What’s the point of Jesus’ sacrifice?

Nice catch there.

My sins are bigger than your sins. Hah. You are the diet coke of sinners, so you only need a rabbit, but I need a whole man. Seriously? Who knows.

You’re never going to get anywhere with the Lord if you keep asking questions like this. You just have to love him, and know that he is Truth, and then you will know the truth. A Non

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of

the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body

Jesus Christ once for all. Here we are presented with several concepts: 1) Animal sacrifice was insuffient because it had to be offered over and over and they did not please God 2) These things were foreshadow of a more perfect way to come. 3) That Christ through his death offered his life once for sin, getting rid of the old economy of the scarifical system

and establishing the next (Christ Crucified. This certainly isn’t the first time we see foreshadowing in the Bible of things to come…the Tabernacle and the Church comes to mind as well as several other examples that I don’t have the space to go into at this time.

Jesus’ ‘sacrifice’ was to teach that there is no sacrifice. Without holding on to the illusion of guilt or sin, there is no death. So I’m told. It sounds good though and I like the thought.

It’s Hebrews 9 and 10. Really, as though no one had thought about this before! What could be more worthy of consideration? -Nathan

1) Animal sacrifice was insuffient because it had to be offered over and over and they did not please God. These passages make it pretty plain that this method is not only sufficient but will always be sufficient. 2) These things were foreshadow of a more perfect way to come. Calling something an ‘everlasting statue’ does not foreshadow that anything will come to replace it. 3) That Christ through his death offered his life once for sin, getting rid of the old economy of the scarifical system and establishing the next. So God changed His mind? What He once presented as sufficient for all eternity He then decided that, after many hundreds of years of this, it is not sufficient after all?

Returning to Hebrews, I think the relevant section actually starts in chapter 7. Verse 18: The former regulation is set aside bacause it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced by which we draw near to God. So the old covenant permitted an imperfect relationship with God, but Jesus permits a better, “perfect one.” Out of characters. More later?

Well, a little more immediately: if you just keep reading from there through chapters 7, 8, and 9, up to 10:18, most of the arguments you seem to be making are addressed. Hebrews is pretty cerebral, though, so everything bears a few minutes of thinking about. Unfortunately, this is not the forum for a protracted discussion, because of the character limit if for no other reason. -Nathan

Nathan I think the relevant chapters start at Chapter 1 and ends in Chapter 13 since the entire book focuses on how the Old was replace in a new a better way in Christ thus even the sacrificial offering. As to arguing with Athiest and ATB, that is always a worthless endeavor because they really aren’t listen for answers but rather just to argue a point. That will never be productive which explains why I do not bicker back and forth with them. I state what I think is right and leave it there. Neither of them would convert shy some miracle of God even if they saw Christ coming in the clouds they would still be doubters.

Well, you’re likely right that I’ll never bring them around to our beliefs, but I’m being more modest in my aims. All I really want is for them to concede that the first principles of religious belief cannot be rationally rejected and that, given those principles, religious belief is (or at least can be) internally rationally consistent. Our antagonists can be pretty intransigent, though. 🙂

BrotherJim – Your answers did not address the question at all. Rater, they merely re-stated what we already know you believe. Now if that isn’t a worthless endeavor I don’t know what is. As far as the New being a ‘better’ solution than the ‘Old’ this simply affirms what we’ve been saying all along – religion is a man made institution that evolves over time. Otherwise what you are suggestingis that God put into place an inferior solution first and only later realized that he needed to come up with something better (despite claiming that the original institution was good forever). So, you can either recognize this as a fiction or you have a God that is clearly not a perfect and infallible being. After all, perfect beings only need one testament to get it right.

Athiest, what did you expect me to say…something I don’t believe because it would be different. I never said it was better but a fulfillment of what God intended from the beginning in that man needed to be taught the old to understand the new. It really is quite easy to see if you aren’t so blinded by wanting to prove it wrong all the time. My point being also is that neither of you seekanything but the debate, not education, not understanding and certainly not seeking God in any way.

I perceive that you were trying to trap me, to get me to approve of this flag because his goals are the same as mine. But the truth is, it was wrong for this person to change the flag, just like it was wrong for the homosexuals to change it. Not to mention there are a number of grammatical errors with all the commas. The flag is the flag, and it represents everything that our troops…

…fight and die for.

