When I was a chrisitian, this was something I never understood. As a child I was always told that Jesus died so he could take away our sins. How exactly does that work? I just can't make the connection between his death and it thus relieves us of our sins.

It really just transfers the debt from “Death by God” to, “you owe Christ” and have to do what he says and dictates or you go back to the prior Death by God.

Works much the same way contract law works today. If you owe me a promissory note and I assign it to someone else, you now owe whatever they say you owe up to the full amount you owed the original holder of the note. They can accept less than full value (death) but can force you to pay up the full value at their desire.

That is the transfer part... of course adapted from mans handling of debt (God couldn't even come up with something original here either).

The sin part is that priest’s in the olden days hated to work and figured out that by telling the credulous that their sins could be forgiven by bring them cash... wait, the priest knew the poor and ignorant didn't have much cash so they used another type of asset back then, eatable animals, lambs, birds,rams, goats...side of barley and rice and a little wine. They would kill it, forgive the sinner, cook it then eat it as per the Biblical Law. They had backyard barbecue’s going night and day. It was one long buffet back then. Why do you think everything under the sun back then was a SIN? More barbecue's... Soon, the nation started making money... CASH, that's right, gold and silver and lots O' Cash. Of course, right away the never changing God, same yesterday and same tomorrow, changed his mind, and the 10% tithe slipped silently from 10% of the wheat etc., to 10% due and payable in cash. To make this change-over believable, they had to figure a way to make it seem that God didn't change his mind, after all... so they developed the Jesus blood switch trick, which substituted the blood offerings for the suicidal Jesus, it all came together so nicely. That millions fell for it and never figured out that if you FOLLOW THE MONEY you will find the reason for most things that don't make sense. Chistians make the mistake of following the blood when things don't make sense.

The monetary model is not doctrine, it's just an analogy used to explain doctrine.

There are three major doctrines that explain it. They are usually held as mutually exclusive.

1) propitation; that christ took God's wrath upon himself.

2) moral government; God's justice demanded that someone suffer for sins, and so christ took our place in a public exection.

Both of these models have problems. Both deserve more coverage than I'm giving them, and each is more defensable than I make them seem. I think they each contain aspects of the turth. Because the atonement is a mystical doctrine and something that has spiritual meaning which makes it difficult to represent analogially.

The third view, which I hold to, is the notion of solidarity. Major proponents of solidarity are D.E.H Whitely, the great Pauline shcolar from Oxford, and Jurgen Motlmann, the great German theologian.

This model is analogous to the political situation in central America a few years ago. Death squads funded by the government and the U.S. government as well were busy murdering union workers in Guatemeala. Ameircn human rights groups sent volonteers, mostly students to Guatemeala to escorte union workers on the theory that if they were killed the press covereage in America would be too bad and the funds would be cut off. Thousandas of uinonists were killed without escorts and it never made it on the evening news in the U.S. But with escorts, only two attepts were ever made and they were not successful.


So like the students, Jesus enters into solidarity with us. That is he is willing to identify so closely with our problems that he becomes one of us and is even willing to die as one of us. Sure enough, he dies as the lowest level of human society. Thus God has stated his level of sodlidarity, that it is absolute, he is willing to identify with us all the way. When we give our lives to Christ we return that committment, we pledge our solidarity to him. And that creates the grounds upon which God forgives our sins, because we are willing to be in solidarity with God as he is with us.

That may be analagous to the concept of covenant in the OT.

Metacrock, What"A"Crock

You had your Christian buddy start this thread so you could show up with your sheriff's badge of crock and spread the old news that Jesus committed suicide for our sins. I think my version is more to the truth than your Crock of Crap...may tastes good with the sweetener to some but hard to swallow for the rest of us... and still crap. Go back to your Bible Board to rotate out theology, we heathens aren't falling for such ignorant tactics.

[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited April 16, 2001).]

Trunks2, I hear your daddy calling back at the church, quick run back before you fall in league with the Devil hear at the infidel board. You can rotate out theology text on a Christian board, this is not the place for it.

By the way did you research that text in the Bible about Lot fudging his own daughters and getting the OK from God... every night until both got pregnant...how long would you have to cream two different little girls to get both pregnant, 2 months, 6 months, I sure some scientific type on this board would know what the percentage would be. Most young ones like that are more fertile. I wonder who cleaned up the dried sperm from the old mans penis? None of my girlfriends did, I had to the next morning… I guess Lot must have thought some homosexual had survived the fires and showed up every night to plaster him with sperm which he had to wash off the next morning. How else could he have explained it, unless he was cumming every night like water out of a fire hydrant. After the first one got pregnant, who did the old man figure got her knocked up if there where no other men around (as reported in the Bible)? This just get worse and worse, maybe you did everyone a favor by teaming up with MuchoCrock and starting this thread after all, I see it even more clearer now than before, you christians have helped me form yet another reason to reject your sick religion. Lot the "Sicko Mundo"! You have a grand example to follow. And have help our cause on this board with your dumb tactics.

