Why did Jesus die on the Cross?

Snap

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My 1st post here: Born & raised Roman Catholic. Currently agnostic, non-believer in Christian dogma.

Why did Jesus die on the cross? I am puzzled as to what is meant by salvation primarily. Also, why haven't we heard from Jesus one-on-one (no messengers) in the past 2,000 years? If he loves us so much, why'd he abandon us after his 33-year earthly stint? If he loved us so damn much, why not stay in touch with us?

Forgive me if I sound a little angry - but I am! I grew up being taught that Jesus suffered so greatly for little ole me (and All of You as well). Yet no sign of him anywhere except in scupltures, paintings and preachers' homilies. Why doesn't he appear on TV or on a radio talk show? What's the deal with all the invisibility and Utter and Absolute Silence:confused:

He loves us Soooo Much that he won't even talk to us or help us out with anything. Yeah, let the savage brutal wars rage (forever?). Let people die horribly day in and day out. Let terrorists behead people slowly with dull knives and no anesthesia (I'm sure many victims were crying out to God/Jesus in their last gasping gurgling agonizing terror-stricken breaths). But just remember this - Jesus Loves You and You and You and You ..... Wow!!! I'm just so blown away by HIS LOVE!!! Aren't you, too? :jaw-dropp
 
He didn't. Three days R&R in a theraputic crypt, and he walked out. Says so in the Bible, so it must be true.

Beanbag
 
Welcome Snap!

If you want a serious theological answer, there are many stories that basically go like this: all humans have done something wrong at some point. As soon as humans became aware of this they started looking for cosmic meaning. For example, you kill and eat a deer, a lion eats your child--must be some sort of cosmic force rebalancing itself.

Naturally this was a problem. So at some point a deity steps in to take over. Instead of the humans being punished, the deity is punished on their behalf. As he's a superior being, he can take it. Sometimes the humans punish animals, or gang up on one particular human and kill him, or beautiful objects are made and then destroyed. The purer, the more innocent, and the more valuable the sacrifice the better. In any case the cosmic balance is restored and humans escape their punishments. The humans are able to get away with sin, and everyone is happy.

When you think about it, it's not really plausible to a modern thinker. We know quite well what causes disease, and it's not some sort of cosmic magic connecting us to our sins. Hence the sacrifice became completely symbolic. As you say, no evidence of Jesus has been detected for a very long time. He was really necessary to keep us from wasting all those sacrificial lambs.

And lo, the universe is acting just the way it always has. There was a flood, and the preacher told men to stop thinking about sex and kill some lambs. There's a flood, and some preacher tells us it's because we think too much about sex, and not enough about symbolic lambs.

There are lots of other elements to the Jesus story of course, but that's the essence of salvation.
 
Welcome to the forums!

Snap said:
Also, why haven't we heard from Jesus one-on-one (no messengers) in the past 2,000 years? If he loves us so much, why'd he abandon us after his 33-year earthly stint? If he loved us so damn much, why not stay in touch with us?
Click to expand...


I think many believers would take exception to the idea that He hasn’t stayed in touch. Many Christians feel they have a very literal “personal relationship” with Jesus. Many feel He gives them definitive signs (like not killing them in a plane crash, to give a bad example). Many Feel He talks to them, presumably literally.

They’re just not the kinds of communications you could verify in a lab.
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
Welcome to the forums!




I think many believers would take exception to the idea that He hasn’t stayed in touch. Many Christians feel they have a very literal “personal relationship” with Jesus. Many feel He gives them definitive signs (like not killing them in a plane crash, to give a bad example). Many Feel He talks to them, presumably literally.

They’re just not the kinds of communications you could verify in a lab.
Click to expand...

You don't need a lab to verify this. Just count up the number of Christians and non-Christians who get on planes and count up the numbers who die in crashes.

It's my contention that if anything like this worked at all the whole world would be Christian, just as if witchcraft worked at all we'd all be sending our kids to Hogwarts where nobody even bothers with dentistry or electricity.
 
