alienrodeoclown

i would like to tell a fictional story to begin this thread.

once there was a guy named Susej. Susej was told that if, one day, he got tortured all afternoon and died that evening, all humans would be given the oppourtunity to escape eternal torment in pain-world and recieve eternal bliss happy-land. At first Susej doesnt know if this sounds like something he would want to do, and he feels that it is too big a sacrafice for him to make. Then susej is told that he gets to come back to life in three days. Susej realizes that one afternoon of torture and death is no biggie if he gets to comeback to life three days later, especially if he is, in effect, "saving" all of humanity. Then he is told that for those 3 days hes dead he gets to hang out in happy-land. (its sounding like a really good deal at this point) Then he is told that when he comes back to life he only has to hang around earth for a couple months then he gets to go back to happy-land for as long as he wants. (eventually he will have to leave so he can throw a bunch of demons into some pit, but after he does that its happy-land for eternity)

now i happen to know of a religion that believes that a man in the same position as Susej made the ULTIMATE SACRAFICE when he did this. In fact the whole religion is based on this belief.

now maybe its just me but it doesnt sound like Susej made a very big sacrafice. i even feel that there have been many humans that have made bigger sacrafices. in fact if i was told i could "save" humanity by doing this i'd be more than happy to.

How many of you think Susej made a big sacrafice? How many of you think that you would do this if you were in the same position as Susej? How many of you think that a religion based on the actions of Susej being a huge sacrafice, is compromised if these actions werent any such thing?

xaxxat

Susej had a bad weekend for my sake. I'm eternally grateful. To whom do I send the money?

jgibson000

If you wish us to take you seriously, you might wish to learn how to spell correctly the cultic act of which you speak. (sacrafice? )

And before you think you've scored any, let alone some salient, points with your little tale, you might first want to consult the whole panoply of attestions in Greek literature to how a person's death brings salvation to see if your insinuations about how absurd it was for early Christians to make claims about Jesus' death being salvific have any validity.

You will find such attestation at least once in Homer (Iliad 15.495-498 [cf.12.242-245], twice in Tyrtaeus (fr. 10.1-2, fr 12.22-34), once in Callinus (fr. 1.5-20), eight times in Isocrates (To Philip 135, [cf. 55,]; Against Lochites 20; Archidamus 93-94, 107; Panergyrics 75, 77, 83, 94-95 [cf. 62]; Panathenicus 185-186), at least twenty seven times in Euripides (Alcestis 18, 175, 280-300, 434 [cf. 472], 524, 620, 645-652, 682, 690, 698-705, 710, 1002; Helen 750; Heraclidae 500-510, 532, 545, 550; Hercules 578-582; The Phonecian Women 914, 969, 997-1018, 1054-1055, 1090; The Trojan Women 386-387; Erectheus Fr. 79.38f (360.32-42); Phrixis Fr.1-2+4.18; Iphigenia at Aulis 1543-1560), at least once in the various epitaphs written by Simonides (Lyrica Graeca 14. 129 [cf. 14.127, 129, 130]); once in Pindar (Fragment Dith. 78), once in Xenophon (On Hunting 1.14), at least three times in Plato (The Symposium 179.b [cf. 207.b]; 208.d; Menexenus 237a [cf. 243b, 246a]); four times in Lysias (Funeral Oration 68; Against Eratosthenes 78; On the Confiscation of the Property of the Brother of Nicias 68-69; Fragment 345.4 [Against Theozotides]), twice in Isaeus (On the Estate of Dicaeogenes 42, 46), four times in Demothsenes (Against Leptines 82; Funeral Speech 29; On the Crown 289 [cf. 204-205]; Against Aristogetion II.23), six times in Lycurgus (Against Leocrates 47-50, 82, 86, 88, 103-104, 107); three times in Hyperides (Demosthenes frg. 7.30; Funeral Oration 24-25, 35), twice in Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics 1169a[line19]; 1169a[line 25]), once in an epitaph written by Mnasaclas of Sicyon (Greek Anthology 7.242), twice in Polybius (Histories 6.24.9; 15.10); twice in Dionysius Harlicanansus (Antiquities of Rome 11.57.2; Rh. 6:4), twice in Diodorus of Sicily (8.12.8; 21.6.2 [cf. 15.52.4]); three times in Philo (On Husbandry 156.3; Abraham 179; The Special Laws 4.15 [cf. On the Change of Names 40]), at least eleven times in Plutarch (Corialanus 6:1-2; Aristedes 21.4; Cato Minor 5.2; Otho 15.4; Brutus 40.8-9; Phocion 17.3; Pericles 8.6; Tiberius Gracchus 9.5; Sayings of the Spartans 219.B, 222.A, 225.A, 238A; On the Fame of the Athenians 349.7), twice in 1 Macc. (1.50; 6:44), twice in 2 Macc. (7:37; 8:21); at least five times in 4 Macc (6:22, 27, 30; 11:14; 13:9)8, five times in Josephus (AJ 12.281, AJ 13.1, 6, 198-199; Ap 2.218-219), twice in Epictetus (Dis. 2.7.3; 4.1.154), three times in Cassius Dio (14.57.4; 53.8.3; 53.9.4), once in Polyaenus (Excerpta 14.8), once in Pseud Apollodorus (Library 1.106), once in Lucian (Cont. 10.17 [cf. My Native Land 12]); once in Hermogenes Tarsensis (Progymnasmata 7.44), once in (Pseudo) Aelius Aristides (Panathenaic Oration 132 [191D, 87]), once in Pausanius (Description of Greece 9.17.1), and several times in various inscriptions on Greek sepulchers (Epigrammata sepulcralia 19, 20, 406; Greek Anthology 7.245).

