Introduction:
Why would God sacrifice, by crucifixion, His only Son? What does it mean and imply? Is it true that Jesus died for our Sins? This page concludes that Jesus did not die for our Sins and that the crucifixion is not logical. I first argue that the crucifixion was not performed so that people will know Jesus. I then argue that the crucifixion was not performed for any reason: the crucifixion of Jesus was not part of a Divine plan.
Contents:
Some Christians argue that the point of the crucifixion was that it led to 'everyone' knowing about Jesus. If the crucifixion did not occur, then no-one would know Jesus. The implication and assumption of this argument is that knowing Jesus is good, and not knowing him is worse.
Before the birth and death of Jesus, no-one knew of Jesus. This means that God, before that time, kept everyone in the dark. If knowing Jesus is better than not knowing of him, then God in effect punished everyone simply because they lived before the time of Jesus. This is of course an unacceptable conclusion: Christians will not accept it. Some argue that it is not a punishment that people did not know Jesus. If that was true, our assumption that it is better to know Jesus is wrong, and it is neither good nor bad to know Jesus.
The Judge metaphor
There is a judge, he is judging 26 people. Each person is called one of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The Judge has infinite money and is free to give away money to anyone. If he wants he can give it to people who do not deserve it. If the Judge gives 23 of the people £1234 pounds (he hasn't converted to Euro yet, it must be a British judge) and gives the other three £999 pounds, then we all conclude that the Judge has punished those three people for some reason. If we find out that the reason is purely arbitrary, for example, he only gives £1234 to people whose name is a letter before 'X', then we conclude that an injustice has been done. No-one would deny that for some reason God has punished some of those people.
How does the benefits of knowing Jesus apply to those who lived before Jesus was born?
If God denies people who existed before the birth of Christ the benefits of knowing Christ, then it is clear that God has punished those people. God makes the rules of the Christian world: God has made the rule that there are benefits to knowing Jesus. Therefore God has punished all those who existed before Jesus was born. Or has he? There is a clear argument that if God is good, He would not do this. This means that:
1) I have debated with Christians who have held that everyone knows Jesus but that some people reject him (although this seems impossible, let's grant it as a given for now). Therefore those before 0ce are in the same boat as everyone afterwards. This appears to then invalidate the crucifixion. It means the death of Christ was not necessary, if everyone before and after this happened can know Jesus. It implies that everyone can know Jesus even if the crucifixion did not happen. This means that the need to know Jesus is not a valid justification of the crucifixion. Additionally if you believe that people can know Jesus just through revelation from God, then it becomes apparent that Evangelical Christianity as a religion is pointless.
2) The other possibility was that people before 0ce were granted the benefits of knowing Jesus, because the crucifixion hadn't happened yet there was no chance for anyone to reject Jesus, and therefore reject the benefits that come with knowing Jesus. However it is possible for God to grant the benefits of knowing Jesus to people, without them actually knowing Jesus, then He could very easily grant these benefits to all people for all time: This means that the crucifixion was not necessary in order for people to have the benefits of knowing Jesus.
Conclusion
It is clear then, that the benefits of knowing Jesus cannot be the point of the crucifixion. If there are benefits to knowing Jesus then God is immoral for punishing those before 0ce who did not know Jesus. Our conclusion is:
These conclusions are more than we bargained for, but nevertheless I have shown that knowing Jesus is not the point of the crucifixion.
How do we enter Heaven?
My assumptions:
God's Judgement
If God loves all people then God prefers for people to enter heaven. However we will assume that for some reason there are some circumstances in which God refuses people entry. If, for example, they have willingly sinned lots and have not repented. The criteria here depends on the person's actions and motivation behind sinning. The criteria depends on the person's morality and life.
Did Jesus die to allow God to judge us better?
God can judge us according to His infinite and vast knowledge. God can judge us perfectly, even. Whether Jesus died on the cross or not, God can judge us perfectly and knows if we deserve to enter heaven. If we deserve to enter, God will not refuse entry. The death of Jesus does not seem to affect God's ability to judge.
Did Jesus die because of original sin?
