While We Were Still Enemies, Jesus Died for Us

I appreciate your efforts. Yes it does make sense to separate things into the physical and metaphysical. The metaphysical can only be inferred, since it cannot be observed/tested directly. The only real tool we have for the metaphysical is logic, and that's what we can apply here. Morality is logical but its utility can be demonstrated in the physical world as well, for example. No god is required.

Some of your post falls back on experience and belief. I don't trust experience and belief, not my own nor others. In crime, we know that eyewitness testimony can be... often is... mistaken. People's perceptions can be warped in various ways. So I don't think we can get anywhere based upon experiences and beliefs - they are not shared and not reliable.

The inconsistency is this: If a god is all-powerful and benevolent, this god must operate in a logical and fair manner, or else internal consistency falls apart and you know one of the premises is false. Because of the way people are (which he could have done differently), this god allegedly found it necessary to separate people into damnation and salvation based upon their belief in Jesus sacrificing himself for them. What does it really say about somebody when they accept this about Jesus? One issue is cultural exposure. Somebody born in a muslim country is far less likely to think this way about Jesus, but it doesn't really say anything about their individual merit. Even in a christian area, what does accepting Jesus say about personal merit? Nothing at all. The ability to accept something without sufficient evidence or thought is not praiseworthy at all, let alone THE criteria for separating people into heaven and hell. And why would a god find it necessary to do this at all? Why would grace be reserved for those who have the cultural background and lack of skepticism? Skepticism is a good thing. It honestly comes across as narcissistic and insecure, needing validation from all the little people, just not things that an all-powerful benevolent god would be. Given how illogical it is, it is not consistent with a benevolent and all powerful god. Hell, the average parent does better than this in benevolence for their children (unconditional love, but not unconditional approval), let alone a perfect divine being. The best explanation is Christianity is made up by humans.

Animal sacrifices... also stupid. Why would an all powerful god care if we waste animal lives and resources, when that meat could have gone to help others or go on living? "giving up" something to atone, sure, but of all the stupid ways to do it. And it would be a great sacrifice for one with a small herd, and almost no sacrifice at all to one with a large herd. Illogical, wasteful, stupid.

 

Per the reigning theory of origins matter/energy came into existence as a result of the Big Bang.

 

do you think ours is the only universe?

Energy is ever-changing forms, even today

doesn't require a magic man to poof it all into existence, otherwise God needs a God and that God needs a God

 

ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE AT WORK: We’ve Never Found Anything Like the Solar System. Is It A Freak in Space?



'Thousands of new worlds have been added to a rapidly growing list of 'exoplanets' in the Milky Way galaxy.'

'One small detail stands out like a sore thumb. We've found nothing else out there like our own Solar System.'

'This has led some to conclude that our home star and its brood could be outliers in some way – perhaps the only planetary system of its kind.'

By extension, this could mean life itself is an outlier; that the conditions that formed Earth and its veneer of self-replicating chemistry are difficult to replicate.'

'By a large margin, the most numerous exoplanets we've identified to date are of a type not known to be conducive to life: giants and subgiants, of the gas and maybe ice variety.'

'Most exoplanets we've seen so far orbit their stars very closely, practically hugging them; so close that their sizzling temperatures would be much higher than the known habitability range.'

And yet, here we are.

https://youtube.com/shorts/JbbmkkdMMRs?feature=share
George Just Lucky, I guess!

 

Much of that is related to our methods for finding other worlds. We have looked at things like dimming of stars, and wobble of stars from planets, both of which favor finding larger planets closer to their star.

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/alien-worlds/ways-to-find-a-planet/

But certainly every system is unique, and conceivably many types of worlds could have life. Hard to judge since we have n=1 to work with.

 

If you are a god why would you have to feel pain?

 

For the record, I never asserted that Jesus is/was God nor have I ever subscribed to the Doctrine of the Trinity. What if Jesus was just a man, and if he was just a man, was his execution and suffering "much of a sacrifice"?

But to your question concerning an all-powerful God (or god), why not? As William of Ockham and other like-minded theologians believed, God can be and do whatever God wants to be and do. If God wants to be a donkey or wants to feel pain, what is to stop this all-powerful entity from being a donkey or feeling pain other than His/Her/Its own free will? Even the pagan gods of the Classical World were supposedly fond of cavorting with humans.

So, why would a God/god have to feel pain? My guess is to experience it, but I think it's more of a matter of God wanting to experience pain for some reason, not having to experience it. Who or what is forcing God to do anything? That's not terribly consistent with the concept of an all-powerful God, is it?

 

Great post, I especially liked :
""""But if it were true that people are so inherently sinful that they universally deserve damnation, then the fault would be with the creator either in how they crafted them, or in expecting too much. It would be like abandoning a dog for not doing calculus."""
...but it was all good...

 

We don't know? The goes religion, out the window.

 

Well, religion is based on faith...

 

Such a relief! Be sorry, Jess and Big Daddy let you off the hook. Not only that, but they help you cheat death. A hell of a bargain for 10% of your income.

