Jesus's Death. Was That Unnecessary?

[Treasure Hunter]

Satan is the great imitator and master of deception. His highest priority is to intercept us from direct experience with God.

And just like how external nature requires the death of countless unfit versions of organisms, inner nature also requires countless versions of ourselves to die.

This is the level of sacrifice God demands from us, but it is usually more than we are capable of enacting. That leaves two options: (1) turn away from the burden of sacrifice and, with that, turn away from God, or (2) compromise with Satan. It is said that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. More precisely, the fear of the future consequences from turning away from God - that is the beginning of wisdom. In other words, the wise person does not choose option 1.

Still, there are some compromises with Satan that are even worse choices than option 1. The idea that others can be sacrificed in our place instead is a compromise with Satan that has left a vile mark in human history.

One compromise with Satan that is superior to turning away from God is the idea that Jesus paid the sacrifice required. Inherent in this narrative is the preservation of the idea that God requires a significant sacrifice from each of us. Nevertheless, it is still a compromise with Satan and eventually has to be transcended by humanity. Fortunately, the Jesus story (and Christianity at large) has the depth of truth to be undermined in this way and endure.

 

[Treasure Hunter]

...then God is a monster.

The highest version of God is Abraxas: symbol of paradox, cause of dread, and impetus for transformation.

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Jesus was acting out the creation of an incarnate human. He was showing how he became who he was, with the hope that others would do the same. The Father is judged, condemned, and then lays down his life for the Son. Jesus represents both roles and communicated this when he said the Father and Son are one.

Jesus on the cross symbolizes the merging of God and Man (god). Man judges God = God judges Man. After condemnation, the Father lays down his life for the Son. Therefore, when Man judges and condemns God, Man is to lay down his life in order to bring about the Son of Man/God.

 

[thomas t]

The alternative - i.e. that God didn't demand a sacrifice - suggests that Jesus's sacrifice was unnecessary.

no.
The fact that it was necessary does not mean that God demanded it.
And no, you have no scripture to back up what you say about God demanding such thing.
Jesus willing to do it does not mean God demanded it. Jesus perhaps offered it.
In my opinion, we just don't know.

If God needs nothing, then the death wouldn't be necessary to God. What else does that leave? Enjoyment?

The world needed it, as I see it. And since God loves the world, he profits from it indirectly.
If I don't need anything ....but love my (hypothetical) garden, and someone does something good to it... I would be happy about my garden having received some care at least.

What lesson?

When looking at the Jesus story, people have a reason to think it didn't make sense to kill someone for stating an opinion.
The lesson: killing people for opinion doesn't do any good.

 

[thomas t]

@SeekingAllTruth

No malarkey, no nonsense, no mess of a doctrine, no madness, in my view.

You are only admitted to heaven if you don't endanger anyone or anything, in my view.
If you were an ocean polluter on earth, never repented of anything, never paid God anything as a compensation... God has every reason to keep you out of heaven for fear that you could pollute heaven again.

 

[thomas t]

These are very good questions.

If I owe you $1000, how would you sacrificing a human pay me back?

if you owe me $1000 but a friend comes and offers me a little piece of arts in the place of the $1000 and if I agree to take it as if I received the $1000... then your debts are taken away.
Through the friend.

And what did we 'owe' to god that can be 'paid back' by sacrificing a human being?

every damage we do to creation (pollution for instance) needs to be compensated, as I see it.

If Jesus died so that people would stop killing others for stating an opinion, why are people still killed for stating their opinion? Did his sacrifice not work?

People still kill.
But this story sets an example.
Many Christians getting killed for what they say may think "they killed Jesus, too!" - for them it's a good motivation not to be drowned in anger.
This is at least how see the situation.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

no.
The fact that it was necessary does not mean that God demanded it.
And no, you have no scripture to back up what you say about God demanding such thing.

I think you're inferring a bit too much into what I wrote. When I said "that God demanded it," I wasn't just talking about some direct, verbal command from God; I was also talking about scenarios where God created a situation where Jesus's death was necessary as a result.

But as far as scripture goes, Mark 14:36 and Luke 22:42 are the verses that are traditionally taken as Jesus acknowledging that it's God's will, not his, that he suffer and die on the cross.

Jesus willing to do it does not mean God demanded it. Jesus perhaps offered it.
In my opinion, we just don't know.

So you think God may be a monster, then?

That's the implication: it would be monstrous for God to require his son to suffer and die, and you say we can't know whether this happened, so we can't know whether God is monstrous... right?

The world needed it, as I see it. And since God loves the world, he profits from it indirectly.

Why would the world "need" it if not because God had made it necessary?

