• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Jesus' sacrifice - what was the point?

Blackdog22

Well-Known Member
Although it may not represent an accurate cross section, both my experience on the internet and in person is completely the opposite of what you insist in this statement. And to add to that, almost everything you have said so far about your interpretations (one of what you might as well round to infinite) I have never heard before in my life.


I as well have never heard any of the arguments that fallingblood makes made by anyone other than him.

I guess it depends on where you live, but I know for a fact that multiple churches in at least 5 states I have been to think that Jesus is the only way to salvation and to not believe results in a punishment by God. Whether that is death or hell no one seems to agree.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
Although it may not represent an accurate cross section, both my experience on the internet and in person is completely the opposite of what you insist in this statement. And to add to that, almost everything you have said so far about your interpretations (one of what you might as well round to infinite) I have never heard before in my life.
That really shows nothing though. The internet hardly gives a good cross-section of Christians. Primarily because the ones who tend to participate in discussions in which people are condemned, are extremists.

Most Christians generally don't like condemning people to hell. And when one realizes that Christians are becoming more liberal, and when the idea of hell as fire and brimstone are fading away, it shouldn't be a surprise that most Christians no longer believe that everyone who isn't a Christian believes that God thinks those who don't follow him deserve to be punished.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
Okay so if those who don't believe in Jesus "perish" what do you think people who do believe in Jesus get? If its anything other than death then how is death not a punishment for not believing?
You need to read what I said closer. I didn't say that they wouldn't perish. I said that perishing, in context, meant die.

As for what those who believe in Jesus get? A free gift, which is, according some, eternal life with God.

And how is death not a punishment? If I give a person a hundred dollars for investing in my product, am I punishing everyone who didn't invest? No, I'm simply rewarding those who did. People can be awarded for doing something. And for those who don't do that thing, they aren't punished. They simply are not rewarded.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
I as well have never heard any of the arguments that fallingblood makes made by anyone other than him.

I guess it depends on where you live, but I know for a fact that multiple churches in at least 5 states I have been to think that Jesus is the only way to salvation and to not believe results in a punishment by God. Whether that is death or hell no one seems to agree.
Maybe the reason you haven't heard the ideas that I've said is because you are talking to the wrong people?

Also, there is a difference from God believing that people deserve to be punished, and people simply being punished. Just because one is punished, that does not mean God believes they deserve it. That is the key.
 

*Deleted*

Member
The Jews were in the midst of the fall of the 2nd temple---which way would Judaism go? Previously,
forgiveness was offered via the temple. Temple was now gone. What to do? Judaism (or rather Judaisms of the day) were in upheaval. Some said, we don't need the temple and put the temple over on Jesus. He became the temple for them. Others said, no, we don't see it that way. We'll go another way---and they did. It was an intra-religious conflict. Not a Jewish-Christian one if the New Testament is read critically.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
Jesus did not make any sacrifice that any other person has not made or soon will. He died.
It isn't that he died. It is the way in which he died. And no. No one will be doing that anytime soon. And it is that he entered into what he was doing, fully knowing what the outcome could be. And he accepted it believing that he was doing it for the betterment of the world. So no, it isn't even something that any other person has done.
 

*Deleted*

Member
Huh? People today don't enter into situations where they know they will die for the cause of others? Huh? And some die much more horrible deaths than Jesus did---and not for their own sakes but for a cause larger than themselves.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
The Jews were in the midst of the fall of the 2nd temple---which way would Judaism go? Previously,
forgiveness was offered via the temple. Temple was now gone. What to do? Judaism (or rather Judaisms of the day) were in upheaval. Some said, we don't need the temple and put the temple over on Jesus. He became the temple for them. Others said, no, we don't see it that way. We'll go another way---and they did. It was an intra-religious conflict. Not a Jewish-Christian one if the New Testament is read critically.
Right. But Christianity grew outside of Israel, and non-Jews became "Christians". Hence immediate non Hebrew/Jewish influences were followed.
 

fallingblood

Agnostic Theist
Huh? People today don't enter into situations where they know they will die for the cause of others? Huh? And some die much more horrible deaths than Jesus did---and not for their own sakes but for a cause larger than themselves.
Didn't say they didn't. I just said that not anyone does so. And it is more than just dying, which was implied by the post I quoted.
 

*Deleted*

Member
So? Judaism grew outside of Israel too. My point was the New Testament is written by Jews (except for Luke and Acts)---St. Paul lived a Jew and died a Jew, just as Jesus did. The time that Jesus lived in was one of non Hebrew/Jewish influences anyway. It was the Hellenistic period. Paul was totally a Hellenistic Jew. So when we read the New Testament as Christian against Jew today, we are reading it all wrong. We're ignoring CONTEXT.
 

