture states that nobody took HIS life, he laid it down and died when "it" was finished and the mission to save humanity was finished."


and dingodave said in response:
...And it's ridiculous to assert that Jesus took his own life.
As I argued in a previous post, it was the Roman government who took his life


Well…, to be a bit more precise, I was citing Harvey Burnett specifically regarding an analogy that he used and I was doing a little point-counterpoint with sconner over the strength of various analogies… However, I do agree with the sentiment Harvey is suggesting regarding Jesus willingly giving of Himself.

Let me also say that I cited in an earlier post that I believed the Jews and the Romans are the ones who actually executed Christ. So, I also agree with you that they actually performed that act… But, there is a concept entwined here which is not difficult to grasp (God’s Sovereignty and Humanity’s Free Will) and this general idea is being discussed over in another thread of Lee’s (i.e. “If God has a plan, then free will is an illusion”). Essentially, what is coalescing in this execution act is the free-will of Humanity and the sovereignty of God. Humanity’s willful act of sin against the Savior (of which the Jews and Romans are the temporal actors in the execution) and Christ’s willing choice to bear the punishment we deserved. This idea (i.e. that God can work His Good and Perfect Will through the actions, even sinful ones, of humanity) is echoed in other places in Scripture (see, Joseph’s brothers sinning against him yet God using that to prepare a way of salvation for the Israelites in Egypt)… It’s really not difficult to grasp that God can be powerful enough to do this and yet remain Holy… (albeit, He would be mind-blowingly powerful... HE IS AMAZING and GLORIOUS!) …it simply requires you to stop thinking that God is as limited as humans... I'm crafting another post to talk about this a bit more...

And no, Christ’s death is not suicide. Suicide is done in a dark, desperate, myopic, and depressed mindset to no end, for no good purpose, and in connection with no other beings… none of those are proper descriptions of Christ's attitude from the Scriptural record of the Cross… He knows what He is doing and to what purpose, and He is willing to bear the agony of that choice freely out of love... it is the willing gift of purposeful love to undeserving recipients…

Rich said...

Hi sconner,
Doesn't matter if people have heard about Christ or not. They have been brought up and or indoctrinated in other religions. They are incapable in believing in the gospel.

There is now you you canconvince me that someone in incapable of believing. It may be very hard for some but not impossible. Since you, I think, don't believe in an afterlife, what will change when you die and continue to exist?

Are you saying, that only the people who have never heard of Christ get a chance to earn salvation, after they die, while the people who have heard of Christ, but are other religions and the non-religious, who are incapable of believing in Christ or god will not have a chance to earn salvation, after they die?

What I am saying is that for God to be fair and just, every single person has to hear the gospel and make a descision to accept or reject it. Even one person who doesn't get this opportunity makes the plan of salvation unfair and unjust. So if they don't/can't get that on earth, which happens to billions as you pointed out, then other provisions would have to be made. If we are talking about suffering for eternity, then without you very own personal choice at acceptance or rejection, then I would say God had failed. But if you are given the choice and you decline then it is you who is at fault.

Point blank question, the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust -- their virtual hell on earth -- knew of Jesus , but did not believe in him, with your logic, did they get a chance to earn salvation, when they died? Or did they parish, at no fault of their own?

It's actually simple, they get the opportunity to learn of the gospel and decide to accept or reject it. Whether it is in this life or the next, all get the chance, then it is not by no fault of their own but of their own fault if they decline.

MH said...

Soooo a huge group of us get to be told in an environment where there is significant doubt, clear rational reasons to disbelieve. Yet, another huge group get to die and get offered the choice later where there'll certainly be less.

That's what always bugged me about the doubting Thomas story. What makes him special that he can see physical proof while the rest of us have to guess (ie, use faith).

Rich said...

No one said anything about seeing physical proof for anyone.

sconnor said...

