Hawkingfan

Also, out of all my "sins" I am supposed to feel oh so sorry for, I have not done something near as bad as arbitrarily kill an animal or a man.

Why would I do a bigger offence (kill something) in order to atone for my lesser ones?

Hawkingfan

Hawkingfan

I'm an idiot

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Hawkingfan,
I was going to respond to your post point-by-point but I think you really missed the entire meaning.

So I'm going to back up and take another run at it:


The purpose of sacrifice was...
A-that man would remember his sin
B-that man would understand the seriousness of his sin
C-that man would repent for his sin


Sacrifice was a reality check for man, not some arbitrary, mechanical prerequisite for God.



Does this clarify things?



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Mageth

Originally posted by Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas
Don't be sorry. Be thankful. It's horrible.

I have killed an animal up close and personal (we had chickens when I was young). It was one of the worst experiences of my life. The blood, the sound, the smell, the somber feeling of loss of life. It still haunts me today.

OK, so killing an animal up close and personal is hard for you. I can see that; it's true for many people. I've done it, and personally I can think of a lot worse experiences. I don't particularly enjoy killing an animal, but I can do it without revulsion if necessary (e.g. killing a chicken to eat). The more you do it, the more used to it you get.

This is exactly why God had man do this in atonement for his sin...because it was a sad, painful, morbid experience to go through. Hang on...it gets worse.

That doesn't mean it is for everyone, specifically pastoral types for which such killing is a daily part of their lives. So if someone didn't feel that way about killing an animal, would their sins be forgiven or not?

Actually, the bible indicates god set up the sacrificial atonement because blood is a symbol of life, and god dictated that blood (life) must be shed for the remission of sin (see Lev. 17, which I quote from below). As far as I know, nowhere in the bible is the "sad, painful, morbid experience" bit mentioned as a requirement for remission of sins - but the necessity of blood (life, or the loss thereof) as payment for or remission of sin is, in several places.

When God gave this law to the Hebrew nation through Moses, He decreed that it should be done in the presence of the Levi priests in the tabernacle. Let me spell out what this means:

You have committed a sin. To atone for this sin by law you have to go out to your stable and choose a new/first born calf or lamb. Then you have to walk from your tent to your tabernacle. Often times, depending on how young the poor animal was you had to carry it. So you go to the center of the tribe. There is a huge line. You have to wait there, in the heat, with this young lamb, knowing you were going to kill it.

So your number is up and you go up to the alter where a priest (with a knife) is waiting for you. Slow death? Oh no...not at all. We are going to slit this young animals throat. It will bleed to death. Oh wait...it gets better.

Part of the atonement for your sins Mag and Hawkingfan...is to place your hands on this babe...while the priest is slitting its throat. You place both of your hands on it. The priest brings the knife up to the lambs neck. The animal is scared and starts to bolt...you have to hold it there. Knife goes in and across. The lamb moans. You hear the gurgling of blood. You hold your hands on this poor thing until it bleeds to death and stops moving.

This poor, innocent animal is bleeding to death because of something you did. This young animal was completely blameless...the only reason this animal was dying was because of your sin. And your conscious bears the weight of this witness...had you not sinned this innocent yearling would not have to die.

Sin my friends, was not to be taken lightly. It is a horrible thing and by law you had to pay the price. You had to pay the price in the time it took to atone for your sins (the entire round trip could easily take an entire day), you had to pay the price financially (a new calf or lamb was a fair amount of currency) and worst of all you had to be present and attached to this animal as it was bleeding to death for your transgressions.

A very emotional way to put it, I admit, but for the most part without biblical support that I know of. Got any?

God specifically chose this process so that man would not forget the seriousness of his sin. This is why Hebrews 9:22 says
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Because without shedding of blood...there is no repentance...and with no repentance there is no forgiveness.

Yes, as I said, god (or, rather, the authors of the bible) set it up so that without shedding of blood (a sacrifice), there is no forgiveness.

