How exactly was Jesus' crucifixion a sacrifice?

a reply to: Ghost147

After His passing, there was so much telling and retelling, wording and rewording, followed by various translations that today, the basic story has numerous interpretations. This explains why you see so many, many religions that take in the same story so differently.

My personal belief is that Christ came here to set an example for a humanity being overrun by a focus on wealth and power and physical pleasures rather than spiritual growth and maturing.
The example He offered? Giving rather than demanding or expecting; self-sacrifice over what is basically known today, in the broadest sense, as narcissism.

Following the crucifixion, His disciples set out on varied paths with one founding what is today known as the Catholic Church. Personally, I have some questions regarding how this was carried out but... that's another story for another thread.

a reply to: redoubt

Even when he was on earth, most people denied him. Even after they saw what he did. And it was real.

You and most everyone else are in the same company. It just takes something else, a quality most people don't have, to stop being so skeptical and actually see the evidence.

You know, once Jesus said a little girl was sleeping, when she had died, and then went and resurrected her. There were perhaps people who were skeptical like many here, the majority in this thread, and in humankind.

Later, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, in front of many witnesses. The difference was, he was dead for 4 days. And there was no way people could deny he brought him back to life.

The reaction of the people? The religious leaders immediately began to find a way to kill both Jesus and Lazarus. And still many did not put faith in him.

And so too, today, so great a number of skeptics, and even if you did witness his miracles, you would soon forget them, and get in line with those who scoff at, and spit on him.

But no all humanity is like that. There are people with true faith. That hear the truth and believe it.

It is so easy to hate the truth, and turn you back on it, and love lies, and believe every one that is told you.

a reply to: JackReyes

"... if you did witness his miracles, you would soon forget them, and get in line with those who scoff at, and spit on him."

Excuse me?

If I may, please detail what I said that would lead to such a reply.

originally posted by: redoubt
a reply to: JackReyes

"... if you did witness his miracles, you would soon forget them, and get in line with those who scoff at, and spit on him."

Excuse me?

If I may, please detail what I said that would lead to such a reply.

This:

"After His passing, there was so much telling and retelling, wording and rewording, followed by various translations that today, the basic story has numerous interpretations. This explains why you see so many, many religions that take in the same story so differently."

The oldest manuscripts available of the gospels compared to recent ones have very little changes. To think they have been tampered with over and over is a lack of knowledge of the facts, and a grasp at straws, something a skeptic not wanting the truth would want.

If you could accept that lie, then you can accept the lie that Jesus is not real, and the gospels were not true. It is easy for a skeptic to embrace lies when they deny truth.

Even Thomas, an apostle of Jesus Christ, one of the 11, who saw Jesus perform all that he did, first-hand, did not believe it when he was raised from the dead, and said he would not believe it, unless he could put his fingers through the holes in Jesus' hands.

Jesus materialized his spirit body in a locked room in front of Thomas and showed him holes in his hands, and Thomas finally did put faith in him. And Jesus reply was this:

(John 20:29) . . .Jesus said to him: “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

It is easy to be a skeptic. It takes courage and honesty and boldness, and humility, and truth, to believe what is true.

a reply to: JackReyes

It takes courage and honesty and boldness, and humility, and truth, to believe what is true.

I couldn't agree more.

So be courageous, Jack.

originally posted by: Lucid Lunacy
a reply to: JackReyes

It takes courage and honesty and boldness, and humility, and truth, to believe what is true.

I couldn't agree more.

So be courageous, Jack.

You want to know courage? Here is courage in action:

a reply to: JackReyes

"The oldest manuscripts available of the gospels compared to recent ones have very little changes. To think they have been tampered with over and over is a lack of knowledge of the facts, and a grasp at straws, something a skeptic not wanting the truth would want."

Where did I say anything about changes? I was speaking to the numerous authors.

...

"It is easy to be a skeptic. It takes courage and honesty and boldness, and humility, and truth, to believe what is true."

Skeptic? How am I a skeptic? You know you are, basically, passing judgment on a complete stranger based on a few lines of text.
Is that what you think Christ would do?

