Why did Jesus have to die? Isn't that just immoral?

[Haich]

I doubt Jimmy Saville or Hitler reached a point of genuine repentance, and as such will be judged before the Great White Throne.

You do raise a serious point though - how bad is too bad, and by whose standards are we measuring it? I see many conversations that throw back and forth sordid examples of wretched individuals and ask what about them?

In answer, God judges the heart. Paul describes himself as the chief of sinners, yet also understood and explained Grace better than anyone.

Let's leave Paul to a side lol

I'm not implying they repented. I was referring to people who die upon evil.
That's why I asked how are they judged and held accountable for their evil? What does your book say?

 

[Haich]

Anyway, thanks for resonding Red- off to work but I do hope you enjoy the glorious heatwave we've had.

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

Anyway, thanks for resonding Red- off to work but I do hope you enjoy the glorious heatwave we've had.

You too, @Haich

Btw - will respond on the "what happens to evil, unrepentant reprobates" later, but to cut to the chase, they will receive the punishment they deserve.

 

[JoChris]

Wrong. God forgives all his followers as long as you are sincere in your repentance. If he forgave Moses for accidently killing a man and for Jonah fleeing from his people, why wouldn't he forgive you?

God doesn't have these huge standards for us because he knows we will always come up short. He has set realistic and achievable standards in the form of worship, prayer , deeds etc. Belief alone does nothing, you need to grow as person spiritually and spend time with those less fortunatue to really appreciate the blessings of God.

In Islam humility is a key component to faith. The minute we start believeing oh wow we have done so many good things, we always pray on time and remember God, Satan deludes us into reassurance. You can't ever expect to be guaranteed paradise because it's an arrogance in itself to expect God to do what you feel you''re entitled to.

How can your repentance be enough if you do not even believe in the Saviour? Hebrews 11:6

Jesus said those who believe in Him (referring to Himself, not God the father) are the ones who will have eternal life John 6:47

The Christian God has way higher standards than the Islamic God. Only one sin in your lifetime makes you unworthy to stand in His presence. James 2:10-11

It is arrogant for a Christian to say we cannot know if we are going to Heaven. Jesus Himself said whosoever believes in Him (Jesus) will have eternal life. John 3:16
It is arrogant for someone to say they know better than Jesus.

 

[floss]

Scriptures said you can know where you'll be spending your eternal destiny. Stop hardening your heart and open the door by faith unto Him. There is NO other name under heaven that you may be saved beside the name of JESUS. He is knocking and waiting to hand out salvation for whosoever willing to believe. First, he only need a small amount of faith from you, then he will prove Himself to the point that you will no longer have any doubt of your salvation. I know everyone has burdens in their life. Only HE can carried that burdens and in return giving you ultimately GREATEST GIFT EVER! Break your stony heart right now by calling on HIS NAME.

"Lord JESUS, please take away all the burdens in my life and give me the gift of salvation. Amen"

1 John 5:13 King James Version (KJV)
13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

 

[Bacsi]

On the essence of what you say here, perhaps if I were to say that I reject evolution (Darwinian, Neo-Darwinian and Extraterrestrial "seeding") yet I chose to study it as part of the final year of my degree and got the highest grade for my understanding of it at uni by 20℅ over the other members of my course, you might get a better sense of what I mean by holding a reasonable faith. Truth has nothing to fear from cross examination.

@Kung Fu and @Etagloc both referred me to Bart Ehrmann and through him I researched the work of the Jesus Seminar. This led me to information that I would have never come across otherwise sparking much reading and investigation into textual criticism and prompting the following thread

https://vigilantcitizenforums.com/threads/the-critical-text-criticized.3461/

As to not leaping on every question immediately, and providing quick or glib answers without research, I defer to the wisdom of Treebeard in Lord of the Rings ("do not be hasty"), and to the personified Reason in The Pilgrims Regress here...

[John]: 'But I must think it is one or the other.'​

​

[Reason]: 'By my father's soul, you must not - until you have some evidence. Can you not remain in doubt?'​

​

[John]: 'I don't know that I have ever tried.'​

​

[Reason]: 'You must learn to, if you are to come far with me. It is not hard to do it. In Eschropolis, indeed, it is impossible, for the people who live there have to give an opinion once a week or once a day, or else Mr. Mammon would soon cut off their food. But out here in the country you can walk all day and all the next day with an unanswered question in your head: you need never speak until you have made up your mind.​

​

C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress

P.s. to your question:

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/are-there-20-commandments/

Very good. Again, in theory. What I see in practice comes down to "let's see how we can retort those demonic attacks on my true faith". Simplification. One-way look at things.

 

[Bacsi]

You can't ever expect to be guaranteed paradise because it's an arrogance in itself to expect God to do what you feel you''re entitled to.

Great attitude. Adequate. In many Christians I see this "I'm sooo much holier than thou and am going to heaven, and you're going to hell" stance, all the while they act utmost immorally. It's not good at all.

 

[Bacsi]

Christians too deep in their religion can't see that it's wrong to impute your sins to somebody else, whoever it is.

The minds of people who believe in substitutionary atonement are corrupt on a fundamental level.

The core of God's justice is that you and only you bear responsibility for your actions. God may chose to forgive you only based on your sincere repentance and best effort to do better.

In short, Christianity's salvation is an extremely immoral teaching.

 

[Bacsi]

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus clearly tells us what judgement is going to be based on. Clear and simple. There is no "believe in my sacrificial death and resurrection" element whatsoever.

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

 

[Helioform]

I think that most Christians miss the entire point of Jesus's crucifixion. Jesus was sent not to be worshiped as God, but to be an example of the best way to behave.

Ultimately his death is a message of self-sacrifice for the common good. We have to emulate him in everything we do to be "saved". The rest is not important.

