God's adaptive love

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

The Old Testament in the KJV of the Bible describes how God was pleased with offerings made to Him with animals of certain types. How rituals were to be performed in sacrifices in specific manners. Temples to be built for God so He may communicate through Priests so His Laws could be carried out per His instructions. Seeing the iniquities of man, He commanded Noah to build an Ark to carry animals for the Great Flood and destroying Sodom and Gomorrah for it’s debauched nature.

Then, The New Testament describes a new Covenant between God and man wherein Jesus Christ would be the ‘Ultimate Sacrifice’ for mankind and their salvation. God’s Paradigm for man’s redemption changed. Through time Christianity evolves with different religious sects springing up. Tumultuous sometimes with the Apostles going to different lands spreading the Gospel, Constantine incorporating Christianity into pagan societies and Rome which use to be the bane of Christian existence, now is considered the hub of the Catholic belief.

With all of this taken into consideration, could it be assumed that God has adapted His love for man for his sake? Changing how He deals with men in different time periods. Could it be humanity has been taken into account by God through the changing of it’s civilizations?

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First of all, even if every word of the bible (new and old testament) is true, I don’t accept the death of Jesus as a sacrifice. Did Jesus die? yes or no?

Yes - If he died, then it is only a sacrifice to mankind if he is STILL dead, and if being on earth is better than being in heaven, and if Jesus is NOT god. If he’s still alive, then wheres the sacrifice?

No - If he didn’t really die, then it wasn’t a sacrifice at all. HE’S STILL ALIVE! Plus, that means that he’s at least god-ly. If Jesus came from the bowels of heaven down to earth, then back to heaven, thats not a sacrifice at all.

And another thing… If his death was so that our sins would be forgiven (past present and future, whether we commit them or not), then why must I seek forgiveness? What if i don’t seek forgiveness? Shouldn’t i already have been preemptively forgiven for the sins i haven’t sought forgivingness for?

I think God’s love is a farce.

3

Hmm…that is ashame.

4

Well i also don’t think that the alleged source of this love is actually in existence either.

If that’s a shame too, I wish you would tell me how it is a shame. Unless it’s just you’re own personal subjective opinion that may or may not have any real efficacy.

5

Not only is it condescending, its also un-forums-man-like. Keep your unsupported opinions to yourself if you aren’t going to explain why you think the way you do.

(by the way “a shame” is 2 words… just thought I’d throw that out there)

6

There is no doubt about it, the OT depicts a God of justice and the NT depicts a God of love. I used to think that the old was a set up for the new. The OT was to show that God demanded punishment for wrongdoing. The sacrificial death in the NT resolved God’s need for justice and allowed a new age of the loving God to begin. I think thats pretty standard Christian thought. Nowadays, I feel that the tone of the OT and NT reflect the mores of the societies that the writers lived in. Maybe a little of both. But, no, I would say that God has not changed. I know that in the tale of Noah, it says that God felt bad about destroying the Earth…but I think that, like much in the Bible, is Allegory.

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“Heaven Hell and the World move on”
Lady of the Lake (merlin)

Craking film, and a rational argument I belive. The world changes, I have no reason to belive that any other levels of existance that might exist would not change as well.
If God is truely Just, he would adapt his rules to fit the times.

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Wasnt a very nice way to die don’t you think, I think it a sacrifice that God came down at all. I think that coming down to our level, to teach us mercy and humility first hand was a great sacrifice, so what if he went back to heaven, he didnt have to come down at all.

I find it ammusing that people put down religions when they dont understand them. The idea behind the sacrifice is that Jesus will forgive us, but forgiveness is worthless unless its accepted. And the way to accept said forgivness is to repent.

9

You raise a good point here, so I’ll sort of let it slide for the moment. It isnt right to off handedly dismiss something that you don’t understand. However, when the something (e.g. religion) has had years and years and years to make its case, when the something has been under intense scrutiny with no steps toward a good explanation, that lends credence to the something being worthy of dismissal.

Consider astrology. There is no real basis for astrology. Its as simple as making shit up and publishing little fortunes in a magazine. You personally have known about astrology for years. You dismiss it as truth (at least i hope you do). But does that mean that you should understand it too?

NOT understanding something that CANT be understood is a perfect reason to put something down. Religion is human made, therefore it is susceptible to changes that humans can make to it, regardless of whether or not that change is warranted. Religion is unstable in this respect. And it has demonstrated this instability many many times over the years.

A death that lasted hours is not comparable to a god who is supposedly “infinite”. For a mere mortal such as you or me (who would be DEAD afterward), sure, it was a bad way to go. But for someone who is STILL ALIVE afterward, its not even death!! Its a publicity stunt if anything.

What exactly was sacrificed? Time? Money? Well, God is infinite, and money is a human made artifact, so it can’t be either of those. Isn’t god supposedly omnipresent too? So no matter what form he’s in, he’s everywhere at the same time?

Was heaven empty when jesus came down or something? I guess that would be a sacrifice of sorts, but if something happened in heaven god would be able to handle it right? Because he’s god right? Right?

Did Jesus, or God come down? Does God have a son named Jesus?

Or did God come down and sacrifice himself to himself? That screams publicity stunt, egotism, and brittanyspearsian behavior. If he did in fact sacrifice himself to himself THAT IS NOT SACRIFICE.

“Our level”? Whats so bad about our level? Didn’t God create this level? Or is this level detestable to God?

This is irrelevant considering the fact that HE’S A FRIGIN’ GOD!!!

