Why Was Jesus Necessary?

[Salvador]

Didn't stay dead, though-- so is the deed still great? It cost him a bit of mild inconvenience.

Jesus might not have known what form of existence he would take after his crucifixion, so he believed he was indeed making the greatest of all sacrifices for improving the human condition of his fellow man.

 

[1robin]

No, that’s still unjust.

To claim God is unjust means your required to have every single one of those requirements in place I mentioned and even some others I was too border to list. I read the rest of your post and you did not even attempt to make the case that you even had one of those requirements necessary to judge God.

To claim God is unjust requires that you know what the perfectly just action in that case is. Where is the evidence you know anything you need to know to even begin talking about whether God was morally justified or not. In reality God's nature determined what was just long before the universe even existed. What are your credentials?

Punishing someone else accomplishes none of the objectives of justice. Not even if the innocent person being punished has agreed to it.

Unless the guilty are the ones who are punished, then the guilty are going unpunished. Even if you punish someone else for the crime, the guilty are going unpunished.

Do you understand what I’m telling you? I’m not sure if you do.

I know exactly what your saying and know exactly why it is so flawed. God determines what is just, not you, there is not even a third standard out there you know about God must obey. God must only obey his own nature. Suggesting otherwise is just silly and to not think clearly. Jesus volunteered to pay the sins of mankind. Entire books are written on the justness of this from theological, philosophical, and even legal perspectives. Why do you think your little preference has more credibility than all that? God's nature determines what is just (not yours). If his nature made the existence of a sacrificial lamb just then it is just and your preference is irrelevant. I don't want you to think I am running you down but you really do not seem to understand what it really means to make the claim that God is wrong. Your basically only stating whether what he did lines up with your preference or not which is meaningless in this context. Have you ever read up on divine command theory? I think it would do you some god.

God is the only just being to have ever lived so he was the only one who could impart justness to another. What makes something just or not is whether it satisfies God's requirement. When a person sins the are two methods God has set up to satisfy his debt. He can pay his debt himself spent in an eternity in Hell (and I believe Hell is a stay in a physical place of punishment followed by an eternity of non-existence) or God set up another way to settle his debt. He can have faith that Jesus paid his debt for him. God decides what satisfies his requirements (not you, don't you see how silly you are to believe that you do) and he decided that Christ could willingly pay his debt by suffering in the man's place.

I really would like to get into the elegant biblical doctrine in question but until you can see the foolishness of thinking God is subject to your own moral preference I am afraid we would be spinning our wheels. What is just is determined by God's character not your preferences. If God says Jesus paid another's sin debt God is right and you are wrong, the opposite being logically incoherent. Again please read up on divine command theory.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

To claim God is unjust means your required to have every single one of those requirements in place I mentioned and even some others I was too border to list.

Nope.

I read the rest of your post and you did not even attempt to make the case that you even had one of those requirements necessary to judge God.

That’s right. I snipped out your attempt to change the subject.

I know exactly what your saying and know exactly why it is so flawed. God determines what is just, not you, there is not even a third standard out there you know about God must obey. God must only obey his own nature. Suggesting otherwise is just silly and to not think clearly.

So it’s just for the guilty to go unpunished and for the innocent to be punished if God says so? That’s your position?

God is the only just being to have ever lived so he was the only one who could impart justness to another. What makes something just or not is whether it satisfies God's requirement. When a person sins the are two methods God has set up to satisfy his debt. He can pay his debt himself spent in an eternity in Hell (and I believe Hell is a stay in a physical place of punishment followed by an eternity of non-existence) or God set up another way to settle his debt. He can have faith that Jesus paid his debt for him. God decides what satisfies his requirements (not you, don't you see how silly you are to believe that you do) and he decided that Christ could willingly pay his debt by suffering in the man's place.

So suffering satisfies God as payment for debt?

IOW, God considers suffering to have intrinsic value?