But now, about this entry, the thing is there are two separate covenants in the Bible (between the Old and New Testament). There’s the first covenant, which was the Covenant that the Jews were under. They had to follow all 618 or so laws, and the priest had to make animal sacrifices to atone for their sins. But the thing is that Gentile believers and Jewish believers are still different.

A blood sacrifice must be offered to establish a covenant. Jesus was that blood sacrifice. His progressive revelation was that we now accept Jesus’ death on the cross and His blood washes away our sin, no more animal sacrifices needed. But also, His death on the cross established the new covenant.

“It really is quite easy to see if you aren’t so blinded by wanting to prove it wrong all the time.” It really is quite easy to see if it doesn’t have to make much sense. So, again, that doesn’t explain why God would initially claim it as an eternal statute if He intended all along to replace it. By the way, you did say better: “..the Old was replace in a new a better way in Christ”

In answer to the complaint about the foreverness of the Old Covenant, I don’t know what a theologian would say, but it seems to me that in light of Matthew 5:17, the Old Covenant isn’t invalidated, so you can’t claim that God has contradicted himself. As a mundane analogy, typewriters still work; word processors just work better. Not to compare Jesus to Microsoft Office. -Nathan

“In answer to the complaint about the foreverness of the Old Covenant, I don’t know what a theologian would say, but it seems to me that in light of Matthew 5:17, the Old Covenant isn’t invalidated, so you can’t claim that God has contradicted himself.” — Nathan Ok, so as far as the Jews were concerned, the Messiah that they were anxiously waiting for was completely unnecessary and redundant at best. The Messiah was a savior of convenience, not of necessity. Is this the response you’re going for?

The Jews rejected Christ. But first…when Christ was crucified, the law of the Old Testament passed away; Christ gave His life for everyone’s sins, and God no more had to deal individually with sinners. If one reads the Book of Acts with open ears instead of pre-sealed ones, it tells how on the Day of Pentacost, the Holy Spirit came upon the Apostles and they told all the people that had gathered from different countries, that Christ had died for our sins, was raised on the 3rd day, and now ruled from heaven, more or less. And those who believed were baptized for the remission of their sins. If one continues to read the Bible, one will learn that you must repent of your sins and try to be a Christian person. Hebrews plainly says one can fall from grace and NOT continue to be saved. God gave us the choice to either live FOR Him or AGAINST Him. OUR CHOICE. ..Saw this is REader’s Choice.

>”Christ gave His life for everyone’s sins, and God no more had to deal individually with sinners.” Why? Was it too much of a hassle for Him? And the Jews reject Jesus as the messiah because he falls short of the specifications described in the Tanakh. Jesus’ big fault was claiming to be of divine descent. Why should they then take scriptures about Jesus seriously?

To pamelot’s question, they don’t have to accept the Christian, or any, scripture; you either accept it or you don’t. But to the BUM’s comment, terms like “convenience” trivialize the issues. This isn’t Chinese take-out. The author of Hebrews opines that the Jews broke the Old Covenant, citing Jeremiah 31:32. Jesus perfects what mortal sins marred. But you believe it or you don’t, right? -Nathan

The LORD has come upon me with THIS message: Tell the bickerers that to be SAVED they need to take the juice of ONE virgin carrot and rub it all over their butts NOW. WOE unto him who fails to heed this message of HOPE and SALVATION!! WOE unto him who is so full of PRIDE that he rejects this message of the LORD!!

WOE unto him who dares to THINK about this message rather than BELIEVE and ACT with RIGHTEOUS HASTE!!!! Thus speaketh the LORD!

^^ The downside of letting anyone post a comment.

“But to the BUM’s comment, terms like “convenience” trivialize the issues.” – Nathan Jesus’ sacrifice is trivialized if the “Old Covenant isn’t invalidated” as you claimed. What did Jesus’ sacrifice achieve if not exactly what was achieved by what was accomplished in the Leviticus verses? Specifically: atonement and being clean before God? If nothing except the hassle of repeatedly doing animal sacrifices, then Jesus’ sacrifice was clearly not out of necessity, but out of convenience. “The author of Hebrews opines that the Jews broke the Old Covenant, citing Jeremiah 31:32.” – Nathan Ok. So you’ve quoted where God contradicts Himself. How is this supposed to be impressive to an atheist? When God contradicts Himself in the Bible, how do you decide which thing He says is correct? Do you just randomly pick? If “it shall be an everlasting statute” means “a statute that lasts for about a thousand years” — how long does “everlasting life” last?