Rich,

Allowing everyone, the chance to, definitively, hear the gospel, by god, in person, posthumously, renders christianity obsolete. Furthermore, you do realize, of course, your particular belief, in the matter, doesn't represent christianity, as a whole and may, very well, be in the minority. Yours, is just one, of many equivocations, of christian doctrine, that supposedly -- by your claim --will be alleviated, upon death, straight from the horses mouth -- as it were.

I'll wait to hear the concise, unequivocal, "good news", from the big guy himself, thank you.

--S.

MH said...

sconner hit the conclusion square on much quicker than I would have, but I tend to like to wander around the space of discussions.

Seeing definitive proof of the afterlife constitutes a physical proof. Proof of life after death makes any person believe that it wasnt just earth that existed.

Additionally, not being sent to whatever hell or purgatory you believed in on earth is proof that the religion you were born into happened not to be the one that was true.

Rich said...

sconner,
Allowing everyone, the chance to, definitively, hear the gospel, by god, in person, posthumously, renders christianity obsolete.

But I didn't say nor did I mean to imply that you hear the "good news" posthumously by God.

Furthermore, you do realize, of course, your particular belief, in the matter, doesn't represent christianity, as a whole and may, very well, be in the minority.

Oh, I do, and I'll even do you one better that my belief usually puts me outside of christianity altogether.

Marc says:Additionally, not being sent to whatever hell or purgatory you believed in on earth is proof that the religion you were born into happened not to be the one that was true.

So that eliminates one in how many thousand?

sconnor said...

Rich,

But I didn't say nor did I mean to imply that you hear the "good news" posthumously by God.

It's your job to be explicitly, clear, on how this whole thing works. It's as if I'm pulling teeth with you, to get information.

How exactly, did the Jewish person who had been tortured, starved and then burned alive, in the Holocaust, get a chance to hear the "good news", after they died? When? How? Who?

In heaven, who is able to share the good news with them? Does an angel, just, telepathically, convey this information? How exactly, is this information conveyed? How much time do you get to think it over? Are there, in depth, study classes? It couldn't be another dead human who shares the good news, because they are fallible -- what if they don't convey the information correctly?

BTW how do you know god doesn't share the good news, with people who have never heard it or understood it, in heaven?

--S.

Rich said...

It's your job to be explicitly, clear, on how this whole thing works. It's as if I'm pulling teeth with you, to get information.

Sorry sconner you are right here. It seemed like this thread was dying so I wasn't expecting to go into much detail. But I will do some for clarity.
It is the belief of the LDS church(Mormons) to which I belong, that those who have died without hearing the gospel will get that chance. It is in a similar fashion as you would hear the gospel here, in mortality. Tha is by missionaries. While this isn't something that you will find clearly stated anywhere in the bible, the fact that I mention, for those who already didn't know, that I am Mormon and do soley use the bible as scripture. I brought up the biblical references to preaching the gospel to the dead for the purpose of showing that there is a chance for all those people you mentioned, including the holocaust victims, to hear the gospel and have the opportunity to accept or reject it. This is not done by God personally. While the passages in Peter are speaking of Christ, he also taught his gospel to some hear and the majority hear it from someone else besides God.
Yes we are fallible, and it would be consistant with the plan of salvation to continue to exercise faith and have someone who is your peer share the gospel with you for you to make your decision. This gives an equal opportunity for everyone, which is fair and just. Do you disagree that this system would be fair?

BTW how do you know god doesn't share the good news, with people who have never heard it or understood it, in heaven?
I belive in continuing revelation from God. This is something that was revealed to modern prophets, and I believe it is consistant with a loving God. One who would give all the same opportunity to choose their path for themselves. So the Bible is one of many sources for my information, butcertainly not the only one. There are no case studies I know of that deal with this.

sconnor said...

rich,

It is in a similar fashion as you would hear the gospel here, in mortality.

