Couldn't have said it better myself...

[Brian2]

So what?

So nothing.
It was an act of self sacrifice and love and does not glorify what happened (treachery and murder) but does glorify the self sacrifice and love involved from God and Jesus.

This doesn't change anything about any of the points I made.
No matter how much you try to spin it, to the point of even saying that it wasn't a "sacrifice" (which literally goes against christian doctrine), it remains what it is: punishing a scapegoat to absolve the guilty of their own guilt / responsability.

It's as immoral and unjust as it gets.

I don't have to spin it when I point out what actually happened and that it was not a human sacrifice as such even if God accepted it as a sacrifice for sin. It was a murder that God accepted as an atonement for sin by the only one who could make that atonement, a sinless man, the Messiah.

This contradicts what you said earlier, that it wasn't a "planned sacrifice".
Now you are saying it was?

The statement that this was planned millions of years ago is absurd by itself, and it makes the supposed event even more absurd then it already was.

To someone who does not believe in God, the supernatural is absurd. So what?
That Jesus had to come and be murdered was planned before the earth was made. It was a planned act of love and self sacrifice, for God to send Jesus to allow Himself to be murdered.
But in reality you know it was a murder and not a human sacrifice.
Think of what a human sacrifice might look like and what happened to Jesus. You do see the difference I suppose.

If that were the case, then
1. belief would be irrelevant
and
2. there would be no need for this "sacrifice" and / or "savior".

Neither of these points are necessary to repent your wrong doings and make ammense for them.
Not only are they not necessary, they are in fact utterly irrelevant.

I did not say that anyone could make amends for the sins. Nobody can do that. The wages of sin is death. If we die we stay dead. We can't make amends and then come back to life to live forever.
Jesus is the only one who could make amends for everyone's sins and be undeserving of death and so come back to life and share His eternal life with those who accept His atonement and join with Him in His death and live eternally in His resurrection. Nothing like a bit of Christian jargon, and you already said it is absurd, immoral and unjust.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I do understand the flood story probably differently than you do, and that understanding is a scientific possibility as well as a Hebrew translation possibility.
So the Bible does not contradict my belief in the flood.
But you say that the flood did not happen even if it could have happened scientifically with a different understanding of the story. So your belief needs more faith than mine I would say, and if not more, it is a similar type of belief and is not scientific.

I am sorry but you keep demonstrating that is not true. The problem with the flood is that it could not have happened, there would be all sorts of physical records of it. You won't even give a clear explanation of your version of the flood,. Probably because you know that it could be easily refuted. And why do you slander others? You really should not break the rules that way. Faith is your weakness. Not mine. My conclusions are based upon evidence and logic I don't think that you understand either of those concepts either. And you do not know what "science" is. Anyone that believes the myths of the Old Testament has to have a faulty belief of what science is. There may be a handful of scientists that believe the myths, but none of them can do science in the fields that refute them. They have to use faith to build up a wall against reality.

Can you come up with a clear model of the flood? How would you test it? If you can't think of a possible way to refute your belief you can't have any evidence for it. I know that is hard to understand for those that have faith based beliefs, but you have to be willing to make a "If I am wrong this is what we should see" test. And that test needs to be reasonable. It has to be based upon the predictions generated by your model.

 

[Brian2]

original sin.

I spoke of the Bible not saying babies are guilty. Interestingly even the Catholic Church does not say that a baby is condemned.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No God does not see babies as guilty of anything, but knows they have that potential and will fulfill it if given enough time.

I suppose God could have set up an orphanage for a million babies for Noah and his wife to look after.

I'm sorry but this doesn't make sense. We're born sinners, except for babies who are born. And except for the all the babies that God supposedly killed in the flood. They were sinners too.
But then you claim that "God does not see babies as guilty of anything." Well, yeah, he actually does, if we're all born as sinners.

I don't see babies as guilty of anything either. But I don't claim that humans are born as pieces of garbage in need of redemption from some demi-god. Do you not see how this doesn't make sense?

 

[SkepticThinker]

As I said, we are all offenders at some time in our lives and we are all offered forgiveness.

That doesn't address the question or the point.

 

[Brian2]

Imagine a serial killer standing trial.
The judge condemns him to the electric chair and then says "But I'll tell you what.... Instead of killing you, I'll kill my son here. And if you accept his sacrifice as a punishment for YOUR sins and repent from killing dozens of people, not only do you get your freedom back, but I will put you in a paradise in a golden palace where you would enjoy eternal bliss instead. Do you accept and repent?"

Would you, as a parent of one of his victims, think justice would be served if the dude answers "yes" and then gets his golden palace in some paradise island where he can live carefree? Would you think this would be a moral ruling by the judge?



(You may start your silly special pleading argument now about how there are "different rules" for a god that doesn't apply to a "judge" in a court.)