The way to look at it: sin requires death. "The wages of sin is death", the bible says. Jesus' death paid for our sins (God required payment, or death, for sins - there's no easy out). My point all along, and what Hebrews 9:22, among other scriptures, clearly indicates. Here's some more:

Rev. 1:5 (NIV): "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood"

Rev. 5:9 (KJV) And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

Romans 4:25 (KJV) Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Romans 5:9-10 (KJV) Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (read this whole chapter)

Heb. 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Col 1:14-20 (KJV) (skipping parts) In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the forgiveness of sins: ... For it pleased [the Father] that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, [I say], whether [they be] things in earth, or things in heaven.

And now the punchline: Sacrifice was, is and always will be for the benefit of man...not God.

OK, the sacrifice was for the benefit of humankind, I can't argue that. But sacrifice is the only way to redeem man to god (see above). God requires death for sin. That's the way god (or, rather, the authors of the bible) set the system up - sacrifice (death) is required by god for sin, for the benefit of man. As Romans 5 says, we wre justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him, and we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. For man's benefit, but a necessary, god-ordained sacrifice for justification, saving from wrath, and reconciliation.

It has nothing to do with jumping through some hoop so God will start forgiving sins. Sheesh.

It has everything to do with the clear biblical principle that god requires death for sin. In no place does the bible indicate that god lets anybody off the hook for sin without death - either their own or a worthy sacrifice. The god of the bible will not, indeed cannot, forgive any man's sins unless someone or something dies in his place for the remission of sins. The bible couldn't be any clearer.

Read Leviticus 17. Here's 5-11, skipping a few verses:

To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest, and offer them for peace offerings unto the LORD. [so it's not for god's sake? Not jumping through hoops?] And the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the LORD. [sounds like it's pleasing god to me]...For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. [so god indeed set it up this way, it seems]

It has everything to do with man remembering his sin, taking it seriously and repenting for it.

This is exactly why Jesus died. Not for God, but for man. That man would remember his sin, take it seriously and repent for it.

From Leviticus 17: For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

From Colossians 1: For it pleased [the Father] that in him should all fulness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself.

From Revelation 5: and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.

And you say it's not for god in light of these and other scriptures? Yes, it was "for" man, but in god's system, it was required by god.

The scripture plainly says, to me, that Jesus' sacrifice was necessary because God required blood to be shed (e.g. death) when there was sin. No sacrifice, no atonement. I don't see how the scripture could be any clearer.

God could have very easily forgiven all mans sins (and did). But this would not have represented the pain, the suffering, the seriousness of mans situation. It would not have illustrated how important man was to God or the price He was willing to pay to be reconciled with him. It would not have illustrated the love the God has for each and everyone of us...as if we were nothing more than a flippant passing thought in God's mind that He could just dismiss.

Bottom line is, in Genisis, god said "on [that] day you shall surely die." God set the law that sin required death. God could not break that law by simply forgiving sin, for god set the law that sin required death. Further, god's plan had jesus as the sacrificial lamb from before the foundation of the world. How could god violate his own divine plan that required death for sin? All of us were doomed to die, unless there was a worthy sacrifice that could be made in our place. The only worthy sacrifice was Jesus, and god had it planned that way before A&E ate the fruit.

This is the truth, reason an purpose of Biblical sacrifice, and as you mentioned Mageth, the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus willingfully gave.

The way you describe it makes a pretty story, but it does not hold up to a little biblical study, as it has little or no biblical support, whereas my assertion finds clear support from Genesis to Revelation.

Now about the Texas comment: I feel the style of church services that are prevelant in the south are more emotional and supportive in nature than insightful. That is fine...to each his own. But many a time I have shook my head in a S. Baptist service while the preacher (they are called 'preachers' in the south) yammers on about 'The Lamb Of God' and 'The blood price Jesus paid' and yadda yadda yadda...without actually understanding the concepts behind this sacrifice. It's almost as if Jesus sacrifice is a euphimism...and nothing more. I can only take so much rhetoric. My guess is both of you guys have experienced this at one point or another.