 

[Kung Fu]

To a non-believer's mind it sounds stupid that a Higher Being would sacrifice His own child so we could be restored to fellowship with Him, no strings attached. It sounds illogical, irrational and unreasonable to people who think they will be able to earn a Higher Being/ beings favour by doing a rain dance, sacrificing chickens or walking a little old lady across the road.

It sounds stupid and absolutely illogical to anyone including yourself but you just don't want to admit it. God impregnates his own mother to give birth to a son who is also Himself who He then sacrifices because a ransom has to be paid to Himself for the mistake of 2 people. Now that really does sound absolutely ridiculous lol.

Don't act like you know anything about logic and rational thought when everything you stand for doesn't make any kind of sense. You come on here trying to tell us that we know nothing about logic but when it is in fact your camp that knows nothing.

 

[Kung Fu]

I think that most Christians miss the entire point of Jesus's crucifixion. Jesus was sent not to be worshiped as God, but to be an example of the best way to behave.

Ultimately his death is a message of self-sacrifice for the common good. We have to emulate him in everything we do to be "saved". The rest is not important.

Muslims pray as he did, belief in strictly One God as he did, follow almost the exact same laws as he did, and etc. but yet Christians don't do any of the things and still think they know Jesus better than Jews and Muslims do because of some guy named Paul.

 

[manama]

This may sound obnoxious and I've probably said it before but I'll say it again because why not

When you have a kid and you realize that your kid has made a mistake and he isn't perfect, you might get angry at your kid for a while but if he realizes his mistake and apologizes, you forgive him and then teach him how to not let it happen again. That is love.

You don't kill yourself for giving birth to an abomination, thats not how it works, thats not love.

What Christians believe in, is ultimately that god committed suicide because he created an imperfect thing, asked it to be perfect and then just couldn't realize that since its not perfect, and instead of forgiving it or making it better, killed himself.
And since suicide is a sin in all Abrahamic faiths, god pretty much committed a sin.

You have this warped idea of a god who could NOT create something good and then wanted it to be good. So ultimately this faith falls into this narrative that shows an imperfect god who lacks basic common sense.

 

[Helioform]

Muslims pray as he did, belief in strictly One God as he did, follow almost the exact same laws as he did, and etc. but yet Christians don't do any of the things and still think they know Jesus better than Jews and Muslims do because of some guy named Paul.

Yes Muslims view him as a "prophet" from the little I know about Islam...but he was a human specifically because we could relate to him and view him as an equal. In this way we can more easily act in the manner that he did.

 

[Kung Fu]

Yes Muslims view him as a "prophet" from the little I know about Islam...but he was a human specifically because we could relate to him and view him as an equal. In this way we can more easily act in the manner that he did.

Exactly we view him as a prophet and therefore very HUMAN.

 

[cfowen]

Nice theoretical explanation. Well, not really. Human sacrifice is bad and unjust.

Then, the méthod of salvation - faith in Jesus - brings to issues like people who lived before year 33 A.D. or haven't heard the gospel.

The mainstream Christian theology is just immoral, illogical and impractical.

What is this Everlasting Gospel that will be preached to the nations? There's no direct mention of Christ or His sacrifice, although He is God and the Creator. There are a couple of other passages that I haven't yet located, which similarly preaches to pagans that there is one God who is the creator of all, without mentioning Christ. One is somewhere in Acts, I believe
Rev 14:6-7
.6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,
7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

And, of course, anyone who does not believe that Christ died for all their sins, was buried, and then resurrected, is not indwelled with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to have even one iota of understanding about anything spiritual, Therefore, any opinion they might have about anything in the Bible, which is 100% Spiritual, is insignificant garbage.

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

Great attitude. Adequate. In many Christians I see this "I'm sooo much holier than thou and am going to heaven, and you're going to hell" stance, all the while they act utmost immorally. It's not good at all.

OK, @Bacsi , I'm calling you out on this one.

Show me those attitudes in these words:

1 When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.​

​

2 Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
save in the death of Christ, my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them through his blood.​

​

3 See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?​

​

4 Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all. ​

 

[floss]

Great attitude. Adequate. In many Christians I see this "I'm sooo much holier than thou and am going to heaven, and you're going to hell" stance, all the while they act utmost immorally. It's not good at all.

I think you’re mixing up Islam with Christianity. I highly doubt any saved Christian believe they are going to heaven due to their holiness, its rather the opposite.

 

[Bacsi]

OK, @Bacsi , I'm calling you out on this one.

Show me those attitudes in these words:

1 When I survey the wondrous cross​

on which the Prince of glory died,​

my richest gain I count but loss,​

and pour contempt on all my pride.​

​

2 Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast​

save in the death of Christ, my God!​

All the vain things that charm me most,​

I sacrifice them through his blood.​

​

3 See, from his head, his hands, his feet,​

sorrow and love flow mingled down.​

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,​

or thorns compose so rich a crown?​

​

4 Were the whole realm of nature mine,​

that were a present far too small.​

Love so amazing, so divine,​

demands my soul, my life, my all. ​

Yuk. Perverted worship of thorns and blood, torture and killing. It's sickening.

False humility. Singing this hymn, while exterminating native Américains, enslaving Africans or bombing Iraqis.

As I said, many Christians have such attitude, not all. Some are very good despite their fundamentally corrupt religion.

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

Yuk. Perverted worship of thorns amd blood, torture and killing. It's sickening.

False humility. Singing this hymn, while exterminating native Américains, enslaving Africans or bombing Iraqis.

As I said, many Christians have such attitude, not all. Some are very good despite their fundamentally corrupt faith.

Have you ever read Perelandra by CS Lewis @Bacsi ? It might challenge you but you may find it fascinating!