Why does Jesus' "suffering" matter?

[Nope]

"Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross"  What sacrifice? he got better 3 days later and then went home to his dad, more like a slight inconvenience than a sacrifice.

Yep. No sacrifice at all.

Again, it is not a sacrifice to suffer if you get to be worshipped and adored forever. Remember mythological Jesus supposedly exists in heaven where his every need is catered to and angels constantly tell him how great he is. No, it wasn't a sacrifice so much as a very smart career move on his part. Besides, he set up the system of sin/hell/heaven in the first place.

It is sort of like a politician who has stripped programs to help the needy but helps out at a food bank because he knows it will earn him more votes

[Longhorn]

Try what? Providing the definition?

Permanent, Randy. Permanent. Not temporary. No matter how long the break, it is not permanent. You can't come back from the dead of you haven't died.

Okay, Nemo. Jesus didn't die.

So, what exactly happened to Jesus on the cross and what was the state of his body during the time it was in the tomb?

A temporary cessation of vital processes? Geez, isn't that what I keep saying? I thought we've established that already.

[Nope]

Try what? Providing the definition?

Permanent, Randy. Permanent. Not temporary. No matter how long the break, it is not permanent. You can't come back from the dead of you haven't died.

Okay, Nemo. Jesus didn't die.

So, what exactly happened to Jesus on the cross and what was the state of his body during the time it was in the tomb?

The Jesus described in the bible was fictional. You keep forgetting that we are atheists

[polar bear]

Try what? Providing the definition?

Permanent, Randy. Permanent. Not temporary. No matter how long the break, it is not permanent. You can't come back from the dead of you haven't died.

Okay, Nemo. Jesus didn't die.

So, what exactly happened to Jesus on the cross and what was the state of his body during the time it was in the tomb?

you are making a huge assumption.  Jesus did not die on a cross, jesus was not buried in a tomb and he did not come back to life

[robvalue]

Ow, ow, it really hurts. I know I'm God, but I'm letting you hurt me. Go on, stick it in there my son. Ow ow.

(Suckers)

He probably had endless blood to squirt everywhere. I think he had a wail of a time. He might even have just put the body on autopilot and played some Xbox.

[Whateverist]

It represents God's cloddish attempt at empathy. It doesn't much matter.

[robvalue]

Haha!

"Yeah, you're right. Being a human is shit. Sorry about that! Well, just let me down from here and I'll go sort it all out. Erm, guys..."

[Randy Carson]

True. However, Jesus was also fully human, and he experienced hunger, cold, and pain just as we do.

Now, in terms of sacrifice for our sins, it was not REALLY necessary that Jesus be tortured and suffer. However, if he had simply walked into Pilate's office and said, "I'm here for my beheading" followed by a quick sword stroke, I don't think that WE would think quite as much of that as we do of the scourging, the crowning with thorns and the crucifixion. The latter execution is FAR more graphic and helps us to appreciate the lengths to which God was willing to go in order to redeem us. It was a heavy price, but He paid it.


If your child breaks a large bay window in a neighbor's house that he cannot possibly pay for by himself, you step in to pay the debt to the neighbor. The neighbor is satisfied and the child is no longer under obligation.

We could not possibly repay our debt to God for the sins we commit, so Jesus stepped in to pay it for us. We are absolved, and we are no longer under obligation.

The crucifixion means everything.

Your analogy does not fit what happens in the bible. For it to do so, you would have to put the child in a room full of only windows. No matter where he steps, you know that he will break something and therefore be responsible. After the inevitable (that you knew would happen because you set the scenario up that way) and he breaks the glass, you pay the price but demand that he worship and adore you to the point that he is your slave. How you can not see that this is what your religion teaches amazes me.

I know that you are quite eager to absolve yourself from any personal responsibility for your sins, but your desire to blame God simply won't fly.

God gave us free will and the potential to do good or evil. But the world God created was (and is) good...filled with wonder and beauty.

It is not logically possible to have free will and no possibility of moral evil. In other words, once God chose to create human beings with free will, then it was up to them, rather than to God, as to whether there was sin or not. That's what free will means. Built into the situation of God deciding to create human beings is the chance of evil, and consequently, the suffering that results.

God did not create evil; he created the possibility of evil. People actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning. it's a self-contradiction - a meaningless nothing - to have a world where there's real choice while at the same time no possibility of choosing evil. To ask why God didn't create such a world is like asking why God didn't create a married bachelor or a four-sided triangle.

[Randy Carson]

If your child breaks a large bay window in a neighbor's house that he cannot possibly pay for by himself, you step in to pay the debt to the neighbor. The neighbor is satisfied and the child is no longer under obligation.

We could not possibly repay our debt to God for the sins we commit, so Jesus stepped in to pay it for us. We are absolved, and we are no longer under obligation.

The crucifixion means everything.

That was a shoddy attempt.  What we -don't- do is torture the parent then nail them to a fucking post.  Maybe we have that wrong though, you ready to string some unfortunate up as payment for my parking tickets?

The crucifixion means quite a bit, none of it good.......and you know better, despite your claims.

Your sins against God are much more serious than a broken window or a few parking tickets.

YOU cannot pay the debt you owe.

[Homeless Nutter]

Oh, sorry. I thought this was a thread about Jesus' "surfing"...
...

I'll let myself out.

Thanks for the torture porn pic, Mel Gibs... Randy Carson. Way to eloquently make a point. As usual.