God makes the rules of the Universe. Adam and Eve sinned: We suffer for it. This is God's rule. He then creates a Son, let's it be murdered in a brutal way, so that we no longer suffer the Original Sin. It would have been much more logical if God simply never allowed us to inherit the sins of Adam and Eve. God makes the rules... then creates more suffering (of Jesus) in order to repeal one of his own rules? It is a contradiction and therefore can't be true.
To know suffering
It is said that the crucifixion allowed God to fully embrace us and suffer. However, as an omniscient being he can imagine any amount of suffering that we might endure. He can know and understand our pain better than we can, Jesus could not have showed or experienced suffering that God couldn't already. Before we existed God had the foresight to understand our emotions completely and understand our suffering completely. The crucifixion taught God nothing that was not already known.
Public Relations
At any time, God can re-create the body of Jesus, and do it all again. Just because a bundle of divinely inspired atoms was deanimated does not signify a great theological event, but more like a public relations one. The only actual purpose of the crucifixion must have been for the effects it had on us, rather than on God. It lead to the foundation of the Christian Church (albeit with a lot of inference of the part of Paul). It therefore led to a lot of conversions and pro-God sentiment.
All the pretence, drama and zest of those writing about the crucifixion are merely acting out their own roles in the great drama act of the crucifixion - which in reality was a facade. God feels every piece of suffering that every person ever feels - the crucifixion of Jesus was nothing, a mere gesture.
God gave His only begotten Son
This and other such emotional commentary about the crucifixion don't ring true when you consider that God did not need the crucifixion for any other reason than public relations. God can place Jesus on Earth at any time - God did not sacrifice or harm Jesus. Jesus is not gone, harmed and does not suffer as a result of His crucifixion. There is no suffering in heaven. Jesus suffered as a man, according to Christianity, yes, but this is nothing compared to how much suffering God can experience with his infinite knowledge and infinite empathy.
It is said that Jesus had to love us beyond measure to give Himself willingly to die for our sins. But... God can judge us and we can know God with or without Jesus. Jesus had to love us to commit suicide and sacrifice Himself? The emotion is not that great. Love is, for sure, stronger than hate. Yet out of hatred alone Human Beings kill themselves. Suicide bombers and self sacrificing terrorists commit suicide out of hate. Jesus' own sacrifice was no great feat of emotion. He became a martyr, for sure, and this required as much courage as terrorists suicide bombers. In that light, and in the light of the public relations revelation, the sacrifice by God does not seem so great, and the love of us by Jesus does not seem so worthy.
If Jesus loved us, why did he not survive and learn to write, then write His own Bible instead of other people writing it many years afterwards? It seems that if Jesus loved us that much, He would have wrote down a book Himself without the chance of any Human errors.
More evidence that Jesus was Public Relations
On the cross, it is written that Jesus said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do". However something that Jesus knows full well is that God is omniscient. Jesus only has to think "forgive them" and God knows he thought it. He doesn't have to say it. Also, God also must know that "they know not what they do". Jesus doesn't need to give God a reminder! Jesus must have said those things for us, not for God, as God already knew it and Jesus knew that God knew.
Time & Duration
"Even if the story of Jesus' crucifixion is mostly truth, Jesus could have survived the crucifixion. Crucifixion was intended to be a slow torture, lasting for several days. Jesus, however, was crucified on the eve of the Sabbath, when Jesus would have known it was customary to remove the torture victims that evening. Jesus didn't spend several days on the cross; instead, he spent several hours.The gospels contradict themselves on this matter. John says Jesus was crucified at noon, while Mark says it was the third hour, or 9:00 a.m. (Jn 19.14, Mk 15.25). In any event, Jesus spent from three to six hours hanging from a cross, torture that traditionally was survived for three to six days."
Quoted from: home.talkcity.com/librarydr/eztoamuse/webdoc7.htm
"Imagine that you're hanging from the edge of a cliff. A man pulls you to safety, away from the certain death that awaits you below.Now imagine that you're hanging from the edge of a cliff, and a man tells you he can save you, if only you admit him as your savior. He pulls you to safety, away from the certain death that awaits you below.
Now imagine that you're on a mountain ledge, when a man pushes you off. You have no chance except to grab onto the ledge. The man tells you he can save you if only you admit him as your savior. He pulls you to safety, away from the certain death that awaits you below.
