Why blood sacrifice?

[Godscreated]

---

I had said: Christianity does not seem like a very healthy mindset on a lot of levels.

---

You are correct there. I imagine early Christians as blood thirsty psychopaths, licking their lips over the sadistic fiction they wrote to enslave mankind in gory chains of unquestioning obedience.

Well put. I see it pretty much that way myself. In the interest of being fair, it would not appear to be at all uncommon to be OK with behavior that in this day and age we consider to be hideously barbaric, even sick.

Why would you consider Christians blood thirsty, Christ's death ended the blood sacrifices, not just for Christians but, the Jews quit sacrificing after His death. Up until His death and I'm saying in His life time the Jews practiced blood sacrifice, why did the Jews who did not believe in Christ all of a sudden stop something they had practiced for 1500 years? Christians knew God was putting an end to the blood sacrifices, we did not nor do not practice them. I ask you again why did the Jews stop at the same time Christians stopped?

---

Hmmm... Methinks you should read up on your ancient pagan religions. After all, they are what Judaism and subsequently christianity stemmed from.

Ancient gods required sacrifices, they weren't as easy going as Jesus' dad.

In fact, it's in the OT that the smell of burnt offerings were pleasing to YWVH. But only the purest and/or fattest of the crop would do to please the insatiable god of the jews. Just like the other gods worshiped beside him in the ancient polytheistic culture that was early judaism before YWVH was adopted as the one "true" god.

---

Yes, you are right about that. Some early religions were even, shall we say, messier. Human sacrifice was far from unknown all over the globe.

The nation of Israel never was to give a human sacrifice to God, even though a few did and God punished them for it. All the nations around Israel practiced human sacrifice.

So yes, in the OT all kinds of things occurred. Blood sacrifice was common, as YWVH was pleased by it, he was even displeased by Cain's offer of produce instead of a live animal sacrifice as Abel had offered him, never mind that Cain was a farmer, not a shepherd. Seemed kind of unfair to me.

God was pleased by what the sacrifice represented. God did not want blood sacrifices, but sin required it.
Where did you get that God was displeased with Cain's sacrifice because it was crops he offered? Why do you believe that Able's sacrifice of animals was better? If that was the reason God did not accept Cain's sacrifice then I would agree it would be unfair.

I can understand that 2,000 years ago something as far gone as someone going through a long, drawn-out torturous death as a blood sacrifice to atone for humankind's sins would not cause anyone back then to so much as bat an eye.

Who back then knew or believed that Christ was a sacrifice for man's sin? If no one knew then who was to be surprised or as you put it "bat an eye," who did know?

But I'm not someone from 2,000 years ago when the Romans presented people getting killed in their arenas as entertainment. I would hope that we've advanced since then.

The Twin Towers!!!

What it is that bugs me is that the nuns, when I was a kid, taught us this nauseating story as if this is how things should be, for lack of a better way to put it. It gets constantly referred to here by our resident Christians as no big deal. It never seems to occur to any of these people that this is sick. How can it not be? Try and approach it and all you get is an attitude of if Godditit then it must be what was right.

I'm not sure what you are referring to here, the blood sacrifices the Israelites made, or the sacrifice Christ made, or both?

Or humanity's sins were that bloody awful, nothing less could atone for them.

Sins are that bloody awful, if they were not don't you think God would have used another way?

If God existed and he is omnimax as claimed all he had to do was make it so, whatever it was that he wanted.

I see how the atheist here react to God even though they do not believe He's real, so how would you react if you knew God was real and forced you to accept Him? That would be the only other alternative would it not, those who do not believe He's real show their disdain for God, so what would they do if He forced them to accept Him?

But they can't see that. They never even notice the sheer horror of what is supposed to have happened.

No one knows better than Christians the horror of Christ's sacrifice, we admit it's our fault, we take responsibility for it, why do you think God grants us salvation through grace. You have no idea what it's like to know you're responsible for Christ's sacrifice, this is a horror in our lives we live with all the time, yet we are able to rejoice because God through our belief and His grace has forgiven us and we can live our lives free in the truth of salvation.

What kind of God is that? It's as if they are afraid to call him out on that, like you can't even have the thought that perhaps some of what he is supposed to have done is wrong, perhaps even pyschopathic. Maybe it is just me, but this is some seriously sick stuff.

It is you, and there is nothing sick about it on God's part, because He loved us so much He allowed Christ to give Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God wanted mankind to be redeemed, so He paid the price we could not, love accounts for all God has done for man. So to answer your question, "what kind of God is He," He is the God of unfathomable love, a love beyond our understanding.