Christianity is based on substitutionary atonement. Is it a moral religion?

[Greatest I am]

Christianity is based on substitutionary atonement. Is it a moral religion?

The case of substitutionary atonement that I wish to speak of is when God deemed it moral and just to punish his innocent son Jesus, --- instead of punishing the guilty sinners that God was to condemn.

The strange part of this situation is that God had chosen to sacrifice Jesus even before the potential for sin was created, --- God had yet to create the earth, --- showing that what God was killing Jesus for, --- he had yet to create.

This was an arbitrary choice for God that was completely needless. God could have chosen to punish the guilty, --- what most call justice, --- or God could have found a moral way to forgive us. Instead, God chose to do the unjust and punish the innocent instead of the guilty.

The sacrifice was to pay or bribe God to change his usual policy of punishing the guilty to immorally punishing Jesus. God could have shown mercy and justice but instead decided to use an unjust method to forgive us.

That means that to be a good Christian, you have to accept and embrace the immoral tenet of human sacrifice and the notion that the best form of justice, --- when one wants to forgive someone, --- is to kill an innocent party.

As above so below.

At the end of days, God is to bring his law to earth.

Would you, as an innocent party, think it just if God punished you instead of the guilty?

Do you think that Jesus would ever preach such an immoral form of justice?

Regards
DL

[edhopper]

2. So why do they still preach

that sinners go to hell?

Seems like pretty harsh punishment to me.


Also, logic, rationality and religion do not work well together.

[truebluegreen]

5. That's disingenuous.

They teach that we are all sinners, but if we believe we get out of jail (hell) free.

[longship]

30. Tell that to the Calvanists!

You'll end up defending your position for a long time, when every good Calvanist already knows that no number of good deeds will save your miserable, doomed soul if you are not one of the predestined.

No wonder they have no sense of humor. And their world headquarters is some 40 miles south of where I live. Hint: If you move to Grand Rapids, MI the first question your neighbors will likely ask you is, "What church do you go to?" Grand Rapids is also the home to the Dutch Reformed Church and Calvin College. QED.

[Greatest I am]

18. For sure

and the reason you are cursed to hell is that you have yet to put your head firmly up Jesus' ass.

To a Christian that is. Not to me buddy.

Regards
DL

[Warpy]

29. You'll probably get this one hidden

but sometimes a hidden post is well worth it.

You made me giggle.

Buy a star, come on over to Atheists & Agnostics. You'll fit right in.

Welcome to DU!

[cbayer]

32. Really? Check out his journal.

He has called for vigilantism against the pope and muslims.

Does that a make you giggle?

He might just fit in, though.

[enki23]

3. Well, it definitely shows off the moral relativism of its proponents, no doubt.

"It's moral to meeeeee." So, sure. It's "moral". Ultimately, the moral relativists are right.

Christians care about authority more than they care about harm. If they didn't, they would not privilege all the harm done by their cosmic authority; or define away obvious harm as the result of some indelible cosmic justice system. That's what Euthyphro's dilemma is all about: the primacy or authority vs the primacy of harm. No, not all of them will admit they care more about authority than harm (though many of them will, and do). But if you poke them in the right ways, even the most liberal among them, you will see them demonstrate this fact. Nearly every time.

[Greatest I am]

19. No argument.

That is for sure.

Regards
DL

[Igel]

4. I'm writing a test this week end.

And the two repeat tests my school district requires, because I know that I'll be writing a test that perhaps 30% of my students will fail.

I could just let them fail. That would be justice. Then again, that means I'd be telling 30% of my seniors they wouldn't be walking in June.

Or I could just make it a forgiveable test. Meaning that the 70% that pass would have to wonder, "What's the point?"

Instead I write two tests. Then I take time and effort--my time and effort--to reteach what they missed and then give the second test. And then I sacrifice time and effort before and after school, call parents, etc., etc., to bring them up to speed and test them yet again.

And that's just a test in a public high school.

----------------

At the same time, there's this belief that's buried rather deeply in Catholic teachings--so deep that you have to read and take things at face value to see it (not a very Catholic kind of thing)--as well as in the NT writings that God became flesh, that God "emptied himself out" and took on the form of a man.

There's also Jesus' sayings that no man knew the Father, and Jesus came to reveal the Father.