If I don't need anything ....but love my (hypothetical) garden, and someone does something good to it... I would be happy about my garden having received some care at least.

And if you discovered one day that someone had been brutally murdered in your garden, would you consider this "happy care?"

When looking at the Jesus story, people have a reason to think it didn't make sense to kill someone for stating an opinion.
The lesson: killing people for opinion doesn't do any good.

... because the person you kill might be a god-man who can come back from the dead?

 

[pearl]

as exhibited in that garish horror-porn fest that was heretical-schismatic 'traditionalist' Catholic Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (ughhhh!) -

'Ughhhh' is putting it mildly. Add together Gibson's penchant for excessive violence and use of the non-biblical material used in the movie, his personal rejection of Vat II and his anti-Semitism and you have 'The Passion of the Christ'.

Emmerich saw visions of the Last Supper and the Agony in the Garden, as well as Jesus' arrest, scourging, and crucifixion. The visions are quite detailed. "The Dolorous Passion" describes many non-biblical events--such as a conversation between Pilate and his wife--and non-biblical scenes, such as Pilate "reposing in a comfortable chair, on a terrace which overlooked the forum, and a small three-legged table stood by his side, on which was placed the insignia of his office, and a few other things." In Mel Gibson's movie, the role of Pilate's wife is expanded far beyond the gospel's brief mention of her dream. Gibson's Pilate interacts with his wife several times, and she is portrayed as the sympathetic proto-Christian character Emmerich describes.
Emmerich's visions of certain actions by Jews are not based in scripture. For example, "The Dolorous Passion" describes "numerous devils among the crowd, exciting and encouraging the Jews, whispering in their ears, entering their mouths, inciting them still more against Jesus." In Mel Gibson's movie, an androgynous devil moves through a Jewish mob as Jesus is sentenced.

 

[pearl]

That priest at least saw no disconnect between the movie and Catholic teaching.

Maybe this priest was a fellow 'radtrad'.

 

[Vouthon]

In Mel Gibson's movie, an androgynous devil moves through a Jewish mob as Jesus is sentenced.

I can't even bear watching it for five minutes.

It's just ahistorical and theological toilet paper to me - with the voyeuristic torture porn only adding to the misery for the viewer.

Emmerich's "visions", ironically, were apparently ghost-written by one if her lay followers of I recall (at least partly), such that the devotional claim amongst "radtrad" schismatics like Gibson - as to the "private revelation" involved in the writing of these bizarrely detailed, melodramatic, highly novelistic-reading and shocking anti-semitic texts - is likely bunkum.

Irrespective of that question of fraudulence, the writings of an eighteenth century nun have no business informing a film allegedly relaying the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in first century Judea, complete with actual blooming Aramaic dialogue.

The Gospel according to St. Matthew film in the 1960s, by a gay Italian atheist and socialist director, Pasolini, (which was praised at the time by Pope John XXIIII and remains the Vatican's favourite Jesus film as well as the movie experts' (because of its genuine artistic merit)), is infinitely better aesthetically and truer to the Gospel text.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

@SeekingAllTruth

No malarkey, no nonsense, no mess of a doctrine, no madness, in my view.

You are only admitted to heaven if you don't endanger anyone or anything, in my view.
If you were an ocean polluter on earth, never repented of anything, never paid God anything as a compensation... God has every reason to keep you out of heaven for fear that you could pollute heaven again.

thomas, no offense intended, this sounds more like your doctrine than Jesus'. Let me ask a straightforward question, you're of course are free to respond or ignore as you choose: I have great compassion for the poor--I help them with alms as often as I can get it to them. I certainly don't pollute the ocean since I never go anywhere near it. I repent of plenty of stuff, like occasionally giving a phone rep average surveys when they deserve them and then wishing I had just taken the high road and given them an excellent rating. I don't tithe anymore as a now- non-Christian because I don't believe Jesus was real, much less divine. I consider myself a good person compared to most, despite the "There is none good" nonsense in the Bible. There are plenty of good people in the world.

Do you think I am I going to heaven?

 

[pearl]

I can't even bear watching it for five minutes.

I've never seen the movie nor have had any desire to do so.

 

[Vouthon]

I've never seen the movie nor have had any desire to do so.

You are more fortunate than I then - this poor benighted soul who happened to see it on television many years ago, curious as to what all the "hype" had been about and holding my nose in spite of my distaste for Mel Gibson as a person.

Big mistake. I just spent the whole duration going, "that's not in the canonical gospels....that's not what a first century Jew would believe...oh come on an androgynous devil being in a Jewish crowd?....a demon possesed Judas seeing children with faces out of the Exorcist?....a bird pecking the eyes out of one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus....?"

