Modern explanations of Christs Sacrifice?

[speaker-to-trolls]

The most important event in the New Testament is the crucifiction of Jesus, where the son of God is offered up to God as a sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness for the whole human race. In the theological context of the time this makes perfect sense because everyone knew that gods needed sacrifices to induce them to do things, the purer the animal the better, but I don't understand how people can still think in these terms today. Does anybody know what modern Christian explanations are for why Christs suffering and death was necessary to help humans? It doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me.

[Junghalli]

Isn't the idea that he "took our lumps for us", so to speak, on the cross, i.e. he took the punishment that was meant for the rest of us? "He died for our sins" and all that.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

That still leaves the problem of why it had to be so circuitous. If God was planning on forgiving everyone after his plan to have his incarnation killed was completed, why not just skip the whole thing and just say "Hey, you know what, I forgive you all now"? It's not as if there's some sort of bureaucratic loophole God had to jump through to finally forgive everyone or anything, is there?

[General Zod]

That still leaves the problem of why it had to be so circuitous. If God was planning on forgiving everyone after his plan to have his incarnation killed was completed, why not just skip the whole thing and just say "Hey, you know what, I forgive you all now"? It's not as if there's some sort of bureaucratic loophole God had to jump through to finally forgive everyone or anything, is there?

Christians aren't known for acknowledging logical fallacies when they go against their pet beliefs. You can point it out until you're blue in the face but if they don't want to admit that there's a logical contradiction in their book they generally won't. Often the normal line of "reasoning" for something like this is "Well, God's beyond logic so it doesn't matter.", or some similar bullfuckery.

[Invictus ChiKen]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

I admit to always wondering... How can a perfect man make a mistake?

[Masami von Weizegger]

According to some; Eve, described nowhere as a perfect woman, if I remember correctly.

[Jawawithagun]

I admit to always wondering... How can a perfect man make a mistake?

It was obviously no mistake but intentional. After all, all this sinning makes the species survive and flourish.

[Superman]

I think the answer to this question also depends on the type of Christian you ask. A more educated/liberal type might cite the same reasons you did, while a member of an evangelical/fundamentalist bunch would probably just say something like "cuz that's wut the Bible says!"

[Kitsune]

There is a school of thought which believes that "God" did not need the sacrifice of "Jesus" but man did to believe that they were forgiven.....

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

I admit to always wondering... How can a perfect man make a mistake?

We had it explained to us that it wasn't a mistake, he chose to eat from the fruit of knowledge. Eve was deceived being the "younger" of the two first humans. It was speculated that had adam simply not eaten of the tree he might have been able to entreat god on eves behalf. But he chose to follow his wifes example and thus the fall was his fault not hers.

What I was told was that perfect was sort of a state. When perfect a being was inclined to obey god. However they could disobey god if they so chose but they'd be going against their natural nature (The correlation between "natural nature" was often made in the case of humans having "unnatural" affection towards animals, children, or people of the same sex). By virtue of that they would have literally been forcing themselves to disobey god which made the descent from perfection to sin irreversible, essentially if you were perfect and sinned you wouldn't be covered under the sacrifice of christ.

Born humans on the other hand had no choice to but to be born in sin. The state of sin means that one is inclined to disobey god. Our very existence is wrapped in "sin". It was something we couldn't avoid. Ergo we could choose to follow god and thus fight our natural nature. Since it was our nature to disobey god there would be no way for us to return to perfection because our nature was sinful. Thus christ was needed to restore mankinds ability to return to perfection. When adam ate of the tree he "died" or was destined to death. Likewise all of mankind was "dead" in the sense that we were cut off from god due to sin.

For the perfect being death was an unnatural event. If a perfect human were to somehow accidentally die, they would be automatically be restored to life since life is the co-state of perfection (death being the co-state of sin). When Joshua (I'm sick of Jesus, I'm not greek god damnit) the Christ was crucified his human life and body were unnaturally destroyed. Thus he would have been given the choice, to take his human body and life back as they were rightfully his or donate them as a sacrifice in place of adam. His body an blood acted as sort of a bridge for mankind to return to perfection and god, replacing the body and blood that adam had brought into sin thus dooming mankind.

It was kind of iffy on how going into heaven made him all super christ and all but it was explained that when he abandoned his human life he had to "ascend" into heaven. That is his human spirit (as human spirits are designed to be one with their bodies and reside in the earth) could not reside there and had to be brought up into a higher state, that of a spirit being, and live in heaven.

