Theological Rantings
What seems odd to me about Christianity is why one must believe 2000 year old stories to be true before God can accept you into heaven. Personally, I'm not accepting or rejecting Christ, I'm simply not believing he exists. The Bible, whether its true or false, contains stories that are really quite hard to believe, yet our eternal salvation seems dependent on it! A man’s level of skepticism seems to me a strange criteria for eternal life with God.
So Jesus, being eternal God, took the body of a man, was killed, brought back to life, ascended bodily into the stratosphere (where I assume he disintegrated) and resumed being majestic, eternal God. Where exactly is the sacrifice? Jesus never died, he was God before and he's God after. That earthly interlude must be like drops in the ocean for an eternal being. For God to truly give his only begotten Son how about actually killing him...as in ceasing to exist. Now that would be a sacrifice worth mentioning!
Since Jesus never really died, the tortured body he possessed seems important to God. How exactly would blood from that body bridge the gap between our sinfulness and God's holiness? If God is so holy how can spilling blood achieve anything? God seems unwilling or powerless to forgive unless something is killed. In the OT it was animals, in the NT it was Jesus. What sense does this make? So I can come to God in humility, love, and repentance, sincerely asking for forgiveness yet its all meaningless until blood is shed. If a man commits a crime against you and later seeks forgiveness would you tell him to go perform a blood sacrifice first? Where does forgiveness reside - in an external blood sacrifice or a sincere change of heart from the INSIDE? Someone once said, "clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will also be clean". The whole notion of blood sacrifice is something out of the dark ages.
So Jesus, being eternal God, took the body of a man, was killed, brought back to life, ascended bodily into the stratosphere (where I assume he disintegrated) and resumed being majestic, eternal God. Where exactly is the sacrifice? Jesus never died, he was God before and he's God after. That earthly interlude must be like drops in the ocean for an eternal being. For God to truly give his only begotten Son how about actually killing him...as in ceasing to exist. Now that would be a sacrifice worth mentioning!
Since Jesus never really died, the tortured body he possessed seems important to God. How exactly would blood from that body bridge the gap between our sinfulness and God's holiness? If God is so holy how can spilling blood achieve anything? God seems unwilling or powerless to forgive unless something is killed. In the OT it was animals, in the NT it was Jesus. What sense does this make? So I can come to God in humility, love, and repentance, sincerely asking for forgiveness yet its all meaningless until blood is shed. If a man commits a crime against you and later seeks forgiveness would you tell him to go perform a blood sacrifice first? Where does forgiveness reside - in an external blood sacrifice or a sincere change of heart from the INSIDE? Someone once said, "clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will also be clean". The whole notion of blood sacrifice is something out of the dark ages.
posted by R.K. at 12:37 AM
9 Comments:
I see you are the messenger of a new religion. If you could answer these questions for me, it would be much appreciated. I am looking for a new religion and maybe you have the answers that I am looking for.
1. What SHOULD the criteria be in our attaining eternal life with God?
2. Since Jesus' sacrifice doesn't make sense, can you tell me something that does make sense? I know I am not perfect and have this problem called guilt. How do I "appease" God if Jesus isn't the answer? Instead of those pointless sacrifices, how bout we believe that an orgie is sufficient in the building of our relationship with God? That sounds like more fun... who cares if it makes sense or not. Really, what does make sense these days in religion?
3. To say that something is "clean", gives an assumption that there is a perfect/holiness "out there." Why don't we just say that purity and goodness is just relative. Whatever you think is good and whatever makes you happy is sufficient. Lets not hold to any sort of absolutes. That would make this new religion a bit easier to explain.
3. Finally, RK, lets charge people lots of money to take part in our religion. You know that is the easiest way to make lots of money and have lots of power, don't you? (appart from owning a casino I suppose.)
I truly am,
Your devoted follower.
Interesting Post RK. You unknowingly hit a few nails on the head, and I have a few questions for you...
