One thing I never understood....

[DrFaroohk]

The whole Jesus-Died-For-Our-Sins thing....

as I understand it - Jesus is born, preaches to the masses, some people disagree with his preachings so they kill him.

I don't get where the sacrifice is. To me, a sacrifice is like "Oh look this is my prized goat, i could make a ton of gold from it but instead I'm going to burn it for god." Ok, gave up something you wanted. I don't think a lot of people wanted jesus around back then.

[Kheldarson]

It's a symbolism thing.

Let's start with what the Hebrews sacrificed and why. It was generally a young animal, unblemished, and usually from or bought from the first part of their harvest. So a perfect innocent animal of the best part of their harvest. This symbolizes their focusing on God first and foremost and thanking Him for the gifts that He's given.

The unblemished part is important too, because it symbolizes the state we would like to be in, but can't achieve ourselves. So the Hebrews sacrifice the lamb, the dove, the goat, etc. as a sign of their own failings and desire to be forgiven.

Now, in the Old Testament, we read about any number of patriarchs offering sacrifice to God. There's one that's immensely important. Abraham, the first patriarch, was called by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a sign of how much he loved God. And Abraham was going to do it until God interceded again and made a new covenant with Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was going to sacrifice his only child, his heir, to make things right with God.

So now, we've got a world full of people who are sinning and trying to make things right with God. But nothing we can do can actually make things right with God unless He says so. So, in order to end the useless sacrifices, and to try to bring His people closer to Himself, He sends His Son to the world to give the most important message of all (love) and to show the greatest love of all (dying so that others may live). Jesus, born without sin or blemish, the firstborn and only child of God, the best of men, is the ultimate Lamb, if you will. He died so to reopen the gates to Heaven.

Looking at it from Jesus' perspective as being solely of this world, yeah, it doesn't make sense. But looking at it from the perspective that he's from God and is God...then it starts to make a bit more sense.

[Mytical]

Just to add to the above, it was not only a sacrifice for God (his only son), but Jesus as well. Being the son of god, he would have been able to call on the angels to come rescue him. So he sacrificed himself, and endured the pain, to try to save humanity. The only question is..are we really worth saving? That is a discussion for another thread I think.

[DrFaroohk]

I kinda see it and I kinda don't For some reason I liken it to a little kid smacking themselves in the head when they don't get their way. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!"

[Kheldarson]

On whose side? God's or man's? Because, frankly, God is trying to heal the breach between us and Him. That was the point of Jesus's sacrifice. He's the bridge. We made the breach (original sin and all that followed), but couldn't mend it. God can and He did. But man hates being reminded of his mistakes and failings so...yeah.

[bara]

Devils' advocate here:

Seems to be an awful lot of fuss because an all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing diety didnt get a baby sitter and planted a tree where the kid could reach it.

Just saying.

[Kheldarson]

Maybe. But that discussion is slightly different than the one brought up.

[Mytical]

I firmly believe that any religion is between a person and whatever deity they believe in. We do not have to understand it, we do not have to believe in it. If it does not affect our lives (ie they are not trying to force us to believe or die, or taking people and killing them) leave them be.

Back on topic, it is not somebody doing something and then looking at somebody else and telling them 'you made me do this'. A group of people who did not believe Christ, did not like him telling others that their leaders were not chosen by gods, put him on the cross. He just (supposedly) chose not to call down the angels to rescue him. In order to help bridge the gap between human and his father. God did not force them to do anything, even if he knew they would, they had a choice. They chose to kill Jesus. Jesus didn't chose for them to kill him, God didn't, they chose.

Could God have stopped it? Then what of free choice? If he interferes, there would have been no free choice. He might know the future, but he has given mankind the freedom to choose. Can't have both..either he decides what happens, or knows what is going to happen, and lets it because of free choice.

[Andara Bledin]

Could God have stopped it? Then what of free choice? If he interferes, there would have been no free choice. He might know the future, but he has given mankind the freedom to choose. Can't have both..either he decides what happens, or knows what is going to happen, and lets it because of free choice.

Everything is supposed to be about free will.

Originally, we were supposed to go it and not have problems. But, we couldn't hack it, so plan 2.0 went into effect with us having an "out" for being unable to be as good as we were supposed to be.

As for why an omniscient guy didn't just flip to the last 5 pages of the mystery to see how it ended, how do we know that we aren't just the result of an all-powerful entity doing just that and while he's taking that "minute" to check the ending, we're all living through the space in between.

^-.-^

[Mishi]

We used our free will, He provided a way out of the mess we'd gotten ourselves into but still left us with the choice to believe or not. *Shrugs* That's why I don't preach at people, I believe that it infringes on their free will and that if someone is curious about my beliefs, they'll ask.


My personal explanation for the 'why' is that God was bored, so created the universe. I think that He just wanted the company, and that He was curious to see what we'd do with free will and whether it was possible that we'd surprise him. After all, forever is a long time to only have yourself, some servants and some very cranky ex-employees for company.

[Andara Bledin]

After all, forever is a long time to only have yourself, some servants and some very cranky ex-employees for company.

Well, technically, the cranky ex-servants came after creating man, but still...

^-.-^

[Mishi]

Well, technically, the cranky ex-servants came after creating man, but still...

I was fairly sure that happened before humans, why else would the serpent tempt Adam and Eve to ignore the rules?

[Hyena Dandy]

I was fairly sure that happened before humans, why else would the serpent tempt Adam and Eve to ignore the rules?

I believe that, in Jewish tradition, Satan's role is sort of as a high prosecutor. He doesn't tempt because he's evil and wants you to fail, he does it to try to see if you WILL fail, but like God he WANTS you to succeed.

[Gravekeeper]

I was fairly sure that happened before humans, why else would the serpent tempt Adam and Eve to ignore the rules?

Technically speaking, the serpent is never actually identified as Satan and may even be metaphorical in nature. The association with Satan came later in history. Much like many things with Christianity, a lot of the meanings and symbolisms are actually late comers. The appearence of Satan for example was completely made up later on. Same with angels.

Angels are actually scary as fark all if you go by their real physical description. -.-

[Kheldarson]

Isaiah can get creepy as hell when he has visions of God and his angels. But I guess that's the point...