I really would like to get into the elegant biblical doctrine in question but until you can see the foolishness of thinking God is subject to your own moral preference I am afraid we would be spinning our wheels.

The only wheel-spinning here is from you deflecting my questions.

What is just is determined by God's character not your preferences. If God says Jesus paid another's sin debt God is right and you are wrong, the opposite being logically incoherent. Again please read up on divine command theory.

I have. Divine command theory is irrational nonsense.

 

[1robin]

Nope.

Well I guess your not just merely God your the UBERGod. If you don't produce any of the necessities required to meaningfully judge God then all your merely saying is that God is acting inconsistent with your faulty subjective moral preferences which is meaningless. Your certainly not saying anything what so ever objectively about God. I can see that not only will you not consider what is needed to judge God but you will not endeavor to learn about the matters involved. How am I supposed to take this conversation seriously after this point?

That’s right. I snipped out your attempt to change the subject.

That is right you snipped out everything you need to have to make the attempt your trying to make. Might as well snip out calculus and claim to be doing Newtonian physics.

So it’s just for the guilty to go unpunished and for the innocent to be punished if God says so? That’s your position?

That is definitely not what I said but lets pretend it was to illustrate a point. The thing is that even if that is how God had set things up he would still be just and your judgments meaningless. I know you don't understand it but have you even heard of divine command theory?

So suffering satisfies God as payment for debt?

Technically it was Jesus separation from the father of the perfectly loving relationship he had had with the father for eternity. But yes that causes suffering. Sin causes separation from God, that is what Jesus suffered for us. That is why it is said he spend his time between death and resurrection in Hell. Hell is separation from God. God views eventual separation from him as payment for sin. Either we suffer that separation for an eternity of Jesus had to suffer it for us.

IOW, God considers suffering to have intrinsic value?

I think pretty much every sentient creature on Earth considers wrong action as resulting in some form of suffering. However this gets a little complicated (for you at least because I mentioned this before). I don't think hell is eternal suffering. I think it is transitory suffering followed by utter annihilation.

The only wheel-spinning here is from you deflecting my questions.

I am merely trying to get you to stop leaving out everything necessary to take the positions you hold. Your merely yelling at traffic, your not reasoning from one point to another. Your just complaining.

I have. Divine command theory is irrational nonsense.

It is inescapable philosophy of which no weapon formed against has ever prospered. To reduce a theory as large and complex into a megalithic whole you can reject with a platitude is the sign of a vacuous argument. Never mind the heat, if you don't know what one is, stay out of the kitchen.

To summarize your entire argument so far.

God doesn't do things like you want.
You don't have the slightest clue how to show that he is wrong or that you are right.
You reject everything out of hand that reveals these simple facts.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

The bible's solution to the sin problem of man is the most elegant solution to a problem exhibited in any form of literature or oral tradition but again you have not even attempted to construct an argument here to consider.

LMAO! Go study the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

It is like a thousand times superior to your ugly religion. And nothing needs to be brutally murdered.

You are so cute when you deny the reality of the brutality of christianity.

 

[1robin]

LMAO! Go study the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Talk about embarrassing yourself. I know about all there is to know about TFSM (it only requires about 5 wasted minutes) and I have never heard any theory of any kind or quality concerning man's sin problem. I am board so lets see what the TFSM's answer is to just one aspect of substitutionary atonement.

Hundreds and hundreds of years before Jesus's ministry first appeared on earth there was a judgment in Egypt. Because the Pharaoh would not set the Hebrews (God's people) free God would pass judgment on all the first born sons in Egypt (because Pharaoh killed all the Hebrew first sons years earlier). So God gave orders to the angel of death to go to Egypt that night and to take out all the first sons that were not protected by God's provision. He also gave orders to the Hebrews living in Egypt that that night they must slaughter their very best lamb (without blemish) and spread it's blood on their doorposts. Well that night the angel of death went about his business but at every Hebrew house protected as God instructed he passed over without harm. Fast forward many hundred years and we have Christ dying on the cross to protect his people from God's just wrath again.

