Dr Rick

The criticisms of the story of Jesus illustrate the irrationality and contradictions of Christian belief. They don't impugn gods; atheists don't believe in gods.

Rick

SanDiegoAtheist

LOL Radorth. You keep skipping around the question hoping that we won't notice.

I'll assume the following for the sake of argument (note, I don't believe in the inherent sinfulness of man, so it's simply assumed FOR THE ARGUMENT - I don't really believe any of it)

1) We are sinful

2) God, being all-just (by OUR definition, otherwise the word loses any meaning), cannot abide sin in his presence (or that sin needs to be paid for - either way works just fine)

3) God is all-merciful, and desires the best for us (again, something approaching 'best' by OUR definition...otherwise, 'best' to God could mean anything, and the word is meaningless)

NOW:

Radorth...the following questions are put to you:

1) HOW is it that JUSTICE is served by ANOTHER dying for MY sin? Just, being by OUR standards, not some 'God Justice' that we can't define - because if it's not JUST by OUR definition, I suggest you change your description of god to be "All-blitblat" because that makes just as much sense. Otherwise, you lay yourself wide open to the possibility that your God's definition of "Truth" is a "God Truth", which only bears a slight resemblence to OUR "Truth", and in fact, encompasses lying thru his teeth (because another dying to take MY punishment is, from a HUMAN definition of Justice, the OPPOSITE of "Just").

2) Assuming you can show #1 - WHY is it that GOD, being ALL POWERFUL, would be COMPELLED to sacrifice HIMSELF to 'cleanse' this sin. Being all-powerful, he SHOULD be able to just 'snap' his metaphorical fingers, and *BOOM* all forgiven. If sin can be forgiven vicariously and still be just (as the death of Jesus supposedly was doing), it can be forgiven vicariously by ANY means - that's what all-powerful means, after all.

3) Assuming you can show both the above, how is it that an all powerful being could not come up with a method of 'cleansing' which would not be quite so gruesome. As someone else mentioned, why not just plop down, march into the temple, and die by a heart attack?

4) In the unlikely situation that you can respond to the above 3 without resorting to special pleading or dodging the question, THEN we can can start demolishing your argument against 'brute force' methods of sin-prevention as described above. After all, you seem to be of the opinion that HEAVEN is SIN-FREE - now, exactly how can this come to be WITHOUT resorting to one of the 'brute force' methods you refer to above?

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

-RRH-

To be fair to Radorth, a few people here were remarking on some of the awful things allegedly perpetrated by God in the OT. I think it is valid that we try to stay on the topic of the awful things allegedly perpetrated by God in the NT.

winstonjen

Awww...but the OT has more books than the NT, so I think we're being fair with the ratio of evil deeds in the OT to the evil deeds in the NT.

As for good deeds from god, well...apart from the miracles, I'm coming up empty.

-RRH-

Oh, it's worth a shot. Quit being so cynical!

No, what's meaningless is trying to apply the concept of methods to an omnipotent being.

Does God need to stand on a ladder because he can't reach the top shelf? Does God need to pick up a pencil to create a drawing?

Then why should I come up with any story of "how" God would fix things?

Maybe this analogy will make clear what I'm trying to say.

Let's look at this scenario again, only with God replacing me.

This is one way God could do this. But God, being omnipotent, has choices available to him that I don't have.

Fair enough, right? God doesn't need to acquire food anywhere. He can just create it.

In fact, God can bypass the whole need for food.

Now, my question is this: Why did God not bypass the crucifixion of Jesus?

(To say, "Would you rather he wack people?" is missing the point. The wacking could be just as easily bypassed.)

-RRH-

And I was thinking of throwing a heaven reference in there, but The San Diego Atheist has got that covered.

winstonjen

Who'd want to go to heaven when you can sin in hell for eternity?

beyelzu

who wants to go to heaven and be surrounded by ignorant fundies?

beyelzu

we invented our own philosophy and called it religion and we invented our own god and called him zeus/odin/gilgamesh/christ/vishnu/whatever

then we examined those beliefs and found them lacking.

Dr Rick

The stories in the Bible, including his need to have someone tortured to death, are not consistent with the actions of a loving, omnipotent, omniscient god, iincluding. The contradictions don't make the Christian God awful; they make him a logical contradition which cannot exist as described in the Bible.

Rick