NO Unproved Blood Sacrifices!

originally posted by: Lightworth
a reply to: Awen24
ADDITION: And the crickets chirp, as expected, no response. It surely got quiet, and I have a feeling this will probably not be a popular thread, or to understate it...

...the crickets chirped because I had to go to work. Deep breaths.

Right. So your premise is "unproven sacrifice".
I'd categorize the death of Jesus Christ as anything but "unproven". Let me put it this way.

You can disagree with the ideologies of Christianity, but you'd struggle to put together a cohesive, viable argument against the historicity of the gospel accounts of the crucificion of Jesus Christ.

You can disagree with the Biblical conclusions about that event, but it seems very clear that Jesus Himself believed that He was the Son of God - and, furthermore, that He had come to die to take away the sins of the world.

Now, assuming those two points (and I feel I'm justified in assuming those things - so, simply: that Jesus died, and that Jesus believed He was to die for sinners), the death of Jesus Christ does not qualify as an "unproven sacrifice".

The difficulty you have here is that you're posing a question in entirely physical terms - as if the physical suffering of mankind were the worst possible end of man. That's simply not the picture that the Bible - nor other religions, for that matter - present. The fundamental problem of man is this: That God is good... and that we are not. A good God must judge sin in sinful man. This is a given, logically and ideologically. Let's say someone assaults you on the street, leaves you bruised and bloodied and unable to walk. Should you go before a judge, would you want that judge to forgive your attacker and let him walk without consequence? Of course not. A good judge - a righteous judge - must judge sin.

This, then, is mankind's great problem, and the source of our greatest suffering - that we, being sinful, cannot in any measure attain to the standard that God has set. The book of Romans says "for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God". Did you catch that? God's standard isn't 'goodness'. God's standard is His own glory. None of us live up. In essence, we deserve, and will receive, the righteous judgment of God. The Bible says that "God condemned sin in sinful man in order to be both just, and the justifier".

This isn't men dying to stop Hitler.
The Bible presents Jesus Christ as "the Lamb that was Slain from the Foundation of the World". Jesus Christ died, suffering under the wrath of God, and bearing the punishment due for sin that we had earned. Isaiah says that "it pleased God to crush Him and cause Him to suffer" - both because His death satisfied the justice required by law, and because His obedience to God the Father, His willingness to die, while we were still sinners, was pleasing to Him.

The death of Jesus Christ was the ULTIMATE sacrifice - because He died not for those who loved Him, not for those who wanted His sacrifice, or His friendship, or His love - but because He died for those who DESPISED Him. The Bible says this. "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ...but God shows His love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

originally posted by: borntowatch
I as a Christian just see this thread as another cap in hand member trying to earn a few flags and stars from all the atheists and agnostics who have become militant

Seriously, suggesting Christians put Christ on the cross, it was the Romans literally

originally posted by: Lightworthbut how much TRULY higher moral ground did they have when their own religion is ALSO based on unproved sacrifice?

The most evil that can be alleged at christians would be cannibalism, but then you would have to be a catholic to believe that, really its grape juice at communion, its not really blood, its metaphorical. In other words its not really blood, its to represent blood.

Talk of moral ground, christianity is based on belief that there is no moral ground for christians, thats why we turn to Christ.
You havnt put much thought into this have you

and then this

originally posted by: Lightworth
What purpose? To destroy Christianity and hopefully all religions?

Rants of a meglomaniac, Stalin had the same idea and so did mao and pol pot.

You are in the company of some very interesting people.

I read it a lot on these forums, people suggesting that others get some psychological help, seriously I have never said it but really.

Go get some unless this is just about stars and flags, then hey that's just sad

It really doesn't matter who put Jesus on the cross, the statement he gave to Potius Pilate was "you have no power over my life, I have the power to lay down my life and I have the power to pick it up again".

That's a pretty bold statement to make before the executioner. But it HAD to happen because it was the will of the Father.

It does not matter if it were the Romans or anyone else, the point is that Jesus laid His own life down, temporarily, to pick it back up again.

We should not be blaming anyone for that, because it HAD to happen. To keep blaming Romans and Jews, that's what led to hatred. No Jew put Him there, no Roman put Him there, it was the will of the Father alone.

And Jesus was in obedience, even to the cross. The last enemy to be defeated was death, there are no more enemies for Jesus, neither for those who have life in Him. And this is the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, neither the Romans nor the Jews were the enemies, death was, and death was defeated.

