sakrilege

Hey, he was already offended by your being born human with Original Sin.

Rousseau_CHN

Silent,

it's not the sacrifice I want to comment on--a lot already has been said about virgins being sacrificed to cleanse humanity sins.

But on your insistence that it was the Roman who persecuted him and so on.

I do not like to cite biblical passages...but you'll find it somewhere that Pontius Pilate was very hesitant to condemn this man they called Jesus.

I think this was the famous "washing of hands".

It was the Jews who wanted Christ's blood. He (Christ) was no threat to the Roman Empire, but he was certainly a threat to the Church elders of Jerusalem.

Amos

I voted "yes" because Jesus died to the sins of his world and told us to follow him and do the same for the sins of our world.

Pilate looked at "the man" while the Jews looked at the "Jewish" identity of that man. On three occasions Pilate said "look at the Man" while the Jews could not see the man but only saw the sins of Judaism that he was burdened with (although without sin himself). Pilate was the rational head of state who needed to surrender his authority so religion can do its thing.

Edited to add: the protestant notion that Jesus died for their sin (so now they don't have to) is foolish and nothing more than an attractive convention for cowards.

Mageth

diana: GREAT post!

I vote for missus_gumby's answer.

One think I'd like to take issue with from the OP:

He was then persecuted by Roman officals and hung on a cross to die. Which he did. As the bible says he rose from his grave three days later and was seen by people.

If you believe Jesus was a Man-God as most Christians do, this is not exactly correct. The man died; the God did not, unless you think God can die. In any case, both man and God were up and about, better than ever, less than 40 hours later.

Bumble Bee Tuna

I think the sacrifice would make some form of sense if Jesus STAYED DEAD. He didn't, so it was pretty worthless. Also, he was God, so that makes no sense either.

Of course, even if he were merely God's son (however that works) and stayed dead, it still wouldn't make sense that God requires blood sacrifices to satisfy himself. But if we also assume God has some screws loose, it makes sense.

-B

Kilgore Trout

The biggest problem is that the sacrifice of Jesus was invalid under Hebrew god's law.
Christians say that blood sacrifice is the only way to forgive sins and if goats and bulls make good sacrifices, imagine what a great sacrifice a perfect god-man would make! The fallacy of that thinking is that blood sacrifices under the law were all done using kosher animals. A human or god-man is not kosher. Sacrificing a human is like sacrificing a pig. There are also specific requirements for how to carry out the sacrifice. None of these were followed in Jesus' case.

Jesus is also supposed to be the Passover lamb, but they were required to EAT the Passover lamb, so he doesn't fit that one either.

Things like that are what make "Jews for Jesus" a contradiction in terms.

EstherRose

A mother sees her child about to get hit by a car, runs into the street to save him and gets hit by the car instead. She spends a fews days in the hospital, heals up and goes home. Would you also say this wasn't a sacrifice she made? After all, she was good as new without any lasting harm.

I believe that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for my sins. By believing in Him and accepting him as my Lord and Saviour I have my sins forgiven. I don't really care if you call me a coward or say anything else negative about me, but I am curious why you specified protestants. Don't catholics believe Jesus died on the cross?

I seem to recall the whole communion thing where we eat a wafer representing Jesus' body and drink wine (grape juice in some denominations) representing his blood. That would seem to fit the Lamb of God notion.

Mageth

So that makes Christianity a human sacrifice and ritualistic cannibalism cult, I reckon. Sacrifice the human to appease the wrathful god, and then eat his flesh and drink his blood to impart his powers to you.

Sheesh, I thought we left such primitive practices behind sometimes around the dark ages (excluding some isolated tribal cultures).

Tell me, how is this any different than the Meso-American cultures' sacrificing humans to appease the gods? IIRC, the Aztecs (Mayans? never can remember) would sacrifice humans in their temples and then eat their hearts. Many other primitive cultures, including primitive European cultures, had similar barbaric practices.

What makes your blood sacrifice and cannibalism cult's practices any different, other than that it's now done symbolically rather than literally?

Pyrrho

Haven't you been paying attention to your neighbors? You haven't been living with the delusion that people are civilized, have you? If you give a savage a car and a computer, you still have a savage.


According to the official Catholic doctrine of "transubstantiation", during the Eucharist ceremony, the bread and wine LITERALLY change into the body and blood of Jesus, so good Catholics believe they are actual, rather than merely symbolic, cannibals. (Of course, many who call themselves "Catholics" don't know official Catholic doctrines, and actually have Protestant beliefs. Calling yourself something does not make you that something.)

Mageth

Haven't you been paying attention to your neighbors? You haven't been living with the delusion that people are civilized, have you? If you give a savage a car and a computer, you still have a savage.

I'll have to include some of my neighbors in "isolated tribal cultures", I guess.


According to the official Catholic doctrine of "transubstantiation", during the Eucharist ceremony, the bread and wine LITERALLY change into the body and blood of Jesus, so good Catholics believe they are actual, rather than merely symbolic, cannibals.

You're correct; I forgot about the transsubstantiation doctrine. Of course, in reality they are symbolically practicing cannibalism, as the wine and bread don't really change to blood and flesh.

IIRC, Catholics also believe something along the lines that Christ's sacrifice is a continuing thing rather than a once-for-all, so they apparently believe God must continually be appeased by sacrifice (I may be wrong on my understanding of that). Catholics are more similar to some of the Meso-American cultures in their sacrificial/cannibalistic rituals than I realized.

I recall reading about some Native American cultures which the Catholic missionaries tried to convert that were appalled by the apparently cannibalistic practices of the Eucharist.