It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

[Mycroft]

You would clearly benefit from a little reading on the details of a Roman flogging and Crucifixion.
If you cannot see the 'sacrifice' in the only innocent man willingly suffering that for the welfare of the guilty people ... then only prayer will enable you to see.

(It is not irrational to believe that it never happened, but to believe that it happened but crucifixion isn't that big of a deal ... that is odd.)

Again, he knew all this was coming and had accepted it anyway. He was willing to give up the flesh (and subsequently become an immortal suppressing) and so no sacrifice can occur. A sacrifice is making an unwilling loss without any gain.

 

[jonathan180iq]

"The greatest story ever told" seems to have a lot of plot holes in it.

 

[atpollard]

Dying and then coming back to life three days later to become an immortal superbeing ain't no sacrifice. Sacrifice requires loss, not gain.

He was "an immortal super-being" before he became a man, there was no gain in his humanity.
His humanity was for our gain.
The sacrifice was leaving glory, becoming a man, suffering and dying.
Coming back to life and returning to glory was his right from eternity past to eternity future.

[Jesus speaking of His life]
John 10:18 "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

 

[atpollard]

A sacrifice is making an unwilling loss without any gain.

This is simply incorrect.
A mother shielding her baby from a gunman and willingly taking the shot to save her baby is more of a sacrifice than the shot accidentally hitting a bystander who just happened to step in the way.
You would claim that the mother was not a sacrifice, while the unwitting bystander is?

 

[Marisa]

Dying and then coming back to life three days later to become an immortal superbeing ain't no sacrifice. Sacrifice requires loss, not gain.

Agreed. As a more literal reading, were jesus still in hell, never able to leave, taking the punishment mere mortals earn, that would come closer to a sacrifice. It's still immoral as all get out that a perfect being would dream up such a convoluted scheme to convince himself to do what he possesses both the will and the power to do without requiring blood first be spilled. But then as the bible presents him, the deity is, at best, completely irrational.

 

[Unification]

Dying and then coming back to life three days later to become an immortal superbeing ain't no sacrifice. Sacrifice requires loss, not gain.

Correct, loss for us. Not in three literal days but three different happenings. Dying to ones ownself, and the rising of the new self. Old mind gone, mind renewed at the place of the skull. Natural becoming spiritual.

I understand where you're coming from though. Perhaps this was the first time I realized the dogma of Christianity/religion. It didn't make sense because it was no sacrifice. Something had to be sacrificed and literal blood doesn't save anything or change anyone or forgive unless it is IN the human body where the blood resides, for all of us, and that salvation and to be set free is an occurrence in the brain/mind. Since we are the temple and house of God where consciousness, spirit reside in a physical body composed of blood, bones, brain, etc. Obviously it's not our own body since we didn't give ourselves life or choose the body that we reside in or create ourselves.

 

[Mycroft]

"The greatest story ever told" seems to have a lot of plot holes in it.

Starting with the birthplace of one of its central character having no existence in reality.

 

[Nada]

...but then it says in the bible that on the 3rd day he rose into heaven.


So where the hell is the sacrifice?

One might argue that he sacrificed his earthly body and yet...

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." - Mark 14:38

So god clearly didn't think that much of the flesh to make losing it a sacrifice.

Where does it say on the third day Jesus rose and went to heaven?

 

[atpollard]

Starting with the birthplace of one of its central character having no existence in reality.

What!!! Bethlehem isn't a real place???
Then where was King David born?

Or did you mean Paul? Then ...
What!!! Tarsus isn't a real place???

Or did you mean Moses? Then ...
What!!! Egypt isn't a real place???

 

[Mycroft]

What!!! Bethlehem isn't a real place???
Then where was King David born?

Sorry, I meant Nazareth - for which there's no archeological evidence at all.

 

[Nada]

...but then it says in the bible that on the 3rd day he rose into heaven.


So where the hell is the sacrifice?

One might argue that he sacrificed his earthly body and yet...

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." - Mark 14:38

So god clearly didn't think that much of the flesh to make losing it a sacrifice.

Jesus did not rise and go to heaven.He stayed on earth for 40 days.

John 20:17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" (NIV)



40 days later he went to heaven

Acts 1:9-11 9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

 

[Mycroft]

Still waiting for some evidence of a sacrifice having taken place...

 

[Nada]

Still waiting for some evidence of a sacrifice having taken place...

You have to actually know what is being said first before coming to any conclusions.

 

[Unification]

Starting with the birthplace of one of its central character having no existence in reality.

