That would have been a fun miracle, wouldn't it?

After all, he was supposed to be God, or at least 1/3 of God.

Ernest Sparks

You are missing the point of the story. God had to bleed in order to wash away the sins of the world. Only divine blood was good enough to do that. An ordinary Joe's blood was insufficient. The only way to accomplish this was to take on a human body with an ample blood supply. Hence, Jesus and the crucifixion. Why the blood price for sin? Is God suffering agony in the body of a man the same meaning as an ordinary man, who is not God, suffering?

Ernie


[This message has been edited by Ernest Sparks (edited February 17, 2001).]

I always wondered what the big deal about the sacrifice was.

He was basically God, so how much could the process have hurt? Plus, since he was omnipotent (etc), he knew he would be rising at the end anyway.

Simple answer to a simple question: Romans make really strong nails. Jesus was mortal, we know this because he died. Mortal people who have been flayed by Roman soldiers don't posses the strength to remove iron spikes from their wrists.

Old joke: Fellow walks by JC on the cross. "Hey pal, can I help you out?"
"Well, it would be nice if someone took these nails out of my hands."
"Alright."
Removes nails. Christ falls forward.
"The feet! The feet!"

http://www.iit.edu/~zehnaar

Another question: Jesus allegedy died to save billions of people from having to spend eternity in hell. Yet he only died for a weekend. How does this all add up?

So did Jesus die for athiest? It would seem to me like that is a waste.

Ask a universalist, a Calvanist and an Armenian who Christ died for and you will get 3 different answers.

Universalist: Jesus died for everyone, period. Everyone's going to heaven.

Armenian: Jesus died for everyone. But it only counts for those who take it by faith- that is their act of righteousness to secure the deal.

Calvanist: Jesus died for his elect, those chosen from before the Creation of the world(preknown but not pre-existent) His blood counted for everyone He meant it to before, and not for those who weren't predestined for life. This is probably the least popular position, because it seems so horribly unfair. But there are plenty of Bible passages that seem to suggest this quite strongly- although I've heard a number of Christians who reject this who say that they'd never worship a God who acted like that.



[This message has been edited by a_theistnotatheist (edited February 18, 2001).]

I am currently reading The Case for Faith. It goes on about how the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was the most horrible suffering that any person has ever suffered. I find that so laughable. There are so many other examples of suffering that make the Christ myth a day at the beach.

Ya know, we hear so much about Jesus' sacrifice when all he did was die unpleasantly (by his own choosing) and spend a short weekend in hell.

Some sacrifice. We should all be so lucky to be able to die in a manner of our own choosing. Plus, it would be much more convincing that Jesus really was making a sacrifice if he'd spend eternity in hell, which is where he should be if he's really paying for every sin ever committed by anybody.