10

I could be mistaken, but isn’t Jesus just the scapegoat ritual writ large? Given the nature of that ritual, of taking on the sins of others, I think that would qualify as a sacrifice on the part of God. The discomfort would also play into that. Yangzi said that he would not lose a single hair even if it would save the empire. That the Christian god chose not to take that route when he easily could have says good things about him, at least from my perspective.

11

I’ve got it! I think I’ve figured out what god actually sacrifices when it comes to sin forgiveness.

He sacrifices the feelings, emotions and wellbeing of the victims of sins. If a murderer seeks forgiveness for a murder he’s committed, God forgives him right?

What about the victim of the murder? What about the victim’s family? What does god do for them? He lets the murderer off the hook, and a family has just lost a son or daughter or parent or whatever.

Granted thats a really fucked up sacrifice but hey! God works in mysterious ways!

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f12hte, if I’m reading you right, you are saying the OT and NT gives the appearance of God changing how He interacts with man but is same yesterday, today and tomorrow. You don’t consider the difference of the sacrificings of man with selected special animals asked for by God and then God giving His only begotten Son for the sins of the world as an adaptive nature of His Love?. I am just trying to clarify your response for my mind’s sake. Also, you think the story of Noah and the Ark weren’t necessarily a real account, rather something along the lines of a parabolic affectation?

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Would you have an opinion as to why could He be observed as being maleable in His treatment with mankind? As an example due to to man’s tendencies to forgetfulness of the past and God continually having to deal with those situations.

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I suppose that analogy could have some bearing to someone who is not vested in Christianity. In my opinion, Jesus was a seperate soul from God, yet the Son of God. Jesus was still a man with the same capabilities to sin, but did not. He was not born of sin, but died taking the sins of man that accept Him till the end of this world. I’m not sure what Christ was privy to before His physical death. He prayed in the Garden to have that cup pass from His hands even though He knew that was His destiny. No man wants to suffer pain in this mortal coil. To take on a monumental task as that would suggest to me that Christ had some inkling to the consequences that would entail.

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If Jesus took on the sins of humans, shouldn’t he be in hell? Sure he descended to hell, and on the third day he ascended into heaven, but isn’t that God granting his son a “get out of hell free” card? Spending 3 days in hell doesn’t sound like a just enough punishment for the sins of EVERY SINGLE SOUL PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE.

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Definitely not, Liitenin. The animal sacrifice helped man understand what was about to happen when God sacrificed himself for us. God’s love is perfect from the get go. The problem is that his justice is also perfect from the get go. Jesus is how God reconciled His justice with His love. There is a very old saying about the 2 testaments “The Old Testament conceals the New Testament; and the New Testament reveals the Old Testament.” This saying sums up the situation God finds himself in. He loves his creation and he abhors evil, so how does He solve the conundrum of evil in his creation? Well, he soaks it up. He himself takes on the consequences of the evil and redeems creation. And I believe that he calls each of us to do the same thing. Thats why Jesus told the Prodigal Son parable. The prodigal’s father soaked up the hurt; he suffered for the loss of his son …and when the son came back there was only love, as the prodigal’s debt of sin had been repaid by the father’s suffering. Here’s how to immitate God’s plan in your life. If some evil befalls you, do not visit a counter-evil on that person or let it cause you to do evil, but redeem the offender by soaking up that evil, then when you die, you immitate Christ by taking that evil out of the world with you. We are all one in God as he is in us all. If we do our Christian duty of redeeming each other in the manner that God showed us, there should not be a single person who would have to suffer anything like hell. “it is not His will that even one should be lost.” Humanity has a long way to go, but I figure if I can take one more bad thing out of the world than the bad things I leave here, well then I have made things a little better. And working together, with God’s help, we’ll build the New Jerusalem some day.

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That is why I believe we should rejoice in all things in life, be it considered a ‘negative’ thing or a ‘positive’ one. As odd as that may sound, I believe this falls in God’s plan and follows His Will. Thank you for your thoughtful insights on this topic. O:)

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Not realy, I think to try and understand God on a personal level is dangerous because its going a bit far into blind guessing.

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I think if you actually used valid aruments instead of just attacking peoples religion with an attempt at being amusing, you might get a little further with an argument. There are valid arguments against Christianity. This kind of stuff just makes you seem a bit childish

20

You sound like the kids at the school I work at. “he did it sir, so im going to do it too!” 2 wrongs dont make a right. I’m not religious, I just hate arguments that hold no baring with the truth.

I dont care if you dismiss it, what bothers me is that you try and argue a point that is not valid because you dont understand the point your arguing against. I dont belive in astrology but I dont go around arguing points that I dont understand.

The theory behind the sacrifice of christ was not as you portrayed it, as I’ve said before I realy dont care what you belive. But lets say that a christian says something bogus about evolution, because he doesnt have his facts straight, dont you think that someone should step in and correct them?

You cant base arguments on this, the people you are arguing against belive that religion is inspired by God. You might as well just talk to atheists.

Again showing your lack of knowlege regarding Christianity. Jesus was God incarnated into human form, he had a human mother, for all intensive perposes he was human, he felt human emotions, felt pain, and experienced the pain of death. You must understand the nature of the trinity if you wish to argue this point properly

But as Jesus he lost all of these things, remember that Jesus was God incarnateinto human form, not God the creator

All of your further rambling can be answered in the same way and the computer wont let me cut up your responses anymore. Do a little resurch next time save yourself the embarassment