Faith/ Hypocrisy/ And Faith

[Mercy]

I never understood how the crucifixion was supposed to free man. My friend explained to me that it's because it was a human sacrifice? Like a blood sacrifice? I was baffled, but he was like of course..what do you think communion is.
So basically animal sacrifice is everywhere in the old testament. The smell of burning animal flesh was often said to please god. So is it true that this Crucifixion of jesus was a human sacrifice to appease the god? Perhaps I'm still getting it wrong. Like I said I really don't get the idea of crucifixion and how that saves men from sin.

Jesus became human so that he could be seen, heard, understood and to fulfill all the propheses in the Bible about the Messiah.

Jesus is fully human being born of a Jewish mother. He is also fully God. One person (hypostisis)with 2 natures.

Jesus is coequal with the God the Father, of one essence with God as the creed says,"Light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made of one essence with the Father, through whom all things were made.This creed was agreed upon by a counsel called by the Emperor Constantine of Popes, Patriarchs and Metropolitans in 325 CE at Nicea. It is accepted by almost all branches of Christianity still today.

The Crucifixion of Jesus is not to appease God. Jesus's death follows a familiar pattern so that it is recognizable by Jewish people of putting criminals outside the gates of the city and their long history of killing prophets.The concept of blood sacrifice was common in Israel, so they could understand it in a limited way. The book of the Prophet Isaiah foretells all about the suffering servant we see on the cross.

Jesus died in this torturous way voluntarily. He most certainly could have chosen to get down at any moment.

The question of how the crucifixion forgives sins is shown by Jesus' actions. He descended to hell and set all the captives free, no longer to be imprisoned by their past deeds. The Bible crucifixion narrative also tells of many of the dead in the nearby cemetary coming back to life.

When Jesus rises back into heaven he make a pathway for all time for all. Heaven only knows how far away that is or near it is in between intermolecular and interatomic space. We don't know anything about it. Jesus says, "The Kingdom of God is within you and I go before you to prepare a place for you so that you will be with me where I am." That is the point of the crucifixion, to make a pathway home for all sinners, because we all slip up from time to time.

When Jesus became one person, both God and Man, died and rose again into heaven, he made a pathway to heaven for all people who unite themselves with him. He died once for all people for all time. There is no need of blood sacrifice. We take Communion, Eucharist recognizing the bread and wine as changed/ transformed into the blood of Jesus and the body of Jesus but it retains its earthly nature just as Jesus did. It is still bread and wine. Our pre Communion prayers ask God "to accept this bloodless sacrifice ..for all and on behalf of all. We are commerating his actions at the last supper. We are remembering his life and voluntary death.

It took me a while to learn what this set of beliefs means in day to day life. It is a part of the process of becoming closer and closer to God as we practice to try to live as best we can.

Our God, Jesus is a doer. We know him through his actions. "They will know you by your love for one another." His first miracle is only witnessed by the lowest slaves in the household, the foot washers. He is not a show off. St. James said, " Faith without works is dead. For what good is it if you see a man without a coat and say to him,'be warm, my friend' and don't give him yours.(Loose paraphrase) And no one can work their way into heaven. We can not do anything to make Him love us less. We can not do any thing to make him love us more. To love us is His freewill choice and is unchangeable by any anything done by his creations.

 

[just me here]

I heard something the other day and wanted to repeat it here:

Do you know the difference between a philosopher and a theologen?

A philosopher is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there,
A theologen is like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there and he finds it.

here is a little more of my opinion about proven scientific fact:

Without a constant process of wholehearted effort to ferret out the false hypothesis, science is doomed to be led down false avenues and blind alleys. Admittedly, some work has been repeated so many times or tested so many times that it is accepted as undisputed fact, solid ground if you will. I personally think we are still so inexperienced in our quest for understanding that we have to be unenlightened to the majority of the workings of our universe and our place in it, and that leads me to the conclusion that some of the things we know to be true just aint right. Someday we will understand it all, and that can only happen if we are always willing to accept the idea that we don't have a clue as of yet.

I can't tell you all how much I am enjoying this thread- My life is so affected by the beleifs of a family member, yet she is totally un approachable on topics of religion. Faced with such an unmoveable faith in something I can't get myself to beleive or even accept as a possibility, I have a huge level of frustration regarding religion. This thread is an antidote to her poisonous judgement of all that fail to reach her high level of self righteousness. It has helped me look at my beleifs a little without feeling attacked for having them or guilty because they don't line up with hers, and I just want to thank everyone for the open debate without anger or attack.

In my heart of hearts I THINK I am an agnostic. That seems to be the only religion that I have found that bases itself on a proveable, true foundation: I don't know for sure and neither do you.

 

[Tinyflame]

You know what I think is neat? This has nothing to do with religion, but I always think of Oscar Schindler ('Schindler's List'), how they said (I literally heard this): "How could he have possibly saved those people because he was a Nazi, an alcoholic, a womanizer, a gambler", etc. And I think to myself, that's precisely 'how' he could, because he wasn't a murderer, he was a good and brave man, and he needed to be precisely in the Circles he was with his own unique beliefs to ever accomplish what he did.