Except you're dead or undead and you are being taught by dead or undead Mormon missionaries. How exactly do you know this? And if it is in the similar fashion as you would hear the gospel here, then are we bound by the same vague parables, symbolism, literal vs non-literal, equivocations, that has plagued Christianity, causing splintering, vast and varying interpretations, throughout history -- or is there divine direction, being in heaven and all? How long do they take, in teaching the "correct, on and only true", Mormon view of the gospel? Because, people here on earth study the gospels their entire life and can't come to an agreement. Also you must concede Marc's point that if these undead Mormon missionaries are conveying the Gospel in the cosmic bible school in the sky to the recently deceased, then there is definitive proof of an afterlife.

Now is the time, to abide, by one of your articles of faith: "We believe in being honest, true...we seek after these things."
Be honest, you really don't know, positively, that an undead Mormon peer or God or Jesus will share the gospel, with you, for you to make a decision, posthumously -- right?

While this isn't something that you will find clearly stated anywhere in the bible, the fact that I mention, for those who already didn't know, that I am Mormon and do solely use the bible as scripture.

Oh, so you're just pulling this out of your butt? If it's not clearly stated in scripture, how do you know this happens? How can you substantiate your extraordinary, claim that undead Mormon missionaries teach the recently, deceased-undead, the gospels?

Also, according to Mormon.org you must do this to earn salvation /"exaltation".

However, an individual's personal salvation requires both faith in Christ and good works.
"To make His Atonement fully effective in our individual lives, we must have faith in Christ, repent of our sins, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, obey God's commandments, and strive to become like Him."


If someone didn't receive the holy ghost, can they receive it in heaven, along with the gospels being revealed? And I would assume, if you weren't baptized, the undead Mormons can do this for you, in heaven, as well? Now what about the obeying god's commandment part? What if you did not obey god's commandments or you didn't do good works, here on earth, are you saying that we get a chance to do this in heaven? And can you substantiate you answer in any credible way? And doesn't this, again, hinge on sinful humanity, the ones who couldn't save themselves to begin with?

This gives an equal opportunity for everyone, which is fair and just. Do you disagree that this system would be fair?

Well, while we are speculating, anyway, I guess, if, after I died and found myself floating around with a bunch of undead, Mormons lecturing me, about the gospels and they were to convey, to me, unequivocally, what it means and they were able to answer my questions clearly -- coupled with the fact that there was life after death, so you wouldn't need faith -- then yes, that part is fair. But according to your doctrine, there are levels of heaven and evidently, if you are not a Mormon, upon death you will be taught the gospel according to the Mormon doctrine and you would have had to lead an exceptional life to obtain the highest level -- the Celestial Kingdom. So once, again, earning salvation (top heaven) hinges on sinful humanity, the ones who couldn't save themselves to begin with. And to make matters worse and is terribly unfair, arrogant and egotistical -- married Mormons, who have been married in a Mormon temple and thus have had their marriage sealed for eternity, are the only ones who can obtain super-duper salvation and become gods and goddesses -- what a deal! Isn't it amazingly, curious, that your heaven is remarkably similar -- albeit supernaturally, more prestige -- to the religion, you espouse?

--S.

Rich said...

Sconner,
Now is the time, to abide, by one of your articles of faith: "We believe in being honest, true...we seek after these things."
Be honest, you really don't know, positively, that an undead Mormon peer or God or Jesus will share the gospel, with you, for you to make a decision, posthumously -- right?

Meaning that the only way to be honest in this case is to agree with you? You say you want an "honest" question and answer session with me, but the tone of your post sounds condesending, and you belittle my beliefs in the hope that I will "honestly" agree that I know nothing, it makes me think that you really could care less what I think, which is likely anyway. This is the same tone I read of Christians who pop in here to tell you all that you can have no morals and you shouldn't worry about Chritianity because you don't believe in God anyway.

Since I have been wrong a time or two, I answer a couple of points you made.
Oh, so you're just pulling this out of your butt? If it's not clearly stated in scripture, how do you know this happens?

Even though this follows the tone I mentioned, I did pull this out of my butt, and it is a big butt with lots more in there to use, so stay tuned in this and other threads;) I actually already clearly and honestly answered this question right after the statement you copied and pasted here.