*Deleted*

Member
fallingblood,

We have no idea whatsoever regarding what Jesus was thinking when he ran into trouble with the Romans and with some of the high level Jews who were in cohoots with the Roman gov't. You wrote that Jesus entered into "it" knowing full well what he was doing. How do you know that? We have nothing to go on except the WRITERS' views. And they had their own views for a reason like writers do. So far as I know we haven't found anything that we known has been written by Jesus himself telling us his motives and thoughts. We have only "story" and interpretations by others who had their own agendas and story of the story.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
So? Judaism grew outside of Israel too. My point was the New Testament is written by Jews (except for Luke and Acts)---St. Paul lived a Jew and died a Jew, just as Jesus did. The time that Jesus lived in was one of non Hebrew/Jewish influences anyway. It was the Hellenistic period. Paul was totally a Hellenistic Jew. So when we read the New Testament as Christian against Jew today, we are reading it all wrong. We're ignoring CONTEXT.
I dont read the NT as "Christian against Jew", do you? I noticed you used the term "we", who's we?
 

gnomon

Well-Known Member
I agree with Clare.

Don't ignore the context. The historical context of the situation. A historical context in which a long lived civilization which has been occupied by a foreign civilization with different beliefs, as well as a number before that, a minority sect establishes itself to initiate a faith that says no matter the occupier on this world it is the other world that matters.

And to address pot-kettles point, yes, non-Jews adopted Christianity but guess what.......that was part of the point. I leave theologians like Daddy-O to discuss the full theology of that with Paul but there were many sects at that time looking outside the traditional Judaism and looking for something else. That the fact that the basics of Christianity spread pretty far into non-Jewish cultures prior to Constantine establishing Rome as a Christian nation, with many opposing such a notion and tried to revert it, there is a lot of historical evidence that the Christian sect spread far and wide without the notions that many members of this forum think it required which was the heavy handed use of an established national power.

Which means there is something to the story of Christ. Even if someone comes on here and says what about the Mithras sect or Horus the fact remains that Christianity, the story of Jesus, had made into Germania by the 3rd century and had enough of effect that the Vandals who sacked what they thought was an apostate Rome for adhering to the trinity that theology of this of Christianity had spread fairly well.
 

*Deleted*

Member
I said WHEN we...IF we...whoever "we" is--it can be "they"--it can be "when people read it as Jew against Christian then it's out of context"....I don't read it that way. But millions do.
Millions hear around Easter time---"Crucify him!" and think Jews against Christians. That's the popular story, not the critical-thinking, academic one. The language used in churches (even mainstream ones) at certain times of the year (Easter being the worst one, I think) is highly inflammatory of the Jews and when that happens, then the whole thing is totally out of context.
It's horrible.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I said WHEN we...IF we...whoever "we" is--it can be "they"--it can be "when people read it as Jew against Christian then it's out of context"....I don't read it that way. But millions do.
Millions hear around Easter time---"Crucify him!" and think Jews against Christians. That's the popular story, not the critical-thinking, academic one. The language used in churches (even mainstream ones) at certain times of the year (Easter being the worst one, I think) is highly inflammatory of the Jews and when that happens, then the whole thing is totally out of context.
It's horrible.
Yeah, agreed, but lets not forget all the Christians that dont express those views. Christianity incoporates Jewishness with the OT, etc.
 

*Deleted*

Member
Pot-Kettle,

True. Unfortunately popular Christianity tends to, though. And yes, Christians took the Hebrew scriptures, moved the books around a bit, and at Christmas in most Christian churches you'd hear scriptures from Isaiah claiming to "foretell" the birth of Jesus when that's not what those scriptures in Isaiah were about at all. They were about THEN, not foretelling the birth of Jesus.
 

elmarna

Well-Known Member
"the mithras sect of Horus "= it means he was out spoken with the great understanding & was very sensitive to the world around him.
THAT IS ALL THAT MEANS
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
Pot-Kettle,

True. Unfortunately popular Christianity tends to, though. And yes, Christians took the Hebrew scriptures, moved the books around a bit, and at Christmas in most Christian churches you'd hear scriptures from Isaiah claiming to "foretell" the birth of Jesus when that's not what those scriptures in Isaiah were about at all. They were about THEN, not foretelling the birth of Jesus.
Yes your first point is valid. As to Isaiah's prephecies, that's obviously a matter of belief. How can 'prophecies' be argued to a conclusion? They can't.
 

*Deleted*

Member
The Isaiah passage that is read in Christian churches at Christmas (as having to do with Jesus) do not have to do with Jesus. It isn't a prophecy, so need not be argued. It's just used. Incorrectly. Scholars know what that passage refers to and it's not about Jesus. Again, CONTEXT.
 
Top