That's all fine and dandy, but I am not from a Southern Baptist background. I was exposed to some "emotional" teaching, but as an adult I got out of the emotional churches and into more serious churches that stressed proper biblical interpretation and study. I too think the "washing in the blood" bit is a a stretch, and is not supported well by scripture. But the requirement of death for sin, and thus the requirement that Jesus be sacrificed, is supported quite well within scripture; indeed, it's the foundation stone of the entire redemption story. No required death for sin, no sacrifice necessary.

And you'd do well to examine your own rhetoric in light of what the scripture plainly says.

And about the lamb bit:

Revelation 13:8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast -- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.

1 Peter 1:18-20 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

Fiach

The Bible presents a horrible sadistic and almost psychotic scenario and makes it seem like "matter of fact".

Fiach

Fiach

I have long regarded the Genesis myths and original sin from a different point of view. Rather than dismissing it all a primitive superstition, as do most Atheists and Agnostics, I take a different view.

To me Genesis is the story of mankind’s ascent not a fall. It begins with the Garden of Eden metaphor. It was the remembered stories of Hunter-gathering. In the garden (hunter-gatherers) man and woman could just pluck fruit from the trees. There was no need for work. It was truly a paradise in the memories passed down. To a stone age farmer tilling the soil in Iraq under the hot sun, sweating, wearing blisters on his hands with the plow handles, it must have seemed that we lost something. There were the stories passed down for ages about the Hunter-Gatherer days. In retrospect those memories of hunter gathering must have seemed like paradise. No need to till the soil, just live off of the land's abundance.

Why did we lose that? It must have been a magic garden. We are now tilling the hot dusty soil to survive. We must have screwed up to be kicked out of that ancient garden. Forgotten were the harsh realities of hunter gathering life, starvation, and limited populations. The "Good Old Days" are always better in the memory than in reality. Golden ages are never quite so golden when inspected closely.

Man must have been kicked out for some reason. It must have been some offence to the gods or God. What would offend the gods the most? Attempting to be as smart as the gods or to become gods? The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is the challenge to the God severe enough to be kicked out of the magic garden. Man then had to fend for himself.

The Cain and Abel story is the second fall of man. It incorporates the memories of the second stage of human culture, pastoralism and the third stage, settled agriculture. Abel represents the golden age of pastoralism. Cain is the farmer. Pastoralism was also remembered by the Jews and Amorites as a happy go lucky lifestyle. Just follow the herds and guard them from wolves. But no serious work apart from moving with the herds to pastures. It wasn't as good as the ancient garden of Eden but it wasn't bad, compared to the drudgery of farming.

So now this farmer sees his terribly hard life of pushing a wooden plow behind oxen if he was lucky, as the result of us screwing up sometime ago. Cain the tiller of soil murders Abel the shepherd, destroying the golden pastoral life. God's punishment is for man to live by the sweat of his brow, plowing the hard rocky ground of Iraq.

So, I view Original Sin as the metaphor for the tribal memories of the transition from hunter-gatherers to pastoralists to dirt farmers. It was actually cultural advancement, supporting larger populations and permitting civilisation to evolve. But to the poor bloke behind the plow it must have seemed like man had lost two golden ages by sin (Original Sin and the murder of Abel by Cain.)
I think that by the time it was all written down in the books of Genesis, the writers might have actually believed it. Naturally later believers tended to believe it also, and perhaps for the reasons outlined above. Eden is the metaphor for hunter gathering, and original sin is why we lost it.

It is very interesting because it tells us much about the ancient people who devised the stories some 6-8 thousand years ago.
Interestingly the Marxists viewed the Hunter-Gatherer Stage as an idyllic time when all men and women were equal and no one was exploited. And man "fell" into civilisation based on the exploitation of man by man.

Christian/Jews and Marxists fail to realise that hunter gathering is a very tenuous life style. They were often victims of predators. They could not store or preserve food. When the game was scarce or drought occurred many died. It was no Christian or Marxist paradise. But Judeo-Christianity and Marxism each had its own Original Sin. The former was challenging God. The latter was exploiting other men.