 

Faith = wishful thinking?

 

so are you more old school?

Oldest bible ever found, seems to show the bible as is known today is not as it originally was

"1500 Year-Old Bible Found In Turkey Is Stirring Up Controversy About Christianity"

https://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news...Is-Stirring-Up-Controversy-About-Christianity


""Much to the dismay of the Vatican, an approx. 1500-2000 year old bible was found in Turkey, in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara. Discovered and kept secret in the year 2000, the book contains the Gospel of Barnabas – a disciple of Christ – which shows that Jesus was not crucified, nor was he the son of God, but a Prophet. The book also calls Apostle Paul "The Impostor". The book also claims that Jesus ascended to heaven alive, and that Judas Iscariot was crucified in his place."

 

Jesus was a Jewish Preacher. Nothing more. The rest is simply made up by Christianity. The interesting thing is that Jesus, as a Jewish child, from an early age had followed the teaching in Proverbs 22:6, and daily had learned the Tanakh. From the age of 5 through to 9 Jewish children learned the Torah, and then till 13, concentrated on the rest of the Tanakh. The child Jesus was a quick and inteeligent learner and in Jerusalem surprised the religious leaders with his knowledge. What appened in the next 17 years we don't know. My own view is that he was taken under the wing of a Jewish teacher (later to become Known as Rabbi's) and given further education. At the age of 30 (Jewish prime of life) he felt the call to minister to his own people to bring them back to Jahweh. The Pharisees had added so much trivial and completely irrelevant nonsense to their original supposed Mosaic teacher that the people had become bewildered and needed guidance. A study of his teaching against a study of the Tanakh shows he preaches Judaism. The Gospel writers - whoever they were - added their own teaching to his to make him divine.
If you study the religion of Judaism - from which Christianity is derived - we find one interesting fact. Jesus, a Jew, worshipped Jahweh as his 'father'. However, Yahweh in the history of Middle East religions, was a son of El. to whom was given the task of guiding Israel. So Jesus was a grandson of El. Whilst in the Babylonian exile the Jews had to chose between El. - who the other indigenous nations (there were no 10 tribes of Israel) in Palestine worshipped in a Temple at Shiloh - or continue to worship Jahweh in Jerusalem. They chose Yahweh and attrituted to him all the aspects of El.

 

... and nothing else...

 

Could be. This guy has never materialized in my yard and told me one way or the other



And speaking of faith/wishful thinking, I believe it was the Franciscan theologian and logician William of Ockham (of Ockham's Razor fame) and his Nominalist pals who declared that we cannot reach an understanding of God through Reason, and most particularly Ancient Greek Rationalism (a la Aristotle and Plato). To reach this "understanding" required faith/wishful thinking and revelation.

Goodbye Medieval Scholasticism. Hello applying Reason to Man and Nature, the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution....

 

You might want to read-up on your "Gospel of Barnabas":

It's really not difficult to detect the problems with this "gospel" at first glance. The similarity to the Islamic crucifixion narrative is an obvious red flag, as is the implausibility of any story that claims that the authorities who crucified Jesus would have made the mistake of executing the individual who was working with them.

A fabricated "gospel" that caused a fabricated "controversy about Christianity" and fabricated "dismay" in the Vatican. In other words, a mockery of a travesty of a sham....

 

The dogma is that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life..”

The reward for humans is that we shall not perish. Yet we do perish. If not perishing means that when we die (perish!) our spirit lives on then Jesus himself did not perish since we all know that the myth says he went on to be at God’s right hand after he was executed on the cross. If he did not give his life as the myth goes then the whole thing means nothing.

 

In my mind, the religious story would mean nothing if salvation and eternal life were unconditional, but that's not what the religious story says. The religious story says that salvation and eternal life are conditional, that one must have faith in Jesus (and God) and follow Jesus' teachings. Furthermore, if you believe in the Son of God thing, you would probably believe that Jesus lived forever anyway, so the story and Jesus' mission would still mean something. And I think one has to remember how he died - in an excruciatingly painful, humiliating and horrifying fashion, so the story would still retain meaning. If nothing else, the story tells us something about ourselves.

And what if we strip all the supernatural stuff away and dismiss all the talk of resurrection and eternal life - can the story still retain meaning? Of course, it can. There is not just Jesus to consider here but the people and the world around him, and how him and/or his story influenced both.

On the other hand, I've heard Christians contend that the story would mean nothing if you don't believe in God, the Son of God, eternal salvation and life, etc., etc., but I don't buy that, either. There are still things some people can take from the story without believing in all the miracles and supernatural stuff.

 

None of that is really what I am talking about

 

I think I understood what you were getting at. Perhaps, my response was not what you expected (?).

 

The ancient Israelites/Hebrews/Jews were big on animal scarifies. They made it the 4th Commandment. There were animal sacrifices made when Jesus was born.

 

That sounded harsh, sorry.

 

sometimes it takes more than faith

 

It's fun to watch everyone playing their roles here. Very realistic & dynamic atmosphere (as long as we believe it's real).