Now imagine that you're on a mountain ledge, when a man approaches you, holding a child in his arms. He pushes you off, and you have no chance except to grab onto the ledge. As you're hanging from the edge of a cliff, the man throws the child over the edge. He tells you he can save you if only you admit the child as your savior, since the child gave his life to save yours. He pulls you to safety, away from the certain death that awaits you below."
God is a chump by Jerome Luther
There is no reason to throw the child over the cliff in order to save mankind. None at all... God can just save us, even if its son never existed. Some argue that it was necessary because of the laws of the Universe, that a sacrifice had to be made. However... who made the laws of the Universe? God! When it made the Universe, all it needed to do was create the laws differently and save us without causing the suffering of his own son. The author of this analogy continues:
"They call God’s act the ultimate sacrifice. Indeed, he seems to have sacrificed his own morals. He killed his own son, in cold blood, when he could have done otherwise. He created us, sentenced us to hell, hung a weight of guilt about his son over our shoulders, and then told us he would save us if we bowed down before him.Now all we have to do is take his hand. If we grasp his hand, we will be raised up high to live among the elite, to live in ecstasy until the end of time. If we refuse it, we will fall, and live a tortured existence beyond our worst imaginings.
There is only one sane answer, one obvious choice we must make: let go, and face the consequences."
God is a chump by Jerome Luther
Submitting to such a monstrous scheme is to condone its immorality, to sacrifice our morals too, along with our dignity. We are granted knowledge between good and evil... and I know an evil scheme when I see one! If I am a selfish person, I will do anything to attain heaven... but if I am a moral person, I cannot accept God's scheme. I do not believe that this is the way it is... either God is immoral, or the Crucifixion was not part of God's plan, or of course the more sensible alternative is that there is no God at all.
“If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them, without having himself tortured and executed in payment - thereby, incidentally, condemning remote future generations of Jews to pogroms and persecution as 'Christ-killers' [...].
Progressive ethicists today find it hard to defend any kind of retributive theory of punishment, let alone the scapegoat theory - executing an innocent to pay for the sins of the guilty. In any case (one can't help wondering), who was God trying to impress? Presumably himself - judge and jury as well as execution victim. To cap it all, Adam, the supposed perpetrator of the original sin, never existed in the first place: an awkward fact [...] which fundamentally undermines the premise of the whole tortuously nasty theory. Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn't it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant.”
"The God Delusion" by Prof. Richard Dawkins, p253
The accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke contradict each other, even on the parts of Christian mythology which Christians consider to be the most important: The crucifixion and resurrection. They give different sets of final words, confusingly differents accounts of the empty tomb (one of them including an earthquake), and wildly different accounts of the resurrection. They're all making it up!
"In Mark and Matthew, the resurrected Jesus appears to his other disciples in Galilee, where they have been specifically sent by divine decree. [But] Luke and the author of the Acts of the Apostles have the risen Jesus appearing in and around Jerusalem [and] not only did they not receive any divine commandment to go to Galilee, but were expressly forbidden to leave Jerusalem.""Jesus Mysteries" by Freke & Gandy [Book Review], p174
The crucifixion story is mythical. The crucifixion did not empower God as God is omnipotent. It did not aid his understanding of Humanity, as God is omniscient. God did not need to become Human to experience Human suffering: God already knew. God is able to judge us perfectly, because God is perfect, just and all-knowing. The crucifixion of Jesus did not improve God's judgement of us, as God was perfect both before and after the crucifixion. The crucifixion did not aid us, as knowing of Jesus was not the point of the crucifixion: If people such as Moses can know Jesus, and this is good, then God should be able to grant everyone the knowledge of Jesus. Note that Moses lived before Jesus was born. For anyone to know of Jesus before Jesus was born means that the crucifixion was unnecessary in order for people to know Jesus. Condoning god's guilt-ridden public relations scheme is immoral, especially if done for the selfish aim of attaining heaven. Rejecting such a monstrous and emotionally manipulative scheme (even if it results in going to hell) is more moral.
Dawkins, Prof. Richard
"The God Delusion" (2006 hardback). Published by Bantam Press, Transworld Publishers, Uxbridge Road, London, UK.
This essay was written in 2000, but as part of a larger essay. On 2002 Sep 19 it has been moved into its own page.
By Vexen Crabtree 2002 Sep 19