I never found a deity sacrificing itself reasonable. Christians make the whole sacrifice a necessity: a god sacrificing itself was the only way to rid us of the burden of sin. In the context of an omnipotent deity, necessities are absurd.

It was no necessity; it as done to relieve us of sin in the best way possible, not the only way.

@ Shell B: you do me wrong!

(May 16, 2010 at 11:16 pm)Watson Wrote: It was no necessity; it as done to relieve us of sin in the best way possible, not the only way.

@ Shell B: you do me wrong!

okay. you're still being absurd. how is a human sacrifice the 'best way possible'? surely an omnipotent deity can come up with a better way to do 'something'.

The Message of God is love, that's pretty much the gist of the whole thing. Jesus was the Message made flesh. The greatest show of love one man can perform for another is to give his life.* Now imagine giving your life for every single man, woman, and child on earth. Yeah, exactly.

*By Christian teaching, and rather logically if I do say so myself.

(May 16, 2010 at 11:28 pm)Watson Wrote: The Message of God is love, that's pretty much the gist of the whole thing. Jesus was the Message made flesh. The greatest show of love one man can perform for another is to give his life.* Now imagine giving your life for every single man, woman, and child on earth. Yeah, exactly.

*By Christian teaching, and rather logically if I do say so myself.

I lied about the idea of a deity sacrificing itself never appealing to me. I was a Christian before I became an atheist. I remember watching the Passion of Christ and crying over his sacrifice for all of us. Now, I see the problem of evil eclipsing a deity getting himself killed. The whole 'reason' the Christian deity sacrificed itself is based on sin, a concept that isn't even real. Hence, Jesus sacrificed itself for nothing. We live just fine not calling our bad behavior 'sin'. You should know since your girlfriend is an atheist.

haha, You clearly don't know my girlfriend.

And your train of thought makes no sense. If Jesus gave His life for us and was a real person, then sin clearly exists, and thus Jesus' sacrifice is validated. if you believe Jesus existed but was not divine, then you must back up why you believe in Jesus with evidence for His existence.

You could say that Jesus sacrificed itself to save us from the threat of the ghost army and make just as much sense as when you say that Jesus sacrificed itself to relieve our sins.

The word 'sin' has always been used as a tool to manipulate people into giving away money and work for nothing.

No, you aren't making sense, TFS. You've just said that Jesus gave His life for nothing, but if Jesus existed and did give His life, then sin is real and He clearly gave His life for something. That something was relieving us of sin, or hoping we would be relieved of it. And in giving His life, He gave the biggest and most obvious demonstration of what it meant to follow God's word.

Clearly, a lot of people understood this and changed their way's, thus he relieved them of sin. Others did not change, and were not relieved of sin. This is where forgiveness comes into play, because those people need forgiveness for what they do.

Sin is anything counter to God, and God is love. Therefore, sin is anything counter to love.