So, earlier in Egypt you have God judging the population. The ones protected by the blood of a perfect lamb (believers) were passed over and the sinful Egyptians tasted God's wrath. Many centuries later we have another example of God's just wrath. Just as before those protected by the blood of his perfect Passover lamb (believers) are safe where as the rightfully accused unbelievers felt God's wrath again. Both times God's people were safe based on the blood of God's provisional lamb.

From the vast Codex of TFSM find me an equal to this prophetic biblical footnote.

It is like a thousand times superior to your ugly religion. And nothing needs to be brutally murdered.

No it isn't, it is just a stupid idea that even it's authors didn't take serious. It isn't even on the same ball field. You could have thrown a crooked dart at a lexicon of false religions a thousand times and never hit a worse comparison to the bible than your pathetic spaghetti monster. I can't tell if even your being serious this time.

You are so cute when you deny the reality of the brutality of christianity.

I accept the bible battles and all. Any book that suggests it sits in judgment of a world that is this much of a moral train wreck is bound to have some very hard to read accounts of great wrath. It's the book that beholds the level of evil that has existed thorough man's history and takes no action that worry's me. But apparently not you, apparently a world that includes Hitler, Pol Pot, Ceausescu, Genghis Kahn, Caesar, and Stalin should be presided over by a God distracted by bunnies or a flying piece of pasta. You get all the ugliness regardless but with Christianity you get a final solution that restores everything back to the garden of Eden it was meant to be to begin with but that is the influence you want to remove. Thank goodness your not in charge of anything important.

 

[metis]

I know about all there is to know about TFSM, ...

Taken right out of the Donald J. Trump Playbook.

 

[syo]

Science now predicts the eventual Heat Death of the actual Universe itself

then christians are right. the world will be destroyed.

 

[Muffled]

I believe I am getting in a bit late on this thread but I hope my ideas are new.

I believe Jesus had to seal His promise of forgiveness with His blood because otherwise people would not believe God really means it.

 

[Muffled]

It really doesn't make any sense when you consider the stories of the Old Testament.

One would think Jesus would have been sent down at the time of Adam and Eve rather than go through scriptural volumes depicting the floods, plagues , wars, exterminations, and then, after all that, send Jesus down afterwards?

I believe the timing fits into the end of the world scenario.

 

[Muffled]

You have a few good questions here but you ought to be satisfied with the straightforward answers I can provide in response. Please read this carefully as few questions like yours come with solutions this comprehensive and elegant. No other faith even comes close. For example Allah simply hand waves some of our sins away based on his fickle preferences. Christianity has a much more just, sufficient, and comprehensive solution to sin.

1. God (being perfectly just) cannot let us into heaven with a whole list of sins (and the unimaginable costs they produced) accredited to our account. God could not let imperfect creatures into heaven because he would just be turning his heaven into the same train wreck we have made out of this life.
2. God can only let perfect people into his heaven but we are not perfect so how can God accomplish all this?
3. God must let sinners in to ruin heaven or somehow make us into perfect people.
4. God is both just and loving so whatever he does must satisfy both attributes.
5. His sense of justice means that sins must be punished, his loving nature means he needs to remedy this situation so that imperfect people may enter heaven. This is why Christ's roll was necessary.

CRIST'S NECESSITY AND SUBSTATUTIONARY ATONEMENT.