You wrote so much, now I have to leave a whole slew of notes. Your first three lines all assume that I was kidding when I made the point about the broken covenant, which I wasn’t, so I’ll disregard those. They just restate points you already made and which I just addressed.

Then you contend that the breaking of the covenant causes God to contradict himself, but even a simple analogy to human behavior shows how unreasonable your position is. If you and I make an agreement that we agree is to be in force forever, and I violate it, are you still bound by its terms? Obviously not. Why should it be different with God?

The messages of religion are not really supposed to impress people who don’t hold religious beliefs, and indeed why should they? I am not trying to impress you; you posed a question, and I’m trying to answer it in good faith from a religious perspective. You are not the unwilling victim of my arguments.

As I have said, it is not apparent to me that any contradiction has occurred. The Old Covenant was made and, it seems, broken. A new covenant was established. There is no need to “pick” between conflicting versions of events (unless you want to accept the Old Testament and not the new, in which case you are Jewish, and I have no beef with you).

I suppose everlasting life would then last until such time as you violated the terms of your Celestial Lease, but there seems no reason to speculate that that would even be possible, so probably forever, if time can really be said to have any meaning outside of the material universe, which it probably can’t. See you there, I guess; then we’ll know.

“Then you contend that the breaking of the covenant causes God to contradict himself…” – Nathan I must be parsing your logic incorrectly somewhere. When you write: “it seems to me that in light of Matthew 5:17, the Old Covenant isn’t invalidated, so you can’t claim that God has contradicted himself.” 1. That means that you think the Old Covenant is still valid, right? <P> 2. And that, if the Old Covenant was invalid, I could claim that God contradicted Himself? And now you end up writing that the covenant is broken… so you think that the Old Covenant is broken but valid? Or you’ve changed your mind, and the Old Covenant is both broken and invalid BUT this does not mean that God is contradicting Himself?

Now, it’s interesting that you read God saying, “This is the way you should always and forever seek forgiveness for your sins.” To mean: “This is the way you should always and forever seek forgiveness for your sins… unless you… sin… “

Just to be clear…what is the exact language of this Old Testament Covenant that was broken and therefore supposedly invalid? Just looking again at the passages quoted in this entry, I do not see any conditions placed on this statue. God doesn’t say, this shall be your everlasting statue unless… correct?

OK, I should refine my use of Matthew 5:17 in light of this more specific discussion. The passage does not mention the Old Covenant entire, but rather refers only to the Mosaic law and concludes that it must still be followed.

What, then, is the law? Referencing Exodus 19:5, the law is intended as the means by which (and, in answer to “An Atheist,” serves as a condition under which) the Jewish people are set apart and become God’s “treasured possession.” It is not a law for all mankind.

The breaking of the Covenant is affirmed by Jeremiah, but as you rightly observe, the cause of the breaking cannot merely have been garden-variety sinning of the variety for which the prescriptions of Leviticus are intended to provide absolution.

The issue seems to have been more along the lines of what you would call apostasy: not sin within the context of Judaism, for which the means of absolution is provided, but a wholesale rejection of the faith. This view is borne out by the particular emphases of 2 Kings 17:7-17 and Jeremiah 11:9-10.

Clearly no sacrifice could atone for such rejection, especially since people who had rejected the faith probably would not be inclined to make the sacrifices it demanded. After the Babylonian exile that ensued, the Israelites recommitted themselves to obedience to the law (Nehemiah 10:28-29), and Jesus’ statement in Matthew that the law is still binding upon the Jews serves as affirmation.

