Is it egotistical to think that a God would die for you?

[NoraBrimstone]

You clearly have no idea how huge the universe is. We have no idea where the nearest tiny single-celled life forms are, let alone the nearest advanced life forms. It's likely it's not even possible to travel the distances we're talking here. As for contact in general, they'd have to find us first. There are are around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in the observable universe, so finding us would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

[AvadaKedavra]

First of all, Jesus Christ existed as a historical figure. Plenty of historians say so.
Dying on a cross? My evidence is that Christianity came to be the religion of millions when it started out surrounded by devout Jews who savagely killed its followers, and spread across the Roman Empire, despite that many more of it followers were killed as well.
Whatever these people preached, it had to be something worth listening to, and something worth believing as well, since so many people died for it.
It would take quite the conspiracy to make that stuff up. If Jesus Christ HAD been a story, it would have made as little sense to first century Jews and Romans as it does to you. In Jesus' time, gods didn't love people. And if they ever were on earth, they didn't die. So I also believe in the Christian story because it is so original.

Quite, but just because it is cited in history that he was real, it is not proof.

It surprises me that so many millions of people follow such religions, when some know little or nothing about their doctrines.

[smax]

The Bible is a book completely dedicated to stroking the massive ego of human beings:

God created man in his own image (or the other way around)
God gave man paradise (of course he did!)
God gave man dominion over animals (try telling that to a tiger)
God gave man dominion over women (try telling that to a woman)
God killed himself to save man (but not before killing millions of men in floods, wars, natural disasters, and genocide)

and, the grand finally....

God has prepared an eternal realm of robotic bliss for man, where happiness is the only option (still pales in comparison to 72 virgins for blowing yourself up)

[Drich]

Is it egotistical to think that a God would die for you?

Not if God said He did.

[Consilius]

First of all, Jesus Christ existed as a historical figure. Plenty of historians say so.
Dying on a cross? My evidence is that Christianity came to be the religion of millions when it started out surrounded by devout Jews who savagely killed its followers, and spread across the Roman Empire, despite that many more of it followers were killed as well.
Whatever these people preached, it had to be something worth listening to, and something worth believing as well, since so many people died for it.
It would take quite the conspiracy to make that stuff up. If Jesus Christ HAD been a story, it would have made as little sense to first century Jews and Romans as it does to you. In Jesus' time, gods didn't love people. And if they ever were on earth, they didn't die. So I also believe in the Christian story because it is so original.

Quite, but just because it is cited in history that he was real, it is not proof.

It surprises me that so many millions of people follow such religions, when some know little or nothing about their doctrines.

I believe in the Crucifixion because it is recorded in different historical documents, including the Bible.
The validity of what is written there I judge to be what it is because of my previous statement. This is the conviction I have that what these people said about Jesus is probably true.

---

The Bible is a book completely dedicated to stroking the massive ego of human beings:

God created man in his own image (or the other way around)
God gave man paradise (of course he did!)
God gave man dominion over animals (try telling that to a tiger)
God gave man dominion over women (try telling that to a woman)
God killed himself to save man (but not before killing millions of men in floods, wars, natural disasters, and genocide)

and, the grand finally....

God has prepared an eternal realm of robotic bliss for man, where happiness is the only option (still pales in comparison to 72 virgins for blowing yourself up)

As humans, we have special value. Or are you interested in giving gorillas voting rights? How about giving cattle rights to life?
At the same time, we are imperfect. That is why, in the Bible, people sin and are punished. We don't deserve what we have as human beings. But what the Bible says is that God loved people so much that he died for them. It wasn't a requested favor. It was an act of mercy that came from God.

[smax]

As humans, we have special value. Or are you interested in giving gorillas voting rights? How about giving cattle rights to life?

Not at all, I'm very pro-human. I'm just not an advocate of inventing a god and a religion over it.

That's all.

[Consilius]

What you are suggesting is that the Bible somehow multiplies the value of humanity.
In the same Bible, humans are at many times helpless at the will of God.
What the Bible does is put humans in place, taking our strengths and our weaknesses, and makes us who we are: masters, indeed, but masters of the created world, and components of the created world who are as much subject to the laws of nature as animals are.
It takes something outside of the created world to show us that we are not the end-all. There is something above us.
Without religion, actually, humans are the greatest things that exist and have nothing to heed to.

[Dena]

believe that God would do such a despicable thing as having his son killed even as scriptures say that God prefers repentance to sacrifice and does not believe in asking or accepting a ransom.

This has been pointed out to many Christians but they don't care to listen.


As far as ego ~ Jesus is god, he is eternal, he died for three days to come back to life again. That's not much of a sacrifice. And he demanded of himself in the first place. It was all his idea. But I suppose it's consider a huge deal so yeah, maybe it is a big egotistical. I have a friend who posts things on facebook constantly about being a child of the king, how much we matter to god, that sort of thing. It's probably not a coincidence that she's in a marriage where she is verbally, sexually and physically abused. Another friend posts similar. Her husband had multiple affairs, fathered a child with another woman and eventually left her, leaving her with four children and no job. These woman are desperate to feel like someone cares and god fulfills that role for them. They aren't egotistical, they are miserable.

[Consilius]

First of all, Jesus and God are the same person. Jesus died in obedience to God. It wasn't a forced act.
"OBEDIENCE is better than sacrifice" 1 Samuel 15:22. God forgives people for what they do, but everybody still has to account for their sins. Do repentant serial killers get off their prison sentence?
Jesus died. The pain of dying is still there. Rising to life does not reverse what he experienced. What it DOES reverse is death itself. By rising from the dead, Jesus proved that death cannot conquer God and cannot conquer any of us either. Physical or spiritual death is not the end for anybody.
That God would love imperfect human beings enough to die for them is completely his doing. The credit he deserves for being magnaminous is his. Jesus' sacrifice is a gift to humans from God. One we do not deserve, but is freely given out of love.

[Dena]

Rising to life does not reverse what he experienced. What it DOES reverse is death itself. By rising from the dead, Jesus proved that death cannot conquer God and cannot conquer any of us either. Physical or spiritual death is not the end for anybody.
That God would love imperfect human beings enough to die for them is completely his doing. The credit he deserves for being magnaminous is his. Jesus' sacrifice is a gift to humans from God.

It's not a gift if it was his idea that it needed to be done in the first place. Why not just save humans because he loves us? That would have made more sense. But no, you propose he decided he needed to sacrifice himself, to himself, to appease himself. I wouldn't call that love. I'd call that crazy.