Never quite understood why we A) Need 144,000 peeps to go into heaven and why B) Only 144,000 people got to go there. But that's about that.

[Stark]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

Didn't Adam himself die?

[CaptainZoidberg]

When I ask Christians about it, the basic answer I get is that God really wasn't omnipotent in this context, and that he basically had to have everything "balance out", and for some reason someone had to die.

It's an odd concept, but you see the same sort of thing in the Epic of Gilgamesh and books older than the bible.

[Flash]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

Didn't Adam himself die?

I think the response to that is that after Adam sinned, God revoked his 'perfect' status, thus killing him wasn't good enough. That's why it required the 'sacrifice' of Jesus to absolve us of the stain of the crime that we didn't actually commit, and that doesn't in fact absolve us unless we specifically say 'Holy fuck you're a top bloke for setting up this bullshit system so that I don't get punished eternally for something that wasn't my fault'.

[TithonusSyndrome]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

Didn't Adam himself die?

I think the response to that is that after Adam sinned, God revoked his 'perfect' status, thus killing him wasn't good enough. That's why it required the 'sacrifice' of Jesus to absolve us of the stain of the crime that we didn't actually commit, and that doesn't in fact absolve us unless we specifically say 'Holy fuck you're a top bloke for setting up this bullshit system so that I don't get punished eternally for something that wasn't my fault'.

And didn't Jesus sin too? Whipping the tar out of the temple merchants, giving the stink eye to an uncooperative fig tree when he knew damn well that figs weren't in season and killing it, casting demons pleading for mercy out of a man and into pigs that drowned themselves for no apparent reason... other than giving Jesus carte blanche because of his exalted status, in which case why bother with the whole affair to begin with, or a perverse moral code that permits these actions because of "extenuating circumstances," I don't see how Jesus lily white any more than Adam.

[Flash]

And didn't Jesus sin too? Whipping the tar out of the temple merchants, giving the stink eye to an uncooperative fig tree when he knew damn well that figs weren't in season and killing it, casting demons pleading for mercy out of a man and into pigs that drowned themselves for no apparent reason... other than giving Jesus carte blanche because of his exalted status, in which case why bother with the whole affair to begin with, or a perverse moral code that permits these actions because of "extenuating circumstances," I don't see how Jesus lily white any more than Adam.

I think the thing to note here is that sinning doesn't mean doing bad or immoral things - it means not following Gods orders. Curse as many fig trees as you want - God is cool with that. Make some pigs drown themselves - man does have dominion over plants and animals after all. But eat something he said not to? Grounds for cursing the entire human race forever.

[Ender]

There isn't really a modern explanation - its just a thing there that they gloss over. It used to be that original sin stained us all so we needed salvation. But the creation myth has been debunked, and many major religions try to mesh or at least claim there is no contradiction with scientific discoveries.

Of course, if we evolved, there was no Adam, Eve, or Eden. Thus there was no serpent and no original sin. So no salvation was required. This point is glossed over.

Interestingly, this is what makes Intelligent Design not just bad science, but also bad theology. Under creationism, the bad we do and that is loose in the world s a result of original sin. Under evolution, it just happened. Under ID, is would be explicitly god's fault that there are plagues and things, as they were designed to go around and inflict suffering.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

Didn't Adam himself die?

I think the response to that is that after Adam sinned, God revoked his 'perfect' status, thus killing him wasn't good enough. That's why it required the 'sacrifice' of Jesus to absolve us of the stain of the crime that we didn't actually commit, and that doesn't in fact absolve us unless we specifically say 'Holy fuck you're a top bloke for setting up this bullshit system so that I don't get punished eternally for something that wasn't my fault'.

And didn't Jesus sin too? Whipping the tar out of the temple merchants, giving the stink eye to an uncooperative fig tree when he knew damn well that figs weren't in season and killing it, casting demons pleading for mercy out of a man and into pigs that drowned themselves for no apparent reason... other than giving Jesus carte blanche because of his exalted status, in which case why bother with the whole affair to begin with, or a perverse moral code that permits these actions because of "extenuating circumstances," I don't see how Jesus lily white any more than Adam.

It's things like that that made me an atheist after a bit.

Adam died but when he died he was no longer perfect. Once he sinned he was a sinful human and died a sinful human (as death is the natural course of sin).