A. We have absolutely nothing which can make up for the sins we committed and the damage they caused. God is the only one who can make that right but sins must be punished or God is no longer just. So God needs to produce a substitute for our selves who will pay for our sins.
B. So God provided a sacrificial lamp (to which his earlier animal sacrifices hinted would occur in the future). Christ was that willing sacrifice.
C. While on the cross all of God's justice was poured out on Christ (keep in mind Christ volunteered to do this). Christ paid the entire price to satisfy God's justice and wrath so we would not have to. What was this wrath that Christ endured? The suffering on the cross and his complete separation from God (the father). IOW he endured the hell our sins deserved.
D. The beauty of God's provision was that God paid the price our sins deserve and for those that believe his perfect (sinless) record was transferred to us so that we can enter heaven with a sinless record deserving of an eternity in heaven.
E. So for believers our sin was accredited to Christ and his righteousness was accredited to Christ.
F. Now you might say Christ got screwed in this deal but because he had no record of any sins actually committed by him to once he paid the price he volunteered to undergo he could just march right back into God's presence due to the lack of any sin he actually committed.

Despite my poor efforts to explain this (and the fact I must be brief) surely you can still see the perfectly elegant provision God supplied to the most substantial problem in human history.

A few things to keep in mind as you review the above.

* Substitutionary atonement is where ones debt is placed on another and what one earned is transferred to another.
* What Christ endured in our place is not physical death it is (second death) spiritual death (being severed from God and everything his existence comes with).
* Christ chose this roll he was not required to do so.
* No greater form of love exists that self sacrifice. We build museums and give metal to humans who sacrificed a lot less for a much smaller gain.

I can't do this unique concept full justice even if I sat here typing for years so I will have to stop somewhere. Even if you have no spiritual faith surely you can see how harmonious, mystifying, and elegant God's solution to man's problem actually was. No other faith has anything so mystically beautiful and substitutionary atonement.

I believe God can let anyone into Heaven He wishes whether there are lots of sins or not. However the evidence appears to be that a person gets into the Kingdom of God by accepting the sacrifice for sin by Jesus.

I believe there is no way to ruin either Heaven or the Kingdom of God. A sinful person desiring to go to either of those places will be given a lack of the knowledge of evil.

 

[1robin]

Taken right out of the Donald J. Trump Playbook.

I thought you keep swearing off debating me in the future. I am fine with having a discussion with you but every single one we have had so far winds up with you basically taking your toys and going home. As for this post. I do not see how The Flying Spaghetti Monster (TFSM) has anything to do with Trump. Please elaborate.

 

[1robin]

I believe God can let anyone into Heaven He wishes whether there are lots of sins or not. However the evidence appears to be that a person gets into the Kingdom of God by accepting the sacrifice for sin by Jesus.

I am very surprised by hearing you admit this. Are you sure you typed this the way you intended to? I thought the whole idea of substitutionary atonement through our Lord and savior Jesus Christ was Anathema to Muslims. You just flipped my lid. So your telling me you believe your going to make it into heaven because you were born again through faith in the sacrifice of Christ which the Quran says never occurred?

I believe there is no way to ruin either Heaven or the Kingdom of God. A sinful person desiring to go to either of those places will be given a lack of the knowledge of evil.

Again we are so close to agreeing here that I am flabbergasted. I don't believe God could let sinners into heaven unchanged or they would simply make heaven just as much of a hell as we have made this life. The bible says that even though a sinner remains a sinner even after giving his life to Christ that he will be given a perfect spiritual body and a perfect (sin free) mind as well when he is resurrected and if he was a believer. That is why God had to make a separate area for those who never gave their life to belief in Christ's sacrifice on their behalf because when resurrected their natures are still as corrupt as they were in this life.

Well I am pleased our respective positions are not quite so far apart as I believed when we began this discussion. You know your not that far off, why don't you go ahead and just become a Christian and come on in for the win with the home team. Trust me, converting from Islam to Christianity is all gain and one of the most liberating changes in world view a human being can make. A good source to listen to facilitate this change of heart is to listen to a guy named Wallid Shoebat who went from a sinful Muslim PLO terrorist to one of God's greatest experts on Islam and Christianity. Ho travels around with several former Islamic terrorists sharing the story of the liberation they felt not being yoked to Muhammad any longer. I am not talking down to you here at all, I sincerely pray for your conversion.