Now look at the Old Testament. Abraham and Moses didn't know the Father. Nor did David. Nor Ezekiel or Isaiah or Jeremiah. But they knew God. Moses, it's said, spoke with with God that gave the commandments. The one that presumably created everything and predestined Jesus to die. The one who gave the sacrificial system and the legal system that made the substitutionary sacrifice part of that system.

Let's see ... They knew God, the one that set up that system, but not the Father. God became flesh ... And if it is a coherent faith system, that means God became Jesus.

So the one who set up the substitutionary sacrifice and condemned Jesus to die (voluntarily, of course) became Jesus.

Sounds not so much like human sacrifice (or god sacrifice) as self-sacrifice. That makes an odd sort of sense, coming from one that said that the highest form of love was to give one's life for one's friends. God set up a system in which he knew ahead of time he'd have to give up his own life for his lessers, for his creation, to drive home the importance of what he said and that he really intended for his laws to be taken seriously. Perhaps then a bunch of self-centered unrighteous jerks might realize he actually not only meant it, he was willing to both live it and die for it.

This, of course, removes much of the moral quibbling, doesn't it?

It's a good counterpoint to much of today's philosophical thought, which requires that the speaker be held unaccountable (s/he has rights) while others have obligations and should be held accountable by law and force majeure to help those with rights. They impose on others burdens that they aren't willing to bear themselves, with leaders often demanding others sacrifice more than the leaders themselves are willing to. And many of them who are also of a religious stripe like to hurl the epithet "Pharisee" at others.

[Greatest I am]

20. Indeed.

While asking us to adopt their immoral tenets.

Regards
DL

[exboyfil]

6. Check out DarkMatter 2525

many of his videos address this in a humorous fashion (if you can get past the profanity). One particular one shows a guilty man in court being set free as Jesus is tortured in front of him.

&list=UULhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ

[rug]

17. About what I'd expect from a cartoon.

Although I admit that SpongeBob has some accurate insights into life.

[Dont call me Shirley]

7. A little off topic but relates...

The tenet that Jesus died to forgive us of our sins past, present, future if you commit to believe in Jesus has created a group of Christians who act with shameless criminality. So in essence that belief turns on the green light for criminal behavior.

The brief that one is "saved" if they believe in Jesus creates a group of Christians who believe they are special, they are above, better than others. This thinking creates all manner of proverbial hell on earth. If one feels they are more special than another that creates justification for bigotry, mysongeny, homophobia, thievery, enslavement of others, genocide. The "we are the saved ones" religions continue to promote the oppression of society and destruction of the world for their end gain.

The two beliefs combined are toxic and deadly and the evidence of this is in the countless wars and genocides commited through the millennia, people like Pat Robertson who have no problem stealing money from the needy, and the "Armageddon mythology" promoted by many church sects and the promotion of abuse of women, gays and "the other".

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. To be fair, almost every religion holds that it is the only "true" religion

and everyone who believes any other religion is inferior or unworthy or evil. That's where religion is toxic. People can worship Jesus, or Allah, or trees, or Vishnu, or whatever and it's no skin off my butt; it's where they start claiming that anyone who worships anything else (or nothing at all) is inferior that religion - any religion - becomes a problem.

[Dont call me Shirley]

22. Agreed!

On the other hand, one can use the teachings of these masters to heal and work toward becoming whole.

[Greatest I am]

21. No argument

my friend.

Regards
DL

[Mariana]

8. To be fair, Jesus didn't get the same punishment

that unrepentant sinners get. That may make it easier for Christians to accept the basic immorality of substitutionary atonement in this particular case.

Jesus didn't die permanently like eveyone else does, he didn't go to hell for eternity, etc. Yes, death by crucifixion is horrible, but lots of people have been crucified, or have died in equally horrible ways. None of them got to come back to life, hang out with their friends awhile, and then ascend into heaven. In the long run, the "sacrifice" was pretty small, and Jesus came out of it just fine in the end.

[Greatest I am]

23. IOW

Christians are believing garbage because of convenience.

Regards
DL

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. The thing I have never been able to figure out

is how the sacrifice of Jesus actually "saves" the rest of us. Nobody has ever explained that part to me. The premise is that a completely innocent, blameless person (who is both the son of God and God) allows himself to be killed, and in some fashion this sacrifice enables redemption (going to heaven) for everybody else. I don't understand the logic. I'm not being snarky; I just don't get this part. How does God's sacrifice of his son (or himself) do the rest of us any good? As far as I can tell people are capable of being just as awful and deserving of "punishment" A.D. as they were B.C.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. There was this ginormous sin debt

humanity owed Yahweh, and the only way Yahweh could pay back Yahweh for this ginormous debt was to kill his kid.