The fate of the covenant writ large, however, is not clear (at least to me) as of the time of the rebuilding of the Temple. It might be natural to assume that the terms of the Old Covenant would simply be restored and that the Jewish people would remain God’s “treasured possession,” but Jeremiah specifically states that the new covenant is to be unlike the old (31:32) …

… and verses 36 and 37 affirm the continued existence of the Israelites as an identifiable group while remaining silent as to their enduring privileged status. From a Christian perspective, the New Covenant turns out to be the one established by Jesus, one in which people of Jewish extraction have no favored position.

So the law ends up enduring, as Jesus says, but since it was only originally intended to be the law of Israel specifically, Christians have generally held that their salvation lies in the message of the New Testament, which applies to all people equally (see the parable of the great banquet, Luke 14:15-24) …

… which is to say in the grace of God manifested in the sacrifice of Jesus as a forgiveness for sin, not in rigid obedience to the Mosaic law and animal sacrifices. Whew! Any way around the character limit?

“Any way around the character limit?” – Yeah, you can write your own entry! Nathan, What you cite here is just a small part of a whole history of rationalization after the fact. Yahweh’s covenant with David states that David’s descendent’s shall rule over Israel forever (2 Samuel 7). This covenant is made unconditionally. Yahweh does not list a single condition under which His covenant could be ‘repealed’ or revoked. Yet, that line of Kings ended with the Babylonian invasion and subsequent exile. Of course Jews had to deal with the cognitive dissonance of this unexpected situation. They prophecized that their messiah would return, restore the Davidic line of kings, and restore Israel – thereby restoring Yahweh’s covenant. No where in this general conception can be found the idea that this messiah would actually provide a new system of atonement and only promise a new kingdom ‘in heaven’ rather than on Earth.

Nevertheless, it suffices to say that the narrative history that Christians offer is quite strange, to say the least. You and them actually propose that the Creator of the Universe and everything in it choose a sub-set of humans as His ‘special chosen people’ and for hundreds of years only offered them a means of salvation. But, somewhere along the line, God had a change of heart and sacrificed Jesus to atone for everyone – at least those who believe this story. In both cases we find that God’s method of salvation involves the ancient and primitive notion that shedding sacrificial blood is appeasing to the gods or somehow compensates for other wrong doings. It’s grotesque and silly.

What you cite there is a small part of a long history of people refuting specific arguments with a combination of highly general points that are not really all that germane, specific points that are even less relevant, and culturally biased value judgments that amount to saying, “Well, not if I were God!” Tell me what you’ve got on the subject of the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice.

“Tell me what you’ve got on the subject of the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice.” – Nathan Trick question. If death is an illusion, as Christians want us to accept, then Jesus didn’t actually sacrifice anything. When a person goes from 1st century desert wanderer to eternal infinite bliss, that’s called an UPGRADE, not a sacrifice.

Oh, no you don’t. If Jesus is, as we believe, God incarnate, then God became mortal and was tortured and executed before being restored to his original godhood. Surely all that torture and death is a serious indignity for God to endure at the hands of men, a sacrifice whose meaning we could plausibly discuss.

“Surely all that torture and death is a serious indignity for God to endure at the hands of men” But that’s something god chose to do. If he thought it unworthy of him, then it’s his own fault for putting himself in the situation. And it’s not like it would have been a big surprise how cruelly he was treated, him supposedly being omniscient and all. How can you consider it a “sacrifice” that god did something simply because he decided to do it? Nobody forced him to, and to suggest humankind “caused” god do anything for us is a pretty snotty idea for us filthy humans to have.

Of course God’s sacrifice would be undertaken voluntarily. That’s pretty much what “sacrifice” means. The dictionary’s got my back here. No one is suggesting that humanity somehow forced God’s hand here, and indeed it is not clear via what mechanism people could achieve such a cosmic power play.

You wouldn’t call it a sacrifice if someone cuts off all his fingers even though he knows it’ll hurt. You certainly wouldn’t venerate him. Why venerate god for self-inflicted pain?

You’d venerate such a person if they cut off all their fingers to save your life, wouldn’t you? (Not that it’s clear how such a situation would arise, but whatever.) I mean, that would be totally heroic! It’s the Christian view (which I’m not asking you to accept) that God’s sacrifice saves all of our souls. Surely you can see why we’re stoked about it.

I don’t agree that adding those things adds to the morality of the Bible because if you really study the Bible you will realize that those things you mention are there.