Fiach

Mageth

I thought the Old Testament said his name would be Emmanuel?

We're talking Xian theology here, and the NT (particularly Revelations) indicates that Jesus was chosen to be the sacrificial lamb from "before the beginning of the world." So the A&E episode was predestined, as god knew it was going to happen.

The Bible presents a horrible sadistic and almost psychotic scenario and makes it seem like "matter of fact".

Exactly. And xians like SOMMS are constantly trying to soften it to make it more palatable. Hence my insistence that the true nature of the "system" god supposedly created be made clear.

Mageth

Fiach:

I like that metaphor, and have heard it before (actually, at one time I kind of thought something like that up on my own, but I may have heard it somewhere else). It makes sense, and fits the myth nicely.

Fiach

Thoughts of An Ancient Farmer

Salty sweat drips from my burning brow
As I strain in the dust behind this plow.
The Sun is bright, the air hot as Hell.
Why I breathe this dust, none can tell.

I cough and ask the gods, “Why oh Why?”
So I gaze into the glare of the empty sky.
Am I punished for some bloody crime
That I can’t recall in this dust and grime?

It must have been a foul sin before my time
By my father, or his, in a past gentle clime.
The sin angered the gods to such cruel rage;
They burned the garden of the Golden Age.

Man and woman were sent into dusty fields,
To scratch the dry soil for meagre yields.
“By the sweat of your brow shall ye struggle to live,”
Said the gods without love or mercy to give.

I asked the shaman about the ancient fall.
“How did our father degrade us all?”
Moses the shaman, told us the story
Of Adam’s sin and his fall from glory.

Adam said, “she, the law first did break
When the fruit of knowledge she did take.”
Eve sought truths that the gods deny,
Good and evil, and the first great lie.

They lied that gods made us from mud,
Slime and dust, spit and crud.
They lied about our majestic source,
Fearing our leaning the truth, of course.

Gods said magic words, arcane chants,
Animated mud became man without pants.
Shamans in their arrogance and bluff
Deny that we are ancient star stuff.

In future we’ll avenge slandered Eve
Using complex brains we did receive.
There is no god but Gaia, our mother,
Earth, visible and real, and no other.

Our complex brains Gaia made us evolve
By climate shifts, thinking minds to solve
Alleles, markers, and nucleotide codes,
Translocations, repeats, and deletion modes.

She evolved our complex frontal lobes
To send into the cosmos, intelligent probes.
Finding our beginnings in a proto-star core,
A supernova blast, and then we did soar.

Protons fused into atoms of Hydrogen,
Carbon, Oxygen, Sulphur, and Nitrogen.
Off into space they sped trillions of miles.
‘Till gravity collected them into dense piles.

Big piles ignited nuclear-fuelled suns.
Little piles made planets in orbital runs.
One watery planet made life in a mix,
Molecules bonding a double helix.

The helix bonds lysed and translocated.
Alleles deleted, repeated, and mutated.
Mutation to mutation made most die out.
But some adapted to walk, think, and shout.

Large frontal lobes discovered our kin,
Amoeba, worm, lungfish, and lobefin,
Kangaroo, primate, ape, and mankind.
Gaia evolved our inquisitive mind.

Here comes that shaman to brow beat
My tired body in this burning heat.
”Thank god for not making your toils
Even worse here as your sinful flesh broils.”

The shaman tells me I will go up there,
To grovel for gods who didn’t care.
From this dusty field I’ll get no relief.
Yet no shaman’s lie will be my belief.

A glob of mud was not my sire.
Eve sought the truth that we all desire.
Our atoms burst from a giant star core.
Across space we sped, 10 billion years more.

We’re not magic mud, not conjured by gods.
We’re star stuff, from a journey against odds.
We formed planets and bonded molecules who
Stood up, thought, and sought what is true.

Domhnall MacPherson ©