 |
| Taken with Contax G2 28mm with Kodak 400 B&W, C41 film..... Many years ago. |
Hi Folks,
Yes, back again. Please note that I changed the title of this blog, adding Commentaries About Life and the Human Condition.
No, I'm not intentionally posting anything to insult anyone; however, I realize that so far I've had over 800 views of this blog and I'm sure that at least some of the folks who are looking in are religious. Which of course is fine, not that you need my permission.
For 6/8 years I've written about and posted videos (over 300) about what I call the human condition, politics, so-called complimentary and alternative medicine, and, yes, religion. So far, I'm enjoying this blog. Yep, I've gotten out a little and have enjoyed meeting the folks out there, eating some terrific food, and taking a few snaps. But, at the same time there are things I want to say that have little, if anything to do with traveling, so I've decided that I'm going to combine them on this blog. So, there you have it.
This was taken from a website and I want to use it to pose some questions and make some comments.
Jesus is the Son of God. He lived a sinless life and then died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. “God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."
Now, on its face, does this make any sense? As I best understand it, God, caused or allowed his son, Jesus, to be crucified. He did this to mitigate or absolve us of our sins. Then, he resurrected His Son, which is why folks celebrate Easter. I think this is pretty close.
I think if we look around us, we can understand how most things work. For instance, an internal combustion engine, we add gas, compress it, provide a spark, and the gases ignite and we have power and that propels our cars down the streets. Most things have a mechanism, for lack of a better term. Something that explains how they work.
A hair dryer has coils that are heated and a blower that blows hot air that drys our hair. You folks know what I mean.
Now, for the moment I'm going to assume we all sin. You know, do things that aren't nice or are harmful to others, and so on. And, hey, I'll even throw in the sin, if you will, about, Thou shalt have no other gods before me (This always confuses me. If your God says he's the only god, how can there be other gods? Oh, well....maybe for another time.).
OK. Here's my question, How can God killing his Son do anything about our sins? You know, how does that work? We can explain just about everything else, but what about this? Seriously, does this make any sense?
Now, if God can absolve us of our sins by killing off His Son, he could surely absolve us of our sins in some other way (Remember, He's the most powerful smartest God around). For instance, he could say a prayer, maybe just make a simple pronouncement, or give everyone magic ice cream; there's an infinite number of ways He could have done this without killing His son.
I guess to summarize, if there is a God how did killing His Son fix our sins? And, question two, if there is a God, why didn't He absolve us of our sins using a method other than homicide, the killing of His Son?
Please, don't try to explain this by saying God works in mysterious ways, we shouldn't question God, or just accept it on faith. Those responses do not explain anything.
Now, I'm not grandiose enough to think that many people are flocking to this blog. Actually, I'm surprised at the numbers who have looked in so far. I only put this blog on three forums: two of them are Subaru forums and one is a forum for the camera that I'm using. However, if any of you who read this are so inclined, I'd be happy to read any of your comments. Well, yes, I'll definitely read them.
For those of you who celebrate Easter, I hope you have a great day. For those of you who don't celebrate Easter, I hope you folks also have a great day.
George,
ReplyDeleteI am glad you framed this as mechanical problem, as in how does the mechanism work, rather than a point of faith. Easter, as a story, has been around for a long time; hundreds of years before the Christian rewrite. Death and resurrection legends were first associated with Pagan worship, many centuries before the birth of Jesus.
When starting a new religion sometimes similarities are used to help bury the old. So don’t be too hard on the Christians they were handed a difficult story to begin with.
The emperor Constantine ran into many of the same issues as you and the 3rd century Council of Nicaea was an attempt to iron these nasty bits out. This first ecumenical council established the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to God the Father. The Creed of Nicaea also dealt with more specifics of Easter. The council resolved your “mechanism” (with great debate) by establishing that the son was “begotten” by the Father as part of his own being, part of the Trinity. Keep in mind the Trinity is, at this time in history, a well-accepted vehicle for escaping Mobius loops in story lines. Krishna was the second person of the Hindu Trinity and the Egyptian man God Horus tells an Easter tale that, for all practical purposes, is identical to the Christian story.
So, in any case, it is really God himself who takes on the sins of the world. No “murder” is involved. Even beyond the pain of the crucifixion itself, Jesus descended into hell where he was tormented in full payment of the sins on man. That is your mechanism and it is really just as you proposed, God forgave everyone; it’s just he did it rather dramatically.
It’s a story, don’t over think it
.
Full disclosure: I am a recovering Catholic and paid for my sins by being tormented by nuns for six years.
Happy Bunny Day.
--Mark