Man, you need to lighten up... and then do some praying.

Have a nice day.

a reply to: redoubt

If you meant something else by this there has been so much "telling and retelling, wording and rewording" then I apologize.

This thread is full of people who outright deny the scriptures and historic record. If you didn't mean there hasn't been so many 'tellings and retellings' "wording and rewording" even though that is what you wrote, I apologize understanding what you wrote is what you meant, as well.

The gospels have reached us faithfully. And there is no need for speculation about what they say. You can just open a Bible and read them.

a reply to: JackReyes

And there is no need for speculation about what they say. You can just open a Bible and read them.

Yet that's not true at all. It's demonstrably false. Would you like me to show you?

"To the faithful, no explanation is needed, to the disbeliever, no explanation is possible."

And therein lies my question;Will someone ever be able to adequately explain this to you where you will be satisfied? Do you expect this question to be answered?

Some people may find the story of Christ unfathomable

But what is fathomable? We are basically sentient meat robots living on a ball of rock that circles a nuclear fireball a million miles across. We are just water and some chemicals. How does that become concious and write Mozart and Bach? Reality itself is WEIRD.

And the scientific explanation for how we got here is a bit tedious.

So there was a singularity that simply appeared out of nothing and just randomly exploded and created space and time and the billions of stars planets and galaxies, just by accident, a random fluctuation of the cosmic vacuum? why?

a reply to: JackReyes

"The gospels have reached us faithfully. And there is no need for speculation about what they say. You can just open a Bible and read them."

The thing here is that out of the billions who have and will read The Gospels, there will be many variations in their interpretations.

That's just a standard human trait; personal opinion based on interpretation.
That's also why you can have a planet full of Christians reading the exact same Book and still have them divided by church.

From there, I'm not even going to step into how the King James version matches up with several modern English versions or how it translates into other languages... not without a handful of aspirin for the headache that follows.

Anyway, I am cursed with typos so... poor wording is often.

a reply to: openminded2011

To the faithful, no explanation is needed

Right. It's about faith. No explanation needed.

to the disbeliever, no explanation is possible.

Translation:

I recognize that I have no explanation, my position is faith-based, and I can't imagine someone not believing what I do.

a reply to: redoubt

The KJV is quite a poor translation,it is true, compared to modern ones, but it still gets the message across.

There is division not because of God's word but because of Satan.

There is unity among God's true servants. There is no division among them:

(1 Corinthians 14:33) . . .For God is a God not of disorder but of peace.. . .

(Ephesians 4:4-6) 4 One body there is, and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

(Colossians 2:2) This is so that their hearts may be comforted and that they may be harmoniously joined together in love.

The holy spirit and God correctly understand his word, and his followers understand it as well, there is no division among them.

originally posted by: Talorc

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: Talorc
I'm not well-versed in Christian theology, but I think you guys are missing the point. Probably on purpose, because it doesn't seem a hard concept.

I've always interpreted it this way: Jesus' sacrifice wasn't in dying on the cross. He felt and experienced (and still does) the suffering of all humanity. Because he loved everyone and had essentially limitless empathy, he lived the pain of everyone, every starving child, every sick man and woman, tortured prisoner, and wounded soldier. Not only that, he felt their fear and sadness, and all their emotions, good and bad.

His sacrifice was in coming here, seeing us, and forever taking on our suffering in the name of love. You can't love someone if you don't understand them, and to understand humanity, you must understand suffering. It is one sure thing that defines us.

I'm not saying any of this is true. But this is essentially the concept that the OP is (conveniently) missing.

In the cosmic scope, that should amount to a perpetually stubbed toe.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Are you referring to the time he spent here, or the scope of the universe?

If it's an issue of he time he spent here, then it's a non-issue. He still loves everyone, and so he still "suffers" in a way. If he really loved everyone, he wouldn't just be "happy" in heaven and completely forget about us.

If it's an issue of universal scope, then I'd say there's still consistency. The story happened (or was contrived) at a time when this world was the cosmos, and there was no notion of a wider universe.