By the way, Santa is not real either.

That last line may have been too much, sorry, there is a Santa and he loves you and will bring you a special gift on Christmas day. There... all better.


[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited April 16, 2001).]

Rest assured that he did not but told us to pick up our cross and follow him so that inasmuch as he died for the sins of his world we must die for the sins of our world.

While it is true that Jesus did not sin it is not true that there was no sin in his humanity which was incarnate upon him through his lineage of Joseph down to David.

Amos

But who cleaned Lot's nasty "johnson" each morning after the roll in the hay with his little girls?

I got it, maybe God made it disappear by magic, that's it... God Magic.

Sorry, forget every thing I pointed out in my earlier post, I was wrong. God must have gotten those two little girls pregnant just like Eve, and Mary.


[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited April 17, 2001).]

Another Christian conspirator joins the text rotation hour. Amos123, now that I know how high you can count, did it you read about the part in the Bible where Jesus is “suppose” to have been from the seed of David. But some how was an egg of Mary’s instead? The only seed came from God or some other artificial insemination trick that would be invented at a much later time.

According to the Bible, how is it that David’s seed ultimately got into Mary? Right, same magic trick used to get Lot’s little girls pregnant. God did it. And God must have done David’s mother too in order to stay consistent with how the Bible reads and make the claim that David’s seed followed down to Jesus. Man, this God of yours sure likes to play the field. Unless there is no God and just some human got these women pregnant the old fashion way. But that would bring up too many problems that the writers of the Bible would have a hard time explaining away. It’s so much easier to candy coat it than say the truth. Mary was screwing around on Joseph. I will hand it to Joseph that he must have really loved Mary to still marry her after she got pregnant with some other dude’s baby. But, you know that happens all the time. If DNA testing had been around back then, do you think Joe would have used it, just to see if Mary, like thousands and thousands of pregnant girls have done when that happened… LIED. Being a carpenter, he may not have, he didn’t seem to be to involved in his life, so I think he put up with it but rejected him as a son for the most part. This is what most likely lead Jesus to seek out the approval and acceptance of other men and never marry. He did pick up a fag hag named Mary M. along the way, and another one that washed his feet. Only a fag hag would do such a thing, Not that I disagree with being Gay, I think that every person should do what comes natural to him/her as this is determined before birth and most likely helped along by the Father rejection. I think Mary was way too close to him later in life… once he hit 30, no wife, close bond with mother, hanging with the boys, long walks in the garden in intimate talks with some hunks in sheets… Wow, I think I may respect this Jesus after all. He was the first Christian man to come out of the closet but was killed because he was seen kissing another man. This must have been what set the stage for so many Catholic priests having lived a secret gay life while denying the whole thing for century’s. I would not have a problem with the church just admitting the priesthood is mainly a sanctioned gay club and go on with life. No one in the Catholic Church has been fooled into thinking they where not Gay. Just be open, we freethinkers can accept gay people without any problems.

You xians have done such a wonderful job here of remaining pious, the Saints would be proud. Being pious means you're right all the time. The funny thing is that as strange as it may have sounded to you, everything in my posts can be as true and certainly has more facts to back it up than your faith in God. You won’t see it now… but wait a few years, when the reality of the Christian life sets in. You will be saying the same things I have said here and not fear that you will be on a plane trip to hell, after all, it is the truth hidden from christians as spoken of in 1 Cor 2:14, I got that special knowledge, who are you to deny it.


[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited April 17, 2001).]

Critical thinking made easy?

Not counting but reading skills tell me that Jesus was the reborn Joseph and Mary was the woman-ity of the carpenter called Joseph who was pregnant with dispair to the degree that he went to his prior state of existence to give an account of himself when rebirth took place.

Now you should explain to me what the difference is between your critical thinking and daydreaming.

Amos


[This message has been edited by Amos123 (edited April 17, 2001).]

So Joey was the Virgin that gave birth...OK, now that would work. Thanks for clearing my fuzzy understanding of sex in the Bible.

I knew I should have taken that rebirthing workshop that was around in the 80's.