Jesus should have spent a few infinities in the torture of Hell. Then I'll be happy to listen.
 
Welcome to the forums, Snap.

In a nutshell, the bible doesn't make sense.

I'm glad you've come to the place where you see it. You will find many like you here.
 
Dear Snap,

I come from a similar background to yourself, complete with the rage against a dogma that won't leave my head, but instead leaves me paranoid. The problem is that so long as we wander around inside sectarian fantasylands we will never find anything that intersects clearly with reality as we know it, outside of mystical revelation.

What does intersect, however, is the understanding that Jesus was a political activist, that Christianity was a political cult, dedicated to overthrowing the evil of Rome, and that Jesus was murdered for the sake of preserving that evil. He calculated his death to have such an import as to generate a religion of humanism--of all men being equally human before God, made in God's implicitly mental image--that not only brought down Rome from within, but also started assuming responsibility for the classical culture that Rome superceded, setting the stage for the modern nation-state as we know it today.

Without that understanding as a basis, one can only shrug at all religions being essentially mad, except, perhaps, that one religion that has dug a paranoid enceinte into your own heart, terrorising you at the prospect of digging it out and discarding it.

The only person who has explicated this relatively clearly is Lyndon LaRouche, to whom I refer you now:

Q: This is Doris. Mr. LaRouche, it's concerning your comments against, or towards the Christian Right: I would like to suggest that we find a way to reach them, rather than use language like “crazy lunatics,” so we don't alienate them, and get them to understand that, if they think about their Bible, Jesus came to take away hate and war; and He would not send us into war against our brothers. Do you have a comment about that?

LaRouche: Yeah, sure. […] On the Christian Right--when I say “crazy,” I mean it. I mean “clinically insane.” Now, you have two kinds of insanity in life. You have individual insanity, which is clinical insanity. You also have forms of mass behavior, or group behavior, in which the individual may not be ordinarily insane, but when they're functioning in a group, the group as a whole behaves insanely.

Now, the collective political behavior of the Christian Right, so-called, in the United States today, is not only collectively insane, it's dangerous; its influence is dangerous to the health and welfare of every American citizen! These guys are like lunatics, throwing bombs. They're not throwing their own bombs: They're getting the President of the United States to throw bombs. And the effects of that, will be terrible.

Now, yes, you're right in one thing; your criticism of me is wrong, but you're right in the positive side. The positive side, is that Christ did not come to, shall we say, give man a program. Christ came to redeem all human beings. An act of love, of Christ, Jesus Christ--and that is Christianity. So therefore, it is correct to counterpose healthy Christianity--real Christianity--to fake “Christianity.” And what is called the Christian Zionists is fake Christianity: It's a cult of a very dangerous type. And these people are sick; they need help. As individuals, give them help. As a group phenomenon, they're nuts.

Jesus Christ and Civilization
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2000/2739_jesus_christ.html

Britain's Bernard Lewis and His Crimes
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2006/3339_pope_press_hoax.html

Cpl Ferro
 
welcome to the forum Snap.I too was brought up the same as you but even as a child I couldn't believe any of the crap they fed me.In this day and age with communication so easy i.e mobile phones,internet, ect you would think he would even just drop by to say" Hello, how you all doing"
 
The story doesn't make sense. All-loving invisible entities do not impregnate virgins without their consent so that they can make said virgin to give birth to themselves in corporal form only to premeditate the killing of said self in front of the unfortunate virgin to atone for the sins of people not yet born... and then float said corpse to the world of invisibility and magic happiness to judge all the less favorable children of said invisible entity. Moreover, original sin makes no sense whatsoever-- and this is supposed to be the thing that set all the above in motion, mind you.

However, there's nothing like a little humor to move you through your disappointment so you can enjoy your newfound freedom and biting from the tree of knowledge. YUM. I assure you, you can be moral and happy without a personal savior.
 

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