1. You said, "The Bible, whether its true or false, contains stories that are really quite hard to believe..."
I'm a Christian and I would take that statement even one step further and say that many of the stories in the Bible are actually impossible to believe.
2. You also said, "For God to truly give his only begotten Son how about actually killing him...as in ceasing to exist. "
Does death necessarily involve the cessation of existence? On what basis could you make such speculation? Have you ever died? Do you know anyone who's died and returned to report what happened? You seem to be making a HUGE assumption there. (Beyond that, every other religious system that I know of, short of certain small offshoots of Christianity, hold to the post-mortem existence of the soul.)
3. As for the blood sacrifice, that's part of the Old covenant law. Without blood there was no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). The whole role of blood and forgiveness is explained in the 8th through 10th chapters of the book of Hebrews.
But, here it is in philosophical/theological language. God is 'holy', which means "set apart", or "seperate". When 'holy' is used adjectivally in reference to God, it means he's "categorically seperate"...i.e. he's in a league of his own. Kinda like Micheal Jordan playing basketball against a can of soup...simply in a totally different class.
God's is 'holy' in all his attributes. He's 'holy' in his love, meaning his love is perfect and infinite; his love is pure; it's categorically set apart from all other, lesser, loves.
God is 'holy' in his wisdom. He's categorically set apart in his understanding of all things...he's smarter than all people of all time added and multiplied together...kinda like Kasperov playing chess with a stump. He's in a completely different category.
Among all his attributes, God is morally 'holy'; set apart and in a league of his own in his own moral perfection.
Now God is God and God is 'holy'. Because God is so amazing in all his attributes, he must tell the truth about himself. (He doesn't do it out of vanity though...a kid once said to me "it ain't braggin if it's the truth!".) Part of God's telling the truth about himself is the radiating forth of his holiness; he wants to share himself with others because he's SOOO awesome! (kinda like how when you eat something REALLY amazing, you cannot help but tell people "That was SO amazing!"...but infinitely more so)
Thing is, God cannot help but tell the truth about himself.
And that's where sin throws a monkey wrench into the equation.
Sin is, at it's very core, setting up anything OTHER than God AS God.
For example:
God created and provides for mankind. Deuteronomy 8:18 says that God gives us the ability to produce wealth. Psalm 24:1 says that God owns everything and in Exodus 20:15 says that God forbids theft.
SO, if we speak or act in such a way to reveal that we challenge God in any of these areas, we essentially declare that he's a liar.
If we're not thankful for wealth, we act as though we are the owns who produce our own wealth (which, according to Deuteronomy 8:18, isn't true.)
If we act as though something is OUR possession and horde it or refuse to share with people who may need it, we reveal that we don't really believe Psalm 24:1.
And if we steal, we reveal that we think our own moral law is higher than God's (which again isn't true).
AND...
Because God is infinite in his 'holiness', any infraction of that holiness is also infinite.
AND...
Seeing that God must tell the truth about himself, he must respond to our challenges in like fashion. He must give a resounding "I'm afraid you're wrong!" regarding our challenges of his Godliness.
SO...
God responds to challenges by 'backin it up'. If God were to respond to challenges to his holiness with anything but infinite, aggressive action, it would reveal that he would set something else above himself.
You see, being holy, God cannot have anything to do with anything or anyone who is also not holy. It's not that such things would 'corrupt' God, but to allow any sinful people to share have fellowship with him would be to compromise his own holiness and say "hey, I know you're sinful, but it's no big deal!" (regarding sin).
Sin is an infinitely big deal. For God to allow such to occur would be for him to elevate his love for someone ABOVE his love for himself...i.e. to deify someone other than himself. He can't do that!
So sin (a challenge of an infinitely perfect God) requires a punishment of death AND eternal, everlasting suffering in Hell (and infinite response to an infinite challenge).
For God to do anything less would be to declare his glory as "not a big deal". It's an infinitely big deal.