Also you must concede Marc's point that if these undead Mormon missionaries are conveying the Gospel in the cosmic bible school in the sky to the recently deceased, then there is definitive proof of an afterlife

I didn't say I wouldn't concede marcs point that you would have definetive proof that there was an afterlife. that doesn't necessarily give you definetive proof that there is a God, and if you are skepticle here I would think you continue being skepticle.

Rich said...

Sconner,
Now is the time, to abide, by one of your articles of faith: "We believe in being honest, true...we seek after these things."
Be honest, you really don't know, positively, that an undead Mormon peer or God or Jesus will share the gospel, with you, for you to make a decision, posthumously -- right?

Meaning that the only way to be honest in this case is to agree with you? You say you want an "honest" question and answer session with me, but the tone of your post sounds condesending, and you belittle my beliefs in the hope that I will "honestly" agree that I know nothing, it makes me think that you really could care less what I think, which is likely anyway. This is the same tone I read of Christians who pop in here to tell you all that you can have no morals and you shouldn't worry about Chritianity because you don't believe in God anyway.

Since I have been wrong a time or two, I answer a couple of points you made.
Oh, so you're just pulling this out of your butt? If it's not clearly stated in scripture, how do you know this happens?

Even though this follows the tone I mentioned, I did pull this out of my butt, and it is a big butt with lots more in there to use, so stay tuned in this and other threads;) I actually already clearly and honestly answered this question right after the statement you copied and pasted here.

Also you must concede Marc's point that if these undead Mormon missionaries are conveying the Gospel in the cosmic bible school in the sky to the recently deceased, then there is definitive proof of an afterlife

I didn't say I wouldn't concede marcs point that you would have definetive proof that there was an afterlife. that doesn't necessarily give you definetive proof that there is a God, and if you are skepticle here I would think you continue being skepticle.

sconnor said...

rich,

I said, Now is the time, to abide, by one of your articles of faith: "We believe in being honest, true...we seek after these things."
Be honest, you really don't know, positively, that an undead Mormon peer or God or Jesus will share the gospel, with you, for you to make a decision, posthumously -- right?

You answered, Meaning that the only way to be honest in this case is to agree with you?

So, you can't be honest.

You say you want an "honest" question and answer session with me, but the tone of your post sounds condescending, and you belittle my beliefs in the hope that I will "honestly" agree that I know nothing...

The tone of my post has, absolutely, nothing to do, with you giving honest answers. Let's be clear, I never implied you don't know anything. I was very specific, with my accusation, which is, you can not, honestly, tell me you know, positively, that Mormon undead missionaries, god or Jesus share the gospel, with the recently, deceased. You have no credible proof, that undead Mormon missionaries share the gospel, with the recently deceased.

Your attempts of substantiating your extraordinary claims are spurious, human imaginings, at best. You already admitted this doctrine is not clearly stated in scripture and referencing scripture or religious texts isn't credible proof, anyway. What makes your scripture credible, while other religious texts are considered not valid? More specifically, why are your specific, myopic, interpretations, more valid, to other christian interpretations?

Unfortunately, at the end of the day -- like other christian sects -- you can not substantiate your extraordinary claims. As of now, you are on equal footing with (as one example) Jehovah Witnesses, who make their own unsubstantiated, extraordinary claims, about the afterlife, based, only, on interpretation of scripture and speculative imagination, exactly, the way you do.

...it makes me think that you really could care less what I think, which is likely anyway.

You are correct, I don't, really, care what your beliefs are. What I do care about is, you, substantiating your extraordinary beliefs, by providing credible evidence, because, like I said, you are on equal footing with the Jehovah Witness, who is also blowing hot air, by making extraordinary claims, they can't back up.

Tone? Well, let's just say, respect is earned and so far you have not earned it. If anything, the only thing I respect about your faith is your desire to have a good life, in this world, But I will never have respect for your unsubstantiated "certainty" of undead Mormons, relaying the gospel, to the recently, deceased, in the next world.

