Jesus's sacrifice

[Shell B]

God did not create sin man brought sin into the world.

Um, according to the story, didn't god create man? Did mankind find sin on another planet and bring it back here or something? I'm not following your logic.

[KichigaiNeko]

What did he sacrifice exactly? He dies on some cross and three days later he becomes immortal.

Christians keep saying jesus sacrificed himself but what did he sacrifice exactly?

Nothing because "he" did not exist and was constructed by the First Council of Nicaea. All because some Roman Emperor wanted to consolidated his hold on Empire.

Following the links...this was a rather good read.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution

[Minimalist]

As I understand it the early xtians were just a rebel group...hence the delight with all the smiting and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the gospels.

One of the problems with the early gnostics....who may well have been the earliest xtians... is that the Xtian Book Burning Club was pretty successful ( at least until the Nag Hammadi cache was found) in exterminating whatever they may have said about themselves. As a result, all we know is what a handful of later xtian zealots said ABOUT them.

[tackattack]

@ ShellB - atheism is the absence of evidence for God's existence, darkness is the absence of light, sin is the absence of God's will in your choices... I think that's a pretty easy concept.


@KichigaiNeko - I read the article too and it doens't even come close to saying Jesus didn't exist.. in fact

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He had few complaints about Jesus, whom he praised as a saintly individual, a "humble" man. Christ's followers, however, he damned as "arrogant".[83] Around 290, Porphyry wrote a fifteen-volume work entitled Against the Christians.[84][notes 10] In the work, Porphyry expressed his shock at the rapid expansion of Christianity.[86] He also revised his earlier opinions of Jesus, questioning Jesus' exclusion of the rich from the Kingdom of Heaven,[87] and his permissiveness in regards to the demons residing in pigs' bodies.[88] Like Hierocles, he unfavorably compared Jesus to Apollonius of Tyana.

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Pretty much confirms Jesus was a person , since he was able to compare him to someone else and spoke about his teachings.

[Zen Badger]

@ ShellB - atheism is the absence of evidence for God's existence, darkness is the absence of light, sin is the absence of God's will in your choices... I think that's a pretty easy concept.


@KichigaiNeko - I read the article too and it doens't even come close to saying Jesus didn't exist.. in fact

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He had few complaints about Jesus, whom he praised as a saintly individual, a "humble" man. Christ's followers, however, he damned as "arrogant".[83] Around 290, Porphyry wrote a fifteen-volume work entitled Against the Christians.[84][notes 10] In the work, Porphyry expressed his shock at the rapid expansion of Christianity.[86] He also revised his earlier opinions of Jesus, questioning Jesus' exclusion of the rich from the Kingdom of Heaven,[87] and his permissiveness in regards to the demons residing in pigs' bodies.[88] Like Hierocles, he unfavorably compared Jesus to Apollonius of Tyana.

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Pretty much confirms Jesus was a person , since he was able to compare him to someone else and spoke about his teachings.

But he was writing three centuries after the event.

You have yet to produce contemporary accounts of his life.

[SleepingDemon]

After Cleopatra's death, her brother took power and blatantly attempted to remove her from history. Yet there is still more evidence that Cleopatra existed than Jesus. The very fact that one can make a credible argument against his existence is compelling enough. The two chief historical non-christian historians who speak of Jesus do so only briefly and they are both suspect. For instance Tacitus in his dribble about the lawd calls Pontius Pilate a procurator, when he was in fact a prefect. Josephus on the other hand mentions him twice, once when speak of James, and again talking about jesus being the messiah. Josephus was an orthodox jew, who did not believe that jesus was the messiah, so why would he go into great detail depicting him as such?

What people fail to realize is that both of these men lived after jesus had supposedly died, and both documents weren't the originals, and were copied by christians at a later date. As far as the bible is concerned, the earliest gospel pertaining to jesus was written some 40 years after his death, and the latest around 70, it's like writing a biography on Teddy Roosevelt today. Anyone who knew him is long dead, and the only thing you will have to go on is second and third hand recollections.

In any event, sacrifice isn't a sacrifice if what is lost can be re-attained immediately. If I push someone from in front of a bus causing the bus to hit me and I die, i'm a hero, but if i'm really superman and the bus doesn't hurt me, i'm just a nice guy.

[Shell B]

@ ShellB - atheism is the absence of evidence for God's existence, darkness is the absence of light, sin is the absence of God's will in your choices... I think that's a pretty easy concept.

No, tack. Christianity is the absence of evidence for god's existence. Atheism is a lack of belief in god(s).

Yes, darkness is the absence of light.

Sin is the absence of god's will in your choices? Okay, well, god created absence, light and, therefore, sin.

It's not that the concept is difficult, it's that it's erroneous.

[fr0d0]

Well said Shell... except that God didn't create dark - God is light. How do you create 'absence'?? The propensity to sin is a taking away to nothing rather than anything created... therefore anti God.

[tackattack]

@Zen- nor are there any accounts that are of him during his actual life to my knowledge.

Sleeping Demon- And I supose anything penned by a Christian hand is completely irrelevant to the conversation? To answer your question about josephus, do you know he didn't believe jesus was the messiah? Perhaps he was depicting the socially accepted depiction of him. That would be the earliest actual account of Jesus, unless you count the prophesies of his coming. You're also precluding any possibility of anyone who had seen/heard him from existing a mere 40 years later. The bible also has Moses living 120 years I believe. Josephus was born in 6 and wrote "antiquities of the Jews" in 90 something I think. I think you're exagerating the possibility that they arne't first hand accounts, and I think I've used your own quotes to show that.

Your analogy is a little off to me too. Superman would be considered by many to be a hero. Whether you die or not isn't as relevant to your image as what you've done in that life.

[Minimalist]

'God' didn't create shit.


And Celsus predates Porphyry by a century but that still doesn't "prove" they were talking about a real person. Celsus spends a fair amount of time pointing out that 2d century xtians couldn't even agree among themselves.

Wonder why that was?