So, I'm sure I rambled on WAY to much, but I'm kinda high on Tylenol right now...(recently diagnosed with menopause...but don't worry; I sought a second opinion)
Does that help AT ALL?
Anonymous,
I see your capable of sarcasm, however, your woefully incapable of refuting a simple rant railing against your own apparent religion.
First of all, I'm not really sure why your asking an atheist what the criteria should be for some sort of perpetual existence with a hypothetical super being, or how you are suppose to appease him if Jesus isn't the answer.
As for your guilt, quit believing that an all seeing God is looking down on you with frowns and smiles and make up your own mind regarding right and wrong and I'm sure your guilt will lighten up 10 fold.
And lastly, you said, To say that something is "clean", gives an assumption that there is a perfect/holiness "out there."
Oh really. By your logic then, to say that someone is "horny", gives an assumption that there is a perfect/horniness "out there".
Thank you, come again.
Why can't there be a perfect 'horniness'? On what basis are you so confident?
Why can't imperfect horniness (aggressive, selfish sexual desire) be the corruption of perfect 'horniness' (passionate, selfless love)?
And you like to use logic, do you? Well, where in your atheist worldview does logic come from? How did logic evolve? What about language? Not languages, but language itself as an abstract...Where did the concept of thoughts correpsonding to sounds and pictures come from?
Better yet, where did the concept of 'concept' come from? Where, in a naturalistic atheistic worldview, do you find the fount of abstract concepts with no temporal/spatial correlation?
I mean, why can I talk about 'eternity' in a sentence, have people understand what I mean, and yet not be able to explain the concept when I really try? From where do abstract concepts like that come from?
I've met many a smart alec atheist, but I've never met one that could give any sort of coherent answer to those questions.
Armchair,
Actually there is a perfect 'something' out there. Its an ancient alien race that planted life on earth eons ago that will soon return to check on their experiment. Since I don't understand so many things about life, this seems the only plausible explanation, besides how else do you explain those pyramids, and crop circles, and all the documented cases of UFO's. Why can't this be the perfect "something"? On what basis are you so confident? (just a glimpse from my perspective)
Seriously though, I guess my answer to your questions is this: I don't know. Life is a mystery that we may never unravel but whose to say that 2000 years from now humanity will have answered another mountain of questions, just as we have answered all the basic questions about the nature of the universe that a man from the middle ages would ask. It amazes me that an intelligent person, when confronted with a lack of knowledge, will revert to unfounded beliefs in the spirit world.
Also, here's a response to your initial comments.
You said, "Does death necessarily involve the cessation of existence? Have you ever died? Do you know anyone who's died and returned to report what happened? You seem to be making a HUGE assumption there."
Your right, none of us can say 100% what happens after death. I guess from the xian perspective no one really dies, we just pass from one realm of existence to another, and call it death. But that’s exactly my point. Since Jesus is just passing through realms, what then is God giving up, or sacrificing, in order to bridge this HUGE gap between sinful man and holy God? Jesus experienced pain and humiliation, but certainly not a sacrificial death or anything of lasting consequence, indeed the opposite has occurred, he is now lifted up and glorified above every name! Since Jesus, his essence, was never sacrificed, what seemingly becomes important to God is the literal human body that was tortured and killed. That body somehow becomes the medium by which us filthy humans can have access to holy God. That is the gist of my argument.
Here's an analogy to better illustrate my point. Lets say, very hypothetically, my dad is God, I'm his only Son and ants are man. My Dad sends me down to be, live and die as an ant. This takes about an hour, ant lives are pretty short (hypothetical, I know). Now I'm back in my glorious human body ready to live another 35 years (hopefully). What a huge sacrifice my Dad made to give up his only begotten Son, that hour of suffering was pretty rough!
Christianity makes it sound like it was the ultimate sacrifice for God to give his Son to die for our sins, but it wasn’t. There really wasn’t a sacrifice at all, just a butchered human body.
You also said, “As for the blood sacrifice, that's part of the Old covenant law. Without blood there was no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22).”