But it sounds as if you have heard it all before and look at God as if He is a human judge and Jesus as if He is a human son and cannot understand that the comparison is absurd, immoral and unjust and cannot be compared to what God did in sending Jesus.

Since you speak of justice maybe you realise that God's truthfulness and justice require death for sin and God's love and mercy require a way out of that especially when it was Satan who tricked Adam and Eve and the resultant sin led to the murder of Jesus. So Satan is condemned and God made a way for human salvation.

I don't think that comparing a human judge and his son to God and Jesus is justice for God.

Killing an innocent man has no bearing on the immoral ways of other people and most certainly not on the crimes those people have committed.

Look up. There's the point. Woosh.

As I said, it is sin that led to the murder of an innocent man and to the full condemnation of Satan and his ways and so to the saving of those who were born as being unable to stop themselves from sinning.
Do humans deserve to die for something that was not their fault? A way was needed to condemn sin in the flesh and condemn Satan and to buy salvation for humanity. Jesus blood is what bought us life.

Right, and torturing and killing an innocent person to "let people of the hook" IS fair, right?

Fair for whom? God and Jesus seem to think it is fine by them.
If the parents of a murdered child aren't willing to forgive the murderer when they find out the truth of what they themselves deserve and that God is willing to forgive them, maybe they don't deserve forgiveness.
We are told in the New Testament to forgive others so that God can forgive us.
Justice and mercy and truth meet in Jesus.

 

[Subduction Zone]

An execution is not a murder and is okay even by God.

 

[Brian2]

What moral foundation do you use to conclude that the christian god of the bible is "morally perfect"?

Can you walk me through the moral argument that ends up in that conclusion?

No not really BUT
We sinned and rejected God and deserved the wages of sin, death, an He reached out for us in love and willingness to suffer for us.

 

[Brian2]

That doesn't really answer the question as to why Jesus wasn't sent to the world to "take away our sins" in the first place..

Isn't it more coherent that the Prophets before him were also sent to "take away our sins" ?

Isn't it all down to interpretation, as is "Father" and "Son" and so forth?

How does telling people to be good and love one another take away anyone's sins?
Jesus took away our sins of the world by being the lamb of God who came to be killed and be deemed by God to have died in our place, the spotless lamb, the sinless sacrifice.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I spoke of the Bible not saying babies are guilty. Interestingly even the Catholic Church does not say that a baby is condemned.

So you are saying that the concept of original sin isn't a thing in christianity?
Granted perhaps not in your particular domination....

Nevertheless, you still assume any human, regardless of who they are, require a "savior", right?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Jesus did what we, as perps, could not do. We die for our own sins and we all stay dead unless someone who has not sinned can save us through their death which is a substitution for our death.

This is just storytelling and preaching without really addressing anything I pointed out.

Nobody dies from sins. We die from ailments, accidents, poor health, etc.

By the way, who came up with these silly rules to begin with? Are these your God's rules, or are they beyond him such that he's bound by them as well?

We ARE responsible for our own actions and so that is why we should die for them but God does not want us to.

A claim I do not agree with and not in evidence. I mean, yes, we are responsible for our own actions, but I don't see any reason to think we "should die" for them. This is more of that bleak and terrible view of humanity I was pointing out to you before.

We as perps can be forgiven and we as victims can learn to forgive others who have wronged us.
We all get to move on.
You don't seem to realise that we are all perps and we are all victims also at some point.

I'm not talking about the victim forgiving the perp here. I'm talking about the perp being forgiven by some third party (Jesus/God) and having his sins absolved, without any thought to restitution for the victim. The perp gets to walk into the sunset all forgiven by God and everything, but what good does that do the victim? You still haven't answered that one. Pointing out that "we are all victims at some point" doesn't come anywhere close to addressing that.

I mean, imagine some guy is on trial for murder. He's found guilty of first degree murder. He goes in for sentencing, and the Judge says "I forgive you. You are absolved of this sin of murdering this man. Even though you deserve to die, my child will take this punishment for you. He will take the death penalty in your place." Sounds great for the perp, but what does this do to help the victim? And what justice has been served here, exactly? And how is this not just moral, but like, the most moral thing there is? I'm not seeing it.

 

[SkepticThinker]

"Original sin".

I shouldn't have to explain further.



Imagine a serial killer standing trial.
The judge condemns him to the electric chair and then says "But I'll tell you what.... Instead of killing you, I'll kill my son here. And if you accept his sacrifice as a punishment for YOUR sins and repent from killing dozens of people, not only do you get your freedom back, but I will put you in a paradise in a golden palace where you would enjoy eternal bliss instead. Do you accept and repent?"

Would you, as a parent of one of his victims, think justice would be served if the dude answers "yes" and then gets his golden palace in some paradise island where he can live carefree? Would you think this would be a moral ruling by the judge?





(You may start your silly special pleading argument now about how there are "different rules" for a god that doesn't apply to a "judge" in a court.)