So, again, I'm asking you to be honest -- Are you positive that undead Mormons share the gospel with the recently deceased, in the afterlife and are you positive god and Jesus do not share the gospel, with the recently, deceased and can you substantiate these claims?

--S.

I noticed you avoided my questions of the fairness of married Mormons, only being aloud to achieve super-duper, immortality, by becoming gods and goddesses.

Rich said...

Sconner,
So, you can't be honest.

That's not at all what I said and you know it, now your just being antagonistic.
I can and have been honest. My point in answering you before was that you are not truely seeking to find out what I may or may not know. You are acusing me of being dishonest with you and everyone because I can't give you official peer review scientifically undisputed hard face evidence that there are mormon missionaries teaching the gospel to the undead. I never said it had to be Mormon missionaries, that was you. I simply said that the deceased were taught the gospel. I also never said that it wasn't clearly stated in scripture, I said in the bible. If it was clearly stated in the bible, which very few things are, it wouldn't be a question of wehter or not I am right about the doctrine now would it?
You asked how I knew and I told you clearly, honestly, but you continue your acusations which means you're not after a exchange of beliefs. I said, and you can look back to verify, other scripture and mordern revelation.

Tone? Well, let's just say, respect is earned and so far you have not earned it. If anything, the only thing I respect about your faith is your desire to have a good life, in this world, But I will never have respect for your unsubstantiated "certainty" of undead Mormons, relaying the gospel, to the recently, deceased, in the next world.

Well lets say respect is a two way street and you're headed the wrong direction. If you want to learn about another and gain respect, it's hardly done inthe manner you are conveying. Doctrines are a matter of belief and faith which is not gained by scientific evidence. So don't believe in any church, I'm not saying you have to, but I usually get a decent echange of ideas here, the hardest to deal with are Christians, but you're catching up.

So, again, I'm asking you to be honest -- Are you positive that undead Mormons share the gospel with the recently deceased, in the afterlife and are you positive god and Jesus do not share the gospel, with the recently, deceased and can you substantiate these claims?

No, I'm not sure it's undead mormons. That is a church on this earth. i am sure that those in the sprit prison get taught the gospel and have the opportunity to accept or reject it. I'm positive God the Father doesn't share the gospel, that's our charge. Christ was the first to share the gospel there as I mentioned previoulsy, and it also is biblical. He may or may not now, but since he came here and shared the gospel and no longer does that for us in mortality, I would suspect it is the same after, that he did share it with some and is now letting other take care of that responsibility, just like we do in mortality.

I noticed you avoided my questions of the fairness of married Mormons, only being aloud to achieve super-duper, immortality, by becoming gods and goddesses.

I told you I wasn't sure I wanted to continue in this thread because of you, so I did avoid it but since you seem to think it's something sinister, I'll take time to answer. First you're wrong about the doctrine you bring up. It's not just about Mormons getting all the good stuff, or super duper immortality as you like to call it. Anyone can achieve the same. the doctrine is about a marriage that is sealed to last beyond the grave and not just until mortal death. Whjat it requires is someone to marry you who holds the proper authority from God fro performing the marriage. Right now, as far as religions go, we believe we hold that authority. by the way that doesn't keep anyone from the celestial kingdom, the highest or super duper immortality, one can achieve. So it's as I said, you are taking a doctrine that you don't understand, and throwing at me like I'm some kind of egotistical self centered bigot, rather than wanting to really learn what the belief is about. I don't care whether you believe or not, but I do care how I'm treated by people. I think I've earned respect from several people here so I have little concern whether you gain any for me or not.

sconnor said...

That's not at all what I said and you know it, now your just being antagonistic.

No -- you are not being honest. All you did was ramble, accusing me of telling you that you knew nothing, which I didn't do. You made an accusation that I said, the only way you could be honest is if you agreed with me -- which is not the case. You can be honest and I could still not agree with you. And then you diverge, by playing the tone card. So you are still not being honest.

My point in answering you before was that you are not truly seeking to find out what I may or may not know.