I know its obvious, but blood sacrifice is a part of the NT law as well. Without the blood of Jesus’ human sacrifice there would still remain the problem of sin. The xian God required blood back then and requires blood today.
So, because of a bloodied human body that a deity possessed, and experienced that which every single one of us experience, death, even in equally torturous circumstances which millions have endured, like Jews in nazi concentration camps, this tortured body, this everyday occurrence has now given every Jesus believing rapist and murderer access to an infinitely holy God!?! (to end on a bit of a rant)
Your post stinks of irrelevance. I don't usually comment anonymously but I will because I don't think my name would matter.
Aliens? You're a transplantationist? You've GOT to be kidding me. If the Alien's are the 'perfect', that's not a solution dude; that only moves things back ONE step.
Where did THEY get things? Where did they get abstract concepts, language, thought? That is unbelievable.
You reject creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, self revealing triune God AND INSTEAD believe in aliens as "the only plausible explanation" on the basis of pyramids, crop circles and 'documented cases' of UFO's?
YOU say that I have UNFOUNDED beliefs in the spirit world but on the basis of pyramids, crop circles and 'documented cases' of UFO's you have a FOUNDED belief in aliens that created the world as a big experiment?
Let me answer YOUR questions:
1. I explain pyramids like every other historian I've EVER read (short of Daniel Jackson). The Pyramids were built by the ancient Egyptians, who did so as tombs for the pharoahs and testaments to their glory. As for all the 'amazing' math involved, and the engineering feets, I say "so what?". We're good at math and engineering now...why are we shocked that people could have been in the past? Beyond that, we have HISTORICAL RECORDS from the time of the pharoahs that talk about who built them, how (in a general sense) and for what purpose.
SO, for you to suggest an alternate theory for how the pyramids came to be, you have to go against both DOCUMENTED history and the consensus of the overwhelming majority of historians, BOTH secular and Christian. In fact, I challenge you to find a single person who has a CHAIR at any major university who believes that "aliens did it". Not some ding dong from Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, Alberta. Oh no. A faculty member of a history department of an accredited university. You up to it? I'd be interested to see a SHRED of solid evidence for that one.
2. Crop Circles? Well, I've watched specials on TLC where a few dozen organized engineering students , using 2x4's and rope, split up and made something like 30 crop circles all over the UK in one night. That's understandable. Bending corn stalks without breaking them is easily doable, if you have the right equipment and right technique. In fact, I've made crop circles myself. It's not that hard. I live in Saskatoon. if you live near me and you want too, we can go out one night and make crop circles. That would be fun.
3. 'Documented cases' of UFO's, eh? Now, what consists a 'Documented case'? A fuzzy picture? A story of some guy who was apparently flying and saw something? A video clip of some cigar shaped object in the sky? What are we talking about?
When I was in high school and college, I was definitely interested in UFO's. That was also a 'problem' to reconcile with my Christianity, so I took it quite seriously. Know what I think about UFO's?
i. They may be something top secret from the military. I mean, the US military retired the SR-71 in the 80's, they've been flying the F-117 since the late 70's, and it's fairly well known that they've been flying the 'Aurora' around at hypersonic speeds for over 10 years. What else do they have? Who knows. We may not know for 10-20 years either. Is it possible that they have planes that do mach 7 and sound weird and don't show up on the radar? Well, they've had that kind of stuff since the 60's. So that's incredibly possible and may explain some sightings.
ii. Could it be that some people are glory hounds and LIE about things in order to get on TV? God forbid, some airforce pilot or journalist THINKS he sees something, allows the story to get embelished and then convinces himself of some 'half-truth' turned 'no-truth' in order to make a few thousand dollars talking to tabloids and whatnot...Could that EVER happen? Uh, YES?!
iii. Some UFO encounters could be entirely demonic. In the past as I read a few books containing people's testimonies about their 'alien encounters', I was interested to notice how the 'abductees' always seemed to come back with a 'message' from the aliens. A large amount of abductees come back and have some sort of 'gospel' from the aliens to mankind, and it's usually things along the lines of "don't fight over religion so much; love one another" or "learn to be tolerant of all people" or something. Something innoculous and 'neutral', but almost always with a message of some sort. In fact, I cannot remember one that didn't.