So I think there's still consistency, and the OP's attempt to "poke holes" in the story hasn't really worked.

I would like to know what experience you base that assessment on if you don't mind.

originally posted by: daaskapital
Jesus didn't sacrifice himself for our sins, but he did sacrifice himself for his beliefs.

I think the sacrifice story was devised after Jesus died and never fulfilled the prophecies expected of the Jewish messiah. That's why Christians believe he will rise again and fulfill everything else. On the contrary, Jews believe that the messiah will be a human who fulfills the prophecies in their life, so they obviously discount Jesus.

It is a sound assumption that Jesus led his own sect of Judaism with its own beliefs - some of which may have been centered on him being the Jewish messiah. Add to this the fact that some scholars believe Jesus was an activist-type figure, and that is a recipe to get him nailed to a cross by the establishment.

He was a Jew with some distinctly different beliefs from his peers. He was a political and religious activist, which we can see in the bible. It's a safe bet that he died because of his own beliefs rather than some story about negating original sin and saving humanity through some divine sacrifice.

With all this said, Jesus was very much human and experienced the trials of life. It would have sucked being nailed to a cross, regardless of the reasons.

Yeah that is occams razor. Political and religious dissidents always get killed and yeah crucifying was the roman mode of choice.

a reply to: Ghost147

Willfully and volitionally volunteer to have yourself nailed to a cross then agree to bleed out for days before you find some scant measure of relief after someone stabs a spear through your side.

Endure all that agony just to make yourself an iconic figure who starts a religion and lives on for thousands of years in the minds of billions of people.

And accomplish all that knowing it would've been perfectly cool if instead of suffering for everyone you just stayed in heaven and chilled out enjoying yourself however you please.

Then you might understand why his actions constitute a sacrifice. Most folks today won't make themselves hit the gym three days a week. Dude took nails through his wrists and ankles then a spear in his side just so he could try super hard to convince people to stop being dicks to one another.

If you can't see the sacrifice inherent in that decision, yikes.

a reply to: Trachel

No. I'm not seeing a sacrifice. As many have stated before, knowing you're going to get hurt whilst also knowing you'll come back totally fine with no actual threat to you at all, and on top of that not even being a speck of time in the vastness of infinity is not a sacrifice. It's not even a blip on the radar.

Sure, from a human's perspective, it would be a great sacrifice. But, that's only because a human is mortal to begin with and really doesn't know what will or wont happen after death. However, that is not the case for Jesus. Jesus is a god, and as a god who is said to be omniscient, he knew what was going to happen before, during and after his 30ish years on Earth. He didn't need to fear anything because he knew he would go right back to where he came from unscathed.

The biggest issue, however, is time. Try to imagine infinity. Something that has always existed and always will be. Heck, try to even imagine 1 billion years. 30 years is nothing at all, and the time he actually did suffer for during the crucifixion was what? 6 hours?

No... Sorry, that is not a sacrifice what so ever. There is no threat present at all. There's a bit of shooting pain for 6 hours, and maybe a bit before then too. But in the fastness of 100 years, or 1000, years, or 1 million or billion years, and especially an infinite, never ending, never beginning existence. It amounts to absolutely nothing.

originally posted by: JackReyes
It is easy to be a skeptic. It takes courage and honesty and boldness, and humility, and truth, to believe what is true.

Skepticism is the reaction of the sane, when they hear insane stories...
Skepticism exists as long as poor or no evidence exist
Once the evidence is true and the truth is proved and undeniable these is no room for skepticism.

Furthermore truth doesn't need belief it is there for all to see!

Religious truth than needs belief, is not truth at all.. but a lie, manipulating your everyday life and holding you blinkered to the real world seeing only their ''undeniable truth'' in every day issues, which can't be proved but it has to be believed... or else...damnation and torture for eternity.

Is it just a coincidence that the bible is full of ''you have to believe without doubt'' paradigms like those you already quoted?

a reply to: Ghost147
Very well explained...
and interesting subject by the way.

a reply to: Dr1Akula

Thanks

Although it's turning out to be circular arguments it seems.