What if Jesus had failed?

[ronedee]

I'll go w/ 2 also...

The interesting thing here is, that we are trying to decipher God's mind. Which is an impossibility!

Maybe "all" of us are trying too hard to make Him fit our model of what a God should be? All that we (of faith) really know is the beginning of mankind.

What happened before that to make things go the way they are?

When you start thinking out of the box, all sorts of questions arise.

Lets say...hypothetically of course... there was a superhuman race of beings? Lets say that God... was the last man standing. "I will have no gods before me!" Makes perfect sense to think there would only be ONE! And then the OT starts making a little more sense too!

Of course after the metaphorical dust settles, He would know what was needed to be done to create a human race that would avert the first calamity?

Maybe the omnipotent method creates monsters?! Maybe love and humility averts monsters?! We just don't know.

(disclaimer)This is by no means what I believe happened.... because I don't really know God's mind or origins... only that I believe in Him. And I trust in His promise.

I just threw this out as an example of our total inability to rely on ourselves for answers to God's motives, ways and background!

[Minimalist]

Yeah....





it was an entertaining idea for a 90 minute movie. As a bible, it's pretty fucking stupid.

[Sword of Christ]

The Bible is evidence only that someone was creative enough to invent fictional prophecies and fantasy events such as resurrection, the empty tomb, and the holy spirit.

You have to assume that God doesn't exist and/or never revealed himself to humanity to start with, so this would be circular reasoning. Which would work something a bit like this.



You could say using the Bible as the evidence of Jesus/God is circular reasoning but not if you're basing your belief in God/Christ on something beyond and outside of scripture.

You have absolutely nothing at all, correct. And, since you are the ones making the positive claim, you're failing miserably at demonstrating its validity.

Naturalism is a positive claim as well if you're making it. And if you're not making a claim for or against the belief in the existence of God you will have nothing to argue/debate about so you would automatically forfeit yourself from the discussion.

Wishful thinking is evidence only of the human mind's occasional inability to dissociate fantasy from reality.

It would only be wishful thinking if you didn't really genuinely believe it to begin with. It's only a fantasy if it is not true, but I'm saying it is true. There is a chance I'm wrong and there is a chance you're wrong. Whoever is wrong is living in the fantasy.

But, since you cannot demonstrate that your God is anything but a violent fantasy, the chances that we're mistaken seem remarkably slim.

If you mean demonstrate scientifically to an atheist it's possible but they wouldn't accept scientific evidence being used to support the existence of God. I've tried it before but things got a little heated to say the least. It's surprising how passionate atheists get over what they claim isn't a belief, though I think it is.

Christianity is distinct from other religions only in its details and some of its methods, but it is just as obviously nonsensical as every other religion.

It's nonsensical if you assume atheism is sensical to begin. But all religions, the higher grade ones anyway, share elements in common I would agree with that and I don't think it's a problem. It's a shared legacy of the Holy Spirit working it's way down through the ages. Christianity is the religion that I would claim has the most substantiation as it's not purely just Jesus talking about things only he saw/experienced. It's like Mohammed claimed to fly around on a winged horse, no-one else saw him do that so why should we believe him? Joesph Smith found Golden Plates that only he could translate with magic stones in a hat, he could have been making that up. If a community of 1st century Jews started to claim that they collectively witnessed the risen Christ, then unless it was some kind of mass hallucination or conspiracy something very likely did happen. You can still argue against it but it's not as easy to dismiss as the other examples given.

[Tonus]

Abraham, Isac, Jacob, Joseph, Nathaniel, and on and on were not under the law yet they still sinned...

Which is why I specifically excluded them. However, there still is the matter of:

Not to mention The penality for adultry was death of the adulturers no animal in under that covenant could cover that sin. A sin both David and soloman were guilty of...

If David and Solomon both died, then they paid the penalty for their sin of adultery. And pretty much every other sin they committed. They don't need Jesus to atone for their wrongs. They did so on their own, by dying.

It does bring up a bit of a paradox, in that it would mean that every person who dies is absolved of sin by the act of dying. Death squares the account with god. But that runs against the idea of an afterlife where bad deeds are punished. It still works as a way of providing a path to heaven as a way of rewarding people if god wishes to do so. But it's not atonement for sin. Dying took care of that.

[Darwinian]

or, more accurately..

[Faith No More]

If you mean demonstrate scientifically to an atheist it's possible but they wouldn't accept scientific evidence being used to support the existence of God. I've tried it before but things got a little heated to say the least. It's surprising how passionate atheists get over what they claim isn't a belief, though I think it is.

