I mean as an all powerful being, why does he simply not have the power to forgive without a sacrifice? Why does he need a blood price? If I am a member of a tribe, and I kill an innocent child of a rival tribe, to avenge my tribe for the actions that some completely unrelated member, to the child, of that other tribe had did to my own, I not only set anything straight, but have made things worse.

Because of the emphasis on sacrafice that was predominate at the time. We even do this now, where when someone breaks a law or does something wrong, they have to be punished for it somehow. It's so engraved in our brains that in order for us to learn how to make the right choices and avoid making the wrong choices is for us to have to suffer some high-authority imposed punishment for the wrong choice. It was either Christ suffer and die for all of our sins, or all of us be punished individually for our own. (Though I suppose the church still believes that man will be punished for their own sins... they just won't have to sacrafice themselves for them.)

Another point is that Jesus' followers did not expect him to die. He was supposed to free them from the Romans. When he not only didn't do that, but died, they had to make sense of it. In the context of the time, that made sense.They took a tragedy and turned it into a triumph and it worked.

...to make people feel really guilty. It's like the bully parent saying, "See what you made me do, you bad bad kids!"

(Yes, I know Protestants use the cross without dead Jesus, and Mormons don't use the cross at all, but we have the Catholics [and pagans] to thank for the sacrificed deity concept.)

Current Mormon thinking on this makes it even worse. For a while there was a fad "deep doctrine" belief however recently Bednar repeated it in general conference officially sanctioning it.

That idea is that in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus went through each person individually one at a time and personally suffered for their sins. So in the Mormon world, the tie of guilt is very direct.

Jesus suffered directly on a one on one basis for everything you do wrong. So, yes, you literally, personally cause Jesus pain.

Nice guilt trip.

The pagans?.. WHat did they do?

sorry..wrong place.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2012 02:44PM by becca.

...then coming back to life for the benefit of humans had several forms in pre-Christian, non-Hebrew cultures and sub-cultures. Scholars suspect Paul borrowed the myth in inventing the Christ.

Stray Mutt says pagan deities also gave us the concept of deity-sacrifice.

Well, sort of. The two that come to mind are the Horned God and the Green Man. In both cases, the sacrifice ensures food (and therefore survival) for humans. I'm not aware of any pagan deities that were sacrificed to atone for sins, or to appease the wrath of another deity (although there may be some of those in the Roman, Greek, and Egyptian pantheons).

Anyone who wasn't Christian were pagan - the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2012 03:48PM by Stray Mutt.

Because god believes in spanking!

I was just talking about this subject with my wife before bed last night.

The whole concept of a perfect, beautiful, person who says and does all the right things at the right time and is the inspiration for everyone....has to be tortured, mocked, abused, and then driven to a slow painful death the way he did (supposing its true).

I thought about this a lot on my mission and there after. Why should anyone have to die animal or human to atone for someone elses short comings? "for god so loved the world" is that really love to give your most perfect beautiful child to be massacred in that manner?

I wouldn't even give my own kids to atone for me or my wife's short comings. The whole concept just seems barbaric and psycho.

I think we follow these things quickly cuz its all we know and are taught from the time we can communicate. Its the basis for most religions. It has programed us, or conditioned us, to follow this same ritual of behaviors until you analytically discover and destroy the disfunctional thought and action. And only then it is just a few of us that make it that far in discovery.

The atonement was built on the foundation that Satan was almost as powerful as god and these two dieties played a kind of chess with each other where God sacrificed his queen, which Satan gleefully took only to discover that the move had made him check mate. The queen (metaphore for Jesus), against all logic resurrected and threatened the king and the game was over. In this context the atonement made kinda sense.

Later on the idea that god would have to sacrifice anything to win over Satan no longer made sense. Theologians hade made god too powerful for that. So they came up with the ridiculous notion that instead god had sacrificed himself to himself because blah blah blah... incoherent ramblings filling long and boring books in latin.

Finally mormons comes along trying to make sense of all this, and ofcourse they mess up the issue even further. The mideval theologians actually seem learned in comparison with the mormon version of atonement. Now it's because appearantly some mysterious "spiritual law" requires that HF sacrifice a human. And god is god because he knows about and devoutly follows these higher mysterious spiritual laws that makes no sense whatsoever.

HF is ofcourse still omnipotent despite only ruler of one tiny galaxy amongst trillions and despite being literally a slave to ridiculous "spiritual laws".

