What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

by leavingwt 73 Replies latest jw friends

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  leavingwt

  A few more. . .

  What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

  That although a great number of miracles were claimed to have happened in the different superstitious cultures of the ancient world, only the ones in the Bible actually happened as claimed.

  What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

  That an omniscient God could not foresee that his revealed will in the Bible would lead believers to commit such atrocities against others that reasonable people would conclude there is no divine mind behind the Bible.

  What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

  That God created human beings with rational minds that require evidence before they accept something, and yet this same God does not provide enough evidence but asks them to have faith instead.
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  leavingwt

  What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?

  That Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy even though there is not one passage in the Old Testament that is specifically fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that can legitimately be understood as a prophecy and singularly points to Jesus as the Messiah using today's historical-grammatical hermeneutical method.
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  JWoods

  I still find the notion of human sacrifice (Jesus impalement for mankind) the most disturbing part of the case.

  Yes, I know that brave people have died for others in the past...what I find disturbing is the notion that God would REQUIRE IT.
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  tec

  I have a hard time understanding that as well, JWoods.

  I'm not convinced of it, at least not completely, that God required it - as in life for life kind of deal. I think the allusions made in the NT might be more metaphor, because that might have been what the people could understand.

  I do think Jesus' sacrifice showed us that he did not fear death, or choose to recant his teachings despite knowing that death waited for him because of them. He trusted in something better after death, he trusted in his Father.

  He showed us that we can, as well - even if we don't believe that there was some kind of tug of war with the angels, satan, and God. Sometimes I look at the story of Job and apply that also - Satan saying, 'no way Jesus stays loyal to you to the point of torture and death', but then Jesus does, and Satan is discredited. (This is total speculation on my behalf. Can't know these things, but I do trust that the story of Job shows us that there are things happening beyond our scope of knowledge.)

  Tammy
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  JWoods

  Can't know these things, but I do trust that the story of Job shows us that there are things happening beyond our scope of knowledge.

  You know, Tammy, that Job story is just as disturbing to me as the Jesus sacrificial legend (as disturbing in the sense of what it reveals about God) - it shows God perfectly willing to let Satan torture Job for years, destroy his belongings, ruin his health, kill his kids, etc...

  And for what?

  Just, seemingly, to settle a nice little gentlemens BET on whether Job would curse God for letting it happen.

  Very disturbing to me, morally.
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  PSacramento

  I still find the notion of human sacrifice (Jesus impalement for mankind) the most disturbing part of the case.

  It can be viewed in a few different ways, certainly for US, NOW, the notion as it is put forth seems very barbaric and unnecessary, but for the people of that time, perhaps not.

  I can only speak for how I see it:

  Jesus's willing sacrifice was a symbolic act of love for us and to show OUR worthiness to God.

  " for God so loved the world..."

  It wasn't enough for God to come down to us, to live like us, to eat, laugh andbe US, he had to Die and suffer, just like US to show that we are worthy of the gift of Grace.

  God so loves us that God was willing to, in Jesus, die and suffer for us, not because he had to, but because he loved us that much.

  Jesus was fully human, he felt all the pain and sorrow, perhaps more so, than we do, he felt ALL the pain of his death and even felt the "abandonment" of God at one point, though God never abandoned him, Jesus suffer as much as any Human can and he did so willingly and out fo Love to show US that we ARE WORTH it in his eyes and the eyes of God.

  Worthy of Grace, worthy of Salvation, Worthy of the HS, Worthy of God living in Us, through His Son and the HS.
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  notverylikely

  Why wouldn't Satan rebel? he has free will like everyone else.

  Free will:

  Q:Would you like pastrami or turkey? Pastramiis $2 more.

  A: I'll take the pastrami and here's the $2 more.

  Not free will:

  God: I would like for you to obey me.

  Man: I would rather not since I have free will.

  God: Too bad, sucka, that free will just got you and all of your descendants killed and now I have to kill MY son to make up for what you did.
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  notverylikely

  What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True, is that God has far more patience on the objects of his wrath than I would have.

  I know. He was so loving and patient to condemn them to death, then make all their kids have incestuous sex to keep the population going, then let his OTHER kids materialize and terrorize and generally trash the place, then kill EVERYONE, then when they finall got together and started building something, to scatter them to the wind with confusing laguages and then choose a people and, depending on whether or not it was god's time of the month, to slaughter the shit out of them or anyone had had something he wanted his favorite kids to have.

  Such patience.
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  JWoods

  I know the conventional arguments for the sacrifice as you gave them, PSacremento.

  But they still do not explain to me the "legalistic" necessity of God having to kill all mankind because of Adam & Eden in the first place, if he really wanted to save them so badly.
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  tec

  Legalistic. That describes how I feel about the JW teaching of ransoming Jesus to counter Adam.

  I think the sacrifice was the willing suffering and death of Jesus, so He could show us the way to his Father, and hence the way to life. It showed his trust and obedience. I think that countered the disobedience and mistrust that led us away from God, through Adam.

  Tammy

  Edited: PSac, I'm not disagreeing with you on the love aspect. Jesus did love his Father and us enough to make this sacrifice, so that we would be under grace and love. He did not have to do that. It was his choice.

  I'm just trying to explain my take on ransom/sacrifice in the legalistic way it has been taught and understood by some. (For myself as well as for anyone else who wonders about this)