I don't get this "God gave his only son" thing. If Jesus died from this shitty earth and went to awesome heaven, how is that even a sacrifice?

moonflower · 1 year

i have never understood why Jesus had to die to ''save'' anyone from his own judgement and punishment

LordCrap · 1 year

"If we're all God's children, what's so special about Jesus?" - Jimmy Carr

peanuttoast · 1 year

I don't even get the concept of a "son". Did god procreate? OK, god sent "a version" of himself down - why is this a son?

Anyway back on topic- I think this is why Catholics focus on "The Passion" of the christ. It wasn't just that he died, it's the bloody ass-kicking he received which they emphasize (that's why so many people LOVED Mel Gibson's drawn-out snuff film).

But, i think you're right. This emphasis on the suffering before the death is to compensate for the theological contradiction that you point out.

saiyanate · 1 year

You have hit upon yet another fundamental contradiction in Christian theology. Since Jesus knew he would ascend to Heaven, was it really a sacrifice to let himself be crucified?

jeffp12 · 1 year

He died for your sins...except he came back to life three days later, and then ascended bodily into heaven. So Jesus died for your sins, but is still alive. It sounds like this was written by the guys that made Lost. I'm waiting for the smoke monster.

Besides, how can death be a major sacrifice in the first place? All human beings die, he just did something that all human beings do, but then he didn't stay dead. When my grandma died, she fucking stayed dead, so do I get absolved of at least a parking ticket for that?

So I've thought about what could be a great sacrifice, and here is what I came up with: Jesus is hanging on the cross, on the verge of death. God and Satan appear before him. God says that he can come with him to heaven, and live in blissful peace for all eternity, but humans will not be forgiven. Satan says that he can come with him to hell, and live in eternal torture and hellfire, and for this all humanity's sins will be forgiven. If Jesus were to choose to go with Satan, and spend every morning sucking Satan's massive scaley cock, getting raped by demons that fuck him where there aren't orifices, and thrown into pits of lava to cauterize those wounds shut, only to repeat this again and again for all eternity...then maybe I would consider that a sacrifice.

"Jesus died for your sins" doesn't have much of a ring to it. Billions of people have died, they don't count because they stay dead? But "Jesus swallowed for your sins." that's a fuckin sacrifice. You think cum in the eye stings? Try cum in the crown of thorn wounds.

SarcasticDouchebag · 1 year

Finally! a crack in the otherwise flawless logic that is Christianity!

rosconotorigina · 1 year

I always thought, if someone said I could go through great pain for a few days, but then I'd be perfectly happy forever and everybody else would have the opportunity to be perfectly happy forever that would hardly be a sacrifice. I'd have to be either a fool or an asshole to say no.

ENRICOs · 1 year

It's not. In essence God sacrificed himself to himself for himself....something like that.

JumpinJehosephat · 1 year

You just don't get the simple believable truth: God decided to knock up some Palestinian virgin who'd give birth to his son and who'd sacrifice his own life for mankind but who'd turn out to be God himself after all. What's so hard to understand?

Garage_Dragon · 1 year

The thing I don't get is how Jesus died a pretty gruesome death for everyone on earth. That's pretty cool, I guess. I've never really understood how a crucifixion is tied to someone else's sins, but whatever. Assume for the sake of argument that's exactly how it went down.

If that is true, then wouldn't a soldier jumping on a grenade to save his squad be many times nobler a sacrifice? I mean, it's one thing to give your life to save a billion people, but it's far greater to give your life to save five others.

ManIs5 · 1 year

Why didn't Frodo just have one of the giant eagles fly him to Mordor?

Dramatic tension.

jefuchs · 1 year

I say that all the time!!! Not only did he suffer for what... three days? He gets credit up the wazoo over people who suffer for decades. Not only that, he is guaranteed to go to heaven, no matter what. Shit, he's got his own set of keys. But people who really suffer still have to face the uncertainty of heaven or hell.

If god sacrificed his son for us, then why can't christians demand a full refund of their tithe money, and still claim to have sacrificed their cash? God didn't lose a thing in the deal. It's such a scam.

Stick · 1 year

God inconvenienced his only begotten son.

ExtraGravy · 1 year

If you die then you will resurrect and be a supreme being with unimaginable powers for all time... hmmm... what a sacrifice! I would choose short term pain for long term gain in this proportion every time. Most humans would.

GrandKittah · 1 year

When Jesus died on earth, he went to hell, and spent a couple of days there. The idea of hell is lesser so burny fire, but the absence of God.

The idea is that Jesus was free of sin, and did not deserve to go to hell.

Why hath thou forsaken me. = God leaving Jesus, and temporarily condemning him to hell.

He went to hell because he took the sins of all mankind upon himself.

God punishes, and judges based on motive, if Jesus never sinned nor had impure motives, then he did not deserve to be punished.

-Via a very christian upbringing.

newdog33 · 1 year

It dosn't make sense, it's not supposed to. It's ment to confuse you, to scare you, to get you to obey the masters. Religion is the original conspiracy. That's my theory. It's fucked up crazy shit for fucked up crazy people. Free yourself.

ddixonr · 1 year

"It's not the ultimate sacrifice if he didn't stay dead"

acteon29 · 1 year

The sacrifice would have been to come to our shitty earth.