I don't see why you find this confusing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. I get that, but now what?

Did killing Jesus as a scapegoat make God also prospectively forgive everybody in the future? And if that's the case doesn't it make it possible for us to be comfortable in continuing to be evil because we can assume Jesus took care of that sin problem and we'll all go to heaven anyhow?

[Warren Stupidity]

13. And if things get really bad why couldn't yahweh have another kid

and kill him too? In fact wouldn't old Yahweh have had to have done this for all the other planets in the universe with ginormous sin debts? Or is Yahweh just the local deity in charge of this planet with its badly behaving intelligent life forms?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. Technically, Yahweh was the god of only the Israelites.

Looks like he did a hostile takeover of most of the other gods.

[Dont call me Shirley]

24. LOL

[mr blur]

15. Well, in order to understand this fully,

You would have to be able to think like the Bronze Age nomads who made it all up.

[tazkcmo]

28. Solution

Be a Catholic. I love it. I get to do what ever my sinful, lusty, evil mind can think of, go to confession on Saturday, take communion on Sunday and boom! Rinse and repeat! Religion is humanity's best invention!













Sarcasm! I was raised a Catholic but dumped all that nonsense when I found out Santa, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy were all the same parent.

[Greatest I am]

25. Explanations

are impossible to get as Christians do not really debate well.

They say they have all the answers but never answer questions.

Regards
DL

[rug]

16. Boy, do you have it skewed.

The case of substitutionary atonement that I wish to speak of is when God deemed it moral and just to punish his innocent son Jesus, --- instead of punishing the guilty sinners that God was to condemn.

Regards

[Dont call me Shirley]

26. Sounds like an inverted reality

[Manifestor_of_Light]

31. No, it's immoral. Why didn't God make humanity perfect in the first place?

Huh? If he's all knowing and all powerful and all wise, why did he make Adam and Eve such that they were disobedient? Why were they not obedient little robots? Why did they want knowledge? This story tells people that wanting knowledge is a bad thing. Obedience to authority is more important. History has shown us what obedience to authority rather than proper morality leads to. You want references? Try "the Nuremberg defense," also known as "I was only following orders."

And then, extending that design flaw he made to ALL humanity, being original sin, then having to put Jesus on Earth and have him tortured and die as part of substitutionary atonement?

I don't know what the term "salvation" means either. Never have.

So this means that God is a crooked prosecutor. Just because you are walking on Earth and breathing, you are indicted for a crime you, nor anyone you know, nor any of your ancestors, committed. You have a rap sheet because one imaginary person in a story which has no physical evidence of ever happening was tempted by a talking snake. As she "was beguiled, and I did eat."

And the grand jury accepts the evidence, charges you, you are tried and found guilty by judge and jury. And must serve your sentence, the consequences of which are extremely ambiguous.

Original sin is an imaginary problem. Substitutionary atonement is a ridiculous, convoluted and unnecessary solution to said imaginary problem about the "sinfulness of humanity".

These two concepts are absolutely cruel, illogical, and have caused untold emotional and mental abuse to billions of people who were doing the best they could, but thought they would never be good enough in god's eyes....because according to this theory, they will never be good enough for god. So they spend their lives beating up on themselves, having preachers beat up on them, and they are unable to accept themselves who are flawed persons, who, assuming they have a conscience, are doing the best they can. So why bother, when you can't live up to an impossible standard? Why not just give up because of this idea that god through his authority figures (ministers) are telling you you're not perfect so you won't go to heaven? Predestination makes it worse. If god knows ahead of time who is going to heaven and who isn't, why bother to be a good person and improve yourself?

It's nihilism and human sacrifice and cannibalism dressed up as socially acceptable morality. If you can't change the future and help create a better world for yourself and other people, why bother? Why try?

It's a ridiculous, irrational and totally rigged game of "Let's make people feel hopeless and bad about themselves so they will either kill themselves, or we can control them through fear and get their money."

Read some John Bradshaw, Ph.D. "Healing the Shame that Binds You" as well as his other books. All about unearned guilt and shame destroying peoples' lives when they can't live fulfilled lives, because they are never loved for being the "very one you are." People are not loved for being themselves. They have to do something and be a human doing to fulfill the expectations of their parents and teachers, not a human being. So they have addictions to avoid the existential pain that destroys their lives.