Jeffrey Gibson

Amaleq13

I thought the point of the story was that the alleged "ultimate sacrifice" really wasn't much of a sacrifice at all. :huh:




<heads up>This thread may be headed to GRD since it appears to be more appropriate for that venue.

alienrodeoclown

that was exactly my point. i thought i made that clear.

and i am sarry i mispelled a werd mr. gibson. and im deaply hert thet yoo dont take me seriously frum now on ile rite evry post in Word ferst so thet it can bee can spell chekt befor i submit it. just so you, mr. gibson, can misinterpret them "seriously".

Chris Weimer

This is BC&H, where Dr. Jeffrey Gibson, among others, would like to discuss these matters seriously. You were looking for GRD, down the street and to the right where all the bar fights take place.

alienrodeoclown

i have every intention of discussing this seriously, and im sorry that i somehow gave you the impression that i didnt.

to (hopefully) get this thread back on track:
"How many of you think Susej made a big sacrafice? How many of you think that you would do this if you were in the same position as Susej? How many of you think that a religion based on the actions of Susej being a huge sacrafice, is compromised if these actions werent any such thing?"

P.S. feel free to move the thread if you think the story of Susej is not biblically critical or historical. it seems biblically critical to me :huh:

Chris Weimer

Susej was never in the Bible, so I doubt it's relevant.

gstafleu

I think there are two points running through each other here, a BC&H point and a GRD point. The BC&H point is: would people of around the 1st century see JC's death as a sacrifice? I suspect Jeffrey's list intends to demonstrate that the answer to this is: Yes.

Then there is a GRD point: does JC's death in the modern view look like a sacrifice? The OP makes a reasonable case that the answer to this could be: No. How that affects BC&H I'm not sure.

Gerard Stafleu

alienrodeoclown

the story of Susej (jesus spelled backwards) is the same as the story of jesus' crucifiction. by puting the story outside the context of jesus. i was hoping the tale could be veiwed with less bias. for christians, when they see jesus in the story and its automatically good, right, and perfect or whatever. for atheists, when they see jesus in the story its automatically wrong, silly, bad or whatever. i was hoping that if people saw the story outside of the magical jesus man. it would be more apparent that whoever is in the story, whether it is jesus, Susej or whoever, it is not a story preforming a very big sacrifice and certainly not the ultimate sacrifice. Then i asked those questions at the end to find out if other people see this the same way i do, and i was hoping they could spark some serious, biblically critical, debate. even if someone doesnt feel like debating it, just by seeing this thread they could gain some understanding in respect to the fallacy of the christian faith.

im sorry that this isnt clear to some people.

edit: just saw gstafleu's post and i guess i agree