“I don’t agree that adding those things adds to the morality of the Bible because if you really study the Bible you will realize that those things you mention are there.” – California Christian Well, I’ve made a claim, and you’ve made a counter claim. I claim that: 1. owning people as slaves is immoral. 2. free speech is a right that extends to everyone. 3. equal rightsfor women. Are not concepts that you can find in the Bible. You claim that they are there. I look forward to you picking even 1 of those concepts and providing a Bible verse that demonstrates this concept. I hope you can prove me wrong and I look forward to reading the Bible verse you cite.

The point of his sacrifice is to atone for our sin. Take our punishment, give us a new spirit. It is a gift that we may not boast of self righteousness or self redemption. Just saved by grace. No good works, just grace. Jesus had to die in a ever increasingly sinful world. Animals would no longer suffice. I don’t get the last part of this entry.

ryn-just a thought provoking picture

ryn- lol, job done so on my part

Nathan – “What you cite there is a small part of a long history of people refuting specific arguments with a combination of highly general points that are not really all that germane, specific points that are even less relevant, and culturally biased value judgments that amount to saying, ‘Well, not if I were God!’ Tell me what you’ve got on the subject of the purpose of Jesus’ sacrifice.”<P> What? So you are not going to directly address the points that I raised? I suppose not. As far as my ‘culturally biased value judgments’ go, I am simply trying to understand how you could honestly believe such a bizarre story. Really. It makes perfect sense as an artifact of ancient beliefs and superstitions, but not as the all wise methods of an all perfect creator god. Unless my standards for the behavior of perfect gods happens to much, much higher than your own.

By the way, I agree with BUM that a few hours of torture and death is not much of a sacrifice for an eternal God. So He sacrificed his infinite life in heaven for 33 years of relative discomfort. Once again we are back to this ancient and pitiful idea that bloodshed and agony somehow have redemptive qualities to them. That the only way to atone for misdeeds of others is to torture and kill an innocent victim. I suppose, then, that Jesus’ death would not have sufficed if the ancient Romans had executed their criminals via the painless method lethal injection.

Atheist – You said that my exegesis was a “rationalization after the fact,” by which I suppose you mean (literally) an “explanation of events that occurred in the past,” which is what I was going for. So thank you. Then you explained how Jesus fulfills God’s promise to David, which was good of you, but with which I have no real issue. So much for that. But that is not what this thread concerns.

As to the issue of belief, it is not my contention that belief (or for that matter unbelief) is or can be rational per se, but rather that each must be taken as a first principle and a system of values rationally constructed from it. Do you believe firmly in the fundamental wrongness of some actions? Where, one wonders, does that wrongness come from in YOUR belief system? Nowhere, or so I think.

Your “high” standard for the behavior of God seems to be nothing more than to ask what you would have done in such-and-such a situation, but your own views seem like a pretty arbitrary moral chin-up bar. What makes you “moral”? And getting crucified as a mortal man seems like a pretty good sacrifice to me; it looks like it would be awful. But we don’t need to agree about that.

“Do you believe firmly in the fundamental wrongness of some actions? Where, one wonders, does that wrongness come from in YOUR belief system? Nowhere, or so I think.” – Nathan What’s interesting to me, is that you insist that you randomly choose to believe in a God that finds something like murder wrong versus all of the possible Gods that find murder praiseworthy (for example). Andyou simultaneously want to claim that you have some kind of meaningful justification for this random choice — which seems contradictory at the very heart of the matter. If you need the Bible to tell you something as obvious as “owning people as slaves is immoral” — then you wouldn’t actually ever think that “owning people as slaves is immoral” because the Bible never says that.

I feel that my personal values are rationally consistent with my religious beliefs, and that if you accept that a God may exist, you have to acknowledge at least the possibility that it is my God, in light of the long history of scripture and belief (although I acknowledge that these prove nothing). Are there really gods that claim any murder is praiseworthy?

Why exactly, independent of a religious motive, would you feel that slavery is immoral? The vast majority of human societies historically haven’t. The religious argument: God commands certain actions, and could not command unjustly, so free will must exist. Because this is a divine endowment, it is not right to deprive another person of it if God does not demand it.