No existence as a literal human/individual but rather the personification of life/spirit/consciousness/physical body.
The birth occurs in ones heart/mind. An inside of the brain/mind looking out perspective. Personification for life, wisdom, knowledge, awareness, higher conscious, oneness.
If a literal man named Jesus existed, it does not matter. It's the message, not the messenger. We live "now." God is "being" and "that which is" ... In the present: now. The proof rests within ones mind and heart, spiritually. Not externally or literally or outwardly.
Why one is saved(salvation: set free in the mind: peace/love/oneness by a seed (child). The seed planted into ones mind, not giving literal birth to a literal manchild. A manchild in scripture is a proton/positive/light(knowledge) impregnated into ones mind and growing.

If you'd personally like some evidence of the sacrifice taking place, look no further than within yourself and make the sacrifice, the loss happen in your brain/mind. You live now, not 2000 years ago. Greater would be he that is IN you. Everything that you do derives from IN your brain.

Asking for proof outwardly is the same as asking for you to be saved by giving literal birth to a literal baby and naming him Jesus. I don't think guys can accomplish this.

 

[Nada]

Again, he knew all this was coming and had accepted it anyway. He was willing to give up the flesh (and subsequently become an immortal suppressing) and so no sacrifice can occur. A sacrifice is making an unwilling loss without any gain.

Dictionary:an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure:they offer sacrifices to the spirits |the ancient laws of animal sacrifice.• an animal, person, or object offered in a sacrifice.•

an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy:we must all be prepared to make sacrifices.

So by definition,it is giving up something for something else.Not only did Jesus receive a new name, and a great status in heaven,but he also freed mankind from the curse of Adamic sin.Jesus was the ransom sacrifice.That's how we know just how much God loves us.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.(NIV)

 

[atpollard]

Sorry, I meant Nazareth - for which there's no archaeological evidence at all.

I know of a well and a farmhouse from roughly the period.
I know a later city grew over the area.
I know that stealing stones from old buildings to build new ones has a long tradition.

So we would be looking for buried trash and foundations of what was once there after two millennia of human occupation.
How much of the modern city has been excavated for evidence of first century structures?
How would other places, like Alexandria or Corinth compare? How much from just the First Century remains?
(Honest questions, I simply have no idea of the answer).
It seems like we are searching for something of a needle in a haystack ... 2000 year old evidence of the town under a later city under a modern city.

While the accuracy of describing Nazareth as a "polis" might be a legitimate question, even a brief Google search suggests that there is other evidence of the existence of a first century Nazareth ...
... record of the transfer of a no-longer-needed Priest family to Nazareth in AD 70.
... First century Jewish tombs near modern Nazareth.

I am an Architect and Civil Engineer, by trade, so I am unqualified to assign weight to archaeological evidence ... but it seems clear that there exists at least some evidence to assign weight to.
So "no archaeological evidence at all" is probably too strong a position to be supportable.

 

[Unification]

Dictionary:an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure:they offer sacrifices to the spirits |the ancient laws of animal sacrifice.• an animal, person, or object offered in a sacrifice.•

an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy:we must all be prepared to make sacrifices.

So by definition,it is giving up something for something else.Not only did Jesus receive a new name, and a great status in heaven,but he also freed mankind from the curse of Adamic sin.Jesus was the ransom sacrifice.

Lol. Poor people were sacrificing literal animals when the human is the carnal animal that needs sacrificed. (The animal mind.)

 

[Unification]

Lol. Poor people were sacrificing literal animals when the human is the carnal animal that needs sacrificed. (The animal mind.)

Not realizing that they are the lame, the blind, and the sick, and spotted in need of a mind cleansing.

 

[atpollard]

Still waiting for some evidence of a sacrifice having taken place...

... With your eyes tightly closed, your hands over your ears and humming loudly to yourself. (I wonder why you can't see it?)

[Just a little teasing. Take it in the spirit of humorous agreeing to disagree.]

 

[Nada]

Lol. Poor people were sacrificing literal animals when the human is the carnal animal that needs sacrificed. (The animal mind.)

The animals that were being sacrificed by Jews in ancient times,for atonement and so forth,had to constantly be done, because the animal blood sacrifice could never undue the Adamic sin.It had to be a perfect human sacrifice.That is why Jesus is called the last Adam.He was perfect.So this action by Jesus wiped that away and Jesus had become the symbolic sacrificial lamb.He died once for all mankind and wiped away Adamic sin.Now all who believe in Jesus, and continue to follow Gods commands, have a chance at salvation.So Christians need not sacrifice animals.It is done.