Good question from a muslim: Why did god need Jesus to die?

reply to post by SaberTruth

Thank you for your response, it has been very helpful in showing me that the Bible itself certainly can be understood to mean what you say. But it only serves to reiterate my point that "if you are a christian (thus believe in the problem, and believe in the traditional biblical response to the problem), it's all well and good, but if you aren't (you don't believe in the problem, or if you do, you don't accept that the traditional christian response is the right one), you have no reason to be" (as I said in my previous post).

It would be as if a book said that the sky is falling, and it would be very dangerous for everyone, but if you believed in the book, and wore a hat, you'd be safe. If you believed the book, then it would make perfect sense to wear a hat. But if you didn't believe the book, you'd have no reason to believe that the sky is falling, and thus wouldn't care to wear a hat at all, and the book would be irrelevant to you. It is the book itself which creates its own problem, which it then solves.


reply to post by adjensen

Originally posted by adjensen
My reply was in regards to your statement that it's distasteful, not in whether it applies to God, though of course it would apply to him. Why wouldn't it?

If something is morally distasteful or repugnant, it makes sense that God would not be following those laws.

Originally posted by adjensen
And you're still not understanding the Christian perspective -- ALL sins are against God. If you steal from someone, yes, you're committing a crime against them, and it's all well and good to say you're sorry to them, and to ask for forgiveness, but you've also committed a crime against God. Even seemingly minor points are crimes against God -- if you see someone who you don't like the looks of, the simple thought of condescension is a sin.

No, I understand that perfectly. You are again missing my point. As I said, I was trying to think up a sin that was PURELY against God. I REALISE the perspective that sinning against your fellow man is also sinning against God, but for the point I was making I was trying to think of a sin that is a sin against God, but not necessarily against man, for my example.

Originally posted by adjensen
Imagine the person whom you love the most -- your mother, your spouse, or a child, and now imagine that person spitting in your face, taking a whip with metals fragments in it and tearing chunks of skin out of your back, making a mocking crown of thorns and piercing your scalp with it... well, you get the idea.

I get the idea indeed. And it is again this that makes it clear to me that a just and merciful God would do no such thing.

Originally posted by adjensen
But this, I think, is at the root of your misunderstandings. God did not harm anyone. God put himself out to be harmed, he sacrificed himself.

Again, you misunderstand me. God DID harm someone. Whether you say he harmed himself, or he harmed Jesus who was not himself, or he harmed Jesus who was himself, is irrelevant to my point. The point is, according to the core tenets, that ANOTHER person suffered for MY sins. He may even have done it willingly. That makes no difference. Such actions are not just OR merciful.

If I murdered someone, and my friend wanted to protect me, so without asking me, and completely voluntarily, he went to the police, admitted to the crime, and was exectuted as punishment, this would neither be just, nor would it be merciful. If my friend was the son of the judge it would make no difference. If my friend was the judge himself, and voluntarily sentenced himself to be executed for my crime, it would make no difference. The point still stands that this is highly unjust, and certainly unmerciful.

reply to post by adjensen

Originally posted by adjensen
Oh yeah, just trying to point out that there's no difference between someone who ignores, say, scientific facts which support evolution because of their beliefs, and someone who ignores, say, historical facts which support early dating of Biblical texts because of their beliefs.

Well, that's good. I don't do either of those.

Anyone who says "Matthew could not have been written before the destruction of the Temple, because prophecy doesn't exist" just doesn't get it.

Actually, I'm not doing that. I'm not saying that it couldn't have been written before the destruction of the temple, I'm saying that there's no way to verify whether or not it was or whether the bulk of it was and then that passage was later added. I'm not saying that it's impossible, I'm saying that there's currently no method to verify it.

The book of Matthew could have been written anywhere from a decade before to a couple of decades after. I'm not going to say it was one or the other, but to say it was definitively one is beyond presumptuous.

I'm not going to claim it wasn't a prophecy, only that there's no good reason to claim that it was a prophecy.

And I'm not going to say prophecy doesn't exist, just that I've seen no testable example of it. I don't see any good reason to accept that it exists, but I'd make the reasonable claim that, based upon the evidence I have available, it would be safe to say that it does not.

The best way to test prophecy would be (now, excuse the bad example) something like what Camping did. Obviously not as extreme. Take the Bible and make a very specific prophecy for the future (obviously not one as ambitious) and there you have it.

Or take a prophecy in the Bible that's very specific and definitively written before the event happened. Ideally it would be best to have a copy or a definite reference to the passage that is dated to before the event happened. The Bible is loaded with many very general prophecies that cannot be taken as proof. If you make a broad enough claim and wait long enough, it'll come true.

I hope this clarified my position.

Also, sorry for the sporadic posting, been really busy as of late and will continue to be so through mid-June.

Edit: Just a quick note:

The idea that you don't need a Temple for sacrifice was actually around before Jesus. In Samaria. Samaritans got a bad rap for the idea, found in the Torah, that it isn't a Temple that's required, merely the limitation of sacrifice to a single location. Previously there was the tabernacle.

reply to post by adjensen


But the idea of sin isn't an idea of evil.

What was evil about breaking kosher laws?

What was evil about not observing the sabbath?

What's evil about having sex with a member of the same sex or having sex with someone prior to marriage?

What's evil about wearing blended fabrics?

What's evil about not removing foreskin?

Why is menstruation evil?

Where's the evil in not believing in a deity?

Where's the evil in worshiping another deity/the 'wrong' deity?

Sin isn't about evil, it's about obedience. Jesus died not to take a burden of evil but to take a burden of disobedience. Disobedience isn't always bad.

Originally posted by adjensen[/

Time will tell what the truth is, but there is an important point that one needs to bear in mind -- we are not God, so our opinions of what he should or shouldn't do are utterly irrelevant. Saying "a loving God should save everyone" is foisting our values on God, which is obviously irrational.

yes..perhaps so...couldn't you say that the holy bible is doing the same though?

After all where is the proof that is actually the word of God?

Could it be that man is foisting his values of God through a book,just as possible?