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Well well, if it isn't young Miss Lung. I'm not putting the kid gloves on, despite our shared affinity for badgers. KnockoutAqualung said:
Sort of. It's not relieve us of original sin, but to cleanse us of the sins we actually commit. No unclean thing can enter in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, there needed to be someone who would "wash away" the dirtyness that we build up during life. This person had to be perfect himself. He had to spend all his time atoning for our sins that he couldn't have any himself. Also, it was through transgression that death and sin came into this world (when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge), so it had be through lack of sin that we got saved. And it's not "human sacrifce" per se. It's the sacrifce of the only begotten son of god in the flesh, who was sinless himself. Sure, he was human, but I don't accept the sacrifice of any other human, nor do I think such sacrifice would help anything.Halcyon said:
He had to die to break the bands of death. Somebody sin free had to be resurected first, so that our resurections may follow.Halcyon said:
Surely God can do anything?
I assume the sin you speak of is the sin of suicide? If so, he commited that anyway if your version of events is accepted. If he was destined to die on Earth, then by coming to Earth he was commiting suicide.
No, I don't think it was the crucifixtion that was important. It's just what the Romans were good at.Halcyon said:
It's not God's powers that are in question - it's our own.Halcyon said:
Yes, I definitely think we have to do our own part, and that we do have to earn our place beside God. But, as no clean thing can enter into the Kingdom of heaven, somebody had to wash away our sins. Jesus saves us after all we can do.Halcyon said:
Because he did have to teach us stuff. He had to restore the higher priesthood, for one. He had to give us a higher law. He had to teach us how to follow that higher law to return to live with God some day.Halcyon said:
Obviously not, or that's what I would believe in.Halcyon said:
No, that's not true at all. Knowledge of something doesn't make one culpable (to use a spanish word that for some reason I can't think of the English) of that sin.Halcyon said:
No, I don't think so. Because even I realise that you have to do your part, too. You can't just rely on Jesus to carry you straight into the highest degree of heaven without you having to lift a finger.Halcyon said:
Sorry for my ignorance, but i don't understand how the killing of a sinless man somehow washes away our sins. Please could you explain? Couldn't God simply have given us a verbal pardoning, through a prophet or another way? What i'm driving at is, why was the death of an innocent man absolutely necessary?Aqualung said:
I don't understand, are you saying that if i stood under a piano i knew would be dropped, that would not be suicide?Aqualung said:
But what if i follow all of his teachings, but never accept his death as a gift? Will St. Peter stop me at the gate and not let me in?Aqualung said:
I don't really either. But it has to do with the fact that someone had to suffer for our sins. If not, God would be a liar. He can't just let us go through life sinning and what not, and then just say, "Oh, well, you sinned, so what? Come on in!" Somebody has to take the punishment for our sins. It could either be that every single one of us could suffer in hell forever, or that a sinless man could take that all upon him for a short time.Halcyon said:
No, it would just be stupidity. You'll probably get some questions from God as to why you chose not to move, and your answers would be revealing. Did you choose not to move because your death did the most good for other people, or because you were just sick of life and you wanted to die? Also, whoever dropped that piano had to choose to drop it. The Jews had to choose to crucify Jesus. Judas had to choose to betray Jesus. You don't learn much if you aren't allowed to choose anything. Sometimes the ways we learn best is by making the wrong choice, and then seeing the consequences of those choices.Halcyon said:
I don't really blame anyone, per se. Judas certainly was wrong to betray Jesus; Pilate was certainly wrong to let Barabas go instead. The Jews were certainly wrong to crucify the Messiah. But all this leads back to the fact that he had to die, and they had to make the choice to kill him. And it goes back to our own sinful nature. In that regard, we are all to blame for killing him.Halcyon said:
You couldn't really follow all of his teachings and never accept his death. That is one of the things he teaches us, is to follow him, not just the things that he says. And of course, as a mormon, I think his teachings are more than what's just in the Bible...Halcyon said:
Or, the third possibility that sinning leads to its own punishment. The very act of doing a wrong deed leads us to guilt and to internal suffering. We all suffer for our sins, would God not be happy with our repentance and our attempts to make amense for those sins? You would say not, i guess.Aqualung said:
