Edward

I am really surprised that no one has replied to the original question in this thread by reference to one of the funniest and most insightful essays on the Secular Web, which is to say Robert Price's short masterpiece on the topic "Damnable Syllogism"http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/damnable.html. As Price says the doctrine of the atonement only begins to make sense once you drop the requirement that it makes sense! The origin of Christianity as a world religion is universally traced to Paul, whose brilliant but tortured mind had to find a reason for why his hero (mythical or not) had been executed. He postulated that the death was a sacrifice to atone for sins. But whose sins? Obviously not Christ's for he was without sin ('was he? that's another can of worms'). So it must have been for the sins of the human race. But standard Judaism does not attribute unredeemable sinfulness to the whole of the human race of the kind that Paul had in mind. So Paul dreamed up the concept of original sin passed on 'genetically' from Adam and Eve, the original sinning pair, to all their descendants. Paul in effect invented the problem in order to be able to peddle the solution. There is much more about this in Pice's essay which I commend to any user of this site to read before going any further. Hope this helps. Price's essay certainly helped me during the two years it took to fully deprogram myself from nearly 20 years of evangelical xtianity.

Jesus' Genealogy


"And not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith."
1 Timothy 1:4 (NRS)


Most Christians are not learned in Jewish law, and are thus unaware of the triune (pardon the expression) nature of the genealogical problem associated with claiming Jesus as the Messiah. However, since the Christian claim is that Jesus is the JEWISH Messiah, then we must put the case under JEWISH scrutiny, and see if it fits under JEWISH law. The following is an examination of the genealogy of the man whom Christians call Lord and Savior.

Messiah is an anglicized version of the Hebrew word "Moshiach," which means "anointed." We call the future king the Messiah because all kings are anointed.

One of the simplest requirements for being the Messiah is the lineage. In the Jewish scriptures we see prophecies of a king from David's line sitting on the throne of Israel once more:

Jeremiah 30:7 Alas! for that day [is] great, so that none [is] like it: it [is] even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. [8] For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, [that] I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: [9] But they shall serve the LORD their G-d, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. (KJV)

go to http://members.nbci.com/mblevy/jesusgen.htm
to get rest of the refutation!

It's actually a very good sight to go through to get a Judaic perspective on the Jewish Messiah - which is after all how one should test the authenticity of a JEWISH Messiah!

Brighid

My humble apolgies to Trunk2k. You are right and I was wrong in calling you such a horrible name...."Christian", unlike God, I know you won't kill me for being wrong and sending me to hell forever.

Liana. you are right, his human origins were full of sin, but I think He may have been born with the "bloodguilt." Maybe. Anyway, He carried it all on the cross when He died.

Toto

This is indeed a masterpiece. Robert Price is one of my favorite religious commentators.

"But I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer was more to the point when he said Christianity survives by circling like a vulture, trying to make the healthy believe they're sick so they will buy the patent medicine we have to sell."

Yes he did and told us to follow him and do the same.

Amos, what exactly do you mean?

Sin is good because the laws were given to Moses to convict man of sin. The reason for this is that the cross of eternal salvation is for sinners only and "in seeking to be justified we must be proven to be be sinners" (Gal.2:17). We live under the law so we can be convicted wherefore a Christian that has been freed from the law cannot sin (1Jn.3:9) and if he clings to Jesus and the law he has already fallen from Gods favor (Gal.5:4) and as juxtaposed in Rev.14:6-12 with Rev.14:13).

I actually do not know what Catholics believe or are suposed to believe and I don't think I was ever a recovering Catholic (what is a recovering Catholic anyway? Did you not have confessionals to serve you as courage builders?).

Your kind of sin we learned about in grade 1.
Later we learned that sin is where the positive and the negative meet in the rout of creation. Yes, God is love and love is required to create things (love is from lief and requires our will to participate).

Amos

Freego, it is my opinion that it is just not good enough for us to say "thank you Jesus for dying on the cross for me" and imply that we now do not have to do this ourselves. I think that we must pick up our cross and follow him and if this includes as much as taking Jesus off the cross and place ourselves upon it, so be it.

This means that we must die to our own sins: "Happy now are the dead who die in the Lord! . . . Yes, they shall find rest from their labors, for their good works will accompany them." Rev.14:13


Amos

I agree Amos, I think you and all other xians should nail yourselves to a cross and follow Jesus to the other side. What choice do you have as christianos? According to the Bible, you are fucked if you don't, hanging around this forum (or the world) could make you slip in your faith and you would go to hell, but if you go ahead and kill youself like jesus, you know that tonight you will go to the big H. It is the safest, surest way to get in the Door. I use to be a xian then listen to enough argument and general life xperiance and BAM, I was an Athiest. Is that what you want to happen to you?

Do you really believe a God would push such a system on the world? If you are a xian, you do.