What Sacrifice ?

[Tex]

You imply that I didn't read what you wrote. I did. I read it, considered it and then determined it to be bunk.

Then I apologize for the hasty assumption.

If sacrifice is not necessarily limited to physical pain or psychological damage then how, pray tell, can it possibly be considered a sacrifice? If nothing is proffered, than nothing can be accepted.

I believe this is where we differ. The whole point of Christ was to lower himself from God to man. We call this the humiliation and this is why he's often called Godman by the church fathers. Then, after lowered himself, he taught up until he died. He died just like every other human dies, but the Father applied the tortures we deserve for our misdeeds (non-physical). In this way, we receive no punishment for our insults to God and we too are resurrected like him. So, much was proffered, but the debt was paid.

Dead people stay dead.

The entire point of the New Testament is to refute this statement. Even more so, dead people still exist.

Now that you've read the definition of a sacrifice I again ask you, where is this supposed sacrifice?

I do think he actually died. Legit human-styled dead. I also think he suffered physically at the hands of people and not-so-physically suffered for everyone's inequity. Finally, I think that definitions 1-4 accurately portray the event.

Point of fact: Whenever your god demanded a sacrifice anywhere else - something was going to die... and you can be damn sure whatever it was wasn't coming back.

True. He's always commanded the sacrifice to be loss from the person, usually from their cash deposits or flocks. To repay the debt ourselves, we'd all actually have to die and then we would have to raise ourselves up from the grave (which wouldn't happen). Instead, Jesus submits himself to death with no faults. Because he took our faults, we have no more debt. Because he had no faults himself, he rose, and will raise us.