I am very curious to hear to your scientific evidence that supports the existence of god. Can you provide some?

[Tonus]

If Jesus had failed it would be safe to say he was a false prophet and not the real deal.

What I am asking is what would have been the consequences if Jesus, as god himself or his son, had not successfully completed his mission? In essence I am wondering if it was possible for him to fail. Was the whole thing just a sham? A display put on for the dubious 'benefit' of mankind? Drich seems to lean that way with his initial post, then backed out a bit by admitting that he believes that the physical sacrifice was necessary.

I don't see where god needed any sort of ritual in order to forgive sin. He is not limited from taking any action he pleases. In the second chapter of the gospel of Mark, Jesus forgives a man his sins based on the man's faith and not on any actions taken by the man, or on his behalf. When the pharisees are outraged by this, Jesus cures the man of paralysis as a way of showing that he has the authority to forgive sin without any action on the part of the sinner.

Therefore, taking on a human form in order to provide a sacrifice was either a monumental risk, or none at all. What if Jesus had dropped to his knees and worshiped Satan, as the Devil requested? Would god have died? Would the universe have blinked out of existence? Would he have simply wiped the slate clean and moved on? Or was it all for show, because it was effectively impossible for him to fail?

[Sword of Christ]

I am very curious to hear to your scientific evidence that supports the existence of god. Can you provide some?

I would basically take all the scientific evidence we have of the universe and how it was all formed and use that as the scientific evidence for an intelligent design purpose made for life. It does mean having eject the current mainstream scientific understanding of evolution as directionless and without a purpose. But no-ones telling me there was no progression in the evolution of life on Earth. It is self evident to anyone who doesn't have a naturalist bias that there was such a thing as there was in the universe as a whole. I find it baffling when people don't see this but have all the same evidence. If you want scientific physical evidence for God (a God in general) you already have it right there, Gods blueprints of the universe are in your hand.

[Tonus]

I'd say Christians have a little bit more evidence to go on if anything, something is better than nothing at all.

But that would require that you believe in pretty much any creature or concept that has some evidence, because evidence that it does not exist is not available. Think of any mythical creature from past or present, and there will be some evidence of it. Stories, legends, histories, scholarly studies, pictures, paintings, footprints, even eyewitness accounts. There will be no evidence that these creatures do NOT exist.

Therefore you are forced to believe in dragons, and griffins, and unicorns, and bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster and green men from Mars in their saucer-shaped spaceships and any number of other beings for whom there is a little bit more evidence for than against.

---

When you start thinking out of the box, all sorts of questions arise.

Well, yeah. That is how I started this particular topic. I got to wondering, and decided to ask the question. I'm glad that at least a couple of theists have stepped up and made a selection and explained it, thank you.

As for deciphering god's mind, we're humans, it's what we do. We want to know how things work. For believers, they should want to know how god thinks, even if it seems impossible. He did provide you with his thoughts and deeds on paper, so there is material to work with. The alternative would be to not want to know how he thinks, and that seems creepy to me.

[Sword of Christ]

But that would require that you believe in pretty much any creature or concept that has some evidence, because evidence that it does not exist is not available. Think of any mythical creature from past or present, and there will be some evidence of it. Stories, legends, histories, scholarly studies, pictures, paintings, footprints, even eyewitness accounts. There will be no evidence that these creatures do NOT exist.

You may have to be a little more open minded when it comes to the existence of the supernatural in general, seeing as it is kind of the idea. Otherwise what you would end up with is a kind of deism, but deism is a waste of time you may as well be an atheist than to believe in a God or a supernatural reality that does nothing at all.

Therefore you are forced to believe in dragons, and griffins, and unicorns, and bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster and green men from Mars in their saucer-shaped spaceships and any number of other beings for whom there is a little bit more evidence for than against.

Dragons, griffins and unicorns were originally just exotic animals and not supernatural. Bigfoot isn't supernatural but there's a chance that is some kind of undiscovered Australopithecus bipedal species of ape somewhere. The Lochness Monster could be some kind of giant eel or fish. 95% of UFO sightings have an explanation, the remaining 5% could be alien ships, alien probes or something a little more exotic and interdimensional. UFO sightings go all the way right back through history and are somewhat consistent. Fighter planes certainly have been dispatched to intercept something and we have pretty reliable reports on what they encountered. So yes you can be a little less cynical on these things.