MagiNoir

John 3:16 : "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Who was threatening the world and the believers? Can we infer from the John 3:16 that there was a bigger god (or goddess) than God the father to whom God had to make a sacrifice so He could save His world?
When you look at the story and include another deity the narrative makes a whole lot more sense.

JGL53

God sacrificed himself to himself.

Don't try to understand this. It was a miracle.

A really, really stupid miracle.

John Kesler

The Bible makes clear that Jesus was sacrificed to God:

If this verbiage sounds familiar, it should. Compare to Genesis 8:20-21a:

Bob K

In Xn theology, you are a sinner/piece of crap because Adam and Eve sinned, you are in need of salvation or you won't get to Heaven, you cannot save yourself, you can only be saved by a dying/rising savior-god, and, fortunately, a dying/rising savior-god is available as J = JC = God/Godman/Godghost = One-and-Only Dying/Rising Savior-God, and if you believe in J = JC = Etc., then you will be saved, by J = JC = Etc.

One of the problems herein is that God/Godman/Godghost supposedly saves sinners/pieces of crap by becoming J = JC = Godman = One-and-Only Dying/Rising Savior-God, and prays to himself/itself for guidance/strength/courage/etc., as if he/it does not have such or otherwise could not give himself/itself such as needed, and few rational minds can accept this premise.

Another problem is that few rational people who are parents will agree that their newborns are sinners/pieces of crap just for being born, yet Xn theology requires them to believe so.

Another problem results from natural morality:

The essence of the law is that no man should injure another; all the rest is commentary. Thomas Jefferson.

If injury is defined as threatening to cause, or actually causing, a loss of life, limb, liberty, and/or property, and innocent is defined as not intending to injure any other person who does not intend to injure any other persons, then Jefferson's essence of the law can be recast thus:

The essence of the law is that no man should be allowed to threaten to cause or actually cause a loss of life/limb/liberty/property to an innocent individual; all the rest of the law is commentary.

This Essence is therefore the basis for natural morality, and simply presents as a moral guideline the concept/principle that when an individual does not threaten to injure or actually injure another innocent individual, then he is acting morally and is therefore not a sinner to other individuals.

Here is more on Xn theology:

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/christiantheology.html

And here is more on natural morality:

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/naturalmorality.html

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/stndrdspsvss.html

HaysooChreesto!

I understand it all to mean that God/Jesus sacrificed Himself to Himself to save the world from Himself.

If you take some acid and squint really hard at one of those color pattern thingies, it begins to make sense.

gstafleu

Yup: humanity.

This whole sacrificing business started (in this particular religion) with animal sacrifices in Judaism. These sacrifices were supposed to mitigate something bad the believers had done. Now if you think for a moment: where does this idea that showering yourself in an orgy of blood spouting from an unfortunate animal (think Mel Gibson) come from?

Well, it comes from the idea of revenge among humans. Someone has done something bad to you: off with his head. Your enemy gets sacrificed to you, and all is well. For a moment, at least.

Sacrificing an animal to a deity is just a bigger and better version of this. Now in an effort to keep getting bigger and better, the biggest baddest sacrifice imaginable is of course sacrificing the deity itself. This will allow an endlessly continuing orgy of blood showers, without having to actually chop anything. Just pass the wine!

But now think back to the origin of the idea: an enemy was sacrificed to you. This, in its ultimate form, translates rather easily to: a god was sacrificed to you. So there really was no paradox of something being sacrificed to itself. God was neatly sacrificed to all of humanity (well, at least to all believers), and everybody lived happily, if slightly stickily, ever after.

Clivedurdle

The OP sounds very gnostic - maybe our local bad god was sacrificing to the true god?

pharoah

Aw, how God loves the smell of rotting,dead flesh in the morning! :Cheeky:

Clivedurdle

Roast Lamb of God with mint sauce, rosemary and garlic.

Black_Lotus

What Christians don't wanna cop out to is being bloody pagans with their multi-gods