And I will say this, whatever happened to ancestors or ancestresses, for a person to have a good life now or to be thankful to be alive then whatever happened then HAD to happen for a person to be a person now. Good or bad, it had to happen. No matter how we want to look at the bad, we can say things then were bad, we can say the wars that brought us to where we are now, HAD to happen for us. So we should choose carefully what we do in this life to make it good for future generations. People live too much in the here and now, never considering the future people.

a reply to: Awen24

You can disagree with the ideologies of Christianity, but you'd struggle to put together a cohesive, viable argument against the historicity of the gospel accounts of the crucificion of Jesus Christ.

Oh please! Of course its unproven! You'd have to struggle to prove that Jesus of Nazareth ever even existed at all, let alone that he was some special sacrificial offering to cover the sins of the all the people of the world. There is zero evidence that Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, outside of the Bible.

a reply to: Awen24

Problem is that PROOF is far too commonly used interchangeably with mere belief or opinion. Proof is incontrovertible, unquestionable fact. Example is: There is proof that living organisms are comprised of cells, which comprise tissues, organs etc.

It should be clear that, on any official or politically powerful level, replacing one set of beliefs with another, all unproved, will never work, as in the various atheistic totalitarian regimes that another poster falsely accused me of being of the same mindset. The desire for truth/proof does not discount the validity of unexplained phenomena; much or most of it is not JUST unexplained and "end of story." It's too much of an UNPROVED stretch, however, to assert that the unexplained is the result of only the alleged monotheistic God (and presumably associated angels), or (of course) the alleged Satan and his demons, and NO ONE else in the entire infinite, incomprehensible universe or multiverse. There is MUCH more to the unexplained, or so I would gladly wager big if necessary and possible. To learn about and experience enough of the unexplained will or would require an end to the secrecy-based model of governments, all of them... But I digress a bit (again).

This argument comes up a lot - as if science is the only valid form of evidence.
That's simply not the case, and it certainly doesn't mean that something is unproven.

Types of evidence would include testimonial, eyewitness, genetic, digital, physical, documentary... I could go on and on, but there are numerous types of evidence that would constitute proof of a person's existence.

Now, when it comes to the historicity of Jesus, you'll find very few scholars that are willing to go against the overwhelming current of evidence that demonstrates that He did indeed exist. Now, I know it's a Wikipedia article, but this isn't a bad place to start in examining the historicity of Jesus Christ: en.wikipedia.org...

If I had to pull out a single quote, this would work:

"In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."

- Michael Grant, Jesus, 2004.


Now, if you want to talk about the unexplained, that's fine, we can do that - but don't make the mistake of thinking that the nature and function of God (as an idea, let's ignore Christianity for a moment) is a knee-jerk reaction to the unknown. That's simply not the case. In fact, you'll find an incredible body of testimony from scientists, theologians, explorers, writers, artists and practically every other person in the spectrum of humanity down through the ages that demonstrate that assumption to be false.

a reply to: Awen24

Serious scholars who thought that Jesus Christ, AKA Jesus of Nazareth, never existed and is a mythical character:

Constantin François Chassebœuf de Volney
Charles-François Dupuis
David Friedrich Strauss
Bruno Bauer
Godfrey Higgins
Kersey Graves
Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Tom Harpur
D.M. Murdock
Allard Pierson
Sytze Hoekstra
Samuel Adrian Naber.
Abraham Dirk Loman
Rudolf Steck.
Edwin Johnson
Rev. Robert Taylor
Richard Carlile
Joseph Klausner
Sir James George Frazer
John Mackinnon Robertson
George Robert Stowe Mead
Robert M. Price
John Eleazer Remsburg
Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews
Paul-Louis Couchoud
Bertrand Russell
John M. Allegro
Carl Ruck
George Albert Wells
Graham Stanton
Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Iosif Kryvelev
Alexander Jacob
Thomas L. Thompson
Thomas L. Brodie
Richard Carrier
Earl Doherty
Robert McNair Price

Just to name a few.................



Christ myth theory

originally posted by: Lightworth
a reply to: Awen24

I don't make any major judgments on any INDIVIDUALS, regardless of religion or lack of, without enough information, but please do elaborate on how the INSTITUTION of Christianity is somehow NOT based on unproved sacrifice as its central tenet/requirement.

ADDITION: And the crickets chirp, as expected, no response. It surely got quiet, and I have a feeling this will probably not be a popular thread, or to understate it...

Why should anyone show you proof? Are you special? What....? If someone does not PROVE it then what are you going to do? Fall down on the floor like a three year old and have a fit?

You sound like my four year old grandson.

Stop being lazy and find it yourself.

"SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND"

Now maybe that will take you your whole life.....maybe seconds before death or maybe not at all but no one here at ATS is your babysitter.

Should I explain how love looks like? Or maybe explain how air looks like?

You and others who demand proof of God's existence or of an afterlife can not be shown and/or explained to a non believer ....... it is an experience.

Keep demanding your PROOF and I will sit in the background and chuckle quietly........

Have you ever noticed that most Christians at this website do not even respond to this type of theme? A non believer opens up a new religious thread and wants to bash and belittle people of faith and those people you belittle actually ignore these types of threads; so who is it that responds? Other non believers. Now how funny is that!!

Good luck on your spiritual journey.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: Awen24

Serious scholars who thought that Jesus Christ, AKA Jesus of Nazareth, never existed and is a mythical character:

Constantin François Chassebœuf de Volney
Charles-François Dupuis
David Friedrich Strauss
Bruno Bauer
Godfrey Higgins
Kersey Graves
Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Tom Harpur
D.M. Murdock
Allard Pierson
Sytze Hoekstra
Samuel Adrian Naber.
Abraham Dirk Loman
Rudolf Steck.
Edwin Johnson
Rev. Robert Taylor
Richard Carlile
Joseph Klausner
Sir James George Frazer
John Mackinnon Robertson
George Robert Stowe Mead
Robert M. Price
John Eleazer Remsburg
Christian Heinrich Arthur Drews
Paul-Louis Couchoud
Bertrand Russell
John M. Allegro
Carl Ruck
George Albert Wells
Graham Stanton
Alvin Boyd Kuhn
Iosif Kryvelev
Alexander Jacob
Thomas L. Thompson
Thomas L. Brodie
Richard Carrier
Earl Doherty
Robert McNair Price

Just to name a few.................

Christ myth theory

In all that, you forgot the rabbis who have the actual documented evidence. The Jews do think so. They just don't believe He was the Messiah.

They kept records of the Sanhedrin courts.

Jesus' trial in Midrash and Talmud

And since Josephus' FATHER was in the Sanhedrin court that actually tried Jesus (Josephus was born only THREE after the crucifixion) I think that Josephus might just right considering several things, and we have been over this already....

Josephus' FATHER was in the Sanhedrin that tried Jesus.
Josephus' MOTHER was in the Hasmonean Dynasty, a cousin of Herod Antipas.
Even Pontius Pilate had been considered not real until they found the records.
The funeral box of Caiaphas has been found.
Theophilus was a real leader.

Every person mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels, Acts and the writings of Josephus, Midrash, Talmud, Seutonius and Tacitus all agree, they existed, really.

The people mentioned in the Book of Acts are Theophilus, Beatrice, Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Herodius, Philip the Tetrarch, Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas, Paul (known as Saulus by Josephus, a contemporary), Ananius, and the list goes on. Not only that, the Sanhedrin are mentioned in all accounts. Historically, this is proven in documents and archeology.

With such agreement among ALL sources Roman, Jewish and Christian, Jesus really did exist.

The Romans criticize Christianity, calling it a superstition (but NOT equating it with Mithraism nor Egyptian), their records say "One of OUR...." when referring by name to Pontius Pilate.

Josephus shows sympathy.

Midrash and Talmud show political reasons for the crucifixion in their records.

Even if you still do not think so, you still have to account for the beginning of Christianity, that Christianity was well-known to the Romans and Jews that they say began at that time. Christianity didn't just pop up in the fourth century, there is too much historical evidence of Christianity since that time.

So I suppose the question to you would be, how would Christianity start historically without the Christ that Christians are called by?

Since Polycarp, Christians have been talking about Jesus, since the first century. A century is only 100 years, and since Jesus was crucified in 33 AD, with Polycarp living at that time, Josephus born only three years later and all those Romans who threw the Christians to the lions sure must have believed there was a Jesus that the Christians were called by.

If Christians were called Christians BEFORE 70 AD, the fall of Jerusalem, then who were Christians named for?

God knows the past the present and the future. He knows everything as part of his divine plan. We were sin free until he decided to put the apple beside Adam n eve. He knew they would take it, they had now choice /free will as it was predetermined. He knew by doing this that he would one day need to impregnate a human, and sacrafice his child for the sins he created against our will. We were fallen before we were created and we're given no chance .