SO, why would I say it's demonic? Well, simple. If the Bible is true and mankind is the pinnacle of creation, as the only creature that is in a seperate class from the 'beasts of the field and the birds of the air', then there's no other self-awared sentient life in all creation. SO, if there's no aliens, and the abductees come back with a 'spiritual' message, they've gotta be getting it from somewhere.
Seeing that God always continuously seeks to exhalt himself, and the alien message DON'T do that (you never hear an abductee say "The aliens told me to repent of my sin and place my belief in the person and work of Christ"), then the only alternative is something demonic.
WHAT? I sound crazy. Well, maybe. None the less, Satan is smart. If you're doing ANYTHING other than worshipping God, his mission is accomplished; you're NOT worshipping God. Satan most likley wouldn't care if you're worshipping aliens, Shirley McLaine, yourself or Satan himself. Distraction from the almighty is good enough, and form doesn't matter.
So, that's AN answer. Most likely one you'll hate, but an answer none the less.
Now I have a question: Why are you allowed to play the "I don't know" card and I'm not?
How come when I ask you the hard questions, you simply play the "the universe is a mystery" card, but I'm not allowed to have the same 'epistemic humility' regarding the mechanics of the death of Christ?
4. Regarding Christ? Well, Since Christ was simply a 'butchering of a human body', that makes it nothing special? Well, I'm not sure why his death would be 'no big deal'. I mean, he REALLY was human, not just divine (Hebrews 2:5-18 talks about this, among other passages). Jesus REALLY, ACTUALLY died. He died the most painful death imaginable. He did so as a man unjustly accused, being totally sinless.
Just because Jesus was dead for 3 days and then was raised back to life by God doesn't mean that he didn't ACTUALLY die. It just means that he ACTUALLY died and then was ACTUALLY raised back to life. A short death is just that; a SHORT death. A REAL death, but a shorter one than most.
And you said:
"So, because of a bloodied human body that a deity possessed, and experienced that which every single one of us experience, death, even in equally torturous circumstances which millions have endured, like Jews in nazi concentration camps, this tortured body, this everyday occurrence has now given every Jesus believing rapist and murderer access to an infinitely holy God!?!"
Well, YES! That's it! You just missed one LITTLE detail: Jesus' death wasn't OWED to him due to SIN. He was a righteous man who COULD have gone to Heaven on his OWN merit of being sinless...But instead, he died an underserved death.
So NOW, Christ's sinlessness can be IMPUTED to us, the sinful offenders. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
So, you're really close! With a few minor details clarified, I'd say you would have things down pat! So that blood from that body, that SINLESS body, that was shed for OUR sins, DOES in fact now give "every Jesus believing rapist and murderer access to an infinitely holy God". Yup. That's correct. More questions?
Wow, you totally misread what I was trying to say with alien creation. I was being sarcastic. I was attempting (and obviously failing) to show the absurdity of your beliefs by comparing it to something which I find just as bad (alien creators). My apologies, I did find your response rather entertaining though.
you went on to say, "Why are you allowed to play the "I don't know" card and I'm not? How come when I ask you the hard questions, you simply play the "the universe is a mystery" card, but I'm not allowed to have the same 'epistemic humility' regarding the mechanics of the death of Christ?"
I think the answer is obvious. The person making a claim is the one who needs to back it up. I'm not making any claims when I look around and have no explanation for life. It's perfectly legit for me to say life is a mystery. However, the moment I make a claim, like an ancient alien race, or a God created life on earth, I better have some solid answers, and when I have to revert to "I don't know, it's a mystery", that's when my theory breaks down and cocoons into a large grain of salt.
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