So I think everyone should (ideally, and without any prejudice) let people 'be' who they feel they need to be, or are, if it's not violating your boundaries, and let them follow their unique path that is true to them, their beliefs, and their heart.

 

[freakofnurture]

Yes, they are when they make the discoveries and then.......they stay that way for a while.

Until they are dead.

It's been close to 100 years now since the most complex field of physics - Quantum Mechanics - has been discovered. If there were anything to the layman's god proving interpretations of it, the massive drop in atheism amongst researchers within that field would have been noticeable by now. But there is no such drop. Instead the percentage of atheistic scientists has been increasing steadily.

This means that to the present day there is no evidence for god in physics. None whatsoever. Not in Quantum Mechanics, not in Astrophysics, not anywhere. Physics will not take away your burden of having to have faith.

In my heart of hearts I THINK I am an agnostic. That seems to be the only religion that I have found that bases itself on a proveable, true foundation: I don't know for sure and neither do you.

The phrase with the black cat is great :D

Agnosticism is a confusing term and it took me a long time to get it. Now I label myself as an agnostic atheist for the following reason:

There are basically two options of content: Theism/deism (belief in gods) and atheism (no belief in gods).

And two options of modality: Gnosticism (knowing) and agnosticism (not knowing).

So, you can be an Agnostic Theist, meaning that you do believe that there is a personal god who has an interest in you, but you do not claim to know. Most religious people are agnostic theists or agnostic deists. An Agnostic Atheist doesn't believe in gods but doesn't claim to know either.

As a Gnostic Theist or Gnostic Atheist you claim to know that what you think about the existence or non-existence of gods is actually true.

The question for you is, do you believe that gods exist and do you live your life based on the assumption that they are real? If you answer no, then you are an atheist.

 

[just me here]

There are basically two options of content: Theism/deism (belief in gods) and atheism (no belief in gods).
And two options of modality: Gnosticism (knowing) and agnosticism (not knowing).
.

All true, and kind of uncomfortable. Would anyone call themselves a gnostic theist? It is a state of beleif that fits many but is used by no one I have ever met, gnostic atheist is also kind of cumbersome but a suitable descriptor for many people.

I suspect that a large majority of atheists are like I was as a young man, so fed up with religion and religious people that I called myself an atheist but was in reality an anti-theist.

I also suspect that if you asked a group of atheists if they beleived there could be a god, just not one that has been correctly defined by any human understanding of what a god is, some people might raise their hands and realise that they are by definition agnostic theists.

All very challenging and helpful, it is important to me to understand the basis for my beleifs, and to be able to clearly state them. A large part of the frustration of being raised by a deeply religious yet unthinking stepmother was her total inability to even consider an opposing argument or articulate her own positions. She is still a totally devoted member of her church, but completely unable to tell you why without resorting to quotations or dogma, never able to explain her own thoughts.

 

[yomama]

I think applying "hard" science to social phenomena is mismatch of tools. From a social science perspective, the "hard facts" are that "God" exists to some people and not others. No amount of bantering about science v. theology is going to change that. I think it's more interesting to look at the roles theology and science play in our lives, individually and collectively, and particularly how we (survivors of trauma) use them to understand life, as well as build meaning, hope, and resiliency. I'm not comparing religion and science as if they are the same (I hate it when people do that) but I do think people wield them in similar ways during these discussions. I'm probably in the agnostic atheist category, but the "not knowing" leaves me open to all possibilities.

 

[freakofnurture]

I also suspect that if you asked a group of atheists if they beleived there could be a god, just not one that has been correctly defined by any human understanding of what a god is, some people might raise their hands and realise that they are by definition agnostic theists.

I highly doubt that. Especially in the USA where outing yourself with the label 'atheist' is akin to committing social suicide and thus every possibility to fit in without feeling too much like a fake will be cared for dearly by many people still sitting on the fence between deism and atheism.

All very challenging and helpful, it is important to me to understand the basis for my beleifs, and to be able to clearly state them.

I tried to have a conversation about this exact topic with my grandfather - who is a roman catholic - and I left it with a feeling akin to what your stepmother must make you feel. He appeared to never have wasted any deeper thought on what he deems to be The Most Important Question Ever. He just swallowed whatever his priest bothered to spit at him and took every argument for god's existence at face value because his belief doesn't depend on arguments but merely on the comfort it provides him with. See, even the most torturing belief feels great when compared to the (quoth my grandfather) absolutely hopeless, desolate and empty void all those angry, hateful 'atheists' (who aren't really atheists, just angry at god) spend their amoral little lives in.

I just care about if my beliefs are true, and if I cannot know something I leave it at that and act based on the Null Hypothesis or erring on the side of caution.