...something he made your ancestors do as part of his "Grand Plan" to inflict suffering throughout the ages.

LET'S CELEBRATE THAT!!

The theme of the killing of a son for sacrifice or redemption appears more than once in Biblical text. It is one of the ugliest things I have ever heard. I am repulsed by God and Abraham both. Such disgusting characters and so highly revered.
They do not represent me in any way. I don't care if I'm in a local or family minority, I have my own values.

the "plan of salvation" makes no sense at all.

What a loving God! I'm going to color some eggs in His honor.

I shall join you. Right after I wash this ash from my forehead. Then, I shall eat a Sh*t ton of artificially died sugar shaped as bunnies pulled from this basket of fake grass.

Look at it this way, god sacrificed himself to himself in order to appease himself.

Now that makes sense, doesn't it?

It's so convenient too because he with all that torture he didn't even have to have a "safe word."

He obviously had a safe word because he wasn't actually killed, he committed suicide on the cross. That's the most illogical thing about the whole event: he wasn't sacrificed at all.

You can't kill a god. The god killed himself.

And then came right back as a large bunny who poops chocolate eggs out of his butt. Easter makes a lot of sense if you don't think about it...

What happened to Jesus is nothing compared to what happens every day to normal people in Ciudad Juarez.

The romans could learn a lot from the cartels.

Compared to what happens to people in Juarez, Jesus' so-called torture was a sunday walk in the park...

This year My family decided we'd all get together when the weather in nicer and we can be outside.

This Sunday everyone is going to sleep in. We've all had a long week.

Glad to see so many sensible responses here :)

Christianity is entirely based on the legend of a brutal human sacrifice and why we should all be grateful for that because it gets us off the hook for something we didn't do...

Worship of God is classic battered-wife syndrome.

Wasn't Jesus just plan B?

Plan A for ridding the world of evil was killing everyone in a massive flood.

Oh wait, thats not any better...

No, you anti-Christians always get it wrong.

It wasn't that he had is son killed, he had his son TORTURED and
THEN killed.

I like how we are supposed to feel so awful about Jesus getting tortured for a few hours (torture which doesn't come close to some of the atrocities around the world now and throughout history). But the alternative is for us to get tortured worse than we can imagine for eternity. I don't even get it.

Good point.

Although...traditional Christian hell is pretty scary, but Mormon hell always sounded like a 5 star resort. JS said if you knew how wonderful the telestial kingdom was you'd commit suicide right now just to get to it.

And the celestial kingdom always sounded like a very long to-do list and endless sacrament meetings. So who would want to go there?

After this mortal veil is lifted I shall see all you RFM-ers at that great Sandals resort in the sky.....

Jesus's "sacrifice" wasn't a real sacrifice. about 36 hours
later he was alive and a god. It wasn't a sacrifice, it was an
investment--done with insider knowledge.

Here's the deal: I'll torture you for half a day and then a day
and a half after that you become an immortal God. Not a bad
deal, hey?

What's the Christian view? In Mormonism it was the Plan of Salvation but in Christianity don't humans just suck?

..don't parent our children the way our loving almighty heavenly father parents us....


My poor son is going to see me coming...

"Sorry darling, I'm going to have you tortured and killed because otherwise I can't forgive your sisters for all the mistakes I knów they are going to make"


....

Sorry pops.. I'm going to be the rebellious child and not do things your way if you don't mind. (well even if you DO mind.. f@ck you..)

The idea of torturing and killing one person (punishing) for what a different person did (sins) is one of the most repugnant things I can think of. Yet it is central to main stream Christianity and considered a beautiful and loving act. It is considered so beautiful that many Christians have statues and jewelry showing the torture and suffering adorning their homes and bodies. Disgusting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2014 04:24AM by MJ.

A sacrificial martyrdom is rather a hollow gesture if the victim just comes back to life after a couple of days. Of all the people I know who've died, exactly none of them have ever come back. Now THAT'S commitment.

Ofcourse!

It is insane.

How LDS in your thinking you are! :D

If you're an all-powerful God, forgiving your children for all their misdeeds should be extremely easy and cause no pain or suffering.

So why did God's beloved son have to be tortured and crucified?

And how can anyone feel it is morally acceptable to worship a father who will not forgive his misbehaving children unless his most beloved child is tortured and killed?

I know right!?

Simply because the fact is, Jesus WAS tortured and killed. The first century Jesus-myth spinners had to come up with something to make Jesus' death salient to something rather than simply be the failure of Jesus to prevail over his oppressors. If not, there wouldn't have been a Jesus myth to survive. At the time, sacrificing one for many wasn't abhorrent--look at the similar myths of the time. Also, after the fall of Rome, Christianity blended with barbarianism to create Western Europe. Many of our modern concepts, including Just War, and group punishment, came from barbaric Christianity, not Roman-empire Christianity. Group punishment crescendoed with the Crusades. These battles were historic events in which Christians really did slaughter every man, woman, and child breathing within the gates of a city. It was unprecedented. It wasn't the Roman way. Romans were empire-builders, not genocidal purgers. What comes down to us is 2,000 years of European political history, not 2,000 years of purely religious history.

So now, science has made us stop fearing God. A global community has made us far less tribal. The experience of two World Wars, the annihilation of the Jews, and the development of weapons too destructive ever to use, have taught us to fear the concept of group punishment, and mass-killing itself. Furthermore, the development of psychology and sociology have given us a clearer picture of successful parenting and mental balance. Our metaphors for God and Jesus have collapsed. God, as father, is at best, a sociopath. Jesus, as son, makes no sense. Public, as sinners, who are punished for their sin, makes no sense in light of God's power as creator. How can a just God punish his creations for behaving exactly as he created them? Because it gives the creations an opportunity to choose the good path and worship God to avoid the punishment. So, we're back to sociopathy: "worship me, and I'll save you from, well, me!"

This myth definitely needs new myth-makers. The current story is long past its sell-by date.

. . . is not an adequately or historically verified, proven or demonstrated fact:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC4QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.i4m.com%2Fthink%2Fbible%2Fhistorical_jesus.htm&ei=ESVRU46NFca62gXP-ICABw&usg=AFQjCNFNQpWoGW0UWYMaOkazkTo9n98Hmw&bvm=bv.65058239,d.b2I



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2014 09:17AM by steve benson.

Sure, but it doesn't need to be a fact. However, it does make sense that some guy died, that should've had the power to live, being the Son of Almighty God, and all. That left his followers having to explain why.

Yeah, no kidding. "I'm going to let my son sacrifice himself so that I can forgive you for something that your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great .... grandparents did."

And yet, I get the feeling that the doctrinal basis is throwaway. So long as you keep believing in Jesus, etc. the reasons why can be determined later, if that's really even necessary. In fact, it might be best to stop asking questions. Just do this thing, pay this money, vote for this guy, etc. and you're good.