You aren't supposed to "think" about it, if you are Mormon. You are only supposed to "feel" about it, referring to using feelings as a means of obtaining truth. Once you begin to think about, suddenly not much of it makes sense anymore.
For me, it seems an ultimate form of vanity for god to make a flawed creature that then is required to worship him to be "saved."

Besides which (now that I'm thinking about it, I had to comment again), if god was really going to punish his son for everyone else's sins, then why would he punish him physically by torturing his body? Shouldn't he punish him spiritually by damning him for all those sins he took? I mean, if we going to make "sense."

LDS belief really de-emphasises the crucifixion. They actually do dwell more on the spiritual burden he supposedly took on, thus all the blathering about the Garden of Gesthemene "bleeding from every pore" as he magically absorbed all the sins of man, past present and future into his soul.

As George Carlin said: It's all bullshit, and it's bad for you!"

My flippant response to that is that if the suffering has already happened, even if I don't sin, it won't remove the suffering Christ endured. My behaving well doesn't take that back.

...go up-line to the ultimate sky-daddy and force some universal changes. Make a list of demands.

Like- From now on no wars in heaven.

No more "Gods are too pure to let sinners back into our presence" crap. We can take it...we are gods.

We the Gods will mingle with the kids on earth a little more, show them we care.

Kill spiritual law no one. No "faith" required during mortal trials. (Daily evidence of the god’s existence would be a no brainer if children returning to our presence are really the goal.

No "special people" we are tired of playing favorites. Everyone from caveman on up gets to know the rules.

None of this sacrificing of goats and cows and people, no barbaric atonement.

None of this eternal punishment. All the gods know Eternity is a long time in torment (for being seduced by someone we designed to be irresistible. )

When we the gods, see someone about to do something horrible from now on we step in and stop the rape and murder. What a concept.

We the gods want to take a little responsibility for the conditions on our earths. No more of this wind it up and let it run for a few thousand years.

So, actually he didn't die for us. He just had a bad weekend.

This doctrine was key in driving me out of church. I came to find it not only as unspired, but vile. To date, nobody has been able to explain it in any manner that made sense in any way.

As humans we have the capacity to forgive without punishment especially when there is an apology. Children forgive parents almost immediately.

God is far beyond humans. He has infinite capacity for love, etc.

So since humans with all their frailties can forgive it makes perfect sense that a perfect God would need to inflict a punishment in order to forgive.

It make perfect sense...

Yes this one got me as well.

And especially when I had multiple kids of my own. If one of my kids screw up.. and they do.. they are kids.. geeshh.. then I'll be mad on occasion.. dissapointed, worried, or sad, depending on what they did.

But then I talk with them. Try to make them understand what/how/why/what'snext and I'll tell them: "Let's forgive now okay?"

It's not always easy to forgive someone. But your own child?.. OFCOURSE you forgive them. Especially when they are young, like we are supposed to be in the mormon view of things.

Honestly, why would I torture my son (who is my first child) because his teenaged sisters screwed up!!????

That makes NO sense!.
(as if nailing a man to a piece of wood because he said we'd best be nice makes sence...??)

It just didn't compute with me.
God is alpowerful, so much more wise and loving than we can be.. and yet he needs his first child to suffer in order to tell his other youngsters: "Okay, let's forgive.." ..

baffling...

just baffling..

+1

Nice job of explaining this from the perspective of a parent.

I'm caught up in the "punishment" aspect of the Atonement. Why is punishment necessary, as opposed to, say, behavioral therapy? Why would a loving God smack his children around when they mess up? Why would He not try to calmly correct the error and teach his children to be better?

The God of Christianity is every bit as cruel and amoral as his Old Testament counterpart. A God who commits genocide and infanticide does not have the moral right to punish me for touching my privates. This God deserves none of my respect, and I will not worship Him any more than I would give reverence to Joseph Smith or Brigham Young.

For me, nothing reveals the savagery of God than John 3:16. God loves us soooo much that he caused his only son to be savagely beaten and killed slowly, ohhhh so slowly. This slow torturous killing of His son is supposed to teach me His love? This whole court is out of order!

Yep, makes God the Father look like one hell of a dysfunctional parent! And He's the model for all of us? Scary!