“I feel that my personal values are rationally consistent with my religious beliefs” That’s fine. A person can believe that the universe was created by 21 elves who then voted as a committee on the morality of all actions. He could say the same exact thing: “I feel that my personal values are rationally consistent with my religious beliefs…” That’s fine. If you want to claim that believing in your God and His set of morals is a “first principle” that is not based on rationality itself, I’ll let you claim it. You claiming to be as rational as a person who believes that elves created the universe is a fairly small request, and I’ll grant it to you. Congratulations, you both are equally rational. Although, I suspect you wish to be thought of as slightly more rational than this. “you have to acknowledge at least the possibility that it is my God” Yes. I’d say it’s exactly as possible as the elves, or Zeus, or Mithras, or Thor, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. “Are there really gods that claim any murder is praiseworthy?” I’m amazed that you even asked this! There’s an infinite list

Really? ANY murder? Like, they order you to go out and kill as many random people as possible until you’re brought down? Who? It’s not really relevant to the debate, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. And I will willingly acknowledge that the elf-guy (if he exists) has just as much real proof of his religion as I do. Why anyone would want to believe THAT, though, is beyond me.

“Why anyone would want to believe THAT, though, is beyond me.” So… having equal evidence between an infinite list of possible explanations, your criteria is: choose the one that you’d want to believe? Are you actually stating that your religious beliefs are based on wishful thinking, explicitly??? Wait. You said that you just chose one, randomly, so you didn’t choose based on anything. It was a first principle thing, so how could you even ask about the motivations of the person who thinks elves created the universe??? Ok, let’s begin the infinite list of gods that says murder is praiseworthy: the god that says literally any action a human can possibly make is praiseworthy, the twin-gods that created the universe together who claim the only moral action is murder; the 3 gods that voted, and “murder is praiseworthy” won 2 – 1. This list of possible gods is infinitely long, but I think I’ve demonstrated my point.

Well, no one FORCES you to hold any particular religious belief, right? So it is to some extent your choice, just like unbelief. We’re not breaking new ground here. That said, it seems like in practical terms, believing in the elves is no better than believing in nothing, unless you think you know the elves’ will. But if you believe your God is represented by scripture, then his will can be known.

I do not, however, acknowledge the validity of moral beliefs that contradict first principles, which I confess is my view of all atheistic moral assertions. (You never answered my question about the areligious immorality of slavery, btw.) A guess a murderer could believe in one of your murder-gods, but in my view atheism would be just as good for him, and maybe better. Any God is limiting.

Nathan – “You said that my exegesis was a “rationalization after the fact,’…which is what I was going for. So thank you.” What I said is that Jews and Christians have a long history of trying to explain, after the fact, why God’s eternal covenant was apparently broken. The Jews have their own explanations while Christians have tried making Jesus the explanation. But again, the covenant wasunconditional. No amount of explanation changes that fact. “Then you explained how Jesus fulfills God’s promise to David, which was good of you, but with which I have no real issue.” No. Jesus does not fulfill God’s promise to David or even the Jewish’s prophets promises of a messiah. Not the slightest. “Where, one wonders, does that wrongness come from in YOUR belief system? Nowhere, or so I think.” It doesn’t “come” from anywhere. It is a matter of debate. “Your “high” standard for the behavior of God seems to be nothing more than to ask what you would have done in such-and-such a situation” Absolutely not. I am just a human being. I am talking about what a perfect, all-wise, all-powerful, and all-knowing Creator-God of the Universe would most logically do.

“And getting crucified as a mortal man seems like a pretty good sacrifice to me; it looks like it would be awful.” For an actual mortal man, perhaps. But not for a god. And not even for a god who is also a man at the same time. But this is only a part of the issue. At the foundation of this is, again, the brutish idea that innocent blood must be spilled in order to ‘forgive’ the wrongdoings of others. And this is the only way God could conceive of handling such things. I will ask again: Would the ‘power’ of the sacrifice be any less if Jesus was put to death by lethal injection? Supposedly not. This is a barbaric and decidedly odd notion except in the context of ancient superstitions and beliefs.

