Artemus

I mentioned this thread to my wife, and interestingly enough she said that the catholic church did teach of the connection between the old testament blood sacrifice and the new testament blood sacrifice of the "lamb of god". That rather surprised me. Regarding the question of sacrifice, the story was that the suffering was far worse for Christ than others who faced the same death because he felt the pain of every single sin for all eternity in that time. (She said that they laid on a lot of guilt at the time they said that.) As for why blood sacrifices were required for forgiveness of sin, well because we said so!

I really don't understand the catholic church. They accept much of New Testament scholarship (her Bible acknowledges the revision of the ending of Mark, that the gospels do not give day to day accounts of what happened, that the letters of Peter, James, and many of Paul were not really written by them), but still teach that their traditions are absolute fact. I don't understand how anyone with any integrity at all could rationalize that.

mike_decock

Like you said, they laid on a lot of guilt. It's an incredibly powerful way to control people. They teach that everyone is born a guilty sinner, in need of redemption.

-Mike...

gregor

Parsimony, folks

Option 1: An omniscient God divides himself (if you're an Arian) or always had multiple personality disorder, and sends himself to earth in order to hide his divinity and then suffer for three hours on the cross and then rise and return to himself in heaven. That three hours is some sacrifice - considering that he's a god, I'm sure his pain threshold is high.

Now, you folks accept this as a logical proof of my existence.

or

Option 2: An itinerate preacher was crucified for offending the Romans, and his followers need to explain how this could have happened.

Fast forward 40 years, one guy says "you know, I heard that he was crucified on passover" [although I wasn't even alive then to confirm this]

The next guy says "and it must have been a blood sacrifice, yeah, that's the ticket."

And the third guy says "and you know, he really didn't die, cause I heard that the tomb was empty."

And the forth guy says "hold on, let me write this down."

What is more likely?

No Quarter

When christians try to bring up the wonderful sacrifice that jesus made for us all I always bring this up...


Here is a REAL sacrifice:

An 18 year old kid with no SURE knowledge of any afterlife, with his whole life and dreams of his future ahead of him, jumps on an enemy handgrenade to save his 6 buddines from certain death.
The blast almost cuts him in two - he dies a painful death as he bleeds out on foreign soil far away from family and the comforts of home. His life is over, his dreams have died, his family is distraught, his buddies are alive to experience the rest of THEIR lives because of his single, unselfish action... It was a sacrifice without special demands or conditions in order for the 6 buddies to continue to live. He did not ask them to do ANYTHING or act in a particular way. He quite possibly did not even know or care what kind of people they were.
THAT is an unselfish sacrifice.

There are HUNDREDS of similar examples throughout the Medal Of Honor citations you can find and read about online.

What kind of fucking sacrifice is it to go through a little temporary pain and a little temporary excursion into hell if you KNOW FOR A FACT that you are heading right back to heaven for all eternity and get to enjoy your continued eternal godly type bullshit?

It is like Bill Gates being hailed as the greatest humanitarian in the history of the human race because he donated $1.00 to the red cross. It means NOTHING!!!! It is insignificant to him. It is insignificant when compared to the scope of truly selfless sacrifice that other's have made for other people out of true compassion and selfless giving.


NQ

Dargo

I bet the family of the kid that died doesn't tell his army friends that they need to continously praise the dead man every day for his sacrifice. I'm also willing to bet that the family doesn't decide that since our son died for you, your lives now belong to us. It was an unconditional sacrifice. Gratitude would be in order but not a lifetime of slavery to make up the debt.

Yahzi

Doesn't the Bible make this exact point when it discusses the rich and poor women washing Jesus' feet in oil?

Excellent post, NQ.

No Quarter

Yahzi,

Thank you! I have found that the analogy of a servicemember giving their life for others to be a real mouth-shutter for the typical loudmouth christian types. I know it does not change their minds, but it at least makes them leave me the hell alone


Dargo,

Good points! I'll have to add those little barbs to my rebuttal when faced with the diatribe of how marvelous jesus is. It will add an extra twist to the knife so to speak!


NQ

the_cave

I'm not sure about that...I've always gotten the impression that god experiences the suffering again and again...I admit this might be heterodox.

Besides, the serviceman is probably headed for heaven himself...

No Quarter

the_cave:

From whence do you get the impression that god experiences anything over and over again? From what do you get an impression that there is even a god - much less that he experiences anything at all that would make sense to us lowly life forms?

Here is a real kick in the nuts for you:
If the serviceman was not a good little christian, he went straight to hell even though he performed an act of complete selflessness - far and above what is even conceivable for your average human to do for his fellow man.

Of course, the coward that jumped over his friends to get out of the way and tried to only save himself was a good little christian, so he gets to go and have a circle jerk with god for all eternity when he finally dies.

So wonderfully, clearly fair and rational isn't it?


NQ

the_cave

Well, it's sometimes described as a sacrifice made in heaven, as well as on earth--in which case, it must be an eternal sacrifice.

Also Catholics have an interesting theology where the sacrifice happened only once, but it's brought back into the present again and again at Mass. No kidding.

Quote:

If the serviceman was not a good little christian, he went straight to hell even though he performed an act of complete selflessness.

[shrug]Maybe, maybe not. I myself don't make that judgment. I admit the more fundamentalist Christians will make that judgment. I myself doubt that's the case.