Not all Christians buy into vicarious substitutionary atonement. Here's a link to a blog explaining another mainline point-of-view: (Yes, I know I've linked it before.)

http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2007/09/why-i-dont-buy-.html

I looked at the link. It was symbolic. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Isn't that what happens to most teachings from religion that become unbelievable, indefensible and embarrassing over time?

The article says, "John says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" John was speaking metaphorically, linking Jesus with the paschal lamb of passover. To underline the point, Jesus is crucified "at the sixth hour" in the fourth gospel, which is the same time that the Temple priests began their slaughter of the passover lambs."

Yeah, it was metaphorical. (As if that makes any more sense.)

This brings attention to the bizarre concept behind the passover in the first place. The Israelites were instructed to mark the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a spring lamb and, upon seeing this, the spirit of the Lord knew to pass over the first-borns in these homes. So the idea that God liked to communicate with blood makes the OT God even creepier. This mythology needs to be filed away with stories about kissing frogs.

It also doesn't solve anything if it is symbolic for the world of "sin" since the same creepy god chose to create "sin" in the first place.

You have missed the mark entirely. Christus Victor does not reduce the crucifixion to metaphor.

So it was vicarious substitutionary atonement?

I only read one page of the blog.

I'm pretty sure no matter how creatively it is explained we've heard some version of it here. :-)

+1. There are many Christian interpretations of the crucifixion and substitutionary atonement is only one.The crucifixion was not a metaphor. It happened and it was the last thing Jesus followers expected. They were left with the problem of trying to explain it and they came up with a number of theories. Atonement was one.

That is one other reason I don't understand God. In the records about him and his history or whatever you want to call it; sometimes he is nice and good, some others he is just plain hard to the point of killing entire towns through fire, wars, etc... men, women, children. Why, why did he have to follow any "laws" to make us fit or worthy to live up to his status?. If he is God, why did he have to sacrifice his son (the best one according to the history). That is one of the concepts I can't understand about God. That is one of the reasons I am questioning his existence. I believe,if he does exist, I will have great reasons to face him and tell him "well, sorry but everything regarding "you" it is so confusing, so injust, that I couldn't help but to stop believing in your existence. You didn't make it any easier on me. The LDS church, the one that I decided to cling into during my younger years, as I studied more and more about it, as I grew up, it only made me wonder and doubt more about the entire deity concept. So please do not condemn me or those who are in the same position I am.

Not condemning you, but think on this, my brother or sister. God is alternately cruel and kind because he sprang from the mind of humans. This god is everything we are, but more.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2012 06:14PM by jaredsotherbrother.

Jesus chose to come to the earth at a time where most likely he would have been killed... I think... it wasn't God who wanted Jesus dead it was the men that had free-will that killed him. it was Jesus coming to terms with it in the garden and bearing his own cross, not fearing death and lived a life that we should emulate. That's how I see it. Religion has skewed Jesus' story so much.

Well reasoned.

Early Christians were left with an historical reality. Jesus died. They had to make sense of it and atonement was one way of doing that and it never was the only theory.

I imagine the idea that punishment was essential was a justification for the desire to control with fear of punishment. If God were forgiving and didn't have favors to bestow (heaven for some, not for others; favored peoples, very "elite", etc), how could they keep control of the masses?

Please notice that men and women aren't allowed to punish others for their sins, like God does, only the church is allowed to do that. It used to be via murder and now it's disfellowshipping or excommunication and only sometimes (secretive) murder. Why do you think it says in the temple "I shall suffer my life to be taken."

And all that business about blood hitting the dirt in reparation for sin? All that is the fear and hatred emanating from control freak church leaders (then and now).

What I realized when pondering all of this is that I was raised in a cult which didn't make sense, then converted to a cult that made even less sense, at every step giving away more and more of my own interests to appease an angry god.

Done. If there is a god, he made me flawed. He created my hand long enough to reach my genitals, unlike so many of the animals, so he can just deal with it. I'm sick of trying to please him.

And, in the most ironic twist of all, I've become a much better "Christian" now that the thumb-screws have been removed.

Anagrammy

Punishment/retribution/sin/atonement are all philosophies of ignorant ancients. We tend to think of them as those wise old sages who had knowledge that's been lost to us and comes back to us through holy books.

Nothing could be further from the truth. They were primitive, ignorant, savage. They knew a thousandth part of what we know now. Religion to them was the first attempt at science. Being the first, it was the worst.