The moral of christianity is more or less the following one:

1º) A god sent us his only son.

2º) As a welcome, we kill his son the worst manner. [facepalm]

3º) Despite having killed his ONLY SON, that powerful god still loves us. In other words: that love from that god to us must be REALLY BIG.

4º) THIS is how humans should love each other (as much as to keep loving others even if they killed you your only son)

Christianity is just an invented exemplifying or illustrating tale about how much should people love each other. It's a society-preserving folklore.

So the thing is not the height of reflections like yours (your reflection is not grasping what christianity really is).

arnedh · 1 year

What's more: Judas was the bigger guy.

Jesus got the torture, and then a place at God's side in Heaven - as decided by God.

Judas had to sin, be ostracized by his peers, hang himself and spend eternity in Hell - as decided by God.

macrumpton · 1 year

If Xtians really believed in heaven then every funeral would be a celebration like you have for somebody who got an awesome promotion.

iorgfeflkd · 1 year

Pretty much no aspect of that story makes sense.

MpVpRb · 1 year

It's a silly old legend from long ago.

The whole book is nothing but nonsense.

cynoclast · 1 year

Any time you try to analyze any religion using logic it falls right the fuck apart.

None of them stand up to mere rationality.

jindjur · 1 year

The logic is flawed to be sure. My understanding from this aspect of the Jesus story is to convince people it's ok to be afraid of death. Even god - when made into a human who knows he will go back to heaven - is scared of dying. Why this is important is only to relate to god on a personal level and feel more "god-like" despite one's mortal fears.

The sacrifice is said to be him having to experience the agony of torture and murder at the hands of vindictive assholes who believed they were acting according to the law. Teaching lessons right up to the end...

Which is all very nice but meaningless since it's a story concocted to persuade other pagans to join Paul's messianic cult. What's more fascinating that it works. It relates to a large swath of the population on a visceral level: People feel like gods with the control over their own decisions but are conflicted by the frustrations of powers beyond their control in the world at large.

Tap into that negative psychology, paint a convincing picture of how to overcome and congrats, you've just built a better mouse-trap.

djkalteraphine · 1 year

How is it a sacrifice? Because the Bible says it's a sacrifice.

Friends, you'll be a lot happier when you stop trying to use logic when dealing with people to live in lala land.

Crazycatlover · 1 year

Good question. It reminds me of CCD (Catholic Sunday School) growing up. Our teacher asked us something along the lines of "Would any of you be willing to sacrifice yourself for all of humanity?" I was seven and thought she wanted an honest answer so I said I thought I would. I got in so much trouble especially when I got half the class saying that it was for all of humanity, they probably would die a painful death. The question was supposed to just make us all feel bad about ourselves.

Also, Christains will probably point out that Jesus was in heaven before he came to earth and that he went to hell for...three whole days!

Finally, why couldn't God just forgive? I thought that was supposed to be his current forte.

teresamack · 1 year

Looking for consistency in the Bible is like looking for virgins in a brothel.

Seriously though, no ONE person wrote the Bible. If you think about it, it's only a collection of literature from different authors. The church (and Christians in general) tries to make it all fit into one ideology but for an objective, rational thinker that's just not a plausible feat. Putting aside the MULTITUDE of evidence that proves the Bible is nothing more than a story and cannot be taken as fact, even if someone decided to sit down and read the Bible literally the book contains too many contradictions to clearly point someone in the right direction in regards to history, morality, ideology, etc.

powercow · 1 year

only guy i knwo to have his son killed and got his son back.

not much of a sacrifice for sure.

kluenitou · 1 year

It's religion. It's not supposed to make sense.

Jawajoey · 1 year

That's something I've never understood about the whole concept.

Another thing: If Jesus being crucified paid for EVERYONE'S sins, then how come no one else's earthly suffering counts for anything? Thousands of people got crucified, and countless more have suffered worse, but apparently only Jesus' suffering counts? humans can and did go through the exact same torture as Jesus, but that doesn't get them out of going hell?

AgentLiquid · 1 year

"If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people"

Dazureus · 1 year

I'm not a believer, but I'm going to play one to further the conversation.

On the precognition of suffering and ascension: I don't think Jesus knew he was going to heaven. If I remember my attempted bible indoctrination properly, he had doubts in some garden the night before his arrest and crucifixion. He had doubt on the cross "why has thou forsaken me?". If I'm wrong, sorry, it has been a while. Remember, Jesus was still a mortal man. Death and pain was still scary stuff. Just because there's the expectation of reward, doesn't make the extreme pain of crucifixion and death all the more inviting. Would you still want untold monetary wealth for you and your generations to come if it meant cutting off both legs with a blunt spoon?

waynemr · 1 year

At a more fundamental level, if God is omnipotent and already knows everything that has and will happen, why does he need anyone to actually make a choice? I mean, he already knows what they are going to pick, right? So, wasn't the whole killing Jesus thing and presenting the falsehood of free choice a really huge dick-move?