Seems a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo to me. Logically if i stood under the piano knowing i would die, even if by doing so i would save a billion others, how can it not be suicide?Aqualung said:
How can anyone be to blame, if Jesus's purpose was to die. Someone had to kill him, he couldn't do it himself. It is preordained, the people mentioned are but pawns in a great game of chess. If these people had not done the things they did, then others would have had to do something very similar. Do you not see, you cannot have it both ways, you can't say Jesus was meant to die AND blame those who kill him. Its a paradoxical situation.Aqualung said:
If we took that literally, then shouldn't we all sacrifice ourselves?Aqualung said:
In this case, the punishment does not fit the crime.Halcyon said:
Yes. Because God is a merciful God, he is happy with those attempts. Yet, he is also a just God. So somebody had to atone for our sins.Halcyon said:
Hmmm, interesting point. In other words, why should I rejoice that somebody had to go through all that suffering?Halcyon said:
Perhaps it is rather an argument of semantics. But God looks not only at our actions, but at the motivations that led to those actions. It may "technically" be suicide, but the motives are not suicidal.Halcyon said:
It's not preordained. They still had to choose.Halcyon said:
We aren't good enough. Like all through Mosaic law, you had to sacrifice a lamb without defect, etc. We're not good enough for his justice, but Jesus and our works are good enough for his justice and his mercy.Halcyon said:
This i simply don't understand, maybe that's why i ascribe to the Gnostic viewpoint. Why, if we commit the sins, are we not good enough to pay the price? Sorry if i'm being dense. I can understand a merciful God not wanting us to atone for sins, if they were impossible to atone for, yet i still cannot get my head around why His solution needed to involve the torture and execution of a good man.Aqualung said:
Depends what the crime is. Have you read crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky?Aqualung said:
Again its like the point above, i'd be happy to suffer for my own sins, i could not ask a man like Jesus to do that for me.Aqualung said:
I'd rephase it as, how could you let anyone go through all that suffering for your sins?Aqualung said:
Good answer, have a banana. :bounceAqualung said:
It is preordained, you said yourself Jesus had to die. If these poor souls had not been chosen to be involved in the plot, then some others would have to have been. Someone had to kill Jesus, there is no way out of that, and if someone had to do it how can you blame that person?Aqualung said:
Do you not see the commonality? Do you not think that maybe, Jesus's death was simply made into a sacrifice after the fact? People had been sacrificing lambs for years like you say, so why not make your leader's death into the ultimate sacrifice?Aqualung said:
Yes, Jesus had to die, but the people still had to choose to kill him. Judas could have chosen not to betray him. Then he would have died some other way.Halcyon said:
Yes, I understand where you're coming from. You're going the wrong way, though. God new Jesus would have to be sacrificed for our sins, so he implemented the Mosaic as a type of his ultimate sacrifice.Halcyon said:
It wouldn't be enough, though. The only way that a sinful person could atone for their own sins is by spending eternity in hell. A sinless person, on the other hand, can take the sins of the world upon himself and suffer for a much shorter length of time and atone for everybody's sins.Halcyon said:
Yes, and that other way would still have involved someone killing him, if not Judas then Jeffrey.Aqualung said:
Who said that? (quotes would be good). I don't think i'm going the wrong way though, i think i'm going the logical way.Aqualung said:
Um, ok, i think i've exhausted this route, i'll try another one. Why does anyone have to suffer, why can't God just forgive and forget?Aqualung said:
Yes, and then Jeffrey would be to blame.Halcyon said:
Matthew 5:17 "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." The Mosaic law was put into place so that, with Jesus's sacrifice, it could be fulfilled. Luke 24:44 has a similar message. John 1:45 says that the law of Moses was written about Jesus. Galatians 3:19, 24. Hebrews 10:1.Halcyon said:
Because God is just, not just merciful.Halcyon said:
Argh! :banghead3 No! Someone had to kill Jesus, how can you then blame that person. If you were having a gun pointed at you (by Dave) and you in turn were told to shoot someone else (Marvin) otherwise Dave would release smallpox on the USA. Marvin is willing to die to save the USA, who would you expect people to blame, you or Dave?Aqualung said:
Wait, i think we're talking about 2 different things. I was talking about the simple extension of the ancient lamb sacrifice ritual onto a man, i sacrifice for the world village rather than the single village. I'm suggesting that the idea of Jesus's death being a sacrifice was added after the fact, an extrapolation from cultural norms.Aqualung said:
See i disagree, how can an all loving God also be vengeful and 'just'?Aqualung said:
