Salvation via Jesus makes no sense

[Wertbag]

Prior to Jesus's sacrifice the belief was that God was the final judge.  You died and went before the big guy, who would look over your life and see if you were worthy of heaven.  This was a great incentive for people to be good as you were to be judged for your character, so you'd better be good for goodness sake.  Once the belief changed so that salvation becomes about belief in Jesus and nothing to do with your character or actions, then that incentive to live a good life is removed.  God's power as the final judge is removed, and He becomes bound by a single rule instead.  This leads to the famous line "God sacrificed himself to himself so that He wouldn't harshly judge the rules that He made".  If God is truely all-powerful, then He has no need of a human body or a sacrifice.  If He wishes to forgive sin, then He can.

 

If you believe that faith in Jesus is the only requirement for entry to heaven, then you run into the problem that every serial killer would be allowed into heaven.  Even Hitler would be allowed in, while the Jews that he murdered would not.  Hows that justice for you?  As soon as you take the judging away from God, then all justice is removed as well.  It becomes a free pass for anyone with faith and works don't matter.

 

There is also the question of what became of all of the prophets prior to the New Testament?  Moses and Noah aren't burning in hell for failing to believe in Jesus, so were they judged on different criteria?  If it was only a belief in God and not in Jesus, then didn't coming to earth just make it harder to be saved?  If God and Jesus are one and the same, then wouldn't belief in God count?  By that, wouldn't every Jew get into heaven without belief in Jesus because they believe in the right God?  If not, why does belief in one aspect of the same being matter?

 

What about people who never hear of Jesus?  African tribesmen who have never seen a whiteman before.  Do they die ignorant and go to hell?  Surely that is unjust?  But the only way around that is to allow them a different criteria, but then we are back to judging characters or works and not belief.

[LogicalFallacy]

An oft not thought about issue.

 

Let's say Hitler didn't commit suicide (Apparently doing that locks you out of the kingdom). Lets say he truly repented and accepted JC as his Lord and savior. Under these conditions a Christian is forced to admit that Hitler's sins would be forgiven and he'd go to heaven. Where then is the justice for the millions he murdered?

[◊ Krowb ◊]

When I was in high school I brought up a similar issue with my pastor.  My pastor preached that those who had never heard of Jesus were saved (for the same injustice reason @Wertbag proposed).  This immediately led my brain to a terrible problem:  If the default is salvation for those who have never heard, then to maximize the number of people saved you ought to eradicate the Gospel, as it can only condemn.  Yet . . . the Great Commission.  He honestly had no answer (I felt so strongly about this we met in his office to discuss one weekday afternoon).  His final reply was that was in God's hands, but he cannot conceive of a god that would condemn those who never had the opportunity to be saved.  We must simply trust in Him and his ways are higher  . . . 

 

My youth pastor at the same time took a different approach, the deaths of the unsaved would be on our heads for not sharing it to the ends of the world.  Every word from our mouth would be judged, thus we MUST share the Gospel at all times.

[Wertbag]

I saw a video of good ol' Frank Turek talking about what happens to those people who are ignorant of god.  His answer was "if god knew they could be saved, He would have made it happen.  If it didn't, then they were probably never going to accept the word of god anyway".  So he goes with people will be punished for rejecting something they never knew existed because in the future they would have rejected it anyway.

Considering the success of missionaries worldwide, it is hard to imagine cultures who couldn't have any members swayed at all.

[themonkeyman]

I never really Got why Jesus needed to die like people say he took our sin and lead a perfect life but if you read the Gospels Jesus was an awkward fucker who was very condescending and given he would know the Audience it makes it down right nasty.

 

But that asside so God sent himself to die for mankind so he could forgive man kind by having mankind kill God.

 

And why is God so hung up on not forgiving people?

 

Even then Jesus knew heaven so he wouldn't dear death or the afterlife and knows not to enjoy life's luxuries but none of the rest of us have seen heaven or have the same guarantee so it's not like he really struggled.  If you have a kid a say don't play with your friends PS2 and in exchange you get a new PlayStation 5 it would be easy enough.

 

All man kind got was speculation.  Why didn't Jesus give the crowd a Vision instead of just talking about it.

 

Why don't he give us all a vision right now

[themonkeyman]

On 3/24/2021 at 1:32 AM, Wertbag said:

I saw a video of good ol' Frank Turek talking about what happens to those people who are ignorant of god.  His answer was "if god knew they could be saved, He would have made it happen.  If it didn't, then they were probably never going to accept the word of god anyway".  So he goes with people will be punished for rejecting something they never knew existed because in the future they would have rejected it anyway.

Considering the success of missionaries worldwide, it is hard to imagine cultures who couldn't have any members swayed at all.

 

But like the church of old aim for the poor and the women they lap shit up.

 

Christianity - Swindling the ignorant since 130AD

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I always rephrase the story in terms of a mommy who bakes some brownies, fills the whole house with the yummy chocolate smell, sets them out on the table and then tells the kids "You can have all the vegetables you want, but eat any of these brownies and I'll kill you." If she meant that literally, would she be a good mommy or the most evil one ever? What if she justifies it by claiming to be "holy"?

 

The kids eat the brownies anyway, so in her infinite love takes just one and beats him to death in front of the others. "Now then, my anger is satisfied and all you have to do is tell me that this was the greatest love ever demonstrated... or I'll take you in the back yard and burn you alive." Would we honor and adore the mommy for being wise beyond our understanding? Would we make movies depicting this as miraculous love? Would we say "I'm glad that she made even one way for us to not be burned alive"? 

 

Nope. We'd lock her up as a psychopathic narcissistic child abuser and murderer. 

[alreadyGone]

And then there's the Calvinist/Presbyterian view..

 

 

[Joshpantera]

I can't stress this enough, senseless foundations aren't capable of becoming sensible as they're built upon. 

 

Salvation through jesus is silly because a world with days before a sun, any moon, or stars makes zero sense. Before even getting into the details of the salvation beliefs. 

 

On 3/23/2021 at 4:20 PM, Wertbag said:

Prior to Jesus's sacrifice the belief was that God was the final judge.  You died and went before the big guy, who would look over your life and see if you were worthy of heaven.  This was a great incentive for people to be good as you were to be judged for your character, so you'd better be good for goodness sake.  Once the belief changed so that salvation becomes about belief in Jesus and nothing to do with your character or actions, then that incentive to live a good life is removed.  God's power as the final judge is removed, and He becomes bound by a single rule instead.  This leads to the famous line "God sacrificed himself to himself so that He wouldn't harshly judge the rules that He made".  If God is truely all-powerful, then He has no need of a human body or a sacrifice.  If He wishes to forgive sin, then He can.

 

But when getting into the details, yeah, it's a leaning tower. I assume that at some point it will pretty much topple over. Leaving only those who try and remain within a toppled tower with a fractured and broken foundation. A potential social minority of believers remaining. 

[Myrkhoos]

In the Orthodox Church there is a works plus faith approach. Which can get rather complicated and sometimes contradictory. But there is no believe in Jesus and you are saved.

     I mean one of the unforgivable sins aka blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is said to be having such a faith that you just sin away bk you think God will automatically forgive you. The sin of "too much faith" or smth like that.

    And Hitler would go Heaven ONLY if he repented of his sins. Honestly. Not just utter some words. But true heartfelt repentance.

       But this dogmatic approach has its own issues. Like why not just forgive without the whole incarnation? Theology is pretty complicated. :). Plus it heavily relied on ancient literary now extinct languages with traditions of philosophy and religion like Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Aramaic, etc. 

     Which is why sometimes I think it is an elite religion and maybe Islam was a kind of reaction to that elite, philosophical, complicated theology. - Christians were mainly urban dwellers for the first part and christian states waged bloody war on traditional beliefs ( shamans - by tge way sorcerery was NEVER considered a woman only thing witg many men condemned for witchcraft , altough probably women were the majority, while men were the majority of condemned heretics).

    Christianity is very complicated, like Judaism. Maybe that is a way of social control. Like making them deliberately undeciohrable by the ordinary man - church services were translated in Romanian in 17 18th century from Slavonic/Greek, languages from different language families than Romanian

[LostinParis]

It’s strange how what once made sense to us as Christians now seems ludicrous once we lost our faith.

 

Even when I was still a Christian I would sometimes wonder why it seemed I need a degree in theology to understand god’s message. I agree with @Myrkhoos that Christian theology is elitist.
 

Doesn’t god want us all to be saved? Why allow the bible to be so confusing and vague? Why not make clear instructions for his wishes? It’s unreasonable to expect us to decipher it. This problem has led to the slaughter of countless Christians by other Christians. Surely god could have predicted this mess?
 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

1 hour ago, LostinParis said:

It’s strange how what once made sense to us as Christians now seems ludicrous once we lost our faith.

 

We lost the underlying motivation to make it work. When we have a social circle that all believe and reinforce the belief any time our brains start to see through the malarkey, the shell-game of excuses eventually seems normal and accepted until something more upsetting gets our attention and helps unravel the stack of lies we believed. Plus many of us are inclined to want magic answers and a feeling that we have an invisible friend with super-powers giving us an edge on life. But we don't. Unfortunately, many millions in several religions do believe that, and shape the laws and culture of nations around the planet. Occasionally we make advances, and then mental and often violent fundamentalists resurge and set humanity back several centuries (see pic). 

[Myrkhoos]

17 hours ago, Fuego said:

 

We lost the underlying motivation to make it work. When we have a social circle that all believe and reinforce the belief any time our brains start to see through the malarkey, the shell-game of excuses eventually seems normal and accepted until something more upsetting gets our attention and helps unravel the stack of lies we believed. Plus many of us are inclined to want magic answers and a feeling that we have an invisible friend with super-powers giving us an edge on life. But we don't. Unfortunately, many millions in several religions do believe that, and shape the laws and culture of nations around the planet. Occasionally we make advances, and then mental and often violent fundamentalists resurge and set humanity back several centuries (see pic). 

Just remember, those "advances" in Afghanistan and Iran were made by colonial or colonial backed dictators very often, and when, in Iran, they elected a socialist govt the US intervened and reinstated the shah, after which the revolution in 79 came. Those situations in the Middle East are complicated, and western military intervention rarely made it better, many times worse. Like the slave markets in Tripoli post Gaddafi or Syria controled Isis post Assad control. And this bk of intervention from "advanced" countries.

   Besidrs I can show you pictures like that pre communist and communist Romania, where it seems much better in communist oeriod than before, altough the communists were much more brutal. And, by the way, on the hijab thing, there are serious trials in Europe to give women the right to wear the hijab, it being banned in some places. Using feminist arguments nonetheless. This binary we in West are civili sed while those middle easterners are backward barbarians is not that fair and a bit, if I may , "colonial minded" :))

[Myrkhoos]

PS this not excusing the obviously autocratic nature of some Middle east Islamic regimes.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

True, and the USA and UK "civilized" societies were also established through much violence and genocide of the natives, and exported wherever we seek control. 

 

I noticed this tendency to gloss over the nasty yesterday when I was watching a fan-video of clips from Vikings set to a Heilung song (though the band itself promotes brotherhood of man). I get the attraction to a primitive tribal setting (until we need medical help), but celebrating a brutal culture of war and taking of slaves struck me as distasteful, but it "worked" as a culture for quite some time, as did the other world cultures of Rome, Greece, etc that took over and imposed their ways. The inherent violent tendency of humans hasn't really changed on a national level, it has just been sanitized so we feel better about ourselves. Working for real change that helps people is still important, and there are a lot of us still trying to do that despite the last 4 years of popularity of a president who idealized the opposite. 

[WalterP]

On 5/20/2021 at 1:52 PM, Fuego said:

I always rephrase the story in terms of a mommy who bakes some brownies, fills the whole house with the yummy chocolate smell, sets them out on the table and then tells the kids "You can have all the vegetables you want, but eat any of these brownies and I'll kill you." If she meant that literally, would she be a good mommy or the most evil one ever? What if she justifies it by claiming to be "holy"?

 

The kids eat the brownies anyway, so in her infinite love takes just one and beats him to death in front of the others. "Now then, my anger is satisfied and all you have to do is tell me that this was the greatest love ever demonstrated... or I'll take you in the back yard and burn you alive." Would we honor and adore the mommy for being wise beyond our understanding? Would we make movies depicting this as miraculous love? Would we say "I'm glad that she made even one way for us to not be burned alive"? 

 

Nope. We'd lock her up as a psychopathic narcissistic child abuser and murderer. 

 

My 50 cents worth.

 

In Fuego's retelling of the Eden story we'd quite rightly conclude that the mother is unfit to care for her children.

 

But he's actually glossed over the full extent of the mother's psychopathic narcissism.

 

In Fuego's retelling the mother doesn't seem to know if her kids are going to obey her or not.

 

But, in a more scripturally accurate retelling, the mother knew in advance that her children would disobey her. 

 

And then she went ahead and got angry, killed one of them to satisfy her her anger, demanded that she be honoured and adored and then threatened to burn all of the others alive if they didn't love her.

 

A human psychopathic narcissistic child abuser and murderer is bad enough.

 

They can only hurt those within their reach.

 

A god is infinitely worse.

 

He can (and has) hurt everyone.

 

Thank you.

 

Walter.

 

 

[LostinParis]

On 6/5/2021 at 8:06 AM, WalterP said:

 

But, in a more scripturally accurate retelling, the mother knew in advance that her children would disobey her. 

It’s like breeding kittens for the sole purpose of torturing them.

[Myrkhoos]

8 hours ago, LostinParis said:

It’s like breeding kittens for the sole purpose of torturing them.

Amusing is how God many times is portrayed as the opposite we are supposed to be , in his "image" - power hungry, worship hungry, sadistic, easily offended and massively angry, and vengeful.