 

[1robin]

You're absolutely right. The god of the Bible doesn't come off as compassionate in the least.

.

Yeah, that whole dying for the sins of the entire human race is one of the most mean spirited acts ever heard off. Jesus's prayer for those that had just nailed him to the cross is most self serving. Since this must be opposite day, Stalin may be a saint.

 

[Skwim]

Yeah, that whole dying for the sins of the entire human race is one of the most mean spirited acts ever heard off. Jesus's prayer for those that had just nailed him to the cross is most self serving. Since this must be opposite day, Stalin may be a saint.

As Jesus that was his mission wasn't it: to supposedly suffer and die to give meat to his story, and to save those fortunate few who believed the story? And you feel we should feel sorry for him because he completed his mission? Save me your tears. God never died nor would he let himself suffer. Why would he?
God was outright and unnecessarily vicious to the helpless, and you know it. You've read all the OT examples, or at least had them brought to your attention. That god created his Jesus Scenario doesn't alter the fact that he was a savage, uncaring barbarian to the undeserving. You can read all about it. It's in your Bible.

.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Excuse my language but it seems your religion trivializes the momentous and complicates the obvious.

Instead of starting off by describing our faiths lets pick a subject first then see what each faith says about it.

The most important subject in human existence possible is the afterlife (salvation being one aspect of this). Would you like to discuss what each of our respective faith's has to say about this most important of all issues?

I think you need to be more open to the fact that not everyone considers the afterlife to be the most important thing.

Judaism is not a religion of correct belief (orthodoxy). It is a religion of correct action (orthopraxy). It can be summed up in Ecclesiastes 12:13 "When all is said and done one thing remains: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man." Nothing there about belief or faith or the afterlife.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

As Jesus that was his mission wasn't it: to supposedly suffer and die to give meat to his story, and to save those fortunate few who believed the story? And you feel we should feel sorry for him because he completed his mission? Save me your tears. God never died nor would he let himself suffer. Why would he?
God was outright and unnecessarily vicious to the helpless, and you know it. You've read all the OT examples, or at least had them brought to your attention. That god created his Jesus Scenario doesn't alter the fact that he was a savage, uncaring barbarian to the undeserving. You can read all about it. It's in your Bible.

.

Even I can see the Christian answer coming. Sir, you have left yourself wide open.

However, even in Judaism, it is clear that Hashem loves us. There are a gazillion verses about how God wants us to turn back to him, that he will forgive us, and cast our sins into the sea.

 

[Skwim]

Even I can see the Christian answer coming. Sir, you have left yourself wide open.

However, even in Judaism, it is clear that Hashem loves us. There are a gazillion verses about how God wants us to turn back to him, that he will forgive us, and cast our sins into the sea.

And what of all the vile things god has done? Do they not count for anything, or do you too cherry pick verses?

.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Talk about embarrassing yourself. I know about all there is to know about TFSM (it only requires about 5 wasted minutes) and I have never heard any theory of any kind or quality concerning man's sin problem. I am board so lets see what the TFSM's answer is to just one aspect of substitutionary atonement.

See? Here's the thing: Your base for comparison is fatally flawed in the first place!

You begin with a very hateful concept: That all people are worth less than pond scum.

And therefore, are somehow DESERVING of infinite torture at the hand of your ugly hate-god.

Under the 100% superior Flying Spaghetti Monster? THERE IS NO SUCH BASE CLAIM.

The fact that a PARODY religion is SUPERIOR TO YOURS AT THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL?

Shows just how evil your is...

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

then christians are right. the world will be destroyed.

Oh, the current model has the earth becoming engulfed by the expansion of our sun, when it goes from yellow G-type sun, to a red giant. It's diameter will expand beyond Mars' orbit, and the earth will be swallowed up without so much as a blip.

This has zip-all to do with anything these "christians" have claimed.