God sacraficed his own son for his choice. Does this not seem strange that a god is willing to sacrafice his son a couple of thousand years in advance. Jesus purpose was to die for his own fathers desire.
And why are our sins relevant, all would be forgiven anyway. Aren't we here to be tested on our geographical luckiness anyway?

a reply to: DeathSlayer

There's a difference between DEMANDING proof, as you falsely claim I'm doing, and pointing out that it DOESN'T EXIST, not the REAL deal of solid objectivity where (at least minimally intelligent) argument is not even possible. Again, too many people incorrectly claim "proof" when it's really opinion, belief. What is there to show for belief for the sake of belief only (at least effectively)? Where has it gotten us? How embroiled in the pathological have we become as a result of the (secrecy-based) policy of unproved beliefs over (actual) proof/truth, the cultist mentality? I simply desire -- whether or not it could ever happen -- a baseline, a starting point of enough honesty and humility to admit that no one REALLY knows what the flying *bleep* is going on concerning the bigger picture of the unknown-unrevealed.

And (again) I don't discount the apparent possibility of the existence of whatever type of Supreme Being, but refuse to accept the unproved proprietary-dogmatic requirements of the monotheistic tradition(s).

P.S.: Getting ready to go to work. Will check in later.

originally posted by: WarminIndy

It really doesn't matter who put Jesus on the cross, the statement he gave to Potius Pilate was "you have no power over my life, I have the power to lay down my life and I have the power to pick it up again".

That's a pretty bold statement to make before the executioner. But it HAD to happen because it was the will of the Father.

It does not matter if it were the Romans or anyone else, the point is that Jesus laid His own life down, temporarily, to pick it back up again.

We should not be blaming anyone for that, because it HAD to happen. To keep blaming Romans and Jews, that's what led to hatred. No Jew put Him there, no Roman put Him there, it was the will of the Father alone.

And Jesus was in obedience, even to the cross. The last enemy to be defeated was death, there are no more enemies for Jesus, neither for those who have life in Him. And this is the fundamental doctrine of Christianity, neither the Romans nor the Jews were the enemies, death was, and death was defeated.

And I will say this, whatever happened to ancestors or ancestresses, for a person to have a good life now or to be thankful to be alive then whatever happened then HAD to happen for a person to be a person now. Good or bad, it had to happen. No matter how we want to look at the bad, we can say things then were bad, we can say the wars that brought us to where we are now, HAD to happen for us. So we should choose carefully what we do in this life to make it good for future generations. People live too much in the here and now, never considering the future people.

I did choose the word "literally" deliberately

Humanity placed Christ on the cross.
My point was aimed at the death cult, blood cult allegations being leveled.

Cant feed theology to a stone or fling pearls to the mud

originally posted by: Lightworth
Christianity, is no different from the days when they threw children into volcanoes in order to "appease the gods," or most generously, definitely not different ENOUGH, basically the same thing.

Actually it's completely different. It's not about men sacrificing things to appease gods.

If anything Jesus pretty much spoke against religious sacrifice.

originally posted by: borntowatch
Humanity placed Christ on the cross.
My point was aimed at the death cult, blood cult allegations being leveled.

It was Romans and Jews doing this.

So what you are saying is that Roman and Jewish religions are death cults? Christians did not exist back then and have nothing to do with the Crucifixion.

Saying Christian remembering the Crucifixion mean they worship a sacrifice is exactly the same as saying the Jews going to Auschwitz for remembrance are celebrating concentration camps.

I have no idea why you can't see how it makes no sense (excepted if you are vehemently anti-religious and try everything to find flaws in a tradition you don't understand nor like).

a reply to: JUhrman

Jesus may have but your god sure as he'll didnt

a reply to: WarminIndy
Jesus crucified 33 AD? Am I the only person here that doesn't feel that's historically correct. Lol

originally posted by: rossacus
a reply to: JUhrman

Jesus may have but your god sure as he'll didnt

What is "my god" you speak about? I'm not religious.

The god of the OT? That's the god of the Jews. I think your understanding of religions is lacking

a reply to: JUhrman
Not lacking, I was referring to many statements about sacrafice e.g must sacrafice your first born (big one that 1). Jesus asked for many sacrafices from his followers, so we are both lacking then.

No one gonna pick up on 33AD then. Shame

.

originally posted by: rossacus
a reply to: JUhrman
Not lacking, I was referring to many statements about sacrafice e.g must sacrafice your first born (big one that 1). Jesus asked for many sacrafices from his followers, so we are both lacking then.

Which religion is asking people to sacrifice their first born? Are you sure we live in the same universe?

And as far as Jesus asking sacrifices from his followers, you do realize it's not literal sacrifices like offering dead animals to god? I mean people here are talking about Christian religion as a "death cult" so the least they could do is explain why it is a death cult despite Christian not having to perform actual sacrifices?