And, if the free choice really does exist and God doesn't know what people will pick, that means God is not omnipotent. So, what else did he mess up or get wrong, or not know?

strained_brain · 1 year

The use of "sacrifice" to mean "selflessly good deed that has a negative effect on the subject" is the metaphoric use of the word. It originally - and until recently, considering - meant "offering to god." The other uses of the word grew out of the "offering to god" definition, and not vice versa. This wasn't a sacrifice in the heroic sense, or the noble sense, but as written it was sacrifice in the "offering to god" sense because that's what sacrifice means.

Now, the fact that he offered himself to himself (or his son to himself) is equally as odd. But your statement is simply incorrect.

sharked · 1 year

If Jesus had been sacrificed by getting thrown into hot lava, would Xtians be wearing Volcanos around their neck? hmmmmm....

xmod2 · 1 year

I may have more compassion if rather than dying after 3 days at 30, he lived to his 70s slowly dying of cancer.

[deleted] · 1 year

Some part of every Christian's brain realizes religion is a crock and there is no sky cake. That's why the death of a savior is a compelling story, because Christians don't really believe in sky cake, so a worldly death carries great weight with them.

There is a difference between believing and wanting to believe. Christians want to believe in fairy tales, but very few are so delusional that they rejoice when humans die, but rejoice is what they should do if they truly believe. There would be no sadness. There would only be joy in death.

Christians rationalize the discrepancy by saying they're sad because they miss the deceased person in their worldly life, but that's just one more lie they've been told and willingly accepted in order to keep the fairy tale alive.

gathly · 1 year

Well, according to medieval nutjobs like Mel Gibson, it was a very painful afternoon before he got into heaven.

Defektiv · 1 year

Because supposedly he had to suffer through hell to get there. But there's supposed to be no escape from hell. So there is really, but only if you're the son of God's who is actually himself. And all the winners of the spiritual lottery will be equal to God when its all over so someone throw the rest of us a fireproof rope.

Lameretardant · 1 year

It would only make sense if Jesus was now burning in hell for my sins.

wickedcold · 1 year

Living forever on earth to teach us how to get into heaven, while never being able to himself, now THAT would be a sacrifice.

oohay_email2004 · 1 year

Plus, it's immoral to think that by the torture and death of another person your personal responsibilities can be removed from you. See Christopher Hitchens for this argument.

RobotBuddha · 1 year

In Julia Sweeny's excellent story of her walk into atheism, she talks about her brothers painful struggle with cancer. And compares the years of agony he went through with Jesus, who had "a really bad weekend for our sins".

Which is pretty much how I look at it as well. There's just no contest between a lot of cancers and crucifixian. Especially when you consider Jesus had super powers. He was a fucking rock star with every benefit during his life. Forget heaven, that kind of death is worth it just to be able to change water to wine.

novagenesis · 1 year

The "had to die" part is hard to understand, but technically Jesus went to Hell. That was his sacrifice.

Of course, is it really a sacrifice to be locked up if you hold all the keys?

mattar · 1 year

also god and jesus are supposed to be the same thing, so try to figure that one one out.

[deleted] · 1 year

...wow, that's fucking weird. I just watched Igby Goes Down last night and he said the same fucking thing. @_@

esoteric_enigma · 1 year

It's not a sacrifice. I got in an argument with my Sunday school teacher about this when I was 10. I was like it's not a big deal that he died on the cross since if he was the son of god he knew 100% that he was going to heaven. I was like the true heroes are all the people who sacrifice on earth that could never be certain that a heaven exists or that they would be going there if it did.

epiyoo · 1 year

because being on earth to do God's good work is the best thing a human can experience, but don't be scared of dying because heaven is actually way better than earth. DUH

And don't ask me why that makes sense because, it goes without saying, circular logic is circular logic is circular.

zd91 · 1 year

God didn't give his only son just as much as Harry Potter didn't walk through the wall at a train station. They're stories, people just struggle to grasp that somehow.

mapoftasmania · 1 year

If Jesus was God's son, then God wins a Darwin Award for removing him from the gene pool before he could breed.

efrique · 1 year

He was back on earth a few days later, so how was the "leaving earth" part even a sacrifice?

And was was he saving us from, anyway? From god's punishment.

So god sacrifices his son, which is actually himself, for a few days to save us from himself.

Jesus spent a shitty weekend to save us all, went to a better place, came back and then ended up in the better place again. To save us from the punishment of god, which is himself. For which we're supposed to be extremely thankful, and if we're not, well, it's eternal fires for us.

Yay!

noseham · 1 year

It was just a huge publicity stunt, anyways. Dying on the cross MADE Jesus, and he didn't even have the commitment to stay dead! Pfff...

satereader · 1 year

Beats me. How could the life or death of a human form in any way be significant to an all-powerful creator of the cosmos?

HedonistRex · 1 year

FYI: Jesus (according to Christianity) went to Hell, not Heaven, between his death and resurrection.

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