Killing an innocent man has no bearing on the immoral ways of other people and most certainly not on the crimes those people have committed.

Look up. There's the point. Woosh.


Right, and torturing and killing an innocent person to "let people of the hook" IS fair, right?

You beat me to it. And you did it better.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I spoke of the Bible not saying babies are guilty. Interestingly even the Catholic Church does not say that a baby is condemned.

Mmhmm. Up until rather recently (2007, to be exact), the Catholic Church claimed that unbaptized babies sit in limbo for eternity, separated from God and their loves ones forever and ever.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No not really BUT
We sinned and rejected God and deserved the wages of sin, death, an He reached out for us in love and willingness to suffer for us.

This is just repetitive preaching. The poster asked you to, "walk me through the moral argument that ends up in that conclusion?"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't have to spin it when I point out what actually happened and that it was not a human sacrifice as such even if God accepted it as a sacrifice for sin. It was a murder that God accepted as an atonement for sin by the only one who could make that atonement, a sinless man, the Messiah.

Right. Which is absurd.

How does the killing of an innocent man absolve the guilty from the responsability of their guilt?
It makes no sense at all and it is the very opposite of justice.
It's also not mercy. It's just absurd.

It's the moral equivalent of "not even wrong".

To someone who does not believe in God, the supernatural is absurd. So what?

The supernatural has nothing to do with it.
It's simply the idea that killing an innocent person, regardless who that person is, makes any kind of difference to the guilt of others. That is what is absurd.

That Jesus had to come and be murdered was planned before the earth was made.

Which is absurd. And it in fact makes it even more immoral.
It means all suffering and evil was planned beforehand.
It's mindbogglingly absurd.

Again, the moral equivalent of "not even wrong".

It actually makes everything that went wrong the responsibility of the planner.

This is exactly why Matt Dillahunty describes this whole mess as "God sacrificing himself to himself as a loophole to fix a broken system that he himself is ultimately responsible for".

It's simply ridiculous.

It was a planned act of love and self sacrifice, for God to send Jesus to allow Himself to be murdered.
But in reality you know it was a murder and not a human sacrifice.

It would be if it wasn't planned. But it was planned.
The plan included the "murder". So they weren't "murdering" him at all. Instead, they were just doing what the plan was all along.

They were literally doing god's bidding. As was the plan.
NOT murdering him, would have been against god's will, since the murder was god's plan all along.

So no, not a murder. Instead, a killing that was sanctioned and planned by god.
One can even ask questions regarding the free will of those that supposedly did the killing.
Did they have a choice? Because choosing otherwise would have resulted in going against god's plan.

This is opening a whole new can of worms.
And it just gets more and more absurd as we move along....

Think of what a human sacrifice might look like and what happened to Jesus. You do see the difference I suppose.

I don't. As you yourself have acknowledge, it was the plan all along.
He came TO BE KILLED.
He came TO DIE.

Not killing him would have been against god's plan.
And the whole reason why he had to die, was to "absolve the guilty of their guilt" as a sacrifice.


You have argued yourself into a corner.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No not really

So when you said what you said, you were just making meaningless statement with no foundation to back it up? Just blowing hot air?

Okay. In that case: *I* am moral perfection.
And apparently I don't need to provide any argument to support that.
It's just so because I declare it to be so.

We sinned and rejected God and deserved the wages of sin, death, an He reached out for us in love and willingness to suffer for us.

Did we really?
Because you have JUST said in a previous post that all of this was planned even before the earth existed.
So did we sin and reject god? Or were we made to sin and reject god, according to that same god's plan?


See how this comes back to bite you in the A?
That's usually how it goes when one makes absurd statements and tries to defend those statements with even more absurd statements.

I have no doubt that you will just pile on more absurdities now to twist this around so that even though we didn't have a choice in the matter (since it was god's plan), we somehow are still guilty.


And with that, we are back at what The Hitch so famously said:

Created sick, and commanded to be well

 

[Muffled]

View attachment 67675

I believe that is the description of every Christian. Islam may be our goal but not easily achievable.

 

[Muffled]

Yes, that's not the way to approach it. The Catholic Church agrees. From Wikipedia:

"Perfect contrition (also called contrition of charity) is a repentance for sin that is motivated by faith and the love of God. It contrasts with imperfect contrition, which arises from a less pure motive, such as common decency or fear of Hell."

Fear of hell can be a useful motivator to change your behavior to start with but you're supposed to go beyond that. It's spiritually immature.

I didn't come to Jesus that way. I was more afraid of my sinfulness than the punishment that could ensue. It is not a good day when one looks inside himself and does not like what he sees.

 

[Muffled]

Its the threat of hell for some and the threat of jail for some others

I did jail ministry for 12 years. It seemed to me that no-one liked jail and certainly wished to avoid it but they were not going to let the fear of it deter them.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

We do what is against the teaching of love in the gospels.

This is very vague, could you actually explain what moral imperfection is.