As I said, I don’t think the covenant in Exodus is unconditional; it depends on the Hebrews continuing to acknowledge God as their (only) God and upholding the relationship that the law inaugurates. The promise to David does seem to be, as you said, unconditional, but then with Jesus, I don’t think that it’s been broken, either. Could you explain why Jesus doesn’t fulfill promise or prophecy?

We could only reasonably debate the morality of any particular action if we agreed on what, at its base, made actions moral or immoral, but I don’t think that your framework can support any particular contention as to what we ought to do when we act, broadly speaking. (Minimize suffering? Maximize entropy? How would you pick one?) How would you decide on an underlying moral principle?

Then you shift your standard from you own moral perception to you own logical judgment, but this doesn’t really resolve the issue. You’re not omniscient, so how would you know what it’s rational for an omniscient being to do? Then, abandoning this position, you again assert that shedding blood shouldn’t absolve anyone, holding God to your arbitrary moral standard. Surely God doesn’t abhor death.

I have no idea what the theological implication of Jesus’ death by lethal injection would be. On the other hand, I don’t see the point of speculating. The Romans didn’t have it. If you’re just asking whether it was Jesus’ extreme physical suffering that carried the property of redemption, I don’t know (not to say that no one does), but what happened happened, and here we are.

Nathan – The Davidic covenant stated that a descendant of David would rule over the Kingdom of Israel forever. This was broken with the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE. No question about that. Jewish prophets predicted that a descendant of David would return to restore the Kingdom of Israel, rule over it again, and vanquish all of Israel’s enemies. Jesus was not and did none of these things.

“..but I don’t think that your framework can support any particular contention as to what we ought to do when we act, broadly speaking.” Perhaps that is because I have not explained what my framework is, specifically, other than stating that morality is not absolute but a matter of rational debate.

“You’re not omniscient, so how would you know what it’s rational for an omniscient being to do? Then, abandoning this position, you again assert that shedding blood shouldn’t absolve anyone, holding God to your arbitrary moral standard.” Here is what I am saying: The concept of sacrificial atonement common to Judaism, Christianity, and other pagan cultures makes sense as an ancient superstitious belief about blood and blood sacrifice with a long history. It does not make any sense in the context of the actions of a perfect being. In your defense, you can offer nothing more than insisting that I cannot know the mysterious ways of omniscient beings. This does not absolve you from explaining why these are not just the ancient beliefs of more ignorant peoples.

An “offshoot of David” does rule over Israel forever, just not without interruption 🙂 You give the ancient interpretation of the prophecies here, but flipping through the major prophets, I don’t see any reason why Jesus can’t be their fulfillment and the interpretation, that is a powerful conventional king, have been mistaken. Prophecy’s tricky.

What I’m saying about the morality issue is that with your underlying assumption of atheism, no rational debate about the issue is really possible. Ultimately you just have to irrationally assign “good” or “bad” status to individual actions or to classes of actions, but nothing makes one system of assignation better or worse than another.

Certainly beliefs about sacrifice are the ancient beliefs of less-knowledgeable people. Whether they are ONLY that is a matter of religious faith. I don’t see what I could say that would prove that my religious convictions are accurate, but I’m not trying to compel you to accept them; I just want you to concede my right to accept them and acknowledge that notions of right and wrong depend on it.

“I don’t see what I could say that would prove that my religious convictions are accurate…” – Nathan Especially when you maintain that you randomly picked one god from an infinite list of possible gods to base your life around.

I don’t maintain that I randomly picked one, nor looking at my life in hindsight can there be discerned a moment when I became religious, but rather I’ve gradually come to hold my present views. No one forced me, but I guess you might call it a calling. Now are you going to answer me about the slavery/morality issue or what?

Sorry Nathan, I guess I should have said: “Especially when you maintain that you picked without any reason or justification one god from an infinite list of possible gods to base your life around.” I apologize if I mischaracterized how you chose the most important decision of your life in the previous note.

Much better! As I maintain, first principles cannot be rationally arrived at, so I count it as no criticism of mine to say that I have not rationally arrived at them. It’s the incompleteness theorem. Now come on, surely if, as you say, it should be obvious to a non-religious person that slavery is immoral, you can say why.

all right nathan, in case you check here instead of my diary contents page: I answered your question/challenged you in an entry 3 newer than this one (it has your name in the title of the entry).