As a JW works were emphasized a necessary accompaniment to faith. Witnesses follow the epistles of Paul. If you do read much of the literature, most of the quoted scripture from the new testament come from the writings of paul and timothy, save for things from revelation. While faith might "compel" you to act as a christian you'd still have to make, or force yourself to do follow gods will. 1 Corinthians 9:27 and Colossians 3:5 are favorites.

Jesus kicking the merchants out of the temple was generally a good thing. For one apparently you aren't supposed to do business in the house of god, second they were apparently cheating the people they did business with. The tree was just a tree as for the pigs it was more a commandment for them to go into the pigs so they wouldn't harm other people.

[Darth Wong]

Isn't the idea that he "took our lumps for us", so to speak, on the cross, i.e. he took the punishment that was meant for the rest of us? "He died for our sins" and all that.

The problem is that all of these "explanations" presume that the rules are set in stone, when in fact they were created by God who could just as easily revoke them, rather than creating a pseudo-offspring to "take the punishment".

Let's put it this way: suppose you're a parent, and you're so mad at your kid that you make a new rule saying that he's grounded forever. If you wanted to forgive him, would you cut off your own arm in order to "take his punishment for him" so that he won't be grounded any more? Or would you just say "Son, I changed my mind. I went overboard. You're not grounded any more"?

[Adrian Laguna]

I remember once seeing a comic strip which implied God was real but Christianity bullshit. It had some fundy standing before God and saying "Jesus saves!" for some reason or another (probably God treating him with disdain), to which God replies, "Why would need I sacrifice myself to myself to overturn a rule I set myself?"

It's more amusing than Wong's analogy.

[Knife]

The most important event in the New Testament is the crucifiction of Jesus, where the son of God is offered up to God as a sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness for the whole human race. In the theological context of the time this makes perfect sense because everyone knew that gods needed sacrifices to induce them to do things, the purer the animal the better, but I don't understand how people can still think in these terms today. Does anybody know what modern Christian explanations are for why Christs suffering and death was necessary to help humans? It doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me.

It's hard to see it they way they intend it to be though. They shoehorned a sacrifice in there that really doesn't make sense in any way. Pagan Romans sacrificed the son of god to a god they don't even believe in? That's the mental gymnastics you have to go through to go the route you're proposing.

The fact that the Romans killed their deity and persecuted them is probably the only reason the damn thing lingered anyways. Just more shit to pile upon the 'evil' Romans whom conquered them.

[Knife]

As an ex-JW I can give you what we were taught.

Adam, a perfect man, sinned and thus brought sin unto the earth. It could only take the death of a perfect man to save mankind. Jesus a perfect man died and took care of that for mankind.

Didn't Adam himself die?

Original sin doesn't even make any sense. Supposedly, before the damn apple, we all lived naked, fucked when we wanted and partook in the simple joys of being... well human. Now that Adam ate the fucking thing, all that stuff we were supposed to be, and god's pissed at us understanding now, is off limits and generally considered a sin.

Let alone the asinine logic of holding untold amounts of generations responsible for the fuck up on one guy supposedly six thousand years ago.

Edit, wanted to add;

Wong's right with the analogy. The only way Jesus died for our sins bit makes any sense is a PR move. To reinvent a wrathful god into his loving son.

[Kanastrous]

The most important event in the New Testament is the crucifiction of Jesus,

I don't know if this was deliberate or just a typo, but either way it's brilliant.

[Solauren]

Modern explaination;

Jesus was into S&M and it went to far, so they made up the whole 'died for our sins' to cover it up

[speaker-to-trolls]

When I ask Christians about it, the basic answer I get is that God really wasn't omnipotent in this context, and that he basically had to have everything "balance out", and for some reason someone had to die.

It's an odd concept, but you see the same sort of thing in the Epic of Gilgamesh and books older than the bible.

Exactly, it doesn't make sense if God is supposed to be omnipotent and it's just an ancient concept, which is fine if you're working with iron age logic, i.e. nothing comes for free, you have to pay for everything, so to pay for life (here or in the afterlife) you have to pay with life. Fine, but we're not working on iron age logic, so I don't see how anyone can believe that our sins, hell, Adams sins need to be paid for by someone else, or how our potential for an afterlife can be changed by someone else dying. Either God's omnipotent or even he can't change the system he's set up.