Exactly; I don't care what you think you know; I want you to substantiate what you think you know -- can you do that?

I never said it had to be Mormon missionaries, that was you.

If they are teaching the Mormon doctrine, then by default, they would have to be Mormons. They couldn't be Catholics, Jews or Muslims teaching the Mormon doctrine, because if they believed, in what they were teaching, then they couldn't be Catholics, Jews OR Muslims -- now could they?

I simply said that the deceased were taught the gospel.

Substantiate your claims.

I also never said that it wasn't clearly stated in scripture,

Then you are a liar, because this is what you said, "It is in a similar fashion as you would hear the gospel here, in mortality. Tha is by missionaries. While this isn't something that you will find clearly stated anywhere in the bible"

You asked how I knew and I told you clearly, honestly, but you continue your acusations which means you're not after a exchange of beliefs.

Correct, I could care less what you believe -- I want to know if what you believe is true and can you substantiate those beliefs.

Well lets say respect is a two way street and you're headed the wrong direction.

Why because, I ask you to substantiate you extraordinary claims? Or is it because I'm blunt and my tone is something you don't agree with? You're the one making these extraordinary claims -- can you back them up?

Doctrines are a matter of belief and faith which is not gained by scientific evidence.

No kidding, that's my point. Anyone can have a belief and make extraordinary claims, but until you can substantiate those extraordinary claims, then they are worth nothing. Consider the beliefs of a Muslim extremist, who with his belief, in an afterlife stocked with 72 virgins in paradise, flew planes into skyscrapers -- are his claims true? He bases his claims on faith and scripture, as well, just like you do. You are the equivalent of a delusional person, who claims he has an invisible leprechaun in his garage, who grants wishes and tells him, when you die your spirt goes to a beautiful green meadow, with rainbows, to live for an eternity. Anyone can make extraordinary claims, which aren't even worth the hot air they ride in on. It's up to you to substantiate your extraordinary claims, otherwise you sound just as insane as the leprechaun believer and 72 virgin believer. Or do you hold their beliefs in high regard?

I'm positive God the Father doesn't share the gospel, that's our charge.

How can you be positive? Prove it.

I would suspect it is the same after...

So it is conjecture.



I said, I noticed you avoided my questions of the fairness of married Mormons, only being aloud to achieve super-duper, immortality, by becoming gods and goddesses.

Then you rambled on, never really addressing the god and goddess doctrine. Can everyone become a god and a goddess?

Furthermore Mormon.org says you have to live according to the gospel to gain entrance to the celestial kingdom.

Now, does that mean people who did not live according to the gospel will get a chance to live according to the gospel, in heaven? Additionally, Mormon.org says, that those who continue in their sins and do not repent until after they have died, will eventually receive a place in the telestial kingdom. Which means some people can't achieve super-duper immortality and again, hinges, solely, on the sinner, who couldn't save themselves, to begin with. You are making contradictory statements, that goes against what Mormon.org says. Are you sure you understand your doctrine? You seem confused.

Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the spot of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.

-- Thomas Jefferson


--S.

Unknown said...

Apologist
If you guys truly knew Christian theology, most of your posts wouldn't be posted.

If you truly knew Christian theology, you would no longer believe in it. I am not denying Jesus’ existence, nor that he was crucified. But to say he was crucified to save humans from their sins…. This is just silly. Jesus dying is a fact. Jesus dying for our sins is not a fact that can be verified, or proven. This part of the story was invented by man. You are incoherent and illogical in justifying your position. Your logic and facts are non-objective. This is verified by examining the definition of the word “know” and the ‘daisy chain’ of definitions that come with it.

Know: be aware of a fact or a specific piece of information; possess knowledge or information about;

Knowledge: Organized body of information. The acquaintance with facts as from study or investigation

Information: Facts or figures ready for communication or use

Fact: A statement that is objectively true and has/can be objectively verified; Something actual as opposed to invented.

Objective: undistorted by emotion or personal bias.