And it got worse from there. Just endlessly worse.

 

[QuestioningMind]

These are very good questions.

if you owe me $1000 but a friend comes and offers me a little piece of arts in the place of the $1000 and if I agree to take it as if I received the $1000... then your debts are taken away.
Through the friend.


every damage we do to creation (pollution for instance) needs to be compensated, as I see it.

People still kill.
But this story sets an example.
Many Christians getting killed for what they say may think "they killed Jesus, too!" - for them it's a good motivation not to be drowned in anger.
This is at least how see the situation.

if you owe me $1000 but a friend comes and offers me a little piece of arts in the place of the $1000 and if I agree to take it as if I received the $1000... then your debts are taken away.
Through the friend.

No, all I have done is transfer my debt from you to my friend.

every damage we do to creation (pollution for instance) needs to be compensated, as I see it.

How exactly does sacrificing a human being to god help to compensate for damage done to the environment due to pollution?

People still kill.
But this story sets an example.

What kind of an example is it setting though? It's basically telling people that if you've done something to offend god the way to make it better is to sacrifice one of your fellow human beings.

 

[thomas t]

I was also talking about scenarios where God created a situation where Jesus's death was necessary as a result.

That's not the story.
God created a situation in which free will prevails.
In that situation man chose to rebel.
Only this made it necessary that Jesus came to die for our sins.
This is at least how I interpret the story.

But as far as scripture goes, Mark 14:36 and Luke 22:42 are the verses that are traditionally taken as Jesus acknowledging that it's God's will, not his, that he suffer and die on the cross.

at that point Jesus said "your will". But this does not rule out that Jesus offered God a deal beforehand. In a sense that he allowed God to willlingly send Jesus to die for our sins.

So you think God may be a monster, then?

no.
But you came first with your allegation about God potentially being a monster.
so the onus is on the claimant here.

And if you discovered one day that someone had been brutally murdered in your garden, would you consider this "happy care?"

no.

... because the person you kill might be a god-man who can come back from the dead?

This does not do any good to the murderers on judgement day, I think.

 

[thomas t]

No, all I have done is transfer my debt from you to my friend.

I forgot to add that the friend does not charge you anything for his service.
That's why we say "free gift of the cross".

How exactly does sacrificing a human being to god help to compensate for damage done to the environment due to pollution?

God sacrificed his son, according to the Bible (John 3:16). It's not the other way round.
It wasn't man that sacrificed Jesus.
Are you asking me in which way does this help then?
The moment God says it's a valid compensation and enough to please him and to be a bit less sad about the ocean, for example... then it is done.

What kind of an example is it setting though? It's basically telling people that if you've done something to offend god the way to make it better is to sacrifice one of your fellow human beings.

no, God was the one sacrificing someone, see above.
Jesus set an example and all the other martyrs that came later have a story that they can read. This story is about what happened to their predecessor.
I meant it in this way.

 

[ppp]

That's not the story.
God created a situation in which free will prevails.
In that situation man chose to rebel.
Only this made it necessary that Jesus came to die for our sins.
This is at least how I interpret the story.

Could the Crucifixion have not happened? Could it have been stopped by a person or group of people?

 

[thomas t]

Could the Crucifixion have not happened? Could it have been stopped by a person or group of people?

it's a hypothetic question, I think.
God knew beforehand with 100% certainty that they would want to kill Jesus anyway, if he behaved normally.
It's like Nazis always shouting insults at people of color when they show up.
It's just evident. They always do it, that's what they are Nazis for.
So why bother to think this hypothetical scenario through that contains so many ifs?

 

[ppp]

it's a hypothetic question, I think.
God knew beforehand with 100% certainty that they would want to kill Jesus anyway, if he behaved normally.
It's like Nazis always shouting insults at people of color when they show up.
It's just evident. They always do it, that's what they are Nazis for.
So why bother to think this hypothetical scenario through that contains so many ifs?

This shouldn't be a hypothetical at all.
You claim that the people involved had free will. That they had the ability to choose otherwise.
So, your answer to, "Could the Crucifixion have not happened?" should be a simple and straight-forward, Yes.
Because, free will.

 

[thomas t]

You claim that the people involved had free will. That they had the ability to choose otherwise.
So, your answer to, "Could the Crucifixion have not happened?" should be a simple and straight-forward, Yes.
Because, free will.

uuh, did I say people always have a free will?
Actually I don't recall scripture that say there is always free will.
Let me put it that way, once you sin too often, God may put some sort of autopilot into the soul of the persons involved to make their decisions more predictable. Predictable in a sense that their future decisions are an exact copy of those made so far. I guess.
This is at least what I draw from this story here: Exodus 4:21.