jar - On Christianity

So the authors of the New Testament were wrong from the beginning (about the "He-died-for-our-sins" concept)?

And therein lies the difference. She will not be wrong.I went on to explain it in the parts you neglected to include. You will be judged by a different standard than I will or Ringo will or Faith will. You will be judged against ROBIN, what Robin might have been.There is no absolute standard.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There is if God is absolutely right in His judgment of us.

Fair enough. In the end however the only way that that we can make the moral decisions that God would have us make as individuals, is to respond in the affirmative to the message of love that God has written on our hearts.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Yes and no.I never got the "he died for our sins" message from reading the Bible. GOD forgives sin. GOD has no need to come down and kill himself to pay himself for our sins. It is simply a silly idea.What I get from the Bible is that GOD is forgiving. No one starts off damned. Every one of us though will be judged and judged based on what we do during this life, and what we could have done. We are expected to try to do what is right and try not to do what is wrong.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I thought they mentioned that in the Bible a lot--that He died for our sins.

No, not that much. And even if they did, it is simply silly.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Why the cross at all then? Sure He was a great teacher. We've had many great teachers including the OT prophets. What makes Jesus more than a prophet? (Or is He?)

Romans 3:25 Whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;1John 2:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.1John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins.So the authors were wrong about him from the beginning.

Well the cross and even the crucifixion isn't that unusual. Remember, as I pointed out before, there were atleast two others crucified the same day, time and place as Jesus and likely hundreds or thousands that same day throughout the Roman Empire.This is one of the funnier aspects of modern Christianity IMHO. In the Protestant realm, the symbol is the empty cross, placing the empahsis on the life before His crucifixion and the fact that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. The cross is but a moment, a breakpoint between the two lessons to be learned. In the Roman Catholic tradition on the other hand you see the Crucifix, the Man Hanging. There you see more symbology on the actual death, then on before and after. Different views.What I find funny though are the Fundamentalist and Evangelical preachers standing beneath the symbol of the Empty Cross chattering on about the crucifixion as the central point of Jesus life yet totally missing the message displayed.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Depends on how you read it. The fireman that devotes his life to saving folks gives his blood sweat and tears. If you read those in context I see them as talking about Jesus life, His whole life, the whole message.As I said the idea of GOD killing himself to pay himself for our sins when He had the ability to forgive them anyway is just plain silly.On the other hand, the idea of GOD making the sacrifice of becoming human, just human, with belly aches and teething problems and being a helpless baby and awkward youth and not knowing how to do things and always getting picked last for the game of chase the donkey and stubbing His toe, just to show use what we CAN be, to die and be raised from the dead to show us what WILL be, to teach us as one of us, that is awesome and magnicficent.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The fireman is not "propitiating," however. That means to conciliate an offended powerful agent--i.e., God.So these authors who lived around 60-100 AD, who grew up in the same culture that Jesus did, who perhaps knew people who knew Him, got him wrong, whereas you, living 2000 years later, in an extremely different culture, mindset, different language, different associations, etc., got him right.

Got no idea if I have it right or not. Said that many times. All I can tell you is what I believe and lay out why I believe it.Sorry, if you want ANSWERs you came to the wrong stall.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I think that we can safely assume that of all those that were crucified there was only one (Jesus) who could have avoided it. As either Man or God Jesus could have avoided that horrible death. He prayed to the Father that He might be able to avoid it. God (Father and Son) believed that what you contend is silly was absolutely necessary.Frankly I don't know why there wasn't an easier way to do it, but when it is foretold in the OT and reconfirmed by Christ himself in the NT I'm inclined not to dismiss it as silly. Personally I'm prepared to admit that God has a better understanding of what is necessary than I do and I'm prepared to take it on faith.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

What a cop-out!