A confused atheist.

Here is a post from GCI[dot]org. I am not a member of them and have never heard of them until a minute ago. But even they have a proper understanding. Nowhere does Jesus on the Cross dying have anything to with him knowing or not knowing about heaven, nor is the existence of heaven what makes his death meaningful.

Forget about heaven as a destination. What was the purpose of his death? Why did he die?

Foolish said:

My thoughts on your thoughts are that, as a rational person, I have problems with comprehending how people make the separation between god and Jesus so that the latter absorbed the wrath of the former for our benefit yet we have to worship Jesus because he's god in the first place...

Seems a bit Masochistic to me.

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Here, I completely agree with you. Even though I have been arguing Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice as it is what most Christians believe, it is not the only explanation. Nor is it what I personally believe. I strongly urge you to look into something called Christus Victor. IMHO, it makes a heck of allot more sense and does away with the needless masochism you have noticed.

I reccomend an article called Penal Substitution vs. Christus Victor. Easy search on Google. I personally subscribe to that understand of the death of Christ.

Foolish said:

Mfaust:

I'd imagine the sacrifice of suffragettes lives' was not "inconsequential" to them.

Sacrifice requires giving something up and I would suggest that giving up ones' life is the biggest sacrifice of all - unless you're guaranteed of the existence and entry into heaven of course.

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Again... Jesus' knowledge of heaven has NOTHING to do with why he died for us. Absolutely nothing to do with it at all. He did it so we could be right before God.

The suffragettes did what they did for a purpose. Did that purpose involve the knowledge they would go to heaven when they died? No.

Jesus died for a purpose. Did that purpose involve the knowledge he would go to heaven when he died? No.

Foolish said:

My own point of view is that he died because he was preaching heretical (from the roman pov) helenised philosophy.

My own opinion is that Jesus should be seen as a great human philosopher and that his teachings are worthy on their own, without the need for the religious slant.

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And these comments, while I do not see eye to eye with you on, I can accept and respect this perspective. However, the heretical philosophy was from the Jewish POV, not so much the roman.

Again, not trying to change your mind, but I do suggest you PLEASE look into the Christus Victor understand of the death of Christ. It likely wont convince you, but it will make a whole lot more sense.

Foolish said:

Hi itisdeliciouscake thanks for the comprehensive reply.

My thoughts on your thoughts are that, as a rational person, I have problems with comprehending how people make the separation between god and Jesus so that the latter absorbed the wrath of the former for our benefit yet we have to worship Jesus because he's god in the first place...

Seems a bit Masochistic to me.

As for your second paragraph; I'm not convinced. It just doesn't make sense.

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Haha, not gonna pretend that that's not one of the most perplexing things about Christianity. Ultimately it's answer is found in the trinity. God is 'one essence, three person's.' That is, Father, Son, and Spirit are coequal and are all God in the fullest sense. Yet they are all one and the same, but each is distinct person. I could never pretend to be able to explain it well. But then again, as a rational person I think you would agree that simple and easy-for-us-to-understand explanations concerning the essence of the God of the universe are suspect at best. If God is Creator and we and everything that exists are creature than it only makes sense that we would not be able to perfectly explain or comprehend perfectly the nature of the God of the universe.

So just know that how Christ was separated from God the Father on the cross is indeed one of the most mysterious events in Christian doctrine. Then again, I hope that puts into perspective how horrific yet majestically beautiful Christ's death on the cross was. In someway beyond human understand Christ, fully God, took on the wrath of God the Father, also fully God, to the point where He cried out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

And it isn't Christ's death on the cross that compels us to worship Him. The same Christ who died on the cross was the One who created the Universe. He gave us existence. He deserves our worship whether we give it to Him or not. Ultimately though we rebelled against God and screwed up the Universe. We live our lives in rebellion to God; we refuse to worship Him until we believe in His Son Jesus. But because Christ died on the cross it frees us from our rebellious state and gives us new life.

And what were you not convinced about in my second post?

(btw, I'm gonna have a tough time answering posts here with immediacy, but if you wanna talk more I'm game on Facebook.)

Foolish said:

I've found the reference you suggested I google regarding Penal Substitution vs. Etc. - it's a bit long to read tonight, as I'm in the UK and it's just gone midnight, but I will read it over the weekend.

Thanks for the chat. I'll come back once I've read the material and I'll no doubt have questions!

Cheers for the chat

Goodnight.

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God bless and sleep well!

As I posted previously, worship a lifestyle. But what is worship and why do we do it?

Evelyn Underhill an Anglo-Catholic writer, (Education and the Spirit of Worship, in Collected Papers, p.193, London, 1946) defines worship: "The absolute acknowledgment of all that lies beyond us—the glory that fills heaven and earth. It is the response that conscious beings make to their Creator, to the Eternal Reality from which they came forth; to God, however they may think of Him or recognize Him, and whether He be realized through religion, through nature, through history, through science, art, or human life and character."

Let me be clear, the reason we worship God is because He is our creator. We worship Jesus for the same reason. He is God and our Creator, as well.

C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity writes the following: “I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.”

Jesus is 100% divine and 100% man.

Because God loved us He gave His only begotten Son. God's love didn't just feel for the troubles of a fallen world. God did something about it, and He gave the most precious thing to give: His only begotten Son, Jesus

God's love actually saves man from eternal destruction. God looks at fallen humanity, does not want it to perish, and so in His love He extends the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Dear Foolish. I try to keep it short. God made Man, (us) in His image. God is Love and God wants loving children/sons and daughters. When Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, believed a lying Serpent, rather than God our Heavenly Father, God`s promise: " If you eat from the tree of Knowledge, you will die" became true. Adam and Eve did eat the forbidden fruit, and God banished them to Earth. Why?? They and all Mankind after them, had to learn : 1) Love God with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds. 2) Love our neighbour, ( all others, friends and not friends) as we love ourselves." Instead of learning to love and care, we moved farther and farther away from God, selfishness and greed became our gods. God could have given up on us, but His Love for us, is greater. Jesus came and showed us God as God really is: Our loving Heavenly Father who wants us back again, BUT there is God`s Holy Law which demands payment for all SINS and Transgressions, and up till then people sacrificed Animals, and thought that was acceptable. Yet God has told us in the Old Testament: " I do not want your animals, I want your Love, freely given me and selflessly given to your neighbour." But there was NO-ONE left who was without sins or serious wrongdoings. We all were doomed to life on Earth Without God: and that does`nt bear thinking about. Yet Jesus God-Son, part of God`s Holy Spirit, became Man for us, born of a Virgin who was chosen by God as a worthy Vessel, to bring forth our Saviour. Jesus was human like His Mother was human, and Jesus was the final Sacrifice to God`s Holy Law: Now God wants our Love. The Bible tells us to " Repent," to change our selfish and unloving characters, to loving God with all our beings, and loving our neighbours as ourselves. Jesus died and suffered for us, that we might live for God and for each other. The Bible, God`s Word to Man, will tell you more in detail, dear atheist. I say this with love. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

Foolish said:

Im an agnostic atheist but am really interested in religion, so I would apreciate any feedback on my musings.

From what I understand of Christianity, the central (not sole) principal of worshipping christ I that he sacrificed himself for us and our sins.

What I don't understand is that; many people have sacrificed themselves for greater causes in our history - why shouldn't we worship them?

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We worship Christ because we believe Him to be God Himself and thus worthy of highest worship.

One of the most central and important teachings in traditional Christianity is the Incarnation (which includes the Hypostatic Union).

It begins by asserting the Trinitarian understanding of God, which is a much larger discussion altogether, but in brief asserts that there is only one God. That is there is only one substance, one nature, one being or one "thing" that is called "God" (in Greek the word is ousia). The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are together and each that one God; thus we can speak of "God the Father" or "God the Son" and refer to the same God, the same Being. But that does not mean the Father is the Son, the Greek word used here is hypostasis (in English through the Latin is often rendered as "Person") which refers to a fundamental reality which in this case would mean that the Father is distinct and unique in that He is Father (not Son or Holy Spirit). This doesn't change the fact that He is God (the one and only God) or that the Son is God (the one and only God).

It's a bit dense and I would highly recommend going to more scholarly sources to get a better handle on it since it can be confusing.

That said, the idea is that God the Son became incarnate, took on flesh. Not merely in the sense of taking on a "suit" but rather fully united Himself to human nature. The Son of God, become man, is given the name Jesus. Thus Jesus is fully God (being the Son of God the Father) and fully human (being the Son of Mary). It's not half/half, but wholly both without any confusion between the two or separation (that's the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union in a nutshell).

Thus we worship Christ because He is God and deserving of the highest worship and honor.

Also when we speak of Christ's sacrifice, we do not mean it in a merely martyr sense, but rather as the full participation of God into the fragility of human weakness and pain in order to rescue us from the slavery of sin and death; and His resurrection means that He has conquered death. And if He has conquered death then we, who are united to Him by faith, have hope of eternal life (which does not refer to an eternity floating as ghosts in some golden city in the sky, but rather refers to the resurrection of the body and the restoration of creation itself).

Those are some of the basics of Christianity 101, though it's quite condensed here.

-CryptoLutheran

Foolish said:

I
What I don't understand is that; many people have sacrificed themselves for greater causes in our history - why shouldn't we worship them?

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Hi, and welcome to CF!

I disagree with this; there is NO greater cause than that which Christ laid down His life for. It potentially affects every member of our species, throughout all of our existence, past, BC, and future. It can also affect US, in every instance we face.

The fact that you could write what I snipped here, tells me you are unaware of this. So a will point you in the direction of finding out how Jesus' sacrifice can affect you in the here and now, as a source to end your confusion.

Foolish said:

Im an agnostic atheist but am really interested in religion, so I would apreciate any feedback on my musings.

From what I understand of Christianity, the central (not sole) principal of worshipping christ I that he sacrificed himself for us and our sins.

What I don't understand is that; many people have sacrificed themselves for greater causes in our history - why shouldn't we worship them?

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We worship him because it is ideological/spiritual warfare against the rulers of man/princes of the world, who would rule over us. We worship and recognize Jesus as our Lord and Savior because of the example he set in being willing to sacrifice himself in serving the people, instead of the normal earthly rulers who want us to serve them. Establishing him as the example of how authority should behave is what brings us to the ideal society/kingdom of heaven. It's not just because he is so awesome he deserves worship but as a way of taking the power away from the tyrants of the world.

Foolish said:

The person I'm referring to was a chap who set himself alight in protest about the repression of the Tunisian people. He killed himself to raise the issue of his people's plight.

I'm not proposing that these people are worthy of worship. What I'm suggesting is that these people actually made greater sacrifices than Jesus.

I suppose my point is that what Jesus did is not worthy of worship if it was centred on his sacrifice as It wasn't that much of a sacrifice compared to what average humans have done throughout history.

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1) This man you speak of is by no means "average!"

2) He did not bear the sins of the entirety of our species, having been completely sinless. You underestimate the depth and totality of this sacrifice of Jesus,' and I excuse you for doing so by assuming you understand neither the beauty of Holiness, nor the horror of sin. Neither of those concepts mean much until you've encountered God's Presence!

3) You also seem to not appreciate the fact that Jesus could have actually overthrown Rome, even after having been nailed to His Cross, which is what all of Israel expected of Him if He were actually the Messiah. By NOT doing so but obeying His Father instead, He was humiliated before His own people, and remains so to this day.

Please don't continue to insult Him by saying this was "no sacrifice." Hopefully you understand a little bit better now?

Foolish said:

Hi itisdeliciouscake thanks for the comprehensive reply.

My thoughts on your thoughts are that, as a rational person, I have problems with comprehending how people make the separation between god and Jesus so that the latter absorbed the wrath of the former for our benefit yet we have to worship Jesus because he's god in the first place...

Seems a bit Masochistic to me.

As for your second paragraph; I'm not convinced. It just doesn't make sense.

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Let's see if this helps you understand:

masochism is loving the harm done to yourself. That's not why Jesus went to the Cross! He actually put that off for 1,000's of years, because He did NOT want to have to endure that suffering! He waited until human society had developed to the point that His Passion could NOT be erased from history; this was the first time such a large land mass was joined both by roads, and a common language.

Jesus went to the Cross because of His Love for G-d and man, that the wedge of sin driven between us would be made powerless, so we could be reconciled.

And therefore we urge you, be reconciled to God!

Foolish said:

My own personal view of the trinity is that it's a bit of a fudge borne out of the worry of contradicting the first commandment. Simple really.

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This is not what the history shows! Neither is it true what you said about Jesus' death being due to heresy, per Rome.

Trinity was established as doctrine to counteract false claims within some Christian circles of who Jesus was.

